Read War Maid's Choice-ARC for Free Online

dirty job, but someone has to do it. Hirahim only knows what would happen to him if I weren’t there to pull him out again!”
    “A fine dam, I’m thinking,” Bahzell murmured, and Chanharsa laughed.
    “You two deserve each other,” she declared. “ I , on the other hand, deserve a glass of good wine and a hot bath for my labors.”
    “And so you do,” Bahzell agreed as Walsharno came over to join them.
    Coursers, by and large, were only mildly curious about how the Races of Man, with the clever hands they themselves had been denied, accomplished all the things they seemed to find with which to occupy themselves. Those of them who bonded with human—or, in one highly unusual case, with hradani—riders tended to be more curious than others, but even Walsharno was more interested in results than processes. He looked down into the flowing water for a moment, then turned his head to Bahzell. The Horse Stealer looked back at him, listening to a voice only he could hear, then nodded.
    “Walsharno’s a suggestion,” he told Chanharsa.
    “He does?”
    “Aye,” Bahzell said simply, and then he picked her up like an infant and set her neatly on Walsharno’s saddle.
    The sarthnaisk gave a little squeak of astonishment and clutched at the saddle horn as she suddenly found herself perched more than twice her own height above the tunnel floor. A saddle sized for someone of Bahzell’s dimensions was a very substantial seat for someone her size, however. In fact, it was almost large enough to serve her as a sofa as she sat sidesaddle on the courser’s back.
    The armsman who’d frowned at her exchange with the hradani took a quick step towards them, then stopped as Chanharsa relaxed and her face blossomed into a huge smile. However happy she might have been, he obviously wasn’t at all pleased about having his charge on the back of such a monstrously tall mount. Even a small horse was huge for a dwarf, and a courser was anything but small. On the other hand, very few people were foolish enough to argue with a courser...and the coursers honored even fewer people by agreeing to bear them.
    “I’d not be fretting about it too much,” Bahzell told the armsman with a sympathetic smile. “Walsharno’s not one for letting folk fall off his back. Why, look at what he’s put up with from me! And your lady’s the right of it; she is after deserving that hot bath of hers, so what say we be getting her to it?”

Chapter Two
    “Nobody better get between me and the hot tub tonight. That’s all I’ve got to say.” Garlahna Lorhanalfressa wiped sweat from her forehead with one muddy hand and glowered up at the sun. “Or the cold tub, either.”
    “Oh?” Erlis Rahnafressa glanced across at her. “And just what makes you think you get priority over me? I believe the phrase is ‘Rank hath its privileges.’”
    The commander of three hundred was a tough, sturdy looking woman, almost twice Garlahana’s age. Her fair hair was lightly streaked with gray, and she possessed an interesting collection of scars and only one arm. She was also the second in command of the Kalatha City Guard, and her brown eyes missed very little, even when they gleamed with amusement.
    “Besides,” she continued, “my bones, not to mention other portions of my anatomy, are older than yours. They’re going to need longer to soak, and you uppity youngsters have to learn to respect your elders.”
    “Goddess!” Garlahna shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re actually going to stand there—well, sit there, I suppose—and pile two platitudes on me at a time!”
    “That’s ‘two platitudes at a time, Ma’am ,’” Erlis said. Military duty was the only place war maids used that particular form of address with one another, and the three hundred’s smile grew broader as Garlahana rolled her eyes. “And we only get to argue about it if we win. Not that there’s going to be any argument, of course.”
    “Tyrant,” Garlahna muttered.