“To justice, and to the Outlands!” came the enthusiastic reply.
“We will all depart at the same hour,” Vartan told them, “that the element of surprise work against all our enemies. Make certain none escape you to warn the last two villages.”
In the hour before the dawn the clan families were assembled and slowly moved out, the Fiacre in one direction, the Aghy in another, and so forth. Within a very short time Lara could see no one but those with whom she rode. She reached down and caught her crystal star between her thumb and first finger. Her heart beat very rapidly, and her belly was filled with cramps that rolled rhythmically through it like a melody.
They rode through the autumn Forest. The sky above them was beginning to lighten, but they could see that the day would be a grey one without the warmth of the sun on their backs. Petruso rode with them, for their objective was one of the three Piaras villages. Suddenly the now-silent chieftain raised his hand, calling for a stop. He turned to Vartan and pointed through the bare trees. Vartan moved his horse slowly through the thinning woodlands, and saw they were atop a small hill. Below them lay the village.
It was silent, which the Fiacre chieftain thought odd. Though early, it still should have been bustling with the activity of a new day. His blue eyes carefully scanned the settlement, and then he saw it. In the center of the village square. A large farm cart piled high with bodies. A shudder shook his large frame. Had they been betrayed? Were the bodies those of the villagers? He backed his horse up to where Petruso, Lara and Liam awaited him.
“There is a wagon in the square filled with dead,” he told them.
Petruso grew pale. He pointed to himself several times vigorously.
Vartan understood, and shook his head. “I don’t know. Have we been betrayed? And if so, by whom?”
“Nay!” Lara said suddenly. “Ethne told me to fight well this day, but then she qualified it by saying, if need be. When I asked her what she meant she said I should see. We must go into the village at once! I think Petruso’s people, made brave by the songs of the Devyn last night, have slain their captors. They hide now, awaiting the arrival of their saviors, but still in fear of the mercenaries.”
Vartan nodded. “She is right,” he agreed. He raised his hand to signal his troops. “Forward!” he called to them, and, his wife at his side, led the forces of the Fiacre down the hill into the village.
Petruso was off his mount almost immediately. He ran to the cart, examined its contents, and then began to laugh, waving his sword into the air with glee.
“People of the village,” Vartan called out, “your lord Petruso has come home to free you. This day you shall rejoice! Come forth, and welcome your lord home!”
For the longest moment all was quiet, and then a door opened, and another, and another as the people of the village poured forth to greet their saviors. Petruso began to weep both with happiness and with sadness as they came forth. The villagers were as gaunt as wraiths, their cheeks hollow, their eyes sorrowful, but they stumbled from their dwellings crying joyfully, surrounding Petruso, touching him, kissing his hands.
“Where is the Devyn bard?” Vartan called over the noisy greetings.
“Here, my lord.” A tall, slender man, a harp upon his back, came forward. “I am Adrik of the Devyn,” he said, bowing politely to the lord of the Fiacre.
“What happened here?” Vartan asked.
“I came as I was instructed. The Hetarians were surprised to see me until I explained I was a bard, a singer of songs, a teller of tales who traveled the Outlands. As they seem to have a similar tradition, they were not suspicious of me. I suggested they allow me to perform for their workers, pretending I thought all here was as it should be. They agreed, and a great fire was made, and set ablaze in the village square. The workers crowded about the fences penning them in. The mercenaries came with the women of the village, making a great show of fondling and kissing them before their husbands and sons, who were helpless to do anything other than look away. And so I first explained to the Hetarians each song I would sing before I sang it. Then I would sing in our ancient language not the song, but the message we had agreed upon. I warned the listeners not to reveal their joy before their captors, lest the mercenaries realize I was not telling them ancient tales of the Outlands. And while I sang the faeries whispered in the ears of the leaders the names of the traitors so that they might kill them.
“In the night the village men broke out of their enclosure quietly, killing any mercenary in their path. They entered their houses one by one and killed the intruders there. When they reached the cottage where I was housed, I explained to them that one must be left alive to drive the cart of dead bodies from each village back to the City as a warning. And so one mercenary in that last cottage was spared. They have imprisoned him in the cellar.” Adrik the Devyn bard bowed with the conclusion of his tale.
Petruso’s eyes shone with pride at the story. He tried to speak, but only grunts and garbled sounds emerged. He wept with his frustration.
Lara laid a comforting hand upon his shoulder. “I believe I know what you would say, my lord. Will you permit me to speak for you?”
Petruso nodded eagerly and, taking Lara’s hands in his, kissed them in thanks.
“Be silent,” Vartan’s voice boomed. “Lara, daughter of Swiftsword, wife to Vartan, chief of the Fiacre, will speak to you in the lord Petruso’s name. Heed her voice!” His fierce glance swept the square, and all its inhabitants.
Seated upon her stallion, Dasras, Lara look out over the crowd, and began to speak. “Lord Petruso would have you know how glad he is to be among you again. He regrets the sorrow you were caused by being told of his death. This lie was perpetrated by his pursuers who, when they could not capture him, deceived their masters rather than admit the truth. It has been to our advantage that they did, however, for in their arrogance the enemy posted no sentries.
“He escaped with Lord Imre of the Tormod and several others, in order to reach the Gathering that they might gain the aid of their fellow clan families. And so we have come. The Fiacre, the Aghy, the Blathma, the Felan, the Gitta and the Devyn are all here to free the Piaras and the Tormod. To force Hetar to honor the treaty signed so long ago between us. We will not relent until the mercenaries are sent from our lands, never to return.” Lara looked to Petruso as Dasras moved restlessly beneath her.
The lord of the Piaras nodded, and then he kissed Lara’s hands again.
She smiled a radiant smile at him, and then turned to her husband. “Will you tell them of our plans, my lord?”
“As we stand here in your village square,” Vartan’s voice boomed, “the other villages in the Tormod and Piaras are now being retaken, but for two. That is why no mercenary can be allowed to escape. Tomorrow we will strike at Fulksburg, the lord Imre’s own village, to take it back. Restore your lives as best you can. Where is your headman? He must regain his position as we need to move on to Fulksburg.”
“The headman was killed by the mercenaries,” a voice in the crowd said.
“Then it is your duty to choose another before the sun sets,” Vartan counseled them. “Your village cannot remain without a governor. We leave you now, for we take Fulksburg tomorrow.” He turned to Petruso. “Will you remain?”
The chief of the Piaras shook his head vigorously in the negative.
Vartan smiled. “I thought not. You would be with us to the end, eh, Petruso?” And Vartan laughed heartily. “If I were you I would want to be here, too.”
They rode on now, following the trail on the map marked with their clan color, arriving at the Singing Caves by early afternoon. The caves were so named for when the winds swept through them it sounded as if a choir was singing, the winds from different directions each sounding quite different. The other clan families were already awaiting them, and all had the same tale to tell. The villages they had been assigned to storm had either already been retaken by their inhabitants, made brave by the knowledge the Devyn imparted, or the villages had risen up in revolt when their saviors had entered them ready for battle. There had been no deaths among any of the clan families, but there were minor injuries.
Imre’s own village, Fulksburg, would not be so easy, for it was larger, as was Quartum, Petruso’s home village.
“Which is the softer target?” Vartan asked Imre and Petruso as they sat in council after the evening meal. “We
