A warrior's joyrney

Chapter 6

Two score horses pranced and chivvied, their hooves sending up clouds of dust. Sword blades flashed, and unwary riders toppled from their mounts to the ground. Juramona’s shield-bearers were getting their first lessons in formation riding. It was no simple matter, the eager boys learned, for forty horses and riders to stay together, charge, and fight as one. They collided at every turn, and lost their seats at the first exchange of blows. Clad in quilted jerkins and leather helmets, armed with blunted swords, theirs was no game for children. Unhorsed boys staggered out of the melee with bloody noses and missing teeth.

Mounted on Old Acorn, Egrin watched the boys whack at each other and fall hard. Beside him under the only shade tree on the practice field, Felryn was astride a swaybacked mule named Daisy. The healer alternately chuckled or gasped at the boys’ antics. He knew he was in for a busy time later.

“I don’t see Tol,” said Felryn, scanning the press of boys and horses. “Where is he?”

“In the thick of things, as usual,” Egrin observed.

A riderless roan galloped from the fray and in the gap it left the two men glimpsed Tol. His helmet was gone, and his neat queue had come undone, leaving his long brown hair flying. He laid about on all sides, unhorsing a boy with every blow he landed.

“He’s very strong, isn’t he?” said Felryn. “I see now why you let him lead the teaching. Has the makings of a fine warrior.”

“He’s already a fine warrior. He has the makings of a great one,” Egrin replied.

Just then Tol received a violent blow on the back, and the warden shouted, “If he remembers to watch behind him!” Felryn could not help but laugh.

The farmer’s son had grown into a powerful youth, not as tall as some, but broad in the chest and shoulders, and muscled beyond his size. Although Tol’s father had denied it, both Egrin and Felryn still wondered whether there might not be some dwarf blood in Tol’s past.

Tol had more in his favor than mere strength. Being a peasant’s son, he remained humble and unafraid of hard labor. Most shilder were the sons of Riders of the Horde, and a few could boast truly noble parentage. These young lords thought themselves too good to clean the older men’s armor or scrub the floors of the Householders’ Hall. Tol’s cheerful compliance with such mundane duties galled them. That he enjoyed the favor of the warden and officers of the guard further annoyed them. Things might have gone hard on Tol had he not been so formidable. He thrashed a few bullies in bloody bare-knuckle brawls, and that put an end to his troubles. No one picked on Tol more than once.

The companions of his leisure were not his fellow shield-bearers, but former stableboys or sons of village tradesmen. Narren, the tow-headed boy who’d given Tol a drink of water his first morning in Juramona, had become a foot soldier in Lord Odovar’s employ. Tol’s other close friend, Crake, had forsaken arms altogether and now played a wooden flute in a tavern. Through him Tol learned the follies of drink, and made the acquaintance of barmaids.

The exercise swiftly became a free-for-all, all notion of organization lost, every boy battling every other. Disgusted, Egrin was about to put a stop to the fight when a low, bleating note echoed from the nearby walls of Juramona.

“An alarm?” asked Felryn.

Egrin shook his head. “A recall.” He stood in his stirrups and shouted. “Form column of fours! We return to Juramona! Everyone keep your place-I’ll be watching!”

Two guardsmen led the column of boys back to town. Egrin frowned at the passing youths.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“They’re good boys,” the healer said. “They’ll find the knack-”

“No, the recall. Can you sense anything?”

With his long, strong fingers, Felryn grasped the image of the goddess Mishas he wore around his neck. Creases appeared in his forehead.

“You’re right… trouble,” he muttered. “Conflict. The source is not clear, but it comes from afar.”

Egrin grunted. “Well, Tarsis has been quiet too long, I guess.”

The tail of the column passed, and he and Felryn fell in behind the last four boys.

Juramona had grown along with Tol. It now boasted four thousand inhabitants, the largest imperial town between Caergoth and Hylo. Prosperity had come with the end of the civil war between Ackal and Pakin factions.

After Lord Morthur Dermount, alias Spannuth Grane, had disappeared, the Pakin Pretender was hunted down and slain while to trying to escape across the sea to Sancrist Isle. Lord Morthur was proscribed by the crown, and a bounty was placed on his head. Rumor had it he’d fled south, to find shelter in the city of Tarsis, Ergoth’s trade rival and sometime enemy.

A messenger awaited Egrin at the Householders’ Hall. The lord marshal commanded his presence. Egrin, his two lieutenants, and Tol, his shilder, went at once to the High House.

Entering the audience hall, Egrin saluted Odovar. “My lord,” he said. “I am here. What is your will?”

Five years of peace had not been good to Odovar. From a burly, impetuous warrior he’d become a fat, sluggish ruler, with either a mutton joint or a tall tankard always in one hand. Dark whispers said the crack on the skull he’d received from Grane had changed him. Once he’d been harsh, but fair. Now he was cruel. Known before as a man of rough good humor, he had become suspicious and bitter.

Belly bulging over his thighs, he sat in his marshal’s chair, his children at his feet. Emea was a pampered nine year old who conducted herself as though she were empress of all Ergoth. Four-year-old Varinz was a good-natured boy, but overfed and lazy. On either side of Odovar were his two principal advisers-his consort Sinnady, and bald Lanza, priest of Manthus.

“Eh? Egrin? Took your time getting here, didn’t you?” Odovar said, gasping slightly.

“I was in the field, training the shilder,” replied the warden evenly. “I came as soon as I heard the horn.”

The marshal gave a grunt and reached down beside his chair for his tankard. He swallowed a long pull of beer, then burped loudly. Varinz giggled.

“Looks like we shall have some action at last,” Odovar proclaimed. “Too much peace has dulled our swords and widened our backsides!”

Egrin remained prudently silent, as did the rest of the assembly.

With another grunt, Odovar returned the tankard to its place by his chair. When he was upright once more, he said, “Call in the visitor-no, not the kender! The imperial courier!”

A lackey bobbed his head and hurried away. He returned shortly with a distinguished though travel-stained noble who wore the red livery of the imperial court. A mature man, he had a magnificent mane of iron-gray hair and a long, pointed beard. He saluted by striking his metal shod heels together.

Odovar waved a flabby, beringed hand. “Repeat your message for my warden.”

The courier turned and repeated his heel-clanging greeting.

“Are you Egrin, Raemel’s son?” he asked. At Egrin’s nod, the courier smiled slightly. “I served with you in the late Emperor Dermount III’s campaign on the north dales.”

Recognition flickered across Egrin’s face. “Yes! You’re-Karil-Kanel?”

“Kastel, son of Furngar.” The two men clasped arms as comrades and the courier said, “The years have treated you very well, son of Raemel. You seem unchanged.”

“Get on with it!” Odovar rumbled petulantly.

Kastel stiffened, resuming his formal manner, and said to Egrin, “There is to be war, my lord. His Imperial Majesty requires the high marshal of the Eastern Hundred to raise a force of four hordes, to be sent at once to join the army of Crown Prince Amaltar, now encamped at Caergoth.”

“Are we riding to Tarsis?” Egrin asked.

“No, warden. Our foes are the forest tribesmen of the Great Green. For many days they’ve been raiding the countryside south of Caergoth, stealing cattle, burning farms, and carrying off imperial subjects as captives. Worse outrages followed. Sixteen days ago, they attacked a hunting party and killed an imperial cousin, Hynor Ergothas. The emperor means to teach them a sanguinary lesson.”

The courier turned to Lord Odovar. “What is the fighting strength of your garrison, my lord?”

Odovar plainly didn’t know, and referred the question to Egrin.

“Two thousand, two hundred horse, plus six hundred ninety foot,” the warden said.

Kastel shook his head. “Not enough. His Majesty expects four thousand horse.”

Odovar laughed, his swollen belly bouncing. “Well, shall I put peasant spearmen on horses and call them Riders of the Great Horde?” He glanced at Tol, who stood a pace behind the warden. Tol kept his eyes down and his expression blank.

“If we recall retired warriors from their estates in the country, we might make up another two hundred horse, my lord,” suggested Lanza.

“Fine. Order it so,” said Odovar.

Onlookers in the assembled crowd murmured; such a move would be highly unpopular. One of the wise policies of long-ago Emperor Ergothas II had granted large tracts of virgin land to warriors of the Great Horde who had served the throne long and well. These retired soldiers had carved out enclaves, built fortified manor houses, and put the land to work, adding greatly to the wealth and prosperity of the empire.

In a louder voice meant to override the muttering, the marshal added, “How many shilder have you, warden?”

“One hundred six, my lord, but they’re barely half-trained.”

“They can finish their training on campaign. Nothing like real war to harden boys into men.” Again he laughed.

Lanza did the figures. “Three thousand, one hundred ninety… and six.”

“Best I can do,” Odovar said to the courier. “Convey my compliments to the crown prince and inform him three hordes will join him at his camp.”

“Yes, my lord.” Kastel bowed, unhappy. He would have to relate the unwelcome message to the emperor.

“Begin the preparations at once,” said Odovar with a wave of his hand. He groped for his tankard again.

“What about the other petitioners, my lord?” asked Lanza carefully.

The marshal snorted in his brew. “Fool kender! Run them out of Juramona!”

Kastel frowned at this casual dismissal. “My lord,” he said, “the kender of Hylo are the emperor’s vassals too. As they owe him their allegiance, so does he owe them protection. May I not hear what concerns them?”

Odovar’s face-always slightly flushed-grew even redder, quickly acquiring a near-purple hue. Lady Sinnady recognized the unhealthy rage that was now so quick to build in him. She leaned toward him, patting his hand and murmuring soothingly Following her example, the marshal’s children hugged his knees and did their best to jolly him out of his anger.

It worked, for now. His choler subsiding, Odovar said in a low voice, “Bring in the kender.”

A side door opened, and sentries waved in the new arrivals. They were fashioned like humans, except for their small stature and pointed ears. One had his long brown hair in dozens of tiny braids, each with brightly colored wooden beads worked in. These clattered noisily whenever he moved his head. His companion’s lighter, sand-colored hair was pulled to the top of his head and fell to the middle of his back in a single horsetail. Both kender wore homespun shirts over buckskin trews, and vests stitched in bright colors and decorated with painted beads.

“Hiya,” said the braided one. “Is this a ceremony?”

His partner thumped him soundly in the gut. “Hold your tongue, Rufus. These guys are important.” Spreading his hands wide and skinning back the sleeves of his shirt, he added, “Nothin’up my sleeve!”

Tol didn’t understand the gesture, but the kender went on without explaining.

“Me, my name is Forry Windseed.” Tossing his thick hank of hair to one side, he gestured at his braided companion. “This ugly joker is my brother-in-law, Rufus Wrinklecap.”

The braided kender, spread his hands also and shook out his sleeves. “Not the Rufus Wrinklecap,” he added. Without pause he said to Sinnady, “That’s a nice sapphire you got there, ma’am. Really sparkles in this light.”

Windseed shook his head so that his beaded braids clattered and clashed. “Not a sapphire,” he said authoritatively. “Blue topaz.”

Wrinklecap’s snort was eloquent. “Topaz my a-”

“Explain yourselves!” thundered Lord Odovar, interrupting the high-pitched disagreement. Everyone present flinched, even Egrin, but the kender merely grinned.

“I bet he could kill it single-handed,” said Wrinklecap. “Did you smell his breath? He could knock ol’ Xim out with that-”

Odovar, face once again purple with rage, stood, and drew the sword hanging from the back of his marshal’s chair. The sight of sharp iron brought the kender at last to the point, so to speak.

“There’s this monster, you see…” resumed Windseed.

“Called XimXim,” his partner prompted. His Hylo accent made it sound like “Zeem-zeem.”

“We know the beast,” interjected Egrin. “The empire has sent warriors and mages to battle XimXim some eight or nine times.”

“I know of eleven instances myself,” said Kastel. “No survivors returned from any of them. Eleven expeditions, one hundred-twenty men slain without result. No one even knows for certain what the monster looks like.” He explained that the creature’s very name was a testament to his mystery; the kender had dubbed him XimXim because of the sound he made in flight: zimm-zimm-zimm.

“I’ve always thought it must be a dragon,” murmured Lady Sinnady, paling at the thought.

“It’s most unlikely, ma’am. Since the defeat of the dragons two and a half centuries ago, no such beast has been seen in these parts,” Kastel answered.

“XimXim has been quiet for years. I thought him dead or gone away,” said Odovar. He sat down heavily, resting his sword across his knees. “What’s the foul creature done now?”

Windseed said, “In the spring he crossed the Ragtail River and destroyed the village of Skipping Trace-”

“It was the Froghead River,” Wrinklecap corrected.

The marshal forestalled yet another disagreement by raising his sword again. The kender contented themselves with trading narrow-eyed looks, and Wrinklecap continued.

“Anywho,” he said, “XimXim moved into the caves above Skipping Trace, and there he sits, eatin’ kender right and left just like boiled eggs-crack, snap, gulp.”

Both kender seemed amazingly untroubled by the terrible events they were relating. They stood side by side, hands clasped behind their backs, rocking lightly from heels to toes.

“If nothing’s done, all of western Hylo may be depopulated,” Lanza said, frowning.

“An alarming prospect,” murmured the marshal, though he was suddenly smiling. The kender stopped rocking.

Kastel’s face was serious. “My lord,” he said, “the empire has trading rights in Hylo town, and in the ports of Windee and Far-to-go. Something must be done to protect life and property.”

Odovar drained his tankard dry, and bawled for more. “You can’t have it both ways, sir! Either my warriors go to fight the foresters, or they ride to Hylo. Which do you want?”

The great hall was quiet. In the stillness, the marshal’s son started hiccuping. At a wave from Sinnady, a lady-in-waiting scooped him up and hustled him away.

“The kenders’ request is valid,” Egrin said thoughtfully, “but an imperial order takes precedence, does it not?”

“It does,” declared Lanza, patting his forehead with a small white cloth. The robes of his office were heavy, and he suffered in the summer heat. The kender seemed fascinated by the beads of moisture trickling down his bald pate.

“Then this foolishness is a waste of time!” Odovar said, glaring at the kender. “My order stands. Prepare the hordes to ride to Caergoth.”

The kender opened their mouths to protest, and the marshal added quickly, “When the campaign against the forest tribes is done, I’ll send someone to look into your monster problem. I have no warriors to spare until then.”

The courier stroked his pointed beard thoughtfully. “My lord, could you not send someone now to discover the nature of the threat? Perhaps your seneschal?”

Lanza’s eyes widened in horror. “Me? Hunt a monster?” His mellifluous voice rose to a squeak.

“You need not fight XimXim, merely stalk and observe him.”

“Do it, Lanza,” said Odovar, bored with the whole discussion.

“My lord, please! I cannot abandon my duties as priest and seneschal, and I am not a young man! Travel is so difficult. My health-”

“You eat better than I do, and little less,” snapped the marshal. “Go with the kender! Take a pair of footmen with you to ward off danger. Find out exactly where-and what-this monster is, and report back here. That is my order!”

Lanza could only bow his head and withdraw, but the expression of terrified dismay remained on his sweaty face. The kender followed him, talking rapidly to each other.

“Poor man,” Egrin said under his breath.

“You fear the monster will get him?” Tol whispered.

“I fear that after two weeks among the kender, he may prefer XimXim’s company!”

The atmosphere of the town quickly changed. Heralds were dispatched to outlying estates to call the retired gentry to arms, and everyone in Juramona set to work preparing for the campaign, each doing his or her part to serve (or exploit) the situation. Unlike Odovar’s expedition against the local Pakin rebels five years earlier, this was to be a real campaign, shoulder to shoulder with hordes from all over the empire. In command of all would be Crown Prince Amaltar, eldest son of Emperor Pakin III.

Riders of the Great Horde mustered in the square where Vakka Zan had lost his head years before. Each rider had to provide his own arms, two horses, a shilder, and provisions for ten days. There weren’t enough shilder in training to accommodate every warrior in Juramona, so servants and stableboys were pressed into service.

Foot soldiers, chiefly the guards who manned Juramona’s wall and kept the gates of the town and High House, assembled in a side street. They were not considered very important in the scheme of war-making. Their chief job on campaign was to march with the supply train and protect it from bandits or enemy raids. Commanding them was Durazen the Lame, also called One-Eyed Durazen.

Once a Rider of the Horde, Durazen had not earned his injuries in battle. Blind drunk on a boar hunt, he’d fallen from his horse into a hayberry hedge. His leg was badly broken and he’d lost an eye to a hayberry thorn. No longer fit for mounted warfare, he had been given command of Juramona’s foot soldiers.

Besides actual fighting men, hundreds of ordinary folk in town prepared to go to war as well. Sutlers, blacksmiths, and healers, as well as quacksalvers of every stripe, packed their bags and waited to follow the warriors. A ponderous civilian wagon train formed up outside the wall. It was laden with everything from spare spearshafts to barrels of brown beer.

Tol had imagined war as a grim business, with hard-faced warriors gazing at the horizon, watchful for a cunning enemy. In truth, the preparations seemed more suited to a festival or fair. He saw his friend Narren among the footmen and Crake among the sutlers. Tall and lean, his heavy scale hauberk hanging from his shoulders, Narren looked calm as he leaned on his spear and listened to Durazen, mounted on a sturdy cob, rasp out marching orders. Crake, reclining on a canvas tarp covering a wagonload of beer, played dreamy airs on his flute. Tol knew Crake’s hunting bow would be stowed in the cart as well. Although he liked his ease and his pleasures, Crake never took chances. He wouldn’t dream of going into harm’s way unarmed.

Lord Odovar appeared on the back of a black charger. Sleek and powerful as he was, the animal looked strained by the massive burden he had to bear. Rumor had it the marshal weighed twenty stone-without his arms or armor.

“Poor beast,” Egrin said tersely, echoing Tol’s thoughts. “He won’t last five leagues. Odovar will be in a wagon before we reach the river Caer.”

Tol gave his own horse an affectionate pat. He still rode Smoke, the horse left behind by Spannuth Grane at Tol’s family farm. Smoke had proved to be a strong, clever beast, and Tol valued him greatly.

The whole of the army mustered outside the walls of Juramona, covering the pastures and road. Drovers lashed at unruly bullocks, and competing carters shouted and shook fists at each other as they jockeyed for position. Children and dogs ran among the files of stolid footmen who sweated in their mail jerkins. It was a sultry morning, heavy with the promise of more heat.

Odovar made a short speech that few heard, and even fewer remembered. He rode forth with his private bodyguard to the front of the three columns of horsemen. The center column was the horde known as the Plains Panthers, veterans of the civil war between Ackal and Pakin. The left wing, the Firebrand Horde, included the landed gentry and men of rank and wealth in the province. The right wing, the honor wing, was led by Egrin. Behind him rode eight hundred twenty-seven horse, including Tol and his shilder comrades. Though not a properly constituted horde, the right wing was given the name Rooks and Eagles, signifying their mixed nature-which combined youth and vigor with age and experience.

“Ho, you men!” Manzo called. “Bring out the standard!”

Two veteran warriors pushed their way on foot to the head of the column. Between them they carried the Eagle of Juramona, carved from the trunk of an ancient oak and painted in lifelike colors. It was twice the size of a normal bird, and as the men held it, a large pole was inserted into the base between its clawed feet.

“Too bad there’s no rook to go with him,” a shilder remarked.

Egrin waved his hand in a circle like a conjurer. Grinning, the warriors turned the eagle around. Rather than the same brown and gold coloring, the bird staring out from the reverse had been painted black. It was cleverly done. Viewed from one side, the figure was a soot-black rook; from the opposite side, a noble eagle.

Egrin’s own remarks to his men were very brief. Lifting his dagger high, he invoked the bison-headed god of battle, declaring, “May Corij ride with you all!”

The elves of Silvanost were known to sing as they marched, and the dwarves of Thorin went to battle blowing horns and beating enormous brazen gongs. It was traditional for the hordes of Ergoth to ride in silence. They spread out across the land like a flood, and the wordless, inexorable block of saber-wielding horsemen brought great fear to its enemies. The countryside ahead of an advancing horde emptied of travelers, traders, bandits, and brigands. Game animals fled the massive onrush of metal and men. For leagues in advance of an Ergothian army, all was still and empty. Farmers abandoned their fields and bolted themselves in their huts. Even insatiably curious kender stayed clear of the army’s leading elements, but they were drawn to the long, winding baggage train behind it as ants are drawn to a trail of honey.

Juramona was located ten leagues north of the headwaters of the Caer River’s twin branches. Working from maps drawn in the Silvanesti style, Egrin chose as his line of march a trail that arrowed south, toward the confluence of the two branches. The other two segments of Juramona’s army swung east, a longer but easier route. They would skirt the tip of the river’s eastern fork, then angle south-southwest for Caergoth. Egrin’s route required fording the river, but it cut a full day off the journey, insuring his men would arrive at the crown prince’s camp before the other two columns.

The land between Juramona and the great confluence was friendly territory, though devoid of settlements and nearly empty of people. Fine weather favored their advance. Towering masses of white clouds rose up like fortresses in the air, separated by clear blue. Gently rolling grasslands provided plenty of fodder for their animals, and Egrin sent his shilder ahead of the main body to scout the line of march.

After two days’ travel, Tol found himself nearing the confluence in a group of six shilder under the command of Relfas. The red-haired youth was the youngest son of the noble and wealthy house of Dirinmor. Relfas’s patrol was charged with finding a likely fording place. Relfas had split up his small band, ordering the shilder to reconnoiter singly.

Tol rode over a stony hilltop and saw the meeting of the two river branches below. Converging from either side of the bluff, the western and eastern streams formed the mighty Caer, which flowed by the walls of Caergoth. Cattle were watering on the western bank. Herders moved among them, swatting slow beasts with long willow switches.

Tol’s presence did not go unnoticed. Dogs barked an alarm. The herders spotted Tol silhouetted against the sky and took fright. They drove their animals from the water, hurrying the beasts west over the next hill, and were out of sight in a trice. They knew warriors of any allegiance meant danger. Under imperial law, hordes could confiscate any provisions they needed from the local population. They were supposed to pay for what they took, but in practice few did so.

Though the herders couldn’t know it, their cattle were in no danger from Egrin’s men. The herd was on the west side of the river, and Egrin’s force was riding east. It was fortunate they didn’t need to ford the western branch. The West Caer was narrow here but deep and very swift. Huge square boulders, gray as beaten iron, dotted the surface of the water and broke the flow into foam. The sound of rushing water was loud.

Tol was about to descend the hill on the east side when something caught his eye. It was a ruin of some sort. He could see worked stone protruding from a tangle of ivy: cut blocks still layered one atop the other, and the stumps of massive columns, all of the same dark gray stone as the boulders in the river. Curious, he directed Smoke off the well-worn trail for a closer look.

As he drew nearer, Tol saw the ruins were very old indeed. The stonework was extremely weathered and had lain undisturbed for countless centuries.

The vines soon grew too thick for him to proceed further on horseback, so he dismounted and tied Smoke to a convenient sapling, slashing his way through the undergrowth with broad swipes of his saber.

What he’d taken for a foundation stone turned out to be the stump of an enormous column, so wide he could have lain across it and still had room to spare at head and heels. The waist-high column had a spiral groove as wide as his hand cut into it. Up close he could see it was made of bluestone. Farm boy that he was, Tol despised the pale blue rock. Turned up in a field, the hard stone could easily break a hoe blade or plow. Old Kinzen, the root-doctor in Tol’s neck of the woods, called the blue rock Irdasen-stone of the Irda.

Those long ago masters of the world, called “the beautiful Irda” by storytellers, had supposedly been kin to the gods. Yet they had fallen into evil ways and been destroyed by their own corruption and black desires.

Tol circled the broken column. Tumbled among the choking weeds were more fragments of bluestone. Great blocks as big as a tall horse were cut with dovetail mortises and tenons of impossible size. These Irda must have been giants, or else had giants to do their building for them.

A piercing whistle signaled Relfas’s recall. As Tol turned to go, the glint of metal halted him. The reflection came from a circular hole in the underside of an upturned block. Thinking he might find an ancient coin, he probed the hole with the tip of his saber. It was only elbow-deep, and seemed snake- and spider-free. He pushed back the sleeve of his ring mail shirt and eased his gloved hand inside. He found what he sought-metal, hard to the touch-and withdrew it from its stony hiding place.

It was a circlet made of three kinds of metal braided together like a woman’s hair-a dark reddish metal intertwined with silver and gold. As thick as his smallest finger, it fit easily in the palm of his hand. The circlet’s two free ends were joined by a spherical bead of the odd red metal. On the bead was etched a complex pattern of angular lines and curving whorls. Completely filling the center of the circlet was a piece of black crystal.

If this was a relic of the Irda, it had to be uncounted generations old. Yet it was completely unblemished by tarnish or corrosion. Its strange markings flashed in the sun like the facets of a gemstone. It was surprisingly lightweight, not heavy as might be expected of gold or bronze.

Tol held the circlet up to the sun and squinted through the center. The crystal did not blot out the bright orb of the sun, merely darkened the distant fire to a bearable level. Tol thought the crystal must be glass rather than a black gem like jet or night jade, because it was flat and dull, not shiny at all.

The whistle sounded again, and Tol slipped the ancient artifact into his belt pouch. He untied Smoke’s reins from the slender elm tree, mounted, and galloped up the hill to meet his comrades.

Relfas, his freckled face red from heat and sheened with sweat, grumpily asked why Tol had taken so long to return. Tol pleaded the noise of the river’s rush as the reason he hadn’t heard the recall at first.

“Well, we found a crossing,” Relfas told him. “The warden’s sent word we’re to join up, right away!”

The Rooks and Eagles rejoined at the ford Relfas’s scouts had located. Everyone made it safely across, and the quick splash through cold water was welcomed by men and horses alike.

Because their wing of the army was so far ahead of the others, Egrin called an early halt to the march, well before sundown. They pitched camp and fortified it with a ring of sharpened palings to prevent surprise cavalry attacks. When the hedge was finished, Egrin ordered more riding drill for the shield-bearers. Groaning and complaining after a full day in the saddle, the youths went off to practice formation riding and mounted sword fighting until well past dark.

When the shilder fell onto their bedrolls at last, they slept like dead men. So tired was Tol, he forgot to show his strange artifact to Egrin, or to ask Felryn if he could divine its purpose.