Gears of Troy 3

by Daniel Pierce

  He looked to me in horror, still standing with blood bursting from his enormous wound. Slowly, a smile crept back across his face and we looked at each other for a long time. The Earth itself seemed to stand still as we soaked in each other’s presence. Once again, we had returned from the world of animals and stood as two men, having given each other all they had. My adversary was forced to acknowledge his defeat, to acknowledge that all he had was not enough. He had been bested fairly. Not yet speaking, he simply stood there nodding his head. I began to nod mine, too. We understood each other without words, but they would come soon enough anyway.

  There was a cawing overhead. I looked up to see the glint of bronze that was Nisos’s giant eagle. It was circling around us as its master’s father drew his last breaths. I had completely forgotten the thing. If it had come down to assist Thrax earlier, I might have very well been a dead man right then, but something told me that the bird wanted only to watch, to see how things played out. I felt the overwhelming presence of the prince once again as I had when we spoke before.

  Thrax coughed a pained, bloody cough. He spat blood and grinned at me one last time before saying, “It was all fair. Everything . . . fair.”

  Without further warning, his eyes rolled back and he fell with a slam into the grass. The bird descended and immediately set to work gouging the man’s eyes with its beak and tearing the flesh from his face. I had a feeling that this was a long time coming for the two of them.

  I turned to see a group of smiling faces looking back at me. Caria, Helen, Zinni, Linos, and Teucer and his family were all standing near the slope of the hill. Seeing my friends alive made my chest feel lighter than air. I felt as if I could float off in the next moment and never come down. I almost wanted to cry with the sheer sense of joy I felt in that moment. We had actually pulled it off. Against overwhelming numbers and magic, my friends and I had actually won the war. Truly, few things felt sweeter.

  Epilogue

  My queens sat in the chamber, their eyes watching me as I walked, hands clasped behind my back. The next few moments would be critical as I rendered a decision.

  How far would I go? Past my ports, and streets, and the lands I knew, into the wild places where twisted olives and lonely citrus trees scrabbled for a hold on soil older than time itself.

  “What do you think?” Helen asked.

  I looked out at the sun, its light fading into the distant water. When I turned to my queens, I knew my purpose. I understood my path.

  “We build here, and hold what we have, but it’s not a safe world. It’s a world of unseen dangers, and there’s only one way to make sure it’s a place for us far into the future,” I said.

  “Which is?” Zinni asked. She spun a ball of gold in her palms, and idle use of magic and science all in one.

  I stared to the unknown waters beyond Port Superior, the drew my sword. “We fight.”

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  About the Author

  Daniel Pierce lives in Wyoming with his wife Marissa and their two dogs. After fourteen years as an engineer, Daniel decided it was finally time to write and release his first novel.

  As a lifelong fan of scifi and fantasy, he wants nothing more than to share his passion.

  He invites readers to email him at authordanielpierce@yahoo.com