David Farland - The Sum of All Men

Among the blackened trees near the ridge top sat one lone warrior atop an unarmored gray mare. He wore his shield on his left hand—a small round device not much larger than a platter.

Borenson, waiting. White teeth flashed beneath his red beard as the big guard smiled a welcome to his Prince. Gaborn never had thought he'd be so happy to see the green knight of House Orden on any warrior's shield.

Borenson raised his war horn to his lips again, sounded a charge, and raced toward Gaborn. His steed leapt the corpse of a Frowth giant, lunged downhill.

“Archers, draw!” Borenson shouted an obvious ruse. The valley beyond held nothing but blackened trees and stones. The guard drew a long-handled battle-axe from its sheath on his saddle, waved it above his head, thundered past Gaborn to cover the Prince's retreat.

Only one of Raj Ahten's warriors had dared cross the ridge, come rushing down.

A huge man on a black steed—his white war lance poised, like a spear of light. Yet even in the half-second as Gaborn reined his horse to wheel about, he glanced back.

The knight wore blackened chain beneath a gold surcoat, with the emblem of Raj Ahten's wolves emblazoned in red. His lance, the color of ivory, had been stained with blood.

The knight's high helm had white wings painted on it, signifying that he was no common soldier—but a captain of Raj Ahten's guard, an Invincible with no fewer than fifty endowments.

Borenson could not equal the man.

Yet Borenson spurred to meet the warrior head—on, his steed throwing dirt with every pounding of its hooves.

Then Gaborn understood: his father's troops had fled, would not come to his rescue. Borenson had to kill this knight or die in the attempt, lest Raj Ahten learn the truth.

Gaborn drew the short sword from the belt at his waist.

The Invincible charged downhill, lance poised, holding as steady as the sun in the sky.

Borenson raised his battle-axe high. The wise thing to do would be to time his swing, parry the lance before its tip speared his mail.

But these were force warriors, and Gaborn did not know what kinds of strengths or talents the Invincible might have. Gaborn was not prepared for their tactics.

Just as it appeared Borenson would be hit, he called “Clear!” His horse leapt and kicked.

The Invincible buried his lance in the horse's neck. Only then did Gaborn see that this was a “pinned lance”—a lance held to the warrior's gauntlets with a metal pin. The pins helped when battling armored opponents, for it insured that the knight would not lose his grip when the lance hit metal.

Unfortunately, one could not release the lance without removing the heavy steel cotter pins that held it to his gauntlet. Now as the lance buried itself in the horse's flesh and bone, such was the weight of the horse that the knight's arm wrenched up and back, then snapped, bones shattering even as his lance cracked under tremendous pressure.

The Invincible howled in rage. His worthless right arm remained pinned to a broken lance.

He grabbed for his mace with his left hand as Borenson launched from his own mount, swinging his wicked axe so hard that it pierced the Invincible's mail shirt, drove through his leather underjerkin, and buried its head in the hollow beneath the Invincible's throat.

Borenson followed his weapon, the full weight of his shield slamming against the big knight. Both of them bowled over the back of the knight's horse, landed in the ash.

Such fierce blows would have killed a normal man, but Raj Ahten's blood-crazed Invincible shouted a war cry, and shoved Borenson back downhill a few yards.

The Invincible leapt to his feet, drew his mace. Gaborn wondered if the knight would live up to his name, for he seemed invincible. Some of these knights had over twenty endowments of stamina, could recover from nearly any blow.

The Invincible rushed forward, a blur. Borenson lay on his back. He kicked, slamming an iron boot into the knight's ankle. A bone snapped like the cracking of an axle.

The Invincible swung his mace. Borenson tried to block the blow with the edge of his shield. The shield crumpled under the impact, and the lower edge of it drove into Borenson's gut.

Borenson groaned beneath the blow.

Gaborn had nearly reached the battle, his own horse flying back uphill.

Gaborn leapt from his horse's back. The Invincible whirled to meet him. The big man swung his mace high, ready to smash Gaborn under its iron spikes.

The Invincible's full helm allowed no peripheral vision, so he could not see Gaborn till he turned. As he spun, Gaborn aimed his sword at the eye slits in the man's visor.

The blade slid in with a sickening thud, and Gaborn let himself fall forward, knocking the knight backward, piercing his skull.

He landed atop the armored knight, lay a moment, the breath knocked from him. Gasping. He looked the Invincible in the face, to be sure he was dead.

The fine blade had driven through the eye slit up to the hilt, driven through the Invincible's skull, then punctured through the back of his helm. Even an Invincible could not survive such a devastating wound. This one had gone as limp as a jellyfish.

Gaborn got up in shock, conscious of how close he'd come to death.

He quickly assessed himself, checking for wounds, glanced uphill, afraid another knight might charge down.

He tried to yank his short sword free of the Invincible's helm. The blade would not come loose.

Gaborn climbed to his hands and knees, gazed at Borenson, panting. Borenson rolled to his stomach, began vomiting onto the charred earth.

“Well met, my friend,” Gaborn said, smiling. He felt as if it were the first time he'd smiled in weeks, though he'd left Borenson only two days past.

Borenson spat on the ground, clearing his mouth, and smiled at Gaborn.

“I really think you should get your butt out of here before Raj Ahten comes down the road.”

“Good to see you, too,” Gaborn said.

“I mean it,” Borenson grumbled. “He'll not let you go so easily. Don't you realize that he came all this way just to destroy House Orden?”

In the Dedicates' Keep, Chemoise grunted as she struggled to help her father from his bed of straw and dried lavender, dragged him out onto the green grass of the bailey so he could board the great wain for his trip back south. It was hard to move such a big man.

No, it was not his weight that made dragging him difficult. Instead it was the way he clutched her, grasping fiercely at her shoulders, his powerful fingers digging into her skin like claws, his legs unable to relax enough to walk.

She felt she had failed him years before, when she'd let him go south to fight Raj Ahten. She'd feared he would never return, that he'd be killed. She'd hoped her fear had been only a child's concerns. But now, after his years as a prisoner, Chemoise imagined she'd had a premonition, perhaps a cold certainty sent from her ancestors beyond the grave.

So now she carried not only her father, but also the weight of her failure all those years before, a weight that somehow tangled with her feelings of inadequacy at having found herself pregnant. Her, the Princess's Maid of Honor.

The western Great Hall in the Dedicates' Keep was huge, three stories tall, where fifteen hundred men slept on any given night. Smooth walnut planks covered the floors, and each wall held a huge hearth so the room could be kept comfortably warm all winter.

The eastern Great Hall, on the far side of the bailey, held a third as many women.

“Where...?” Chemoise's father asked as she dragged him past the rows of pallets where Dedicates lay.

“South, to Longmont, I think,” Chemoise said. “Raj Ahten has ordered you to be brought.”