Free The Iron Wolves by Andy Remic Page A

Lions…” Dalgoran shivered theatrically, and enjoyed his cigar. “Could give a bald man like yourself a real nasty cold. I’d be covering yourself up, if I were you. Inside, Alaya can maybe find you a hat?”
    “General, if it wasn’t your birthday, I’d break your nose.”
    “Again? That would be exciting. But of course, not before I’d knocked out your teeth.”
    The two old men laughed, and Dalgoran leant back against a white pillar, gazing across his acres of land. Down by the distant tree line were several cottages, housing woodsmen, the cook and his estate gardeners. His eyes travelled along the tree line bordering the north of his estates, admiring the finely sculpted hedgerows, the vast flowerbeds now a riot of white and blue with winter pansies and various patterned evergreen bushes which Dalgoran had planted himself. This place was idyllic. And yet the cold wind made him shiver and the smile slowly dropped from his face as he thought again about his wife.
    “I tell you something,” said Jagged. “The bloody doctors in Drakerath are now saying, and I cannot believe this so-called fact , that smoking a cigar or pipe is bad for your lungs! What a nonsense! It clears me out a treat, I tell you.”
    “And of course, you know better than all the medical minds of Vagandrak put together?”
    “Of course,” growled General Jagged. “Without me, there’d be no damn medical minds, no damn universities and doctors and scholars. If I, and I concede you had a small part to play here Dalgoran, well if I hadn’t been in charge of organising the King’s armies when that bastard Morkagoth led his forces north… well. You and I both know, we’d be speaking and grunting in fucking mud-orc now. That, or be buried six feet under the ground.”
    Dalgoran, who had spluttered on his cigar, gave Jagged a sideways look. “You’re a modest old skunk.”
    “I was a good soldier.”
    “I recognise the past tense.”
    “Just smoke your cigar and look out for the guests. I believe the cake is huge – it has to be, to fit on so many bloody candles.”
    They smoked in amiable silence for a while, as the winter sun sank behind the trees and painted the horizon scarlet. Pines turned to black sentinels. The shadows grew longer and eddies of snow eased from bruised heavens.
    “You’re a good friend,” said Jagged, at last.
    “Mighty fine of you to say so.”
    “We’ve been through some shit together, haven’t we?”
    Dalgoran grinned. “Remember Desekra Fortress? Charging that squad of mud-orcs, we thought there were a hundred men behind us, and there was just one – that simpleton Jorgrek. We were screaming, spears levelled, the mud-orcs with their wide eyes and slavering jaws, we thought they were staring in terror, but they must have been simply stunned at the stupidity of three men charging thirty.”
    “You hit the leader between the eyes with your spear, didn’t you? And the impact popped his head from his body like a pea from a pod?”
    “Aye. Made the bastards jump. Made me jump all that yellow jelly shit coming out of his neck.”
    Dalgoran stared off across his lands. “I’ll never forget that look on your face when you realised you didn’t have a hundred lances behind you. It was priceless! You don’t get moments better than that. Not in this lifetime.”
    “Yes,” growled Jagged, his feathers ruffled. “A bit like the time you came waltzing drunk out of that whorehouse in Lower Vagan and that half-dressed lady-friend came running out after you because you’d forgotten your hat, and she was scratching like a whole family of mice had nested in her panties! Har har!”
    “I didn’t realise you were there that night?”
    “I wasn’t. Old Sergeant Harkrock told me about it. Laugh? I think I actually pissed myself.”
    “I see your incontinence problems persist.”
    “Come on, Dalgoran. That was funny. The way she was scratching between her legs... Apparently you went so bloody pale it was said