David Farland - The Sum of All Men

A mile farther, Gaborn saw a gray house through the mist. A young woman with hair that hung out like straw was chopping wood in front of it. She looked up. From a distance her skin looked as rough as burlap, her features plain and skeletal, her eyes yellow and sickly. This was one of the sisters who had given Myrrima her beauty.

He spurred his stallion, called out to the young woman.

She gasped, put one arm up to hide her face.

Gaborn rode to her, looked down with pity. “No need to hide. One who diminishes herself to enlarge another is worthy of honor. A foul face often hides a fair heart.”

“Myrrima is inside,” the girl mumbled. She fled into the house. Borenson quickly came out, Myrrima on his arm.

“It is a beautiful autumn day.” Gaborn smiled at Borenson. “I smell sunbaked wheat fields on the wind, and autumn leaves, and...treachery.”

Borenson gaped at the fog, perplexed. “I thought it was getting cloudy,” he said, “I had no idea...” He would not have been able to see the fog through the house's parchment windows. He sniffed. Borenson had four endowments of scent. His nose was far keener than Gaborn's. “Giants. Frowth giants.” He asked Myrrima, “Do you have many giants around here?”

“No,” she said, surprised. “I've never seen one.”

“Well, I smell them. A lot of them,” Borenson said.

He looked into Gaborn's eyes. They both knew something odd was afoot. Gaborn had come hours ahead of schedule.

Gaborn whispered, “Assassins rode into town. Muyyatin. At least ten are on the road north to Castle Sylvarresta, but I saw none on my way here.”

“I'll scout this out,” Borenson said. “It could well be that someone is laying a trap for your father. His retinue will pass through town tomorrow.”

“Wouldn't I be safer with you?” Gaborn asked.

Borenson considered, nodded. He retrieved his own horse from behind the house, just as the Days rode up through the mist.

“We'll be back in a bit,” Gaborn told Myrrima, then spurred his stallion out into the meadow behind her cottage. He felt uneasy leaving her, with giants about. Yet he and Borenson were certainly riding into danger.

A slight breeze sighed from the north, carrying the haze. They rode toward it, over green meadows. The river twisted west, and they soon found themselves riding along the banks of River Dwindell, on a hay trail.

Along the river, the unnatural fog deepened, rising in a great cloud, waking it dark, dark enough so swallows quit dipping in the water, and instead a few bats began diving for insects. Fireflies rose like green sparks out of the bushes. The grass along the river was deep, lush, but cropped short.

All along here in the floodplain the farmers had harvested hay. The haycocks stood out along the river, like great rocks in a sea, and each time Gaborn saw one rising from the mist, he wondered if it was a giant, wondered if a giant might be hiding behind it.

Gaborn could smell giants now, too. Their greasy hair smelled bitter, the musk and dung on their skins overwhelming. Mold and lichens grew on their aging bodies.

Until a hundred and twenty years ago, no one in all Rofehavan had heard of Frowth giants. Then, a tribe of four hundred of the huge creatures had come over the northern ice one winter, battle-scarred, fearful. Many of them wounded.

The Frowth could not speak well in any human tongue, had never quite been able to communicate what fearful enemies chased them over the ice. Yet with a few gestures and the odd spoken command, the giants had learned to work beside men to some extent—lugging huge boulders in quarries, or trees for foresters. The rich lords of Indhopal in particular had taken to hiring Frowth giants, so that, in time, most of them migrated south.

But the Frowth excelled in only one thing—making war.

Gaborn and Borenson came to a small croft on a hill beneath some trees, beside the river. The cottage's windows were dark. No smoke roiled from its chimney. A dead farmer lay half in the doorway, hand outstretched. His head lay as if he'd died trying to reach for it as it rolled away. The coppery scent of blood hung heavy in the air.

Borenson swore, rode forward. The mist ahead grew thicker. Heavier.

In the green grass, they found steaming human footprints. The grass beneath the footprints was blackened, dead. Gaborn had never seen the like.

“Flameweavers,” Borenson said. “Powerful ones—powerful enough to transmute to flame. Five of them.”

There were flameweavers in Mystarria, of course, sorcerers who could warm a room or cause a log to burst into flame, but none so powerful that they blackened the ground they trod upon. Not like this.

These were creatures of legend, wizards of such power that they could pry secrets from men's souls, or summon beings of terror from the netherworld.

Gaborn's heart pounded; he looked at Borenson, who was suddenly wary. There were no flameweavers like this in the northern kingdoms, nor so many Frowth giants. They could only have come from the south. Gaborn tasted the air again. That fog, that strange fog, a thinly disguised smoke? Raised by the flameweavers? How big an army did it hide?

So our spies were wrong, Gaborn realized. Raj Ahten's invasion won't wait for spring.

The flameweavers' footsteps led north, along the banks of the River Dwindell. Raj Ahten's troops must be marching through the woods, to hide their numbers. But they would not go far into the wood, for this was the Dunnwood. Wild, old, and powerful. Few men dared enter its heart. Even Raj Ahten would not do so.

If Gaborn took the road north, he could reach Sylvarresta in half a day.

But of course that was why the assassins watched the road, looking to waylay anyone who sought to warn King Sylvarresta. Gaborn reasoned that given the nature of his horse, a good solid hunter, he might be safer riding through the woods. He knew the dangers. He'd been in the Dunnwood before, hunting the great black boars.

The giant boars in the wood often grew almost as tall as Gaborn's stallion, and over the centuries they had learned to attack riders. But there were more dangerous things in these woods, it was said—ancient duskin ruins still guarded by magic, and the spirits of those who'd died here. Gaborn had once seen such a spirit.

Raj Ahten's men would be on warhorses, heavy creatures bred for battle in the desert, not for speed in the woods.

But even riding fast through the woods, it would take Gaborn a day to reach Lord Sylvarresta. Such a journey would be hard on his stallion.

Meanwhile, Gaborn's own father was not far south. King Orden was coming north for the autumn hunt, as was his custom, and this time he had a company of over two thousand soldiers. Gaborn was to have formally proposed betrothal to Iome Sylvarresta in a week, and King Orden had brought an impressive retinue for his son.

Now those troops might well be needed in battle.

Gaborn raised his hand, manipulated his fingers quickly in battle sign. Retreat. Warn King Orden.

Borenson looked wary, signed, Where are you going?

To warn Sylvarresta.

No! Dangerous! Borenson signed. Let me go!

Gaborn shook his head, pointed south.

Borenson glared, signed, I'll go north. Too dangerous for you!

But Gaborn could not let him. He'd intended to take a dangerous road to power, to try to become the kind of lord who would win men's hearts. How better to win the hearts of the people of Heredon, than to come to their aid now? I must go, Gaborn signed forcefully.

Borenson began to argue again. Gaborn whipped out his own saber, aiming just so, slashing Borenson's cheek. The cut was so shallow, the soldier could have got it shaving.

Gaborn fought down his rage. Almost immediately he regretted this impetuous act. Yet Borenson knew better than to argue with his prince in a dangerous situation. Arguments were poison. A man who believes he is doomed to fail tends to fail. Gaborn would listen to no poison arguments.