Breaking an Empire Read Online Free PDF Page B

living their comfortable life and trading away with Bohortha Eilan like nothing is changed at all.” Locsyn glowered.
    “Soldier’s lot in life, being screwed by people higher up. Nothing new there for any of us. Probably have more in common with the poor sots we’re stabbing in the gut than with the people giving us the orders.” Gwyth nodded at a distant officer.
    “You’re a soldier, ain’t you? Good, now stop bitching and go back to camp. Get yourself all polished up and ready, cause when I get down from this picket, you’re on inspection.”
    “I was just saying…”
    “Shut it, Gwyth. Inspection, got me?”
    “Yeah, yeah, got you.”
    Locsyn and Gwyth headed back into camp, leaving Rhyfelwyr alone with his thoughts.
    The sun was low over the horizon, lending a red back-light to the fires and smoke that consumed the land. If veterans like Locsyn were wondering why the army was here, rot was spreading faster than Rhy had thought possible. Amazing how quickly passion disappears when the stomach knows it’s going empty.
    ***
    For a solid week since the army’s crushing victory at Miath Mhor, they had seen no sign of enemy forces, only burnt farmhouses and fields empty of grain. A few had been harvested in haste and their supplies pulled south, but most had been torched, the food they had promised now ashes scattered on the ground.
    There was dissent amongst the ranks, for the army had been put on half-rations to conserve food. Glanhaol Fflamboethi had also split, travelling in three columns down the peninsula. The two outside columns had peeled away to take up station twenty miles either side of the main march. It was far enough apart that should any meet the full strength of Niam Liad in battle, it could go rough, but that was a risk the commanders were willing to take in order to widen the search for food. The hope was the Lianese could not burn such a large swathe. Or perhaps the Veryan soldiers could drive off the Lianese before the burnings had taken place.
    The wings were to reform two days march outside of Horaim, and would then invest the city. With the food stocks as low as they were, the assault on Horaim would have to commence within a few days of the Veryan arrival, although the threat of raids from the Lianese defenders worried the officers of Glanhaol Fflamboethi; responding to each raid would sap the energy of their troops. All in all, the campaign had taken a decided turn for the worse.
    Rhyfelwyr and his squad marched in the vanguard of the central army, leading the thrust down the peninsula. The sergeant would rather have been with one of the outlying armies, for they had a better chance of finding fresh food. Oh, the stocks weren’t as low as rumoured, but eating pressed meat and trail bread day after day was not a diet the stomach could readily enjoy.
    There had been a bit of good luck the night past, for they had come on a farmstead where the basement had been stuffed full of goods and grains, stored away against a famine. The Lianese must have torched the building and the land around it without checking inside. The Veryan soldiers had cheered when extra rations were handed out that night. The men went to sleep with full stomachs, and woke up contented with their lot in life.
    ***
    The army marched down a road that wound between fields of crops, their ashes tossed by the winds. It was a sight to sour the mind, and Rhyfelwyr saw those around him become bitter, especially Rhocas, who had not the years of experience to build barriers about the mind. The sergeant hoped there was a battle soon, for it could snap the young man back to himself, rather than his new silent and morose temperament.
    Locsyn sidled up to Rhyfelwyr and tapped him on the shoulder. “So what do we do? That kind of attitude’s poison in an army. Everyone sees it and it infects the rest. Granted, he’s not the only one, but every time a soldier looks to the vanguard, they see slump-shoulders over there leading the way,