War Song: Legacy Rising

War Song Legacy Rising Michael Michel Morningstar Books Copyright This is a work of fiction. All names, places, characters, and events are a product of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to real people, alive or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales are purely coincidental. Copyright © [2023] by [Michael Michel] All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. The right of Michael Michel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. Contents 1. Here I Go 2. A Feast of Crumbs 3. The Lucky Ones 4. Anywhere But Here 5. Rude Awakenings 6. The Shadows of Men 7. Broken Afterword Epilogue About Author Chapter one Here I Go- Autumn, Year 522 A.R. -Admar spat on the soot-grimed window of the taproom. Yellowed foam raced down the pane of glass. He lifted a bandaged fist and rubbed it clean for better visibility. “What you doing, Addy?”Admar ignored Lakka’s question. Chair creaking, he leaned closer to the glass and peered out. Scothean soldiers made their way up the street.“Daydreaming of dead snakes, Lakka.” Barnhold’s voice was a smooth drawl, the kind of tone where everyone heard him smiling without having to see it. “Does he ever do anything else?”Admar shrugged. It wasn’t far from the truth. Better days with his former lover, Vanique, came to mind on occasion, as did passing moments of laughter with his sister, Ayra. Not now though. Not with them so close.Nine Scoths hustled up the muddy street of Brighthaven, the hafts of their crescent axes gripped tightly in their fists. White cloaks trailed, spattered brown at the hems by filth. But the polished sigil on their chest armor stabbed at Admar’s eyes in the fading evening light: a horned serpent coiled around a sun. The symbol of their homeland.The mark of conquerors.Admar turned to his friends, fingertips tickling the hilt of a dagger in his belt. Heat pooled in his chest. He’d already let one filthy fucking Scoth taste steel; it was the least he could do to honor Ayra, long dead from an infection earned in the whipping line. Vanique’s death, too, was Scothea’s fault. She’d contracted slum-sickness a year ago but couldn’t afford the herbs she’d needed to fight it. No one could.Admar’s muscles tensed. Vanique had deserved a fighting chance at life. We all do but we’ve gotta be willing to bloody our hands.He had been drunk when he survived his run-in with a lone soldier in a shadowed alley. A lucky fool, that’s all I am. I should count myself happy to be alive and stop there. But ever since that night when he’d sprinted home and washed the blood off, he’d been eager to share his blade with more of them. His dead sister and former lover would want that.“Best not to talk about such things out loud, Barnhold.” Lakka’s chin hovered over her gutter wine, a drink that cost her a third of her day’s earnings. She shot a cautious look at the barkeep but he was preoccupied with cleaning his graying teeth with his tunic sleeve. Scothea controlled everything. Wages, resources…informants. Neighbors had become just as dangerous as a shock trooper’s ax since the filthy fucks had conquered the Fractured Lands. “If Scoths hear you talkin’ about killin’ snakes, they’ll send you to the quarries. At best they’ll do that.”“No Scothean would ever be caught dead in a place like this. Drinking flavored piss in the company of miners like us.” Barnhold laughed with abrasive dismissal. “Consider yourself safe.”“Safe.” Admar eased back into his chair, sparing one final glance at the Scoths who’d slowed to a walk outside. “The mere fact that we’re having this conversation should tell you you’ve lost your damn mind, Barnhold.”The bigger man’s brow darkened. Sinewed arms tensed around the cup in his heavily callused palms. A vein on his bald pate pulsed, every fiber of him angry but never letting on to it. His thick mustache twitched over a smile.A damn fake smile. None of them had anything to be happy about.“Shirking about in the dark where the Scoths won’t see us and clanging pick to stone in a damned cave all the gods damned day.” Admar made a fist and slammed it onto the table, making his drink jump. “Sweating our life out so they can have the sweet and the warm and the prime cut meat of the world. Meanwhile, we drink puddle water and give them everything on a gold platter.”Admar slapped his drink off the table. The tankard thudded to the ground and sloshed onto Barnhold’s arm.The bigger man huffed, wiped the liquid from his arm, then reached across the table and tapped the ring left by Admar’s gutter wine. “Nature isn’t such a mystery as you make it out to be. No matter how loud a dog barks, an ice tiger will kill it in a scrap every time.” He slugged back his drink. Golden beads clung to his wire-covered upper lip. “What good is it doing you to think otherwise?”Good? I had the balls to kill one of them. No better good than that! He wanted to tell them. He wanted to shout it from the top of Brighthaven’s watch towers. He wanted everyone to know.The Scoths were not gods. They died like normal men.“Take a cue from me, Addy.” Lakka puffed up with pride. “I’m a happy enough woman, no matter the conditions. Family is what’s most important. If you’ve got your health and your loved ones, why stress the other stuff.”“Aht!” Barnhold shot Lakka a disapproving look.She blushed but Admar waved a hand. “It’s fine. Ancient history by now.” It wasn’t. The future was a path paved in broken glass; just when he’d become numb to the latest wound, time cut away another