shocked as he felt. This only served to further Mikahl’s sense of disbelief at what he was seeing and hearing. This was the forest that Vaegon called home. Nothing in it should surprise him. But this did.
“Let him go!” Hyden ordered Talon aloud.
The hawkling obeyed, but only stepped back off of the little man. Talon kept behind him, ready to snatch him back up, should he try to make a run for it.
The little guy stood up, and dusted his britches off indignantly. They were a faded green color, as was his vest. The garments looked to be made from frog skin, or maybe leaf lizard hide. On his tiny feet, were leather sandals, and his hair and beard were gray and neatly trimmed.
“Who? What are you?” asked Hyden.
“I’m minding my own business, is who I am!” He chirped back angrily. “What’s a sorry lot like you bothering with peaceful folk out here anyway?”
“Sorry lot!” Mikahl shot, as he sat up and loomed in on the little man.
The little man pointed at Vaegon first.
“An elf, who can’t see straight, and a wizard, who can’t read.”
His finger had moved to Hyden. Then he pointed at Mikahl.
“And what’s this? A king with no kingdom!” the little man clutched at his belly and laughed with mock hysteria.
“Callin ya a sorry lot is being far too kind!”
“I ought to let the wolves eat – ” Mikahl started, but cut himself off abruptly when the little man’s eyes widened, and he pointed up and over Mikahl’s head. The tiny man’s mirth had vanished, and his jaw hung slack in a gasp of terror.
“A dragon!” he squeaked. “Mighty mushrooms, no!”
They all turned and looked right into the sun; even the wolves had followed the little man’s finger. The brightness of it put colorful, blooming patches in their eyes. By the time any of them had blinked the searing splotches away, the little man was darting into the leafy underbrush at the tree line with Talon hot on his heels.
Mikahl had to laugh at the clever trick the rude little guy had played on them. Vaegon, however, didn’t seem to think it was funny. Hyden was too busy seeking out Talon’s vision to react, but he was smiling like a boy with a piece of cake.
Hyden and Talon followed for a bit, but finally lost the little man in the underbrush. Grrr offered to follow the scent trail, but Hyden told the leader of the wolf pack to let the little man be.
They spent the evening talking about the event, as if it had been a hallucination brought about by Vaegon’s tart tea. The elf assured them that it wasn’t the drink.
“One of the fairy folk,” was his explanation.
He said that several races of the fabled little people lived in the Evermore Forest. Fairies, sprites, gnomes, and pixies had once lived all over these lands. But he had to admit that this was the first time he had ever seen one of them firsthand.
They rode again after sunset, and did the same the following few days as well. The wolves took turns hunting, and Vaegon had assumed the role of camp cook.
Hyden spent the down time trying to make sense of the letters Vaegon was teaching him. Mikahl, as was his daily ritual, woke and went through the grueling series of exercises each evening before they started off.
At the end of the fourth day’s run, around midmorning, they came upon what they thought was only a large clearing, or a break in the forest, but to their great surprise, the Evermore Forest had come to an end. Beyond the tree line, the landscape rolled away gently. A mild, emerald sea of low, rounded grassy hills, dotted here and there with small copses of poplars and oaks, spread out before them. A herd of some sort of brown and white domesticated beasts grazed on a fenced hillside to the south and to the west, and even further away, a cloud of gray smoke rose up from what looked to be a small city, or at least a large grouping of buildings. It was too far away to say for certain.
To their left, or eastward, the hills grew sharper, and up thrusts of grayish white stone could be seen among the larger clutches of trees. Farther away to the east, the Evermore wrapped its dense vitality around the base of a small range of mountains, the tops of which showed only the slightest bit of snow capping.
Being that the night’s traveling was already near to an end, they eased back into the forest a safe distance, and made camp.
Hyden, watched through Talon’s eyes, as the hawkling rose up into the heights over the edge of the forest. The prospect of seeing an actual city excited Hyden no end, and it was to the southwest, where they had seen the rising cloud of smoke, that he urged the hawkling to explore first.
As Talon gained altitude, Hyden saw that not too far to the south of their camp was what he decided was a road. It ran east to west, curving as it followed the valleys, and skirted the larger of the hills. It was wide, and looked well traveled. On the road, a good ways east, the dust cloud from a train of wagons moved away, but to Hyden, they looked to be the size of beetles crawling across a mossy creek bed.
As Talon neared the city, Hyden saw another group of wagons. These had riders on horseback darting around them, and they were coming out of a crude picket wall that was built around the heart of the place. Outside of the wall, a few dwellings could be seen, some with fields of crops around them in rows, others with large fenced in animal pens. Inside the wall there was a huddle of roofs, and smaller yards, some larger than others, but far more crowded together than Hyden had expected.
The road cut through the town and out the western side of the wall. It ran due east, into a finger of the Evermore Forest, which clung to the banks of a southward flowing river. The road split at the river, one path going across a small wooden wagon bridge that spanned the modest flow, the other going south following the river’s course. Both of those roads were empty of travelers as far as the hawkling’s eyes could see.
Talon swooped down lower, and circled over the town. It was nearly deserted, and several of the buildings within the walls were burning. A few were already charred and blackened husks. As Talon turned back towards the east, Hyden saw that the wagon train going out of the gates was surrounded by armed and armored soldiers. The banners they displayed were white with Highwander’s Blacksword emblem emblazoned on them. Hyden shuddered. These were Willa the Witch Queen’s men. Hyden noticed that the women and children, some riding in the wagons, some on horses of their own, didn’t appear to be afraid of the Blacksword Warriors though. It became clear that the soldiers were protecting these people’s passage. Protecting them from what? Hyden wondered. Talon circled up high again, riding the waves of heat from the buildings burning in the town. In moments, he was up in the clouds, soaring back towards camp, just a tiny speck in the sky above the road.
Hyden was disappointed. He had been looking forward to seeing how so many people, cramped inside the walls of a city, interacted with each other. All he had seen in the city was a few dozen men loading up a few wagons, and a few ducks and chickens running loose in the empty streets. He decided not to give up, but to follow the road eastward for a while, instead of going back to camp just yet. He was glad he did, because what he found was a sight that amazed him even more than the little fairy man had.
Nestled in a green valley, at the base of the eastern mountains, was a massive hub of buildings, and life. From Hyden’s great vantage point, the city looked almost like an archery target. The center was a mass of white stone buildings and towers with shiny sparkling rooftops. In front of the main structure sat a deep sapphire-blue lake, with a fountain spraying up out of its middle. Several walls ringed that center jewel. The innermost was wide enough to drive a wagon along the top of, and the taller outer wall was as wide, if not wider, than several of the roads that led up to the various gates. Between the walls were squares and rectangles of brown, red and gray split by narrow roads that were speckled with busy people. To Hyden, they looked like ants scurrying around a mound.
From the south, other roads, three of them, led into the ringed walls like the spokes of a wagon wheel. Hyden urged Talon to dive down into the city for a closer look, but something large and dark passed beneath them. It was big and bat like, easily twice the size of the hellcat they had faced in the mountains. Luckily, neither the dark beast, nor its horn-helmed rider, seemed to notice the tiny hawkling gliding above it.
The thing’s aura was hot, and repulsive. It exuded evil and malice freely. What was worse was that it was heading on a northwesterly course, directly towards the camp. From above, Mikahl followed it for a while just to be certain. When he was sure, he pulled himself out of the hawkling, and as a thick feeling of fear and dread threatened to overwhelm him, he warned the others. It was coming for Mikahl’s sword.
