Read Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) for Free Online

die in some war. I lost my husband to the accident. I’m not sending Sim off to fight—nor Pesh when he’s older. He’s already tagging at Sim’s heels, trying to fight him with the laundry paddles.”
    Kavi turned his mug in circles on the table. “They aren’t always fighting. They tell me it’s the Hrum army that built those stone roads they brag on so much, and other things as well. A stonemason’s son should fit right in.”
    “But they do fight,” said Nadi. Her hands, reddened with soap and rough cloth, were clenched so hard the knuckles were white. “I tell you, Kavi, I will not have it. Not my sons.”
    “The Hrum are pretty firm about drafting all who are able,” said Kavi quietly. “Pat—Someone told me it’s their way of making a new-conquered land truly a part of the empire. That serving in the army makes the men feel like citizens, in their hearts.”
    “I don’t care what’s in his heart,” said Nadi. “I’m trying to keep his body safe. The Hrum are saying a lot in your presence, aren’t they?” Her gaze was shrewd and curious. Kavi felt as if the needles that had tattooed his shoulder, marking him as a Hrum agent, still pricked. But Nadi hadn’t seen that mark, and only Hrum officers knew what it signified, anyway.
    “I went to Desafon after it fell,” Kavi told her. “I wanted to see what kind of conquerors the Hrum were likely to be.” To see if Patrius’ word held good—which it had, for the most part. “For the most part, I think they’d be better than the deghans, if it wasn’t for the draft.”
    He remembered the shocked dismay on the faces of Desafon’s folk. The way the women had clutched their husbands, fathers their sons. Five years of service. Citizens of the Hrum empire grew up with the notion, planned their livesaround it. For the Farsalan peasants, it was almost as great a shock as it had been for Kavi. Because peasants didn’t fight. That was a deghan’s . . .
    “Deghans,” Nadi hissed. “At least they’ll be small loss. I used to think you were too harsh, talking about them, but they surely failed their end of the bargain.”
    The ancient bargain: Peasants farm; deghans fight and rule. Still . . .
    “They tried,” Kavi told her. “They died almost to a man in the trying. You have to give them credit for that.”
    Nadi’s brows lifted. “You almost sound sorry for them!”
    “Why not. They died. I’d think you’d be sorry for them, tenderhearted like you are.”
    “And I wouldn’t expect you to be sorry for them, hating them like you do. Or is it ‘did’?” Her voice had gone very soft.
    “Do,” said Kavi firmly. “But . . . I went to that battlefield afterward. Not right after. The bodies were all buried and gone. But so much blood had been spilled, you could still see the stains in the grass.”
    “Why did you go then?” Nadi asked reasonably.
    “I wanted to get a close look at one of the Hrum swords,” Kavi admitted. “I told you about that other piece of watersteel I saw?” A stolen dagger that a stranger had brought to show off to Kavi’s master. It had to be stolen, for the Hrum never let their steel out of the hands of their own people. “The Hrum’s watersteel broke our Farsalan blades like green sticks, but I figured there had to be a few broken Hrum swords on that field as well.”
    He’d groped for marks through the churned grass, and gotten sick when he realized that the dark flecks clinging to his fingers were dried blood. But after he’d emptied his stomach, he’d gone right on searching. It wasn’t just curiosity, either. He wasn’t quite sure of his plan yet, but if the weapon-smiths of Mazad could make a steel that could stand up to the Hrum’s, it would certainly help.
    He’d found a piece eventually—small, which was probably why the Hrum hadn’t picked it up along with the bodies. Just a large chip, really, snapped out of a blade that had struck something hard at a bad angle. A razor-edged