his bedroll under some trees. He wondered if adding ‘bold-faced liar’ to his list of dishonorable deeds would matter. Spike curled up close to him and they slept until the birds woke them just before dawn.
It didn’t take long for the Northwood to wrap itself about the castle-raised boy. The road picked and twisted its way between the forest’s edges and the foothills. The Northwood was dense and imposing, but Phen wasn’t afraid. He decided that being a lying, stealing, murdering outlaw had hardened him to fear. He told himself that, right up until the giant geka lizard, with its four zard-men riders, came scurrying down the road toward him at an unnatural clip. His heart nearly stopped and he was forced to correct his assumption. He wasn’t immune to fear.
If the zard riders wanted to do him harm, it would have been done. Phen was defenseless, save for a few spells. Loak’s ring was on his neck chain, so he couldn’t just disappear. Four well armed zard would have no trouble dispatching him. Their mount could have eaten him whole. Phen was glad when they passed without considering him. They only hissed and laughed when he and his horse ducked like terrified rabbits into the trees at the side of the road.
Later in the day, the forest grew dense. It wasn’t the thick wet jungle they’d been in on the island. It was more like the Evermore, with oaks, and elms, and a few pine trees scattered among them. The trees were full of chatty birds and the occasional squirrel or rabbit darted across the shady narrow wagon road.
Phen decided that these woods would be a good place to hunt, but he wasn’t in need of food. He wondered if Hyden or King Mikahl ever felt as he was feeling. Both had killed men to protect the realm. If this was what it felt like to be a hero, Phen wasn’t sure he wanted to be one anymore.
As the sun set, Phen was debating on stopping for the night when he caught his first glimpse of the distant lights of Castleside. It was still long hours away, and it looked like nothing more than a cluster of fireflies frozen in place from his vantage on the crest of a hill. He decided to ride on.
It was almost dawn when he rode into the outskirts of the city, and when the sun finally lit the sky he saw the silhouette of Lakeside Castle rising up out of the forested hills like a dark hulking monster. It wasn’t as big as the castle at Xwarda, or nearly as ornate. It was huge, though, with a dozen fat towers, all sporting black triangular banners with the bright yellow lightning star on them. Its crenellated towers and walls sported hundreds of armed guards moving about. The city outside its wall seemed reluctant to wake up in the ominous shadow.
One look at the great iron-banded wooden gate of the outer wall, and the dozen skeeks guarding it, told Phen that he would need Loak’s ring to get inside. After he and Spike ate up the last of the food, he threw the saddlebag over his shoulder so that Spike would have a place to ride. He put on the ring and waited patiently outside the gate for a chance to sneak through. Once again, he found himself wondering why he wasn’t afraid.
A message from Queen Willa arrived at the Red City of Dreen by bird. General Spyra quickly dispatched a rider to carry it through the Wilder Mountains to King Jarrek. The man didn’t get it there in time.
Earlier in the day, a different rider had arrived at King Jarrek’s command post on a horse that had nearly been ridden to death. That messenger said that more than two thousand Dakaneese sell-swords had overrun the men posted at Seareach. The enemy troops crossed into Wildermont and took to the hills as if they were preparing for a battle.
“Preparing to fight who?” Jarrek asked. “If they sacked Seareach then there is no one to fight save our men here, and at Low Crossing.” No one had an answer.
A few hours later, when the rider from Dreen arrived with the message from Queen Willa, Jarrek understood all too clearly. Leaving all the foot soldiers behind to watch over the freed slaves, he took the Highwander Cavalry, along with the mounted Valleyan troops, and sped south in hopes of saving the five thousand soldiers that Queen Rachel had sent through Dakahn. Ra’Gren had set a trap for them. Jarrek doubted that those men could be warned. He sent riders ahead with orders for all the men at Low Crossing to hurry south as well.
Once everything was in motion, and there was nothing left to do but ride, Jarrek thought about the strange offer he had received from the breed giant lord across the river. He didn’t have the authority to grant Lord Bzorch the city of Locar. Only King Mikahl could do that, and as much as the might of the breed giants could soon be needed to defend Wildermont, Jarrek didn’t think that Mikahl would agree to such a strange bargain. The breed giants had raped and killed their way across Westland for Queen Shaella. Mikahl wouldn’t be able to forgive or forget the atrocities they committed. Mikahl had been at the Battle of Coldfrost. Besides that, Jarrek didn’t have any idea where the High King was at the moment. Still, the ferocious man beasts would be a great ally in the inevitable war that was to come.
Even if Queen Rachel’s troops were caught in the trap, the narrow passage, where the lower Wander Mountains, and the wide sluggish flow of the Leif Greyn River came together, couldn’t be left to the Dakaneese. It was such an easily defendable bit of terrain that, even with his ragtag force, King Jarrek felt that he could defend Wildermont. Had he more men, Ra’Gren wouldn’t have dared the surprise attack. Now that Queen Rachel had finally decided to join forces with him, he might have been able to man a proper defense. If the Seaward men were slaughtered in Seareach, though, they would be back to where they were, only without control of the bottleneck. Hopefully the men could defend themselves long enough for Jarrek and his little army of Valleyans and Blackswords to get there.
As the day’s ride progressed into a moonlit dash, Jarrek wondered about the rest of Queen Willa’s missive. A little surprise from Doon was coming his way. He knew that Doon was some sort of dwarven god or underground city. He understood that she was trying to convey something to him covertly, but her meaning was lost to him.
Willa was a strange woman, but her free spirit and strong demeanor had captured Jarrek’s heart. Her beauty and elegance were things that crossed his mind frequently. He was sure she didn’t know how he felt. Once his people were freed from Dakahn, he hoped to find the chance to tell her. There was much to do before that dream could be realized, though.
Late the next afternoon, tired and hungry, Jarrek’s troop crossed the bridge at Low Crossing. They could see carrion in the dusky sky, circling to the south, so they didn’t rest the horses long. Instead they pressed on with dread building in their hearts.
They found the battle in the dark. Jarrek barely had time to don the wolf skull helmet that completed his red enameled armor before a blazing torch went hurling by his head. There were other torches, mostly on the ground, and deeper into the fray an oil keg had been smashed against a tree and set aflame. Not many fighters braved the illuminated areas for fear of the enemy archers in the hills.
Jarrek rode his horse deep into the skirmish, and despite his fatigue, he fought in a precisely controlled rage. Steel rang on steel. Men cried out in agony, while other men danced around them in the wild shadows. Every few minutes, at a different part of the battle, a torch went sailing down from the hills. Mercenary arrows would then come streaking into the illuminated area. Queen Rachel’s men, and now King Jarrek’s, would suddenly sprout quills, while the swift sell-swords would dart in with their steel then disappear.
More soldiers, uniformed Dakaneese, came up behind the Seaward force. There was no retreat. Along an alley barely half a mile wide, between the river and an up thrust of mountain, thousands and thousands of men fought savagely through the night.
The men were tired and the horses exhausted, but they battled anyway. When dawn finally broke Jarrek was still darting his horse into the Dakaneese ranks hacking and slashing fervently. Seawardsmen and Dakaneese sell- swords lay dead or dying everywhere. The uniformed soldiers, Jarrek saw, were mounted city guard from O’Dakahn. They pushed hard, trampling the bodies under their mounts. By midday, the surviving Seawardsmen, and what was left of Jarrek’s group, had been pushed back over the bridge at Low Crossing. The Dakaneese seemed content to stop there. It was obvious why. They now held the passage. The bottleneck was behind them. Maybe fifteen hundred of Queen Rachel’s five thousand men had been saved, but the single most important piece of land in the realm had been lost. Defending Wildermont from a full Dakaneese invasion would be all but impossible now.
Jarrek decided that, since this was now all-out war, he would promise the breed giants Locar in the High King’s name. If Mikahl didn’t back him, he would give them a piece of Wildermont instead. It would take a long time to get more men from Valleya, much less Highwander or Seaward. If they didn’t force the Dakaneese back beyond the bottleneck before they fortified the position, Wildermont was lost.
Jarrek handpicked an escort, commandeered the freshest of the horses, and rode with haste back to Castlemont. He would bargain with this Lord Bzorch. If the savage breed beasts were willing to fight for
