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.
“Make ready to fight!” he said sharply, as he made his way to the pile of packs that Urp had been carrying. “Something huge, and evil, is winging its way towards us.”
He described the creature and its rider as he strung the elven longbow Vaegon had given him.
Grrr rose to his feet and started pacing anxiously. The other wolves watched him, awaiting his command with alert eyes, high pricked ears, and ready stances.
Vaegon took out a long skinny pouch, and made to dump the contents onto the ground in front of him. Three arm-length shafts of intricately carved wood, and a wicked looking curved and serrated blade fell out of it. In a matter of moments, he had threaded them together into a pike-like bladed staff, which was a head taller than he was. He made a few thrusts with it to check its balance.
“I’m ready!” he said when he was satisfied.
Mikahl reached over his shoulder, and grasped Ironspike’s hilt. He didn’t want to draw it, and have its magic give away their position. Feeling that it was there, was enough for now.
“Let it begin then,” he said harshly, remembering the brutal message he had sent when he had crippled the hellcat, instead of killing it.
He pictured King Balton, all sweaty and breathless, dying on his bed. Then, he pictured Lord Gregory, sprawled out on the ground, his bloody body so swollen and broken that it was almost unrecognizable as human. Then, the scalding image of Loudin of the Reyhall forced its way through. His friend’s guts hung in the trees, as he clung onto the sword, with the last tendrils of his life spilling away from him.
Mikahl seethed with rage and anticipation. He felt nothing resembling fear at the moment. He was eager to face whatever it was that was coming. Through teeth clenched as tightly as a closed vice, he repeated the words again
“Let it begin!”
Dreen, the kingdom seat of Valleya, is sometimes called the Red City, due to the color of the sun-baked bricks that make up its notably long wall. Its modest castle, and most of the other dwellings are made from the readily available resource as well. It sits in an arid, but grassy plain, just below the foothills on the eastern side of the Wilder Mountains.
King Broderick, the current ruler of Valleya, had received warning of Westland’s army’s march through the mountains towards his capital, but only a few days before the force’s expected arrival. He had taken those days to set up the defenses of the city, and to call the wealth of Valleya inside the walls for protection. The horse herds were the pride, and primary commodity, of the kingdom. They had to be protected at any cost.
The wall that encircled the city was taller than any building inside it, save for the twin towers of the modest Royal Castle. The wall stood thirty feet high, and the city was so widely spread, that it took a perimeter patrol a full shift to march all the way around on the top of it.
There was a lot to defend. Unlike most cities, the spaces inside the wall were open and un-crowded. Nearly every building, be it tavern, mercantile establishment, warehouse, or home sported a fenced-in stockyard, complete with stables and troughs. Some even had lush, magically fortified grazing pens, which were larger than an average family’s farm plot, that stayed green year round.
Even with all of the people and animals filtering into the city, Dreen didn’t have the feel of a place that was about to be attacked or besieged. The atmosphere, and the attitude of the people, was more like that of an open market day, or a minor festival. None of them had any idea of what was headed their way.
The Royal Castle itself was only a three storey rectangle, with a pair of crenellated towers rising up above it. The castle’s defensive wall was more like a tall fence, made to keep the Royal Herd in, more than to keep others out. The Valleyan way had always been the same. Save the horses, let the enemy tear the city down. There was enough of the easily worked red clay in the foothills to rebuild the city a hundred times over. It was in this spirit, that King Broderick, who had only a month ago sent the better half of his men to march against Highwander, went about gathering up the best of his personal herd, with the full intention of fleeing with them to the south.
If the Westlanders took the city, then so be it. He would never take the knee to young King Glendar, thus Valleya would never really fall to the west. Already, he had riders speeding with orders to recall those troops he had sent to Highwander. He also had riders on their way to Seaward City, to beg his cousin, Queen Rachel, to send those men of hers, that were about to march on Highwander, back to help save Dreen. She would not refuse him. After all, they were blood relatives. Since King Broderick’s wife had died childless, and he was without an heir, Princess Rosa, Queen Rachel’s daughter, stood to claim his throne, as well as her mother’s. As long as he didn’t take another wife, Queen Rachel would do anything he asked. Keeping the Red City out of Westland’s hands was in Queen Rachel’s best interest anyway.
King Broderick was confident that King Glendar wouldn’t expect a force of nearly ten thousand Valleyans and Seawardsmen to come bearing down on him so quickly. Glendar’s army would be driven right back into the mountains, and chased all the way back to Westland.
The Westland army was too small to occupy much more than the red city, King Broderick told himself. Valleya was far too vast. From Dreen, it was nearly three hundred miles south to the sea coast, and just over a hundred miles east to the Seaward border. If by chance, Glendar did get rooted into Dreen, it would only be a matter of days before King Broderick’s southern forces arrived and besieged the invaders. If the rumors out of Dakahn and Ultura were true, if a million lizards, and a dragon riding sorceress had risen out of the swamp, and invaded Westland, then the foolish young King of the west couldn’t afford to meddle with Valleya very long anyway.
All things considered, King Broderick decided that he could better manage the defense of Dreen from afar. In truth, he was as cowardly as a man could be. He was afraid for his life. Along with the rumors of Westland’s new Dragon Queen, he was beginning to hear tales of the wizard Pael’s display of destructive power on Wildermont. He had no intention whatsoever of getting caught up in something like that here. Thus, as dawn rose on the day his scouts expected the lion hordes to come calling, he and a dozen guards, along with two dozen handpicked horses from the Royal Herd, started south towards Stroud.
Pael stood alone, on a ridge looking down over the city of Dreen from a distance. The wind ruffled his silky, black robes, and threatened to blow the hood back from his chalk-skinned head. The gold worked embroidery on the belled sleeves and collar of his garb glittered in the morning sun like star-fire. Far below, and to his left, Lord Brach led a long, winding snake of some eight thousand men, out of the mountains, toward the irrelevant red wall. Inside the walls, Pael could see the Valleyan soldiers swarming like maggots on old meat. The fact that Lord Brach’s snake wasn’t spreading out, or marching toward one of the gates, was confounding them. Pael wished that it was Xwarda below him now, instead of Dreen, so much so, that his actions were mechanical, and his mood dismissive. The manic joy he had found while destroying Castlemont was absent, the exhilaration of the raw demonic power he possessed seemingly forgotten.
In a moment, he would breach the wall for Lord Brach’s men, so that the hungry snake might feed on the maggots, but now Shokin was forming an idea in his head. The idea made him regret sending Inkling, and those poisoned men to sea so far to the south, but only for a moment. When the idea fully bloomed in his mind, he laughed aloud, because neither the three ships full of men, nor the Imp King leading them, mattered anymore.
There might be joy in this day yet
, Pael told himself.
He had just come up with a new plan of action, one that wouldn’t force him to have to wait out the winter here in Dreen. If it worked, he could take Xwarda, and gain the power of the Wardstone long before the snow started to fall. He would be able to launch his assault on Xwarda in days, not months.
As he transported himself down to appear before the big red wall of clay, he couldn’t help but laugh again. This time, the manic glee was abundant in his countenance.