Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

sword broke, just like half the deghans who died that day. And the commander survived till the very end. When it was clear that Farsala had lost, he challenged the Hrum to send a champion for single combat. Instead, they sent archers and murdered him. Right there in the circle, Razm take them. Therewas nothing Jiaan could have done except die, or be captured with the rest of them. Nothing anyone could have done.”
    He looked up to meet Jiaan’s astonished gaze, determination to be fair written all over his open face. How like a deghan to be fair, just as you were set to bid the djinn to take the lot of them.
    “It’s still cowardice—peasant cowardice—for us to cower here like jackals while the lions plunder at will,” Kaluud objected.
    At least he was right about one thing—the Hrum were more like lions than the spawn of Razm, the djinn of cowardice, for which Fasal so often cursed them. Jiaan was suddenly tired of all of them. And he was done with trying to be liked.
    “It was deghan courage that got us into this mess in the first place,” he said coldly. “We need a secure base, a larger force, and a realistic objective before we do anything. You can help, or you can leave. Those are your only choices.”
    He felt like an idiot, spouting orders that way. But he also felt the support of the men around him—their willingness to uphold his judgment.
    Though Azura only knew what he’d do if the idiots chose to leave. Bad enough that the traitorknew where this place was—but as long as no one knew the army was here, it shouldn’t matter. Right now the Hrum had no way of knowing the Farsalan army still existed, but if word got out . . . No, they were deghans. There was no doubt how they would choose.
    Kaluud’s face was dark with anger. Markhan looked at Jiaan intently, but whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find it. Jiaan waited.
    “Stay,” Markhan spat. Kaluud nodded.
    Fasal’s sigh of relief was audible even where Jiaan stood. “I’ll show you where to put your horses.”
    Both Markhan and Kaluud were glaring at Jiaan over their shoulders as they followed Fasal toward the horse pens, but they went.
    He started to sag with relief, then caught himself and straightened his shoulders. At least he could try to look like a commander.
    His father had argued with the deghans under his command—it had never left him clammy-palmed, his heart pounding with sick tension. His father had cursed them up one side and down the other, showed them a carrot or two, and they’d followed him like geese flying after their leader. Hisfather could handle them. His father had been one of them.
    Jiaan wasn’t one of them, and he wasn’t his father either. But he was the best commander Farsala had left, so he was stuck with the job. Djinn take the lot of them.

C HAPTER T HREE

K AVI
    K AVI REACHED Setesafon just before the Hrum’s new curfew took effect. It was dusk but he had till full dark to get off the street—and if he could show the tattoo on his shoulder, no curfew sentry would be hauling him in. But the house he sought was only a laundry in the suburbs, not some grand manor in the heart of the city. He could get there before dark.
    It was the closest thing to a home he had, and part of him dreaded to arrive. If anything had happened to Nadi’s family, he’d never be able to forgive himself. He was having a hard enough time with forgiveness, anyway.
    But there was little sign of fighting around thesmall shops and homes he passed. Nothing burned. No blood stains in the gutters. Most of the blood had been shed over a month ago, in a faraway field, and even if it hadn’t been his folks doing the bleeding, it still haunted Kavi’s dreams. The thought of the survivors, taken off to be slaves in foreign lands, bothered him even in the daylight. But the Hrum didn’t treat their slaves badly, not like the Kadeshi. There was time to redeem himself—to make things right.
    And the Hrum hadn’t lied about