The shadow moved from one side of the street to the other, paused then slinked into the courtyard where the moonlight gave light to Jenny’s silver hair as she pulled back her hood. “All clear,” Jenny whispered.
“Told you I wasn’t followed,” Garrett said to Beothen’s rolling eyes then looked back to Athan. “I’ll meet you in two days at the north edge of the Thorngrove with supplies. Sooner if I can do so without raising suspicion.”
“No, Garrett,” Athan argued. “I’ll not have you risk going against the king.”
“As if you have a say,” Garrett chortled then stared steadfastly at Athan with two fingers raised. “Two days. Don’t be late.” He turned then to Dnara, his gaze revealing worry as his words made an earnest request. “You will keep him out of trouble, won’t you?”
“I will do my best,” she said, unable to promise more with the threat of the King’s Guard looming over their backs.
“Good enough for me.” Garrett spun on his boot heel and left the courtyard without another word, cloak billowing behind, stride confident and the moon a halo around his blond head.
“Strange one, him,” Jenny muttered once the alleyway shadows had swallowed Garrett’s figure whole. “But, I think I like him.”
“You and every girl between here and the Red City,” Beothen joked. “All right, off you go.”
Jenny mounted Rupert with swift grace and held out her hand down to Dnara. “Up with me, m’lady. It’ll be faster.”
Dnara reached for Jenny’s hand but hesitated, her gaze drawn toward the town center where raised voices preceded the clang of swords. “What of Penna and Tobin?”
“I’ll see to their safety,” Beothen promised, already heading for the alley. “Come now, through the gate before the fighting reaches us!”
“This is madness,” she whispered, taking Jenny’s hand and seating herself on the saddle behind her.
“I fear this is only the beginning,” Jenny replied, then placed Dnara’s hand around her waist. “Hold tight. We’ll have to ride with the wind and shadow.”
Dnara wrapped her other arm around Jenny’s waist, clutching her hands together. The wind pressed into her back, whispering wordless urgency into her ears. “The wind is with us, at least.”
“Demroth can keep his shadow,” Jenny muttered. “Ready, forester?”
“Sorry,” Athan said to Treven before mounting the mule’s rarely used saddle. “But, desperate times...” Treven tossed his head up and down, wobbled in his steps to find balance but didn’t unseat Athan from the saddle. “Ready. We’ll part ways at the gate. Head for a knoll just east of Axe Hilt Pass and set against the mountains. It’s topped with dead trees and an abandoned watchtower. Hard to miss.”
“I know the place,” Jenny said.
“Athan,” Dnara called out to him, a fear rising from separation as the sounds of clashing anger grew closer.
“It will be all right,” Athan promised. “We must give them more than one trail to follow. I’ll be back with you by next day’s end, I swear it.”
“Come!” Beothen beckoned. “It’s now or never.”
With Beothen signaling the all-clear, they set off past a cobbled wall, following it to the north gate. Smoke rose in the distance, near the temple courtyard, the city’s dwindling fires doing nothing to stop the flames of discontent from spreading. Ahead, the gate stood open with a torch lit and held by young Mikos, his eyes wide and face pale as the moon.
“The whole town’s gone mad,” he said, voice shaking. “Stark, raving, blight-addled mad!”
Beothen jogged up, keeping pace with barely a sweat upon his brow. “That it has.” He took a round shield from the gate’s weapons rack. “Stay at the gate, lad. Any townsfolk who come, tell ‘em to head north to Axe Hilt Pass then west at the fork to the Whitehall lands near Northlake. If the king’s men make it this far, you shut the gate and barricade the tower.”
“W-what?” Mikos stammered. “But, what about you?”
Beothen slapped his broadsword against the shield, squared his shoulders and cast his gaze to the city. “I have a promise to keep.”
“You’re mad, too!” Mikos called after Beothen as the veteran soldier ran off into the night. Mikos cursed under his breath, kicking a stone from the dirt, then looked up at Dnara as she passed riding behind the former blackrope. “Can you do nothing to stop this?”
Dnara opened her mouth but didn’t know what words to speak. She could stop it, if she turned herself over to the King’s Guard. Mikos knew it as well as she did, but all she could offer in the face of his question was a pitiful apology. “I’m so sorry.”
Hope dwindled from Mikos’s eyes as the torch lowered in his hand before sputtering out into smoke and shadow. “You never should’ve come here,” he muttered to her hunched back as they passed under the spiked gate.
“I know,” she whispered and buried her face into Jenny’s cloak as Rupert jolted into a run that rivaled the wind.
Part 3
A Shadow Will Come
And Demroth, trapped beyond the veil he had so foolishly torn, did bide his time, dreaming of the downfall of man. For though he had been conquered by mighty Retgar and brave Brodan, with his last breath into Ellium did Demroth whisper a warning to Faedra.
“The children of men shall know peace,” he spoke as shadow surrounded him. “But it will be a peace that lasts only long enough for men to forget themselves and the promises they have made. Slowly, they will fall into complacency, then into corruption, and finally into despair. From their greed shall come their own undoing.
“The wind will speak and the earth shall tremble at the dream it awakens. Rot will spread, the old will outnumber the young, and the fires of men will be extinguished. A shadow will come, seeking vengeance on a kingdom built from lies,
