The Wasteland Soldier, Book 3, Drums Of War (TWS) by Laurence Moore Page A

only if you’re overwhelmed.”
    She studied the two of them.
    “Clarissa,” she said. “My niece was called Clarissa. She was only eleven … she was murdered.”
    “What happened?” asked Nuria.
    She told them, spitting out the words rapid and bitter, choking back the loss, fists clenched with hate. The child had died of a sickness, a terrible sickness that raged within the broken city of Mosscar, a parting gift from the Ancients.
    “The Holy House tells us the Lord restored Ennpithia but left the sickness as a reminder that we do not attempt to rebuild the past. Mosscar is the only place like it in Ennpithia.”
    One morning Clarissa rode out to the city, a confident and capable rider. She never told anyone she was leaving or why she went there. She took no supplies and no weapons.
    “It was more than a day before she returned. She was shivering, vomiting, skin red and blistered.”
    “Did she say anything?”
    “She was delirious. She … she died in agony.” Quinn stared. There was only the sound of the wind. “My brother, Daniel, blamed the Holy House for not protecting her. He was so angry.” She stepped into the garden, placed her hand against the wall of the cottage. “He had prayed all his life. You see our mother was very … devoted . It was the cross before anything. Daniel couldn’t come to terms with losing Clarissa. He tried to burn the Holy House to the ground. In the end, he was so drunk he set fire to himself. Jeremy, up there on the hill, is going to look after him whilst I go into Mosscar to get the truth.”
    “There are ruins in the east of Gallen where sickness clings to the buildings,” said Stone, sombrely. “There is no way to survive it. You’ll die like your niece.”
    “You sound like Jeremy,” said Quinn. “But I’m not stupid. I will have something that can help me. A piece of Ancient tech. This is why I need you to work for Benny. He’s been good to me and I’ve worked with him for a long time. I should only be gone a week or so. Maybe not even that.”
    She looked at them evenly.
    “You have forbidden weapons. I will have forbidden tech. We could all hang for it. We are bound to each other by deception.”
    “You said Clarissa was murdered,” said Nuria, leaving the words hanging.
    “She was murdered.”
    Quinn’s face grew dark.
    “Ask yourself why a sensible eleven year old girl rides into a deserted city knowing it will kill her?”
    Stone nodded. “She doesn’t.”
    “Someone manipulated her or took her there against her will. Someone who knows how to survive the sickness.”
     
     
     
    Brian set down his wheelbarrow, arched his shirtless back and let out an exaggerated yawn.
    He was nearly twenty years old with a ragged and patchy beard that crawled around his narrow face. It wouldn’t grow right and he was conscious of it all the time, forever tugging or fingering it during conversation. It really looked as if he had gathered locks of shorn hair and stuck them to his annoyingly youthful skin. He had once cracked a man’s head open for poking fun at his beard. Bertram had barred him from the inn but thankfully not reported the attack to the Churchmen. The man had been passing through and left the following morning, bloodied scalp wrapped in linen. Brian now picked up his drink from Antolly, who brewed his own and charged less.
    He went to the well, cranked the handle and raised the bucket. Clear water sloshed over the rim. He drank, gulping it down, and then poured the rest over his sweat covered face and torso.
    Soaked, his beard looked even worse, like a half-drowned rodent festering beneath his nose.
    “Fuck, it’s getting hot,” he said, loosening the scarf around his throat and squeezing his crotch.
    Jeremy, loitering a few feet away, said nothing. His vision was fixed on Quinn’s cottage at the bottom of the low hill.
    “Really getting hot.”
    He leaned back against the well, dark eyes scowling at the bustling village. He squeezed himself