She heard the ‘burden’ approaching before she caught sight of it. Men in armor riding atop equally armored horses make quite the racket, even when traversing slowly over brush covered ground. She counted six soldiers, all with swords at their hips and capes bearing the Red Keep’s sigil draped from their shoulder plates. One rider at the rear and one in the front carried torches to light the deepening darkness within the thicket. In front of the six rode a man who was not just a soldier, but the King’s Sword himself, Aldric, and he rode atop a massive dark brown horse that made those horses behind it look like mere ponies. While the other horses gingerly stepped over each stone and hesitated at the slightest thorn prick, Aldric’s horse moved confidently onward, steadfastly following Aldric’s skillful instruction from rein and stirrup.
After watching them pass, Dnara took in a deep breath to steel her nerves then quietly backtracked to circle around in front of them. Finding a clearing ahead of their path, she sat down on a moss covered stone, brushed away the twigs and thistles from her skirt and waited with her hands cradling the everbright lantern in her lap. It didn’t take long for the clanging of armor to reach her, and her heartbeat pounded along with the sound of it.
The large armored head of Aldric’s stallion was the first to breach the thicket surrounding the small clearing centered by the boulder on which she sat. The horse gave a small snort of alert to his rider but did not hesitate in closing the gap of space between the cover of the trees and her stone seat. When Aldric’s red-plumed helmet ducked past the last branch, he spotted Dnara and gave a three-noted whistle to the men behind him. At this command, the men entered the clearing in a half-circle formation and dismounted as Aldric’s horse stopped in front of her. The last two men circled all the way around, checking the woods for others then lowing two sharp pikes downwards to her back.
Dnara focused on her breathing, not flinching nor giving into the urge to flee these large men and their sharp weapons. Clutching the lantern with anxious fingers, she lifted her chin and met Aldric’s dark blue eyes. Like before in the alleyway, she was shocked by his age; closer to her age than Athan’s now that she could get a proper look at him. Perhaps just on the cusp of his twentieth season, barely having earned a beard but holding the full attention and support of soldiers more seasoned than he. They waited for his command, unquestioningly, as he sat silently upon his horse looking down at the unidentified woman seated upon an earthen throne and illuminated by the small moon within her hands.
Without a word spoken, he dismounted his horse, his heavy boots hitting the loamy ground with a shifting clink from their rows of metal plating that flexed as he moved. His whole armor moved in this way, like a dragon, with scales and plates shifting through light and shadow, clashing and clanking like the prelude to battle. As he stepped closer, she craned her neck back to take in a man whose size matched that of his giant horse. He stood close to seven feet, and broader than the cedars surrounding them. The large shadow he cast sent a shiver up her spine, but she made no move to stand nor acknowledge the pikes pointed at her back.
He peered down at her from under a visored helmet, its red feathered plume tugged at by the wind. The tip of the plume danced near his cheek and he raised a gauntleted hand to bat it away. The wind’s playful tease of such an imposing man nearly made her laugh and lightened her fears. He caught her amusement and lifted one dark eyebrow at her as she sat on the stone, surrounded by armored soldiers but on the cusp of laughter like a woman who’d gone blightmad.
“I am Aldric, First Commander of the King’s Guard and loyal servant of his majesty King Lelandis Eldramoore,” Aldric stated, to which all the soldiers beat a fist upon their heart with a metallic clatter before speaking in unison, “May Faedra forever bless his crown!”
Dnara’s spine straightened with the echoing cacophony, but again she struggled to keep a stoic face at the way they all spoke in unison like a well-rehearsed choir. What could she say to such an introduction? She had no title to boast nor loyalty to a king she’d first heard of only a short time ago. Although, it hadn’t sounded like a boast from Aldric; more of a statement of fact, as if he’d said it a hundred times over and stood unwaveringly behind each word no matter if they were spoken to a crowd or a single girl sitting on a boulder in the middle of the woods. There was honor there, she inferred, and duty.
When it became clear he awaited her to respond in kind, she said, “My name is Dnara, and I am the mageborne you seek.”
The small clearing rang with the sound of swords leaving their scabbards, and sharp steel pointed at her as four of the six soldiers moved in closer. Aldric didn’t draw his sword but held up a tight fist. The men immediately backed off three paces, except for the two still wielding pikes at her back. Swords at the ready, the men were tense and expecting combat, but Aldric remained as unwavering as his statement of loyalty or the heavy stone on which she sat.
“Is that so?” Aldric said. “You don’t look like a mageborne who could break a man and toss him into a
