Shadow Of The Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

questions for an entire afternoon, the topics of which he‘d only rarely discussed with other people, much less individuals of such wisdom. He recalled that history and philosophy were discussed, as well as geography, astrology, advanced mathematics, and the genesis of Draxakis and the fleet.
    His mother said the conversation gave her such a headache that she had to sit on the porch with a mug of mulled wine to relax her brain. The men spoke quietly with her before leaving.
    A covered wagon came three weeks later to take him to the Iralic Mage Academy, over six hundred miles to the northeast. A silent, green-cloaked guard waited on their porch while an academy administrator told his mother the tuition would be waived. She cried as she kissed Tenlon goodbye, telling him his life would be different now, better.
    She was right, for the most part. He’d found his place in the world.
    They wrote for two years before her letters stopped coming. He later discovered she had passed away on a particularly cold winter’s evening, two months after his eleventh birthday. When his second spring at Iralic finally rolled around, the students of his class were allowed their first opportunity to return home to families for a short break after midterms. Tenlon had nowhere to go.
    He knew horses and during such times of freedom worked in the city stables, helping out where he could. Besides the meager pay, he was allowed exhilarating rides through the countryside atop fine mounts owned by nobles and Amorian cavalrymen passing through the eastern territories. His skills in the saddle progressed so much that he even began competing in various races, earning a bit of silver by winning far more then he lost.
    Those were fine days , he thought. His mother was gone, but he found friends in Iralic, brothers. He’d found a life.
    Tenlon felt a nudge.
    “You look lost,” Graille told him. “Where are you at this time? Sailing the Venda or with the dragons?”
    “Neither,” Tenlon shook his head with a grin, pushing thoughts of the past from his mind. “I’m still on the march. Unfortunately.”
    The afternoon sun beat down upon their academy robes of gray and Tenlon could feel beads of sweat dampening his chest. Except for the chill of night, one would never guess it late autumn. There was no shade on the open grasslands, just a rolling ocean of green that stretched out in all directions.
    “It could be worse,” Graille mumbled. “Things can always get worse.”
    They walked upon a smooth road of hard-packed dirt, a scar that scored the land a hundred feet across and almost as many miles long. The road, he knew, was a newborn, just five days old. The grass had been trampled so tremendously by the thousands of Amorian boots and horse hooves that it would take a lifetime to grow back, if ever at all.
    Tenlon had no idea how many their numbers were: infantry, spearmen, light and heavy cavalry, archers, supply wagons, surgery units, cooks, stable hands, scholars, Magi, engineers, blacksmiths, royal guards, advisors, and emissaries. He only knew that King Healianos had amassed the entire army to counter the threat, this Volrathi force.
    However many, once the Amorian lines began moving from Corda to the battle it took five days of waiting before Tenlon and the rest of his class joined the march, so great were their numbers.
    He had watched the wide line pull away into the distance, stretching from sight, disappearing south as if it went on forever.
    It was the first battle Tenlon would see in his sixteen years and was to be the greatest battle in all of history. Amoria had assembled a massive war machine of dark green and a dragon fleet that hadn’t tasted defeat in over three hundred years.
    Tenlon had a nauseous feeling about all of it, but his boots kept pace with the rest, marching toward what all around him believed certain victory. He fought to share their optimism, and why not? Their army was great, their soldiers disciplined, their