Free Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) by T.O. Munro

as the tips of his cusped ears.
    “ These are a mobile force, your Highness. We can ride to where we are most needed before we dismount to fight.”
    Rugan sighed.  “I had need of cavalry. There’s none can shatter an enemy like a charge of heavy horse.”
    “Indeed, your highness, but we may stand and hold a line against the foe.”
    “ I need to break a line, not hold one. I have delayed precisely to await your re-enforcements that I may be sure of overwhelming force. We have this one chance to break into Morsalve before next spring.  Your father sends me half the force I expected with a priest to make his apology.”
    Abroath stood dumbly before the Prince’s ire.  He kn ew the arguments well enough, he had rehearsed them in his head so many times before conferences with his father.  The half-elf was pacing the tent, his swarthy complexion assuming a darker hue as he ruminated on their predicament.
    “Where is your father in this lad, and your brother s?”
    Abroath gulped.  His father was busily crating up the family treasures and clandestinely commissioning all the fast merchantmen for an escape to Salicia and the Eastern Lands.  His eldest brother drunk or gambling or both in an inn.  The other doubtless preoccupied in a whorehouse.  “My father is not well, your highness.  He is much troubled in his stomach.  He wished that my brothers stayed to comfort him.”
    “Your father’s belly is big enough to trouble several men, though I would think your priestly healing would avail him more than your brothers’ ribald humour and uncivil appetites,” Rugan growled.
    Abroath blushed deeply red for shame, not at the insults but at their accuracy.   “I came to serve your Highness, for the honour of my house,” he said stiffly.
    Rugan paused in his pacing and looked anew at the prior, scanning him from blond tonsured head, past wispy boy ’s beard and white robes to sandaled feet. He nodded.  “Do you carry a weapon, Prior?”
    “I have my staff ,” Abroath thumped the butt end of his quarter staff on the hardened ground.  “And I have the Goddess’s blessing,” he pulled out his crescent symbol on its chain about his neck.
    Rugan sighed and ran his fingers through his anthracite hair.  “Listen well, Prior Abroath.  A handful of refugees have told us of the abomination in command of the enemy, a vile creature who has captured Listcairn and sets her orcs to test our defences. There is one tribe in the plain below, which has been creeping forward this last week, probing our positions, chasing my skirmishers.  They are over reaching themselves moving too far ahead of the rest of their allies.”
    “We can attack them, cut them off!”
    “I will attack them, and cut them off.  The arrogance of the creatures leads them into the trap I have set.  Tomorrow it will be sprung and I will destroy this overweening tribe and send the few pitiful survivors screeching back to spread panic in the tribes that follow.  With the Goddess’s blessing we can trigger a rout that will not stop until the gates of Listcairn or beyond.”
    “A nobl e plan, your highness. What part may I play in it?”
    “There is a valley a mile south of here, the Torrockburn. Your hobelars can take that route down out of the hills and circle round to take the enemy unawares in the flank.”
    “I will lead my soldiers to glory, for Oostsalve, your Highness.”
    “Do not lead them boy.  You are a priest not a warrior.  I am sure your father did not send you without some captain to take the soldier’s part, if not I have people I can spare.”
    Abroath blushed more hotly than before.  “I did not come to play the coward.”
    “Do not mistake caution for cowardice or impetuosity for bravery, Prior Abroath.  I have manoeuvred long and hard to get in position where I can strike a single killer blow against the enemy.  Your men may serve a part and I am grateful to you for bringing them.  There will be many have need of