After three exhausting hours they made the ridge bounding Wolf Plain, and Felmere heard with relief the brass trumpets of his enemy sounding the withdrawal. The Arshuman army, and their
gold-clad “king”, too, needed some time to rest up before pressing onwards. It was a window of time Felmere had to use to his advantage.
He looked at his exhausted men. An army of nearly six thousand had marched from camp earlier that day and now they would be returning with little more than a third of that amount; granted a
thousand of the starter force had turned traitor and many men had fled and scattered, but it was still a terrible reverse. Every face he looked at was pale, tired and bloodied; many were badly
wounded. The auxiliaries with stretchers who would normally ferry the injured back to the healer’s tent had been attacked themselves, so Felmere had dismissed them for their own protection.
It was a battle with few prisoners taken; the Arshumans’ thirst for vengeance after the Battle of Grest had been more than sated.
After clearing the tree-lined ridge, though, they could now see the river and the tented camp this side of it. Heartened, their pace picked up a little and they closed the distance quite
quickly. All kept looking back, though, expecting at any minute ranks of grim mailed warriors, grouped under banners of yellow, to appear atop the ridge, bent on revenge.
The rain stopped and it started to get cold again, numbing fingers and toes and causing spirits to drop even further. It was a thoroughly demoralised army that limped back into the camp, a place
of refuge, but they had no time to rest their tired muscles. Immediately Felmere called the remaining generals and nobles to his tent.
He had had no time to dwell on the ruin of his hopes and dreams. The despair he was gamely fighting back into the darker recesses of his mind would get full vent over a bottle of vinegary wine
later; now, however, he had to pick up the shattered pieces of this debacle.
‘We can discuss what happened today later,’ he said, his voice thick with disappointment. ‘But now we have to get everyone out of this camp and destroy the bridges. It will buy
us time and give us a chance to get everyone out of Grest who wants to leave.’
‘Fair comment, my Lord,’ said Tomak, a veteran general of his own House. ‘But what happens after that? If we are abandoning Grest, how far back do we retreat?’
‘Winter is coming. There will be little more campaigning this year,’ said Felmere. ‘With Ulgar dead and Haslan Falls betraying us, the entire region is threatening to break up
into a patchwork of separate strongholds with Tanaren controlling little of it. We need to get word to Esric and secure Tetha Vinoyen, though I am sure Fenchard has already stolen a march on us
there. We retreat to our fortified camp in the plain; thereafter, I don’t know – we will have to see. Right now, though, Reynard, take your knights up to Grest and start getting the
people out of there. Tomak, Mirik, I want a hundred volunteers to be last over the bridges and to destroy them as they cross. Get the civvies over the bridge first. Now, all of you, move – we
have little time as it is!’
Everyone beat a hasty exit except for Dominic Hartfield. Felmere didn’t seem to notice him at first, lost as he was in a reverie. Dominic had to call him by name before Felmere
responded.
‘The Silver Lances. What do you wish of them? Shall we escort the civilians to the camp?’
‘Yes, by all means,’ the Baron replied absently. ‘And take this with you.’
He handed Dominic a small chest, about the right size to store documents. It was locked, so Felmere handed him the key. Both men knew of its contents.
‘Ulgar and Maynard are dead,’ he said. ‘Their wills are in there, along with those of all the other nobles. Once your escort duties are done, take it to my city; it needs to be
kept safe. I would have gone if the battle had gone well, but now I will be staying on the front lines until this mess is sorted.’
Dominic bowed. ‘Of course, Baron, but once that has been arranged I will fight alongside you.’
‘As you wish. I am grateful.’ Felmere watched him leave, his face blank and expressionless. Dominic ducked out of the tent, leaving Felmere alone for a second.
He cursed softly to himself and strode through to that part of the tent partitioned off for his sleeping quarters. A servant was there packing a trunk; everything else there had been already
moved out. He could smell the river, swollen with the rain. It was only a matter of yards away, concealed by high rushes. The light had almost gone and the lanterns had been lit, their soft red
light suffusing the confined space with its warmth.
‘Have you nearly finished?’ he asked the sweating man.
‘Yes, my Lord, I will only be a few minutes then I can load it on to the wagon.’
‘Good. Get yourself over the bridge as soon as you can. The enemy could be here at any time and I don’t want you caught up in that.’
‘Thank you, my Lord, but I will be done here very quickly.’
Felmere left him and strolled back to the main part of the tent. Wearily, he unstrapped his breastplate and lowered it to the ground, all the better for his slightly overweight frame to breathe
properly for five minutes. It felt strange being on his own; it happened so rarely. Being alone with his thoughts was something he wasn’t used to and after the disasters of the day he
wasn’t sure it was something he wanted either. The Gods had truly forsaken them. Not having the morning devotions had obviously been a terrible mistake. He would have to see the Artoran
priest, to ask what public penance he should undergo to gain their forgiveness in the eyes of his men. When would he see his family again?
He could hear the servant packing the trunk, heavy footsteps along with the muffled sounds of clothes, scrolls or other bric-a-brac being stowed hastily with scant regard for order or tidiness.
He was about to leave the man, to check whether the Arshumans had been sighted when he heard a heavier thump. Had the man dropped something? No matter, given the haste required, mistakes could be
forgiven. He waited to hear him start work again but there was only silence. Strange, he thought. He called out the man’s name. There was no response. He called again with the same result.
Damn the man to the furnace, what was he up to? With an exasperated sigh he barged back into the sleeping quarters, his face reddening slightly.
‘By the furnace and the saints, my man, what exactly is going on he...?’ He stopped dead in his tracks.
Slumped over the trunk, limp and lifeless, was the servant’s body. For a second he entertained the notion that the man had collapsed drunk; something he dismissed just as quickly. He put
his hand to his sword ready to draw it, an occurrence that was never to happen.
He felt it, of course, if only for less than a second, a sliver of cold icy metal, both freezing and searing hot, thrust with a calculated precision into his back just left of his spine. There
was no time to feel pain – the blade entered his heart much too quickly for that. And then ...nothing. Was he now seated at the great table of the Gods, supping with divine Artorus and
Camille, talking freely with Elissa and Mytha? Was he joined again with the spirit of his first wife, a lady for whom he had more affection than he had ever let show? Unfortunately, these were
things that humble mortals would never know. Felmere was dead long before his body slumped to the ground.
The only person left alive in the room, cloaked and hooded in midnight black, wiped the blade on the grass before slipping it back into her belt. Fortune had smiled on Syalin
these last couple of days – the camp moving, Felmere pitching his tent right next to the river, things couldn’t had fallen easier. She knelt over the fallen body and gently prised the
man’s signet ring from his middle finger. She was glad she didn’t have to cut the finger off; carrying such a thing round with her was always mildly irritating. Ducking down low, she
looked under the tent flap. It was dark now and the coast was clear. Noiselessly, like a spirit of air, she left the tent and headed for the river. She stopped for a second, looking and tasting the
breeze. Then she slipped down the bank and into the reeds where she disappeared from view completely.
Shortly afterwards she emerged again, in a small round boat of the kind so beloved of the Marsh Men. It had been expertly concealed in the reeds for a couple of days as had she. The rain had
been troubling; as the river rose, her hiding place had been compromised, but fortunately no one was minded to be vigilant in these terrible conditions and the darkness had come early, shrouding
her from view again.
She did not use the oar; rather she let the river take her. She left the camp behind just as she heard the panicked shouts of men and the subsequent hue and cry, indicating her handiwork had
been discovered. She continued to drift downriver; the temperature on a river was always so much colder than the land surrounding it, she thought. She drew her cloak around her, annoyed at the
weakness she showed in feeling the damp chill. Eventually, after travelling a mile or more she came to a knot of trees on the eastern bank. Steering the little boat patiently, at long last she
pulled it over among a clump of reeds and tied it up against a tree root. Now it was just a case of waiting till the morning.
She looked up at the early-evening stars, the beautiful, beautiful stars. For a fleeting second she thought of her home. Her first home before her rebirth as a Strekha. On the foothills of the
mountains could be seen stars like no others. Why did man crave diamonds when the bejewelled majesty of the night sky was there for all to see? Her fellow species, as always, remained a mystery to
her; their priorities were not her priorities. As a child among her barbarous people, all that mattered was a good hunt and food on the table. Then, as a servant of the Emperor, want was not a
concept that ever arose – how strange it was, then, to see the merchant class of Koze, fat men spending their lives acquiring coin they could not spend. All it made as far as she could see
was enemies and she had killed enough of them to know that to be the truth.
She left the boat and sat on a tump of thick grass next to the bole of a tree. From a small pack at her waist she pulled a hard circular biscuit, which she nibbled fastidiously. That eaten, she
took a bare sip of water from a small hip flask and swallowed a tiny sliver of blackroot. Sitting cross-legged, her hands in her lap, she entered a light trance. In such a state she could not feel
cold, or damp and pain, and discomfort could be ignored. Her mind went back to her home, the swaying palms sighing over a languid river, the orange groves within the white walls of the palace of
the sages with the sharp tang of citrus in the air. The high alabaster towers topped with gold shimmering in the midday heat haze and the small monkeys bold enough to steal dates from the harvest
baskets of the nut-brown villagers. She knew those people saw her pale skin and white hair as something of a marvel, but none would dare approach her to ask about it.
Other memories came to her then, unbidden ones, the type she could usually shut out; she did not know why they flashed through her mind now. She was about twelve. Her wrists were secured with
manacles attached to a chain that was pulling her nearly off the floor. She was nearly naked, bathed in sweat; fear, such a rare feeling these days, was coursing through her, causing tears to drip
heavily on to the stone floor over which the rats scurried. A hulk of a man stood over her brandishing a many-thonged whip. She remembered to this day the noise it made, the swish as he swung it
left and right, and even now she flinched at the memory. Of course, she knew now that he had no intention of using it on her – her skin was to remain as unblemished as possible in case the
Emperor wanted her to satisfy himself – but back then she was terrified of it. Something else she was to learn was that there were ways of inflicting the most intensely cruel pain imaginable
without breaking the skin.
‘Say it again,’ the man said to her, ‘And get it right this time.’
The small girl she once was held back her sobs, not daring to get it wrong again.
‘The Emperor is the father of Koze; the Emperor is therefore my true father. I have no family but the Strekha and the Strekha are the Emperor’s most beloved children. He is the light
that fills me. His love is the only true love; any other is false and ephemeral, devoid of substance. My body is his to command and my will is his will, my desires are his desires, and my hope is
his hope. I have been reborn as his greatest thrall, a golden butterfly from an ugly white grub crawling through the dirt. Without the Emperor I am nothing, for I was nothing until my choosing. My
life will be lived through his glory and will end at his behest when my purpose has been fulfilled.’
‘Better,’ said the man. ‘Now, say it a hundred times over, with no mistakes and I can finally let you down.’
‘The Emperor is the father of Koze, the E...’
Something broke into her memories, a bright-yellow glow further up the river. It reflected off the tree-covered hill on which the city stood and caused the river to gleam darkly in the distance.
She sighed slightly, a sigh that was little more than a murmur, then took another biscuit out of her pack and nibbled it like a mouse. The bridges were on fire.
The elves were at camp. They had gathered much dead wood and piled it into a large bonfire. Though most of it was damp and hard to light, the judicious application of several
of the ubiquitous glowstones soon had it roaring heartily, if a little smokily.
It had been a day of hard riding in frequently terrible conditions. Cheris and Cedric were soaked through in no time and both had spent a good part of the day sweating at their exertion and
shivering at the cold, especially after the storm had moved on to the north and west and the late-autumn chill had returned.
Still, progress had been good. They were now within half a mile of Baron Felmere’s forward camp just an hour or two away from the town of Grest. Morgan, eager for information, had left
them earlier to go there in search of news. They were expecting him back at any time.