“Warlord,” Sage repeated, and he remembered that final battle with Zhoh, what the Phrenorian warrior had told him about them being more alike than Sage wanted to admit. He wasn’t comfortable with the title then, and not now. It came with too much blood, too much loss, and too much selfishness on his part.
“Yes,” Kiwanuka said. “Jahup has told the story of Zhoh calling you that a lot. After the way you fought for the Makaum people, that’s how they refer to you, only in their language. I think Quass Leghef had a hand in that. And I’m sure Noojin and Jahup pushed it along.”
Sage didn’t care for it and wondered if there was a way to make it go away. “Warlord sounds a tad ostentatious, don’t you think?”
“Master sergeant isn’t in the Makaum vocabulary. If you don’t like it, you can let them know.” Kiwanuka shrugged. “Or maybe it will go away all on its own.”
Sage doubted that. Stories had a way of insisting on being told. But maybe one day it wouldn’t bother him so much.
Across the street, the Seabee engineer was already shooting the second floor. The plascrete gleamed in the bright afternoon air.
All his adult life, he’d jumped around space, spending short amounts of time in different systems, always chasing the war. Before that, he’d been a military brat after Sombra de la Montaña. The idea of settling down in one place had seemed foreign to him.
But now he knew he didn’t like the idea of leaving Makaum. Not when there was so much work to do and he was living with the people who deserved it.
“I’ll talk to Halladay,” Sage said.
“Good.” Kiwanuka leaned across the table and kissed him this time.
The kids laughed and pointed again, their mouths stained with chocolate.
“Get a move on, Master Sergeant,” Kiwanuka said. “Finish your jasulild noodles and let’s find something to do with the rest of this free afternoon. We’re not going to get many of them.”
Sage knew that. But he knew they’d make the most of the ones they got.
Acknowledgments
To David Pomerico and Kelly Lonesome, editors who stood by me.
To Ethan Ellenberg, my agent, who has always been there.
To my son, Chandler, who came up with the name for the world in the beginning.
To you steadfast fans, who wouldn’t give up on the trilogy while I was being reconstructed.
About the Author
MEL ODOM is the bestselling author of Master Sergeant, Guerilla, and many film and computer game tie-ins, including Forgotten Realms, Mack Bolan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel. He won the prestigious Alex Award for his YA fantasy novel The Rover. He currently lives in Oklahoma.
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By Mel Odom
The Makaum War
Master Sergeant: Book One
Guerilla: Book Two
Warlord: Book Three
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
warlord. Copyright © 2020 by Mel Odom. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-228454-9
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-228453-2
Cover design by Amy Halperin
Cover illustration © Gregory Bridges
Harper Voyager and the Harper Voyager logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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