The Shadowbearer (An Aegis of the Gods Book)

Chapter 1

PART 1

PORTENTS AND PLOTS

CHAPTER 1

Knight Commander Stefan Dorn surveyed the battlefield below him from his vantage point astride his horse. The oncoming Astocan army stretched in a long line that disappeared into the shadows of the mountains behind them. The Setian Knight Commander grimaced. “Fools. They’re dead.” With a shake of his head, he let out a resigned sigh. “Prideful and stupid to the end.” It pained him to see such a waste of good men even from his enemies. Their general should have listened to reason. Together they could have averted the upcoming bloodshed.

“The way the Astocans would tell it, it’s bravery of the highest degree.” Knight General Garrick Nagel shrugged, broad shoulders made even wider by the pauldrons of his plate armor. He twirled his mustache around his thick forefinger. “They give their lives for pride. To claim they bent knee to no one. They would say their gods and people deserve nothing less.”

Atop his brown gelding, Knight General Kasimir Edsel snorted. “Too bad their gods aren’t fighting the battle.” With the recent sunny days, the Knight General’s skin had tanned to a deep brown.

“Indeed.” Stefan nodded. As a believer and leader of the Setian, he understood how a man might wish to have the deities on their side in a battle like this, especially if that man was an Astocan. He pursed his lips as he scratched at the annoying black stubble under his chin and studied the enemy.

Spread like fangs, the peaks of the Sang Reaches cast long shadows as the sun blazed in the cloudless skies. From their depths, the Astocan army boiled in numbers to dwarf his Setian forces. The smell of horse, sweaty men, and metal choked the air as his cavalry spread to his left and right. Up ahead his infantry advanced.

“I still don’t understand your concern for them,” Garrick said.

“You wouldn’t,” Kasimir replied. “Not after what they did—”

Stefan cut Kasimir off with a glare. It served no purpose to remind Garrick of the past. “They’re men with families and livelihoods like us.”

“Never like us,” Garrick snapped. “Lose this battle today and they would enslave us all, rape our women, and pillage our cities.” Nostrils flaring as they often did when he was angry, Garrick pulled so hard on his mustache Stefan wondered if his friend felt any pain at all. “So you’re right, Kas, I wouldn’t understand, not after how they made me suffer. But I know what it means to you, Stefan.” He nodded to the Knight Commander. “You have way more honor than I ever will.”

“Thank you.” Stefan dipped his head and let out a slow breath that Garrick held his temper in check. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, old friend. You’re as honorable a man as I have met, regardless of how you try to hide it.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the thin form of Knight General Cerny as the man made to say something. The Knight Commander spurred his horse forward a few steps. The King’s errand boy could wait a bit longer.

Drumbeats rolled from across the battlefield. Blaring horns and the stomp of marching feet joined in. The jangle of weapons and the trundle of carts from Stefan’s army of Setian played accompaniment. In tight formations, armor dull and dusty, his infantry lines awaited their commands.

A buzz—like flies alighting on a bloody corpse—filled the sweltering air. Arrows darkened the sky, shot from the blackness beneath the drab grey and green mountains.

“Incoming!” boomed the voices of the silver–armored Setian Knight Captains. Their warning rose unnaturally over the trumpets and drums echoing from the enemy’s ranks.