The Farmer's War (Golden Guard Trilogy Book 3)

  They started sprinting again, their lead only marginally more comfortable. Daniel wanted to ask how far, exactly, they were from these caves. But doing so would require him to use his mouth for something other than breathing or throwing up—and his body told him those were the only two options at present.

  With a flash, a sunbeam permeated the canopy in the distance, illuminating a distinctly Southern piece of armor discarded on the ground. Daniel glanced at it in confusion—and the picture came into focus at once.

  The trees in the distance had been bent back, char marks discoloring the ground. There had been a battle there. Which meant… He looked up and caught the corner of a building in the distance before it was hidden again.

  “I think we’re near the second Northern encampment we torched!” he cautioned, well remembering the fights they encountered in the strongly fortified outposts.

  “Nonsense.” Craig didn’t mince words. “I know exactly where we are.”

  “If I navigated correctly, then—”

  “Which you didn’t!”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “I do. You were just too proud to—” Craig ran wide around a tree and disappeared with a yelp.

  “Craig!” Daniel scurried around to the other side of the tree, stopping just short of a gaping hole in the earth. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of the other soldier.

  “Bloody Northern trap!” Craig’s voice echoed from the rocky hole in the ground below. “Get me out of here!”

  Craig’s leg had been impaled on a sharp spear of wood embedded at the base of the pit. Lucky as he was that his leg—rather than his head—had been compromised, the injury eliminated any possibility of outrunning the most nimble predator in the jungle. Daniel looked around for a solution, racking his mind for some kind of way out—something, anything.

  But there was nothing.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed.

  “Don’t you leave me, Daniel!” Panic crept into Craig’s voice.

  “Like you left me?” Anger boiled over and he returned to the ledge. “Maybe I should leave you there to fester and rot.”

  Craig’s face was bright red and taut. “Then I hope the cat eats you alive.”

  The cat.

  The snapping of brush and thundering of gigantic, heavy paws alerted Daniel to the situation at hand. He was all out of ideas, and he couldn’t run any longer. He looked at the hole Craig had found himself in.

  “Don’t just stand there, do something!” Craig cried out. Annoyance and terror warred equally in his tone.

  The only thing Daniel could think of was adapting their initial plan; he had to find somewhere to hide from the beast and wait out its interest.

  With the last of his energy, Daniel pushed a broken branch, wood old and thick as his thigh, toward the hole. “Look out!” he shouted, offering no further warning. He couldn’t be bothered for more than that. If he accidentally killed Craig now, he wouldn’t exactly feel guilty.

  Tipping the thick branch, Daniel let it fall into the crevice. He dove in after it just as the noru cat burst through the last of the saplings and lunged for him. Daniel felt the wind from the beast’s jump whiz over his head as he half-slid, half-tumbled down the branch, clinging to it awkwardly to try to break his fall all while avoiding an untimely demise at the hands of the deadly spikes.

  A fearsome yowl, part blood-lust and part frustration, echoed from above. From the lip of the pit, the noru lunged and snarled, batting helplessly into the mouth of the hole. But just as Daniel had suspected, the narrow opening was too small for the enormous cat to enter.

  The beast managed to get itself in the hole from paw to shoulder. It swung wildly, its paw a pendulum of swords, trying desperately to grasp them. Daniel pressed against the wall between two boulders and Craig lay back between the spikes, blood continuing to pool ominously around his impaled calf.

  The noru reared back. Dirt and leaves fell around them like rain, shaken loose by the animal’s frustrated trouncing above. It lunged once more. With a deafening snap, the branch Daniel had used to crawl into the cavern snapped, falling in two useless pieces, one narrowly missing Craig.

  The beast repeated the process three more times before it seemed to tire. Daniel panted, continuing to watch the opening, listening for the growls and snarls of their deadly pursuer.

  For the first time all afternoon, the forest was silent.

  9. Craig

  Out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

  Craig groaned in equal parts pain, frustration, and sheer disbelief at his luck. Every muscle in his body ached. His back screamed, shooting daggers of protest at his every attempt to move. Even craning his neck felt nearly impossible.

  Not that he knew why he’d want to look closer at his situation. He could feel the sharp pain in his calf, so overwhelming that he was already going numb with shock. He was well aware of how he’d landed, and he knew the probability of him making it out of the jungle alive had plummeted to nearly zero.

  Craig blinked up at the oculus of the cavern above him. He would’ve thought facing his own mortality would be harder. Then again, he’d had practice. How many times had he seen death on the battlefield? In the faces of those he’d killed? If death was coming for him, it would come with the familiarity of an old friend. It would come to collect the debt he’d exacted from so many.

  As if summoned by his macabre, a face suddenly appeared before him, familiar and utterly unwanted. Craig blinked, wishing for the grim visage of the Father coming to take his immortal soul to the night realms beyond.

  Instead he saw Daniel.

  Craig tried to get a read on the man’s expression, but the filtered sunlight above grew weaker by the minute, and it was getting harder to see.

  “You’re one lucky bastard,” Daniel said finally.

  “How do you figure?” Craig certainly didn’t feel lucky, and he’d think the reasons why would be obvious. Slow, imminent death topped the list at the moment.

  “You managed to outrun a noru cat in the jungle. You found somewhere to hide, and you didn’t die in the process.” Daniel listed off each one on his fingers, pointing finally at the wooden spikes on either side of Craig’s head and chest. Both could’ve easily pierced one of his vital organs if he’d landed just slightly differently. “You got a lucky break on how this snapped, too.” He nudged one of the large pieces of timber he’d used to get into the pit with his boot.

  Craig was about to remark on Daniel’s bad puns, but instinct told him to let the silence linger. There was something to it. Something he hadn’t felt around Daniel yet. Something that could only be described as kinship between two soldiers—true warriors. Narrowly escaping death together would do that, he supposed. All sorts of rushes going through his mind and body right now. Perhaps the adrenaline was turning him mad.

  In less than a beat, their accord grew heavier. “And you’re also pretty damn lucky I didn’t leave you to die after what you did.” Daniel stared down at him, a challenge settling across his brow.

  But Craig had no intention of denying it. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d have done in Daniel’s shoes, in fact. So Craig said simply, “At least I can say now that you’re not completely useless. Every soldier goes through some hazing.” His indifferent tone was greatly marred by the slight wheezes of pain he couldn’t quell, making the overall effect almost sardonic. Teasing.

  As such, Daniel snorted, squatting down next to Craig’s leg. Without warning, he began hacking into the spear currently sawing through Craig’s calf. Craig would have wondered how the other man had managed to hold onto his stupid fancy sword during their flight through the jungle, but all humor vanished as each reverberation exploded stars behind his eyes. Daniel continued to work, obscured behind the blur of Craig’s pain.

  Craig let out an animalistic noise that rivaled
the noru’s earlier yowling, as Daniel placed both hands on either side of his leg and lifted. His appendage came free of the spear with a sickening, slick sort of popping sound. Darkness framed the edges of his vision. He’d known pain in battle before, been cut up something fierce, in fact, but this level of agony was new, even for him.

  It was like a fire burned up his leg in searing waves that terminated in his head. The edges of his consciousness singed, darkening everything to black.

  He blinked, trying to clear his vision, and slowly, thankfully, sensations came back to him. The pain was first. No longer a sharp or unbearable stabbing, it was now more of a dull ache that lingered like a phantom presence in every breath.

  Craig blinked again. This time, when his eyes opened, he cursed the light that failed to come back to him. Everything was dark. Glowing shapes flickered in and out against the blackness.

  “You awake?” a familiar voice asked from across the narrow space.

  Narrow space.

  That was right. They had been chased by a noru cat. They’d landed in a pit… Craig turned his head toward the voice.

  The spikes that had been sunk into the rocky earth had all been uprooted and were now burning in a crude fire pit. Daniel sat diagonally from him, looking worse for wear, one sleeve mostly missing.

  Craig looked down to his leg and quickly solved the mystery of the missing sleeve. Wound tightly around his calf was a makeshift bandage. What wasn’t bloodstained was the same color as the shirt Daniel wore under his jerkin.

  “You passed out when I was freeing you from that spike.”

  “You could have warned me first,” Craig muttered, recalling the sudden, mind-numbing effect of Daniel’s earlier ministrations. He wanted to be angrier, but it was difficult to muster the emotion.

  “I could have,” Daniel agreed, leaning back onto the rocky wall behind him. “But that would have defeated the purpose of the hazing. Isn’t that what soldiers do?”

  Craig rolled his eyes.

  Daniel rolled his own in a perfect imitation.

  Craig began to chuckle, a soft, bubbling laughter that only seemed capable of growing, consuming him from chest to throat and out into the suffocating air of the pit.

  “I would have thought that less ‘green’ soldiers would take longer to mentally snap.” Daniel passed his fire poker from hand to hand. Craig only continued to laugh.

  “Looks like you’re not completely useless.”

  “Madness it is.” Daniel sighed, exhaling a bit of profanity.

  “Now, this is what I’ve wanted all along.” Craig shifted with a wince, trying to get a better seated position.

  “What?”

  “You to speak to me frankly. To see who you really are underneath the facade of the perfect common soldier,” he clarified. “To see what Raylynn saw in you,” he admitted.

  “I’m surprised the major even knew I existed.” Daniel snorted obnoxiously. Craig didn’t bother clarifying his comment. “You saw who I really was. You didn’t like it. Now you’ve got this.”

  “I like this better.”

  It was Daniel’s turn to chuckle. “Are all lieutenants like you?”

  “Only the worthwhile ones.” Craig thought of Raylynn and her unique charisma, her arrogance, her easy, confident nature. It was vastly different from Jax’s wild madness, that tugged apart his sanity from moment to moment. Still, the two shared certain similarities. Craig had been trying to embody their mannerisms from the first moment Raylynn had taken him under her wing.

  Raylynn. His whole life had begun to revolve around her for the sake of a golden bracer. It was the reason he’d been so hard on Daniel from the get-go: Craig had feared the notion that Raylynn might use the other man as a sort of replacement. Maybe if he’d been a little less worried, they would have had a vastly different rapport.

  “How did you start the fire?” Craig asked, genuinely curious. A peace offering.

  “We’re trained to carry an emergency kit, strapped around the waist, just in case. Mine always contains a flint.” Daniel held up a flat sort of satchel that Craig had only seen once in training. After that brief exposure to the kit, him and everyone he knew promptly forgot of its existence; it was restricting and cumbersome, so they saw little point. In fact, the only thing he’d thought to strap to his person in months was the letter for Baldair. A small motion affirmed the missive was still attached around his waist.

  An emergency kit. Craig couldn’t stop his laughter once again. It reverberated off every wall of the pit like beats on a drum, no doubt echoing up into the forest above. Oh well, he thought. If their luck continued as it had so far, there would be Northern soldiers on them at any second.

  But none came, and Craig considered it to be the first good grace of the Mother they’d had since their journey began.

  “You would carry that with you,” Craig hummed, amused.

  “And you should be glad I did.” Daniel continued to poke at the fire. Craig almost—almost—felt guilty for his continued teasing. Almost but not quite. “Because now we have fire to keep us warm and you have healing salve—not enough, but some.”

  It took a long, pregnant pause, but eventually, Craig caved. “I am glad,” he confessed softly.

  “What was that?”

  Craig knew Daniel had heard him, but he obliged him anyway. Reluctant as he was to admit it, the soldier had earned his praise and gratitude. “I’m relieved for your quick thinking, both in your foresight to bring that with you, and earlier with the noru.” The pause that followed seemed practically companionable.

  “Careful—that sounds like appreciation,” Daniel said skeptically.

  “Because it was.” Craig smirked, yawning. Even moving his head to do that little hurt. His whole body continued to ache, though Daniel’s salve explained why he was no longer in terrible pain.

  Craig cast a weary eye on the other man, looking for any grave wounds he might have endured. Seeing nothing, Craig tilted his head back.

  “I don’t know how we’ll get out of here,” Daniel admitted softly.

  “I don’t either.” Craig shrugged. “But you seem to be pretty clever, actually.”

  “Don’t act so surprised.”

  Craig huffed in amusement. “Not every day you meet a clever Eastern farmer.”

  “Then you haven’t met enough Eastern farmers.”

  “Fair enough.” Craig yawned again, and again a shooting pain seared down his jaw. “You can tell me all about your clever friends in the morning. I’m sure you’ll think of something then, too.”

  Craig didn’t hear if Daniel replied. Too quickly, and without his consent, his body gave into exhaustion.

  10. Daniel

  When dawn came, his eyes had crusted almost completely shut.

  Daniel rubbed his face with the pads of his hands, smearing dirt and grime across aching muscles and stinging cuts. Blearily, he forced his eyes open, trying to pull his mind together. His body hurt, but it was still in one piece. No Northerners or noru cats had gotten into their hiding place in the night; he and the lieutenant had both somehow lived to see another dawn.

  He tilted his head at the thought, letting his eyes drift over to the other man currently occupying their cramped space. Craig hadn’t moved since he’d passed out the night before, but the steady rise and fall in his chest was reassuring. Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. One really did have to find joy in the small things in life.

  His eyes followed the still-curling smoke from the remnants of last night’s fire, tendrils of grey floating in wisps up through their only portal to the world beyond. The cavern was shaped like a jug, its thin neck above the only way out. Daniel sat straighter, taking stock of his surroundings. If Craig was going to survive, he’d need more medicine. If they were both going to survive, they’d need other essentials as well.

  Daniel shifte
d his feet and his knees popped in protest. His muscles were angry with him, his joints brutalized, but his body didn’t betray him. Even after the abuse they’d taken, his limbs heeded his commands.

  Craig came to life with a groan. The lieutenant came around slowly, his body waking before his mind. Daniel couldn’t stop him as he tried to move his leg on instinct, hissing immediately.

  “Sorry. It wasn’t all a bad dream, I’m afraid.”

  “An—” Craig’s voice cracked. He licked his lips and blinked to clear his vision. “And here I expected to wake up to hoards of young lasses throwing themselves at me.” His attempt at humor was strained at best, but oddly appreciated.

  “I hear that happens upon our glorious return.” Daniel began shuffling around the perimeter of the cavern, feeling along the stone.

  “It’ll be your first time returning from the front, right? This is your first tour?”

  Daniel nodded before realizing Craig couldn’t actually see him from where he sat. “It is.”

  “Aren’t you just having a grand time?”

  “I didn’t enlist to have a grand time.” None of the stones had any sort of budge or wiggle so far.

  “Then why did you enlist?”

  Daniel walked back around to where Craig could see him, already exhausted. He leaned against a stone for support. “As I told you—I simply want to make a life for myself and my betrothed. I’ll serve the Empire and take what’s owed me, no lasses or fanfare required.”

  “Ah yes. That’s right. Spoken like a man who has someone waiting for him.” Craig gave a smile and for the first time, it seemed genuine. “Your betrothed. Tell me of her.”

  “Her name is Willow.” Just saying it aloud gave him strength. The beautiful hazel eyes of his bride-to-be glowed in his mind’s eye. “And if I don’t get us out of here, I’ll never see her again.” That would be a fate worse than death, as far as Daniel was concerned.

  “Well, surely you may be able to climb it?”