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Eagle in Exile (Clash of Eagles Trilogy, 2) - Hardcover

Buch 2 von 3: The Clash of Eagles Trilogy

Smale, Alan

 
9780804177245: Eagle in Exile (Clash of Eagles Trilogy, 2)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0804177244 ISBN 13: 9780804177245
Verlag: DELREY TRADE, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Steve Berry, Naomi Novik, and Harry Turtledove, Alan Smale’s gripping alternate history series imagines a world in which the Roman Empire has survived long enough to invade North America in 1218. Now the stunning story carries hero Gaius Marcellinus deeper into the culture of an extraordinary people—whose humanity, bravery, love, and ingenuity forever change his life and destiny.
 
In A.D. 1218, Praetor Gaius Marcellinus is ordered to conquer North America and turning it into a Roman province. But outside the walls of the great city of Cahokia, his legion is destroyed outright; Marcellinus is the only one spared. In the months and years that follow, Marcellinus comes to see North America as his home and the Cahokians as his kin. He vows to defend these proud people from any threat, Roman or native.
 
After successfully repelling an invasion by the fearsome Iroqua tribes, Marcellinus realizes that a weak and fractured North America won’t stand a chance against the returning Roman army. Worse, rival factions from within threaten to tear Cahokia apart just when it needs to be most united and strong. Marcellinus is determined to save the civilization that has come to mean more to him than the empire he once served. But to survive the swords of Roma, he first must avert another Iroqua attack and bring Cahokia together. Only with the hearts and souls of a nation at his back can Marcellinus hope to know triumph.

Praise for Alan Smale and Eagle in Exile
 
“In Alan Smale, speculative fiction has been dealt a winning hand. Part historian, part anthropologist, part scientist, Smale is a Renaissance man with a storyteller’s gift for letting tireless research inform the narrative without overwhelming it. Smale entertains, educates, and enraptures.”—Myke Cole, author of Javelin Rain
 
“[Eagle in Exile] has the pace and scope of a Michener or Uris epic. . . . Smale’s action scenes slash across page after page, intense and bloody. . . . Grab your dagger and sword, for the battle continues.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Warfare, political conflict, family strife—these are all presented in an epic scope where any decision or wrong move can forever change society.”—Tech Times
 
“Thoroughly believable . . . Marcellinus is a complicated man, a hero we can all get behind.”—Historical Novels Review

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alan Smale grew up in Yorkshire, England, and now lives in the Washington, D.C., area. By day he works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a professional astronomer, studying black holes, neutron stars, and other bizarre celestial objects. However, too many family vacations at Hadrian’s Wall in his formative years plus a couple of degrees from Oxford took their toll, steering his writing toward alternate, secret, and generally twisted history. He has sold numerous short stories to magazines including Asimov’s and Realms of Fantasy, and he won the 2010 Sidewise Award for Best Short-Form Alternate History.

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Chapter 1

Year Three, Thunder Moon

The sky was overcast, the air thick with humidity. The Iroqua captives sweated in their corral in the East Plaza, with the Great Mound and the Mound of the Smoke looming over them on either side. They had been imprisoned there for many weeks in all kinds of weather, with no shelter and minimal food. Water was provided twice daily from a single well-guarded jar. They could drink only as much as their cupped hands would hold.

Marcellinus had seen his fair share of suffering but rarely such extended neglect. Even the slave pens in the ports of Europa and Aethiopia had roofs and reasonably plentiful fodder, but slaves had resale value, and these braves had none.

Cahokian Wolf Warriors ringed the corral. There would be no breakouts or rescue attempts, and even if the gates were opened, the captives would be too weak to run.

These were Cahokia’s sworn enemies, brought as low as men could get. This was the fate the rest of the Iroqua nation would face if Great Sun Man could bring it about.

Marcellinus had little sympathy for the prisoners. Any of these men would have delighted in butchering him and the people he cared about, hacking off their scalps to wear on their belts. On the basis of the atrocities committed by Iroqua war parties in the upland villages, he had no doubt that Cahokians in an Iroqua corral would fare even worse. But he did think it was a waste.

Absently, he fingered the golden amulet that Enopay had found for him. He had turned it over and over in his hands so often over the last several weeks that the image of the Hawk warrior incised on its flat surface was beginning to wear down.

If Cahokia had gold and the Iroqua wanted it, the Mourning War would be comprehensible. But it did not. And if the Iroqua had wanted Cahokian women, they would have taken them after the battle. They had taken a few, but it was obviously not the prime reason for their attack.

Revenge was the only motivation left. But really, revenge for what? Where could such unreasoning hatred have come from?

Marcellinus had been standing for some time before he noticed that he was not alone. Just a hundred feet away stood Pezi, who was also staring at the prisoners.

Deep in his own reverie, Pezi jumped when Marcellinus arrived at his side. Marcellinus had not seen the word slave from Etowah since the previous winter.

Embarrassingly, Pezi fell to his knees. “Wanageeska!”

Marcellinus had forgotten how abject a creature the boy was. “Gods’ sakes, Pezi, stand up and pretend to be a man.”

Pezi stood, eyes still downcast. He had grown an inch or two, and wisps of new hair adorned his chin and cheeks.

“Where were you during the battle, Pezi?”

“I fight for Cahokia,” Pezi said.

Marcellinus regarded him calmly. “Who saw you fight?”

Pezi hesitated. “No. I hide down in a grain pit, under a house. I am not good to fight.”

“Again?” Such a pit was where they originally had found Pezi, in the mound-builder town of Woshakee up the Oyo River.

Pezi was taller and probably stronger than Tahtay, who had valiantly tried to fight and had suffered a terrible injury to his leg in the attempt. Marcellinus swallowed. “What do they want, Pezi?”

“Who?”

Marcellinus waved at the prisoners.

Pezi shook his head. “To die quickly, I think.”

“All the Iroqua. They want Cahokia destroyed, the Mizipian people scattered, scalped, or buried in the earth? Or do they want something else?”

“I do not know.”

“Then let’s ask them.”

Grabbing the boy’s arm, he began to walk forward. Pezi resisted, standing his ground. “No!”

“You still speak Iroqua?”

“Of course. But you will learn nothing from those men. Even if they have anything to tell, they will not tell you.”

“You know the Iroqua,” Marcellinus said bluntly. “You speak their language. And here they are, attacking Cahokia. But really, Pezi, why? For Cahokian land? Cahokian corn and women? Access to the Mizipi? Roman weapons? I don’t think that’s all of it. I really don’t.”

“I do not know.”

Marcellinus loomed over the boy and held his gaze. “You understand your life belongs to me?”

“Yes.”

“And you know I can have you put in there—” He indicated the corral. “—with just a single word?”

Pezi gave a little whimper.

“I’ve lost my legion and most of the friends I once had here. I have very little left to lose, Pezi. And you would not be the first translator I’ve killed for talking out of both sides of his mouth. So tell me the truth before I lose patience. What do you know?”

“The Iroqua fear Cahokia,” said the boy. “There was war in the past. Many Iroqua raids and Cahokian raids. Now, with you here, the Iroqua fear that the People of the Mounds will come and kill them all. So they must strike first.”

“Nonsense.”

“Yes. Haudenosaunee lands and lakes are small, and the Cahokian and mound-builder rivers are long. And now Cahokia rules the air. What else can the Iroqua do?”

Just what Marcellinus had thought when he saw Sintikala’s great map of Nova Hesperia. But hearing the words from Pezi’s mouth made him resist the idea. “Cahokians do not want Iroqua lands. What threat is there to the Iroqua from mound builders? Will Cahokians force Iroqua to build mounds? No. What reason is that to attack mound-builder villages and towns and wage war on Cahokia itself?”

Pezi looked away. “As you say.”

If Cahokia were Roma, the threat to neighboring lands would be obvious. But Great Sun Man was not an Imperator, and surely the Iroqua lands had nothing that Cahokia could possibly want.

“Pezi, how did the Mourning War start between Iroqua and Cahokia?”

“Because of you, making Cahokia stronger.”

“No. Long before me. Generations ago. Was it because the Iroqua wanted Cahokian women?”

Pezi paused. “Long past, many lives ago, this city was not here.”

“And before? Did the Iroqua live here?”

The boy laughed scornfully. “By this big greasy river that bursts its banks every spring? The Iroqua would not live here. But on the Oyo, the Iroqua were strong. Then came Cahokia, and then the Oyo belonged to the mound builders, too, and the Iroqua had only the lakes.”

Marcellinus thought about it. “Pezi, the time may come when I will ask something of you. It will be just one thing, but you must do it. Afterward you will owe me nothing. Your life will be your own. But if you do not do what I ask, the whole of this land will not be big enough for you to hide from me. Do you understand?”

Pezi was already pale and shaking. “What must I do?”

Marcellinus released the boy. “When I am ready, I will tell you.”

“I am looking for Wachiwi,” Marcellinus said.

The warrior Takoda sat cross-legged on the ground. His left arm cradled Ciqala, his son of two winters; his right arm was splinted and heavily bandaged from the wounds he had received protecting Marcellinus in battle. From the other side of the fire his wife, Kangee, made a wordless grunt of disgust. Their newborn, whose name Marcellinus did not know, lay sleeping in a cradleboard on Kangee’s back as she built the fire.

If it had been only Takoda, Marcellinus might have explained. But he did not really care what...

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Verlag
DELREY TRADE
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0804177244
ISBN 13 
9780804177245
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
576
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Del Rey
https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/publishers/cornerstone/del-rey-uk

Attn: Andrea T Sheridan 1745 BROADWAY, 14-1
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