Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (read me like a book txt) 📕

conspiratorial whisper, “If he’d told you to go left and he should have sent you right, I could see that Lokkemand might have the decency to apologize, but this isn’t that sort of situation.”

Milo had put away a few more bites and was raising his spoon for another when he paused and looked at Ambrose over the steaming lump before him.

“What sort of situation is this?” he asked before taking in the bite.

Ambrose battered the contents of his bowl a little more before pushing it to the side to tap the table with one thick finger.

“He excused your disrespect and your flouting of the hierarchy,” he hissed, leaning so far forward his thick, muscle-banded stomach pressed the table edge. “Officers born and bred with blue blood in their veins and iron in their souls don’t do that. Hierarchy defines them.”

Milo swallowed his bite and looked at Rihyani for support.

The fey had eaten only half a bowl of the stew before handing it to Milo, and since then had been puffing lightly on her cigarillo, not saying much but listening intently.

Seeing Milo’s look, she let out a long ribbon of smoke, then glanced at the bodyguard.

“I’m with Milo on this one, Ambrose,” she said with a helpless shrug. “I think Jorge is the sort to see the value of an officer who is strong and resolute, yet humble and mentally flexible enough to see where he’s wrong.”

Milo, munching happily, turned to Ambrose with a smug smile, but he stopped smiling when he saw the veins grow thick and ropy at Ambrose’s temples as his face reddened.

“But he’s not wrong, and that’s the point!” Ambrose growled, his teeth working the words between his clenched jaws. “Fact is, from a military standpoint, we were repeatedly insubordinate, and if anyone apologizes, it should be us, which is why this doesn't make any sense!”

Milo resignedly put down his spoon and raised his hands to squeeze his temples. He had begun to rally around the food in his belly, but now it only made him feel sluggish and uncomfortably dense as he sat staring at Ambrose.

“I’m not sure what you are getting at,” he said slowly, spreading his hands out before Ambrose as though waiting for a gift. “What doesn’t make any sense?”

Ambrose opened his mouth, teeth bared, but promptly shut it and took a steadying breath. When he began again, his voice was noticeably lower and slower.

“Lokkemand could apologize for giving you a bad order or bad command,” Ambrose said, each word measured carefully. “Any good officer could and would do that.”

“Okay,” Milo said, rotating his open hands to signal Ambrose to continue.

“What Lokkemand would never do is excuse or be apologetic about you not following orders,” Ambrose said, the words coming out even heavier and slower than before. “Soldiers follow orders, even bad ones, and Lokkemand would never, ever accept or apologize for not understanding our insubordination. There is no way he believes that hog spit about ‘unique perspectives on authority.’”

“Why say it, then?” Rihyani asked, tapping ash into her empty bowl. “He didn’t have to say any of it, so why did he?”

Ambrose rocked back and shrugged his shoulders.

“I haven’t a clue.” He sighed and dragged his bowl back in front of him. “That’s part of what’s eating at me.”

Milo took up his bowl but found himself twirling the spoon between his fingers as he digested more than several helpings of meat.

“He didn’t have to say it, but he did,” he began, eyes focusing on the middle distance. “And he didn’t mean what he said, but he said it trying to sound genuine. That all adds up to one thing, doesn’t it?”

Ambrose and Rihyani looked at each other and then at Milo, bemusement stamped on their oddly juxtaposed features.

“What?” they asked in unison.

“He’s trying to manipulate us to get us to trust him, maybe even let our guard down?”

Ambrose’s mouth became a grim line barely visible beneath his mustache, while Rihyani’s eyes narrowed, golden pupils flashing.

“Why would he do that?” she asked with the barest hint of a feline snarl in her throat.

Milo shrugged as he dug up another hearty spoonful and held it before him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted slowly as he considered. “But regardless, we can’t let our guard down.”

He suddenly didn’t feel quite so enamored with the meal, though intellectually he knew it was a fine culinary creation. He’d lost his enthusiasm, but he eyed the bite and the rest of the bowl with determination. He took the bite with gusto, ripping flesh between his teeth.

“We can’t afford to trust,” Milo stated as he swallowed and looked doggedly at his bowl. “With the Shepherds and the Reich, there’s too much at stake.”

He was going to finish the whole thing. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

10

These Fragments

The Russians who had surrendered to them on the road were probably wishing they’d reconsidered their options.

At least Milo would have felt that way if he were them, naked and bound to chairs hand and foot, shivering in a tent stinking of fear and urine.

After a night’s rest, Rihyani had stated she would take stock of the area using her fey wiles, which left Milo and Ambrose to see to the prisoners.

Both men felt their eyes watering as they stepped into the cloud of stink, but that was nothing compared to the hard knot that formed in their chests at the pathetic sight. Milo was unfamiliar with the vagaries of war, but the scene turned his stomach, and he was certain that something was wrong.

Ambrose wasn’t nearly so ambivalent.

“These are prisoners of war,” Ambrose snarled to the soldiers standing guard. “Soldiers of enemy armies are to be treated according to the Hague Conventions.”

The guard frowned and looked past Ambrose at the prisoners, his lip curling.

“What does the Hague say about bandits?” the guard shot back. “Or murderers and rapists?”

Ambrose looked at the men sniffling and quaking on the chairs.

“What do you mean?”

The soldier’s eyes were chips of ice in