The Mad Lancers

Начало книги

Twelve years before the events of Sins of Empire…

A corpse hung from a dead tree on the outskirts of Fernhollow, bloated from the humid summer heat, feet swinging above the dusty road. It was a grim specter haunting an otherwise picturesque country lane, and Major Ben Styke took a few moments to imagine the scene – minus the corpse – as a painting in some posh nobleman’s collection.

Styke stared up at the body, quietly humming a lancer’s hymn to himself. He recognized the corpse, even with its crow-pecked eyes and torn clothes. It belonged to Daven je Kros, the local Kez tax collector. A beating had left Kros’s evening suit shredded to ribbons and the body beneath it a bloody pulp – and probably killed the poor bastard.

Styke’s warhorse, Deshnar, stamped impatiently beneath him, unimpressed by the smell of shit and rotting flesh. Styke patted his flank absently. They were alone here on the outskirts of town, accompanied only by the crows wheeling overhead, and he imagined that word of the tax man’s lynching had probably spread well ahead of his own discovery. None of the locals would use this road today.

Читать дальше →