David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

Their horses crested a small hill. Across a valley stood a tall wall with an arched gate beneath it. “The Barren’s Wall,” someone said.

Beyond the wall, she glimpsed Carris, two miles distant. Its white towers stood tall and proud, but a great black rent marred its western facade. Boats were issuing from a floodgate in the south wall, bobbing on the waves as people fled for their lives.

On the castle walls, men cheered and cheered to see Gaborn’s army. Warhorns blared, calling for help.

To the south of Carris, atop a dark leaning tower that twisted up like black flames, she could see reavers working feverishly.

Reavers were visible everywhere now. Tens of thousands of them swarmed on the plains and at the gates of Castle Carris. More marched northward in a line down from the mountains, each reaver taller than an elephant, but looking nothing like any creature to roam the surface of the earth.

Seeing them, she felt loathing.

On a hill north of Carris was a strange thing—a cocoon of fibers that looked like silk from this distance, wrapping the whole hill. At the hill’s peak, a fell mage glimmered, clouds of brown fog whirling away from her. As Erin watched, the mage raised her staff and hissed, a roaring noise that filled the valley. A wave of dark wind issued from her in all directions.

In response, a thousand Knights Equitable suddenly raised voices in song. Many warriors spurred their mounts forward, toward the gate in the Barren’s Wall.

Her horse began running. Erin had not willed it, had not pounded her mount’s flank with her heel, but the horse suddenly surged forward beneath her, eager to race with the other knights.

The knights erupted into song, and Prince Celinor sang clearly at her side.

“We are born to blood and war,

Like our fathers were, a thousand years before.

Sound the horn. Strike the blow!

Down to grief or glory go!”

Erin began racing, and the bloodlust was so strong in her, she cared not whether she raced for her life or to her death. She couched her lance and spurred her horse, screaming in defiance.

Raj Ahten had endowments from thousands of men, could recall in detail nearly every moment of his life. It had been six months since he had glanced at a diagram of Carris, but he knew precisely where to find Paladane’s boats.

The courtyard around him was glutted with reavers and Invincibles, locked in a grim struggle. The city burned, and his men were drenched in sweat even as the fell mage uttered another curse. The news of boats that could take them to safety had spread among Raj Ahten’s men. Here and there, Raj Ahten saw teams of men dive out of battle, giving ground before the reavers, while the men of Mystarria were left to fill the breaches as best they could.

But he doubted that many of his men would be able to find the boathouse, hidden as it was down in the business district.

Raj Ahten gutted his last blade-bearer, and wheeled back out of the fray.

“Follow me!” he shouted to his men, leading the way to the boats.

As he fled south, toward a narrow street clogged with oxcarts and barrels of tar and nails that commoners had set up as pitiful barricades against the reavers, cries of dismay arose from the people of Carris.

He glanced up to see the cause. Commoners up there—men of Rofehavan that he would leave to their fates watched him retreat, and their faces were ashen, twisted in grimaces of fear. The mage’s spells had so wrung me sweat from them that many had fallen to the wall-walks.

Throwing away the lives of himself and his few remaining Invincibles would not save them.

He hurried away.

Land in Carris had always been at a premium, and that was apparent in the city streets, which were as narrow as the alleys in most northern castles. The buildings canted nearly together.

The fell mage’s black wind struck once more, and Raj Ahten stopped a moment and knelt, holding his breath, squinting his eyes, trying his best not to absorb the scent of her curse.

When he breathed again, the mage’s command wrung sweat from him more fiercely. He hurried to escape this benighted place.

He had not retreated half the distance to the boats when he turned a corner down a steep hill toward the merchants’ quarter and met Duke Paladane the Huntsman, ambling toward him through the narrow alley, with half a dozen of old King Orden’s Wits marching at his back.

Paladane raised a hand, signaling Raj Ahten to stop, then wiped the copious sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

The triumphant grin on Paladane’s lips gave Raj Ahten pause. Raj Ahten halted warily.

“Good news!” Paladane greeted him. “You’ll be happy to hear that the first flotilla is off! The first load of women and children are being rowed to safety.”

“What?” Raj Ahten asked. He imagined that it must be a ruse. Paladane could never have loaded the boats so quickly.

“Indeed,” Paladane said. “I took the liberty of assembling the refugees this morning. The boats have been laden since noon. When my far-seer brought word that he saw a boat returning on the horizon, our first load of women and children shoved off.”

To emphasize his victory, Paladane said, “Every boat is gone. Every one.”

Raj Ahten thought to run to the north wall to verify Paladane’s word, but Paladane’s tone of triumph was pure and honest. Clearly, Paladane had launched the boats. From be wall, Raj Ahten would only see a thousand skiffs bobbing on the whitecaps of Lake Donnestgree.

Paladane knew precisely what he had done. He had stranded Raj Ahten’s men here in the castle. Raj Ahten decided to wipe that superior grin from his face.

With a mailed fist, Raj Ahten swung swiftly for the bridge of Paladane’s nose. The blow landed with a crunching sound, and the bone in Paladane’s skull shattered with a satisfying schunk . Flecks of blood spattered all over Raj Ahten’s face, even as the Huntsman of Mystarria dropped like so much meat.

How due me little man? Raj Ahten thought, as he wiped the flecks of blood from his face.

The King’s Wits who had been following Paladane all drew back in a little knot, terrified. They awaited his punishment; and he held it back, knowing that a feast always tastes better on an empty belly.

Raj Ahten considered his options. His Invincibles did not need boats. As a last resort, they could abandon their weapons and armor and swim across the lake.

In that moment, there was an odd, unexpected sound. The wails of pain and despair on the castle walls erupted into cheers and the wild blowing of warhorns.

Raj Ahten glanced up to see the cause of the excitement. People on the walls were waving and pointing to the north, leaping in celebration. “The Earth King is coming! The Earth King!” men began to shout.

Raj Ahten smiled grimly at Paladane’s corpse. With a sudden certainty, he realized, he might yet pull off a strategic victory here.

“So,” Raj Ahten said, addressing King Orden’s Wits, doddering old men who trembled before him. “Your King comes at last—comes to throw himself against the reavers and die. He should offer quite a spectacle. I would not miss this.”

Sweat glazed Gaborn’s forehead, drenched the leather jerkin beneath his chain mail. As he drew near Carris, the sensation of illness that had assailed him ever since he’d begun to cross the blasted lands grew more potent. He clung to the reins of his mount, and without his endowments of stamina, he knew that he would have succumbed in his saddle.

He stared ahead, almost blinded by perspiration, as his mount raced the warriors beside him. Only dimly did he hear the Knights Equitable raise their war songs.