Winter Warriors Read Online Free PDF Page A

They’re sending me home,” he said. “All the older men are going home.”
    “Don’t you want to go home?”
    “I was one of the first to join the White Wolf,” he said. “Back when Drenan was beset on all sides and the king’s army had been all but destroyed. We beat them all, you know. One after another. When I was a child, my country was ruled from afar. We were just peasants. But we changed the world. The king’s empire stretches for—” He seemed to struggle fora moment with the mathematics. “—thousands of miles,” he concluded lamely.
    “He is the greatest king who ever lived,” she said softly, hoping that was what he wanted to hear.
    “His father was greater,” said Bison. “He built from nothing. I served him for twenty-three years. Then the boy-king for another twenty. Twenty-six major battles I’ve fought in. There. Twenty-six. What do you think of that?”
    “It’s a lot of battles,” she admitted, not knowing where the conversation was heading. “Come back to bed.”
    “It’s a lot of battles, all right. I’ve been wounded eleven times. Now they don’t want me anymore. Eighteen hundred of us. Thank you and good-bye. Here’s a bag of gold. Go home. Where’s home, eh?” With a sigh he moved to the bed, which creaked as his huge frame settled upon it. “I don’t know what to do, Palima.”
    “You are a strong man. You can do anything you want, go anywhere you want.”
    “But I want to stay with the army. I’m a front ranker! That’s what I am. That’s what I want.”
    Sitting up, she cupped his face in her hands. “Sometimes—most times—we don’t get what we want. Rarely do we even get what we deserve. We get what we get. That’s it. Yesterday is gone, Bison. It will never come again. Tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. What we have is now. And do you know what is real?” She took his hand in hers and lifted it to her naked breast, pressing his fingers to her flesh.
“This
is real, Bison.
We
are real. And at this moment
we
are all there is.”
    His hand fell away, then he leaned down and kissed her cheek. He had never done that before. In fact, she could not remember the last time a man had kissed her cheek. Then he rose. “I’d better be getting back,” he said.
    “Why not stay? I know you, Bison. You’d feel better afterward. You always do.”
    “Aye, that’s true. You are the best, you know. And I speak from a lifetime of having to pay for it. But I have to go. I’ll be on charges. The watch is probably looking for me.”
    “What have you done?”
    “Lost my temper. Tapped a few soldiers.”
    “Tapped?”
    “Well, maybe more than tapped. One of them laughed at me. Ventrian scum! Said the army would be better off without the graybeards. I picked him up and threw him like a spear. It was really funny. But he landed on a table and broke it with his head. That upset the Drenai soldiers who were eating there. So I tapped them all.”
    “How many were there?”
    “Only five or so. I didn’t really hurt no one. Well, not badly.” He grinned. “Well, not
very
badly. But I’ll be on charges.”
    “What kind of punishment will you get?”
    “I don’t know … ten lashes.” He shrugged. “Twenty. No problem.”
    Palima climbed from the bed and stood naked before him. “How did it feel when you were ‘tapping’ them?” she asked.
    “It was … good,” he admitted.
    “You felt like a man?”
    “Yes. I felt young again.”
    Her hand slid down over his leggings. “Like a man,” she whispered huskily. She felt him swell at her touch.
    “And how do you feel now?” she asked him.
    He let out a long sigh. “Like a man,” he said. “But they don’t want me to be one anymore. Good-bye, Palima.”
    Without another word he walked out into the night.
    Palima watched him from the window. “A pox on you and all your kind, Drenai,” she whispered. “Go away and die!”
    Banelion, the legendary White Wolf, gathered his maps and carefully placed them