“Sire! Sire, give me your hand, quickly!”
Looking dazed, Michael gazed at him dully, but he held out his hand.
Aedan took his right foot from the stirrup so that Michael could use it to get up behind him. He pulled him up onto his mount and felt Michael slump against his back as he got on. He was too weary even to sheathe his blade. His left arm went around him, and Aedan sheathed his own blade, then grasped Michael’s wrist to hold him steady. Immediately, he wheeled his horse and spurred it to a gallop, heading for the portal.
“Come on!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Pull back! We’re going through!”
The others needed no encouragement. They turned and followed Aedan and the emperor, the mounted retinue pausing only long enough to allow the foot soldiers to run before them. As they passed through the portal, the ranks guarding its entrance
collapsed their V formation and went through after them. The last ones shouted to Futhark, and the halfling raised his arms to close the portal behind them.
“Wait!” Aedan shouted. “Gylvain!”
He felt a breeze ruffle his cloak, then a familiar, lilting voice spoke in his mind. “I’m here.”
“All right!” shouted Aedan. “Go on, close it!” Three more flaming corpses staggered through the portal, and the men fell on them, hacking them to pieces until there were nothing but burning body parts upon the ground.
As Aedan watched the portal close, the air folding in upon itself in surreality, the glow of the flames beyond it disappeared from view, and only the gray light of dawn remained. In fact, he thought, the troops guarding the portal had not been the only ones left on the other side.
There had been many wounded they had been forced to leave behind.
Aedan hoped the fire had gotten to the poor devils.
Burning to death was an awful way to go, but there were some things that were worse.
He heaved a long and deep sigh of relief, then looked around and realized his relief was much too premature. As the sun began to rise, he saw the thick pine forest all around them and the heavy underbrush and realized they had not reached the safety of the open plains of Diemed.
They were in the Spiderfell.
“He’s up to something, by Haelyn, I can smell it!”
said Arwyn of Boeruine, smashing his fist down on the table and upsetting is goblet. The servants rushed to mop up the spilled mead, right the heavy silver goblet, and refill it. “Why has there been no word from any of our scouts or informants?”
“There has been word, my lord,” replied Baron Derwyn calmly. He knew that when his father was in one of his surly moods, keeping a calm temper and demeanor was advisable. “Our spies reported that the emperor-“
“The Pretender, you mean,” his father interrupted, scowling.
“Indeed,” said Derwyn, agreeing indirectly, though he still could bring himself to use that detestable term. He knew the truth and would not be a hypocrite, not for his father’s sake or anyone’s.
“They have reported that Michael left Anuire with his army over a week ago, but there has been no word of him since. And our scouts along the borders have reported seeing no signs of any advancing troops.”
Arwyn gritted his teeth and shook his head.
“They’ve gone into the blasted Shadow World again,” he said. “The question is, where will they come out? And when?” He smashed his fist down on the table once again, once more spilling his mead.
The servants mopped it up again and once again refilled his goblet.
Arwyn paid no attention to them.
“Our garrisons along the border are on full alert,” said Derwyn. “And advance parties of rangers have been sent out from Taeghas, Brosengae, and Talinie, in addition to our own complement, which departed to scout the border between our lands and Alamie.
There is no way they can approach unseen.”
“Unless he figures out some way to come out of the Shadow World well within our borders,” Arwyn said. “Perhaps even on the plain outside Seaharrow, itself.”
Derwyn frowned. “I thought you said that was not possible, that they needed to employ a portal in the vicinity of Thurazor or the Five Peaks region, where the ley lines come in confluence.”
Arwyn nodded, “Yes, and for a long time, I had thought so, too.
However, our halfling scouts tell me that it is possible to create a portal where there is no confluence of ley lines, though it entails great risk and cannot be done reliably.”
“How?” asked Derwyn.
“How in bloody bollocks should I know how?”
his father replied irritably. “You try to get one of those miserable knee-whackers to explain anything and all that happens is you get lost in word salad.
They’ll answer amenably enough, but half of what they say makes no bloody sense at all! The point is, it can be done, but there is no guarantee they will be able to open up a portal when they want to, or come out where they want to.”
Derwyn shrugged. “Then it amounts to the same thing, does it not?
They cannot do it.”
“But they can try,” said Arwyn. “And however slixn, the possibility exists that they just might succeed, despite the risks.”
Derwyn leaned back in his chair, frowning thoughtfully. Yes, he thought, that was just the sort of thing Michael would do. The risk factor, no matter how significant, never seemed to bother him. It had been that way when they had played war games as children, and it was the same way now, when they made war in earnest.
As if echoing his thoughts, his father said, “I wouldn’t put it past that miserable Pretender to attempt just such a thing.”
Derwyn gave him a quick glance. His father had repeated the old lie so often,
