Nera

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT · READING EXCERPT

Enter the story

By dawn, the strap beneath Edran Caleth’s left arm had rubbed his skin raw. He had folded a scrap of linen under it before the company entered Syrath, but the cloth had worked loose somewhere along the harbor road, and now every lift of his shield drew the edge across the same patch of skin. When the order came to halt beside a warehouse, he tried to reach the buckle. The man behind him walked into his back.

“Keep moving,” the man said.

“Tell the ones in front.”

None of them had anywhere to go. Ahead, the company had narrowed to pass between a timber cart and the warehouse wall. Behind them, more Ardath soldiers were coming down the road, their green sleeves gray with dust. Edran let his arm fall. Through the gap above the cart he could see a strip of harbor water, bright enough to hurt his eyes, and the upper works of a vessel moored against the quay. Someone aboard was ringing a bell. The bell had rung so long he scarcely heard it now.

He had expected a harbor to smell of salt. Syrath smelled of wet rope, old catch, sewage, and the sweet, thick smoke rolling from a building farther along the waterfront. He could not see what was burning. Whenever the wind shifted, smoke filled the space between the warehouses and made the men cough. The soldier in front of him spat into the dust, wiped his mouth, and began moving again.

They reached the cart in pairs. One wheel had broken, leaving the bed tilted toward the wall, its load of sacks slumped across the passage. A sack had split. Pale grain lay beneath their boots, and Edran caught himself choosing where to step before remembering that there were men trying to kill him at the far end of the quay. Even now, after years of gathering every spilled handful, he struggled to tread on grain.

Beyond the cart, the file opened onto the waterfront. The quay curved away to his right beneath a row of lifting cranes. On his left, warehouse doors stood open over heaps of rope and cargo. The water was lower than the stone edge by more than a man’s height. He noticed that at once, then wished he had not looked. There were no steps beside him, only dark weed trailing down the masonry and a mooring ring thick with rust. An officer near the front raised his sword and shouted for shields. Edran lifted his own before he understood what had changed. Something struck the timber with a crack that jarred his elbow. The man beside him ducked, although the missile had already passed, and they both crouched behind their shields while an arrow rattled against the stones between their feet.

“Up,” the officer called. “Stay together. Up!”

Edran stood because the others did. Across the open stretch ahead, Tharalen soldiers were pulling a barrier into place between two stacks of cargo. He saw light blue cloth, a strip of purple, the pale underside of a shield as a man swung it around. They were closer than he had expected. Until that moment the battle had been noise beyond buildings, orders arriving late, wounded men being carried the other way. Now he could see someone’s fingers working at a spear haft.

The Ardath line moved forward. Edran tried to keep his shield against the shield on his left and his boots clear of the man ahead. Their formation had room for neither task. A length of rope caught beneath his heel. He stumbled, recovered, and heard a shout from the water side. A soldier was down near the edge, holding his thigh with both hands. Edran reached toward him, but the pressure of the men behind carried him past.

He did not see the first clash. A taller man blocked his view, and then the whole line stopped hard enough to drive Edran’s shield rim into his chin. He tasted blood. Men were shouting instructions he could not separate from one another. He pushed because he was being pushed, his left shoulder burning beneath the strap, while somewhere beyond the shields iron struck iron with a noise unlike anything made in a practice yard.

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End of excerpt. This site presents a selection from the manuscript.