Free The Iron Wolves by Andy Remic Page B

you’d pass out on the spot. You went to the battalion surgeon, still pissed, begging him to see to your groin, but he was busy building a model with his little boy and wouldn’t have anything to do with you. Oh, how we all roared and slapped our thighs.”
    Dalgoran burst out laughing suddenly, and slapped Jagged on the back making him drop the stump of his cigar. “Yes. Funny. Good old days. Whatever happened to Harkrock? He was the one with the limp, wasn’t he?”
    “Yeah. Broke his ankle in a fall from a horse and it turned bad. They had to amputate below the knee.”
    “Ahh. Is he still alive?”
    “Dalgoran, he died at the Pass. With most of the others.”
    “That’s a shame,” said Dalgoran, finishing his cigar.
    “Your guests are beginning to arrive.”
    Dalgoran nodded, and they both watched several coaches start the long ascent up the sweeping stone drive, teams of horses straining.
    Jagged gave a theatrical look around. “Why the hell did you build your villa up here, General? You had your pick of the King’s land.”
    Dalgoran gave a shrug and ground the stub of his cigar under his gleaming, well-polished boot. “I like watching the horses struggle. Either that, or I have a pathological hatred of… people.”
    “People?”
    “People in general. No offence meant.”
    “None taken, you cunning old bastard. You going to ask me in for a brandy?”
    “Ha. Yes. No point reaching seventy if you can’t drink with your friends.”
    General Jagged fixed him with a beady eye. “Friend? Whatever made you think that, old boy? Men like us don’t have friends. Just memories, acquaintances and a wish that we’d done things differently during our youths.”
    Dalgoran considered this. “And you had to ask why I built my house up here?”
    “Just curious, old boy. Just curious.”
     
    Night had fallen, and during the last hour nearly two hundred guests had arrived, old friends, new friends, family and acquaintances. Many were of military bearing; one didn’t spend a lifetime in the army and not have a certain bias with regards to the trade of people one knew.
    Fires roared in various wide stone hearths, and a band played discreetly in the corner: piano and strings, narrative songs about the heroes of Vagandrak. General Dalgoran circulated the several large rooms which had been set aside for his birthday celebration, smiling, chatting, kissing the odd proffered hand of a beautiful woman. Servants circulated with trays containing crystal glasses of honeyed wine, sweet meats and delicacies from as far south as Oram and as far north as Zalazar and the fabled Elf Rat Lands.
    After a while, General Jagged moved to one of the large roaring fires and in his booming, parade-ground bellow, shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention please?” Everybody paused, turning their eyes on Jagged, with his wide grin and a fresh cigar. “As you know, we are here to celebrate the beginning of the seventy-first year of our friend, comrade and military hero, General Dalgoran. You all know him as a caring man, a great father and sadly a widower in these recent months. But I tell you! I knew Farsala like no other, an incredible woman – she had to be, to put up with this stubborn oaf–” there came a sprinkling of laughter, “but I know, if she were here today, she would talk about how proud she was of this fine, strong, charismatic general who is not just a brilliant soldier, a genuine morale builder for those who follow him and an unparalleled tactician, but is above all a superb and much-loved father, grandfather, and of course Farsala would have said husband. I’m not going to say that, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to marry the grumpy old bastard now.” More laughter. “So, without further ado, I ask you to raise your glasses and wish, along with me, a very happy birthday for General Dalgoran. One of Vagandrak’s finest.”
    “One of Vagandrak’s finest!” came the cheer and, grinning