——— 2 ———

⁠—⁠—⁠— II ⁠—⁠—⁠—

Two twists of the small hourglass later, a servant came to tell the count and the general that all preparations had been made. At the same time, the bell atop the red tower that stood in the middle of Alvon Keep rang exactly ten times. All within the keep left their assigned posts to spots where they could see the inner courtyard.

Alvon Keep was similar in size to the now-fallen fortress of Stafolos, but it boasted a larger garrison. Drawing their steeds, knights in solemn war-garb moved into formation in the courtyard, while behind them some of the hardiest keep guards lined up. It was a sight to behold.

In the Gohran military, one troop was comprised of roughly a hundred and fifty horsemen, who were then further divided into five squads. A full three troops of Count Ricard’s red knights awaited in formation along with two squads of the white-armored knights who belonged to the general’s personal guard.

The red knights were arrayed in three lines. Upon their chests, standing out against the red of their breastplates, gleamed the crest of the Mongauli archduke, the scorpion of Mongaul combined with the lion of Gohra. Three troop captains with red plumes falling from their helms stood at the head of the lines, while behind them could be seen fifteen squad captains sporting shorter red plumes.

The two squads of white knights from Torus bore the same Mongauli crest. Their captains, Count Vlon and Baron Lindrot of Torus, wore white plumes in their helms similar in length to those of the troop captains of the red knights.

Amnelis appeared on the balcony, a page in tow bearing her jeweled sword. She looked down with some satisfaction at the forces assembled in the courtyard below. Nowhere among the men was there a glimmer of fear, a hesitant expression, or a face that betrayed any sign of weakness. But there was tension and excitement in those five hundred faces that now turned to look up with undisguised reverence at the archduke’s daughter.

Even were she not their respected general, the sight of Amnelis would have stirred them. She had once again put on her white armor and a long cloak that hung from her shoulders. Sheathed at her waste was a shortsword with a jeweled hilt; she held her helm in her hand, letting her shining golden hair flow freely down her back. Her face was pale and shone with the purity of youth, bold yet beautiful, like that of a hero of legend. She nodded to her page and took the slim jeweled sword from him. Then she turned to the assembled knights and spoke.

“Tonight, these three troops of the red, together with the white knights led by Vlon and Lindrot, will make a crossing of the Kes River and enter Nospherus, where we will pursue and capture the twins of Parros and those who harbor them. I, Amnelis, daughter to the archduke and General of the Right, will lead you personally. This night crossing and the ensuing expedition into Nospherus will be dangerous. Each troop of red will begin by lighting a bonfire from which to draw torches so that we may have light to see our surroundings and each other. You will carry three days’ rations; we will return when our mission is accomplished. A reminder: I want none of you to leave your assigned squad for any reason, and all my orders are to be obeyed swiftly and without question.”

“For Mongaul!” the cheering of the troops shook the walls of Alvon.

“We ride!” Amnelis lifted the jeweled sword in her hand toward the sky.

While the keep guard watched, the knights of the expedition mounted their horses. Amnelis disappeared from the balcony only to reappear soon afterwards among the ranks of warriors, her white cloak fluttering behind her as she lightly mounted the great white steed brought by her page.

The hulking, sour-faced Count Vlon and the compact Baron Lindrot rode up on either side of her, followed by the caster Gajus and a single mounted page. Led by Amnelis, these were the first to leave through the main gate of the keep, the white knights falling into rank behind them. Part of the keep guard, wearing only light armor, brought up the rear with Count Ricard at their head.

Twilight had come and gone; night had fallen on the Marches. Had the archduke’s daughter not insisted on haste, not a man in the war party that now rode out of the gates would have had to do anything as foolhardy as attempt a night crossing of the Kes.

But the troops, elite soldiers of Mongaul, said not a word in protest. Following their solemnly beautiful general, they rode their horses out through the woods surrounding Alvon Keep. They rode in five files, with all the knights on the flanks bearing torches. As they progressed, the lights they bore illuminated the path with a harsh and unaccustomed brightness. The knights could see the creatures of the forest, disturbed from their sleep⁠—or their hunting⁠—dashing from the half-lit underbrush into the darkness of the forest beyond. Though few of the stout knights paid any notice, there were a few unmistakable sighs of relief when at last they came out of the wood to where they could see the Kes below them. The river’s waters were lit to shining by the bluish-white light of Aeris Moongoddess⁠—a strange glow that made the water float in their eyes, like some phantasm of a river, not real at all.

They stood now on the cliffs overlooking the river-gorge. Behind them stretched the endless, black wood of Alvon, formless and foreboding in the dark except for the area around the keep, where the watchfires of the guard cast a ring of light across the surrounding treetops. Beyond that, too far to be seen even in the bright moonlight lay the Roodwood, and in it the burnt shell of Stafolos Keep.

The knights tarried for a while, awaiting orders, looking down at the glimmering river. It was deceptively placid, the quiet lapping of the water against the rocks giving no hint of the innumerable dangers that lurked within. Yet if the knights knew the clanger, as they surely did, they gave no sign. All stood silently, each helm lit on one side by the torchlight, and on the other side dark and formless.

Amnelis’ white armor and the golden hair that flowed down her back was as a beacon to the troops, a star floating up out of the darkness before them.

“More torches.”

Amnelis seemed to hesitate, perhaps knowing what awaited them in the waters below, but it was only for a moment. Her orders rang out clear in the night air. The knights hung their crossbows from their saddle-knobs where they could be quickly reached. Then they drew out the remaining torches they were carrying and lit them from the fires carried at the sides of the column. Soon it was bright as midday in a wide circle around them.

Amnelis raised a white-gloved hand and the knights began their descent down the narrow path to the river. The path switched back many times before reaching the riverbank. There was not enough room on the narrow way or the rocks below for all five hundred of the knights, so two squads of red knights went down first, dismounting and leading their horses by the bit.

Count Ricard’s engineers had been busy making preparations, bringing rafts down to the riverbank. These craft were much like the raft the fugitives had used to escape from Stafolos, but better reinforced with iron and with railings built specifically for better defense.

Leaving their horses behind, the leading troops fixed torches to the rafts and boarded, ten men to a raft. Three rafts were pushed off from the shore by the engineers, and the knights used their poles to push out further onto the water.

Where Guin and the others had been content to let the current carry them down the river, the Mongauli troops were seeking to cross the waterway directly, and the task before them was much more demanding. It took ten poles on each raft to fight the current, dipping down so hard they scraped against the bottom in the shallows. As soon as they were afloat, the rafts began to rock, the light from the swaying torches on deck sending shadows darting out and back in deranged races across the water. Paying no attention to the other rafts, each group of ten concentrated all their efforts on scanning the water immediately around them for danger.

Suddenly a scream came from one of the rafts, followed by the sound of spraying water. Hands gripped swords instinctively.

“Bigmouth!”

From the shore, Count Ricard saw a plume of water shoot over a raft, dousing half of the torches. Sounds of battle came drifting over the water.

“First wave! Report casualties!” the count charged up to the water’s edge and shouted.

For a while there was only the clamor of men yelling to each other out on the raft. Finally the report came: the attack was over, with two casualties. The bigmouth had taken one, and the other had been knocked off the raft in a surge of spray.

“Permission to rescue the soldier in the river!” one of the knights shouted back to shore.

“Denied! The next rafts will look for him!” Ricard answered, though he knew the chances of finding anyone in the night river were slim, especially if he wore armor.

After what seemed an eternity, a raft made it to the opposite bank. The ten knights scrambled onto the safety of the shore with obvious relief, forgetting for a moment that they were now in the wildlands of Nospherus and probably in even more danger than they had been on the water.

They hauled their raft part way onto the shore and fastened it tightly to the rocks with chains and ropes. The other two rafts moored themselves in a similar fashion, one on either side of the first raft. Once the three vessels were secure, the knights groped in the water behind them for a set of chains that linked these rafts to another trio of rafts back on the Gohran side of the river. Then, using capstans with pegs to grip the chains, they began to pull the next three rafts across.

The going from there on was far easier than the first crossing had been. With the combined forces of poles and chains propelling them, the rafts slid quickly across the river. This wave of knights worked swiftly to fasten their rafts to the first ones with iron latches, then went to join the front guard on the Nospherus shore. The process was repeated ten times, until a line of linked rafts stretched across the whole of the river, forming a floating bridge of sorts. As a finishing touch, sturdy iron poles were fastened along the length of the bridge, stabilizing it against the tugging of the current and making it easier for the knights to cross. Though the undulating span was in constant motion and the footing precarious in places, the next squad was able to make the crossing on horseback in three lines.

The remaining red knights moved over the river quickly, leading the mounts of the men who had crossed the river steedless.

Amnelis watched with satisfaction as her men crossed the bridge. The first stage of the expedition was complete. They had a bridge.

“Gajus, the time!”

“Three twists before sunrise, my Lady.”

“Then we keep moving.”

The red knights had finished the crossing, leaving only two squads of the white on the west bank. Amnelis turned towards Ricard.

“Return to the keep, leaving a platoon here to guard the bridge. At first light, I want you to send a company to the Nospherus side to build a wall as we discussed. Your engineers will reinforce the bridge. Send each other messengers twice daily, once at dawn, once at dusk, and use the watchfires as well. Let the reinforcements from Tauride rest well after they arrive, then have them cross over and establish a line of defense. Understood?”

“Yes, General. And please⁠—be careful,” said Ricard. His rugged voice had an undertone of genuine concern. “Nospherus is Doal’s domain, and the Golden Scorpion Palace needs you.”

“I will return to the makeshift fort when I have captured the fugitives. Should the waters rise before then and take down the bridge, rebuild it, as many times as you have to.”

“Yes, General.”

“And keep an eye on the situation at Stafolos. It is unlikely, but should the Sem attack again…”

“I understand.”

Amnelis nodded. She put on her white helm, lowering the faceplate and tucking the billows of her golden hair carefully out of sight. Then she turned and called out to her captains, Vlon on her right and Lindrot on her left. “We cross!”

She rode down toward the bridge, her cloak gliding like a ghost behind her.

The white knights spurred their horses, and all began to make across the floating bridge as one. In their midst rode Gajus Runecaster. In his black-hooded cloak, atop a dun-maned mount with black trappings and a black saddle, he stood out like a spot of ink in a stream of milk.

The torches along the bridge rails create a false sense of security, thought Ricard as he watched the knights move across the unsteady planks. Reckless, our general… reckless and beautiful. Would that I were not charged to defend the keep! I would cross this foul river with her.

With the keep guard standing watch, Amnelis and the sixty white knights crossed without incident. The red knights on the far bank waited, reins in hand, for the general’s arrival. Then, without a moment’s pause or rest, the expeditionary force began its journey into the wildlands of Nospherus.

In those days, the region known as the Marches, with its endless rocky deserts, its dark forests filled with creatures defying description, and its fey and barbarous tribes, far surpassed the Middle Country both in vastness and in the threats it posed.

To the folk of the Middle Country, who felt that they alone knew civilization, it seemed that the whole of humankind lived in the area bounded by the Marches and by the watery expanses of Lentsea and Corsea. Within these borders they fought over tiny patches of fertile land and built their kingdoms around them. The Middle Country extended for a few thousand leagues between the Kes River in the east and the River Argo away to the southwest where lush green plains stretched down to the surf of the Lentsea. The warm and distant Southlands, embracing in their vastness mighty deserts and jungles and the sun-drenched islands of Simhara, Uranya, and Lodos floating in the Corsea, and the frigid Northlands, with their kingdoms etched out of ice, had all become but half-forgotten myths to the people of the Middle Country who knew little and cared less about the world beyond their brightly lit halls and crystal palaces.

The Henna Highroad or “The Red Road,” so named for the ruddy cobblestones that paved its length, was the lifeblood of the Middle Country, allowing trade and communication between the various kingdoms, duchies, and free cities. In ages to come, the highroad was to extend to the farthest reaches of the Marches, but in the days of which this story tells it served only to connect the bustling cities of the Middle Country. The Marches, a deep and wild natural barrier against civilization, were left to homesteaders, rogues and pioneers.

The harsh borderlands seemed a peaceful garden compared to the savage terrain into which the expeditionary force was now riding. They were in the no-man’s-land, heading east⁠—in the direction the fugitives had gone the night before. During the first hours of their journey, knights glancing backward could still see the torches burning at the river-crossing near Alvon Keep like guardian spirits unwisely left behind.

There was nothing that might justly be called a road in Nospherus, only the sometimes mossy, mostly barren tracks that snaked between the massive stone boulders that cluttered the otherwise featureless landscape. The dark of night seemed deeper here, and only Doal Demongod knew what hideous beasts it hid.

Amnelis considered her situation. Around her, five hundred knights riding five abreast rode in silence with their torches lifted high. She knew that the torch-flames would announce their presence should the fugitives be close by, but to travel without lights in the night of the no-man’s land would be folly. The knights rode in close rank, each continually checking his fellow on his side, passing and relighting torches as they died or were blown out, holding their lights extended to illuminate the path where the footing was treacherous.

Despite the torches, the darkness here was more cloying, thicker than it had been on the river. It was almost as if the night itself were a living thing, an impure jelly-like life-form that flowed around them and consumed the light. And there were things moving in the blackness beyond the range of the torches, little whorls of blackness where the dark had coalesced into something terrible that hungered and that hated all intruders. There was no stillness in this night, it was filled with even more prowlers than the Roodwood…

Amnelis rode safely in the middle of the ranks, surrounded by five hundred mounted warriors. Still, as they rode, a scream like that of a weeping woman sounded directly over her hooded head, followed at once by a sound of great wings flapping.

When the men lifted their torches high, whatever had made the sound was gone, but they caught a glimpse of something slimy on the ground scuttling out of the circle of light on thousands of tiny legs, some horrid cross between a leech and a centipede.

The foul denizens of Nospherus did not seem to disturb Amnelis. She appeared to be deep in thought as she gently guided her horse along, her faceplate lowered and her hood drawn over her head to hide her countenance.

Dawn should have been coming soon, yet still the darkness crawled along the ground and writhed between their horses’ legs, and there was a foul odor in the air. It was an indescribable stench, like nothing the knights had smelled before. It clung in their nostrils and overwhelmed their other senses until there seemed to be nothing to see, or hear, or feel, but only the stench to struggle against. It seemed to bother the caster Gajus the most. He had drawn his hood over his head and pulled the edge of his cloak over his face and mouth to filter the air. As he rode swaying on his horse, he muttered to himself in a voice too low to be intelligible to others.

This stench, it is that of the crawlers⁠—or no, it is the land-dwelling cousin of the bigmouth… it bodes ill, very ill! But the stars led my Lady here; it was the choice of fate; she was meant to come…

In truth, the stars had weighed very heavily on his mind since he glimpsed their strange movements in his divination sphere back at the keep. There were too many factors, too much juxtaposition for him to discern whether the celestial lights foretold good or evil. What a tangled skein was being woven in the heavens above them! And its pattern was only now beginning to take shape.

There were only a few diviners that could possibly read the message of these stars clearly⁠—the sage Locandross, oracle of the west, or perhaps the acharya Agrippa, who had lived for twenty thousand years (it was said) and still drew breath! And of course, there was Glateis, the Dark Celebrant himself. Compared to them with their long-cultivated powers of divination, Gajus was but a new-hatched gosling with his head in the mud. Yet these stars would prove a worthy challenge even for the elders; Agrippa might need to spend his next two or three thousand years just looking at them before he knew what they told. Gajus guessed that there was none other than these three⁠—each at the pinnacle of the sorcerous arts⁠—that could offer true insight into the riddles in the sky.

Perhaps what I should do is go seek them out? But no! What am I saying? Mulberries! Mulberries! Is the Dark Celebrant Glateis not the highest priest in Doal’s own dark order? To court such a power would be folly! And Agrippa, the legendary acharya, powerful sorcerer and diviner of truths? He is more legend than truth, I fear, and his whereabouts unknown, if indeed he exists at all. Just finding him would he a quest worthy of an epic sung by kitara players throughout the land. Were I to visit any of them, it would have to be the sage Locandross. He is a white mage, and a diviner of the heavens. But there again, they say that he has gone off deep into the mountains and spends his nights gazing at the stars, alone, unconcerned about the troubles of this world; rarely is he seen of late. For all I know, he may have died out there, his glassy eyes fixed forever on the whirling polestar…

Gajus shivered mightily. It would be most difficult, most difficult indeed, but then he was wrong to expect that Jarn Fateweaver would go out of his way to spin a design that was easy to read for the sake of curious mortals. It is all I can do, thought Gajus, to make sure that the thread my Lady walks is the right one. But with the crawlers and the bigmouths and that horrid stench⁠—it is not clear at all that any of these five hundred will return to Alvon unharmed, if they return at all! This shall be most difficult… most difficult indeed!

“Gajus!” the general’s sharp whip-crack of a voice broke through the diviner’s thoughts. “Must you mumble so?”

“Aaa…” croaked the diviner.

Amnelis turned away from the sullen diviner, whose head now drooped even further down toward his horse’s neck. She pulled back her hood and lifted her faceplate to better survey their surroundings.

The thick darkness of the night was finally beginning to lift. Gradually, the edges of a mountain range to the east became visible, painted a faint orange in the growing light, and the sky began to peel off the black of night in thin layers, as if strips of paper were lifting to reveal the translucent whites and grays of the wildlands.

After a while, Amnelis gave the order to put out the torches.

Baron Lindrot edged his horse up towards the general’s. He spoke softly. “My Lady, if I may, are we sure this is the direction in which the fugitives went? Might we not cover more ground if we split into two or three groups?”

Amnelis waved his question aside with a white-gloved hand. “Gajus’ divining board has shown that they went toward’s Kanan in the east. Once the night lifts we may send a scouting patrol to the top of one of these outcroppings to search for any sign of them. But we will proceed as one. I do not wish to divide our forces in the lands of Nospherus.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Tell each of the captains to ride back along the lines and make sure there are none missing.”

Lindrot saluted and nudged his white horse towards the front of the lines. Soon, the orders were passed down through the commanders, and once again there was movement among the ranks as the weary soldiers came out of the long, dreary gloom of the night.

There were no stragglers. Satisfied, Amnelis waited until they had drawn abreast of a small rocky hill to their left, where she ordered the troops to halt for the first time since they had made the river crossing.

“We will rest here for one twist. Dismount, feed your horses, and take turns napping. I want no more than half of you asleep at one time, and even then stay clad in your armor, ready to ride at a moment’s notice should I give the order. “

After this was passed down the line, Amnelis signaled to her captains Vlon and Lindrot, and to Gajus and his page, to follow her on horseback up a rocky hillside.

The general’s white horse seemed glad that the long night was finally over, and he lifted his hooves high as he galloped with ease up the rocky incline. Amnelis only reined the animal to a halt once they had reached a flat stretch of ground on the very top of the hill. Then, still mounted and holding the reins in one hand, she surveyed the vast expanse of Nospherus.

A sigh escaped her lips. As far as she could see in all directions stretched an ocean of white and ash. The undulating rocks that stuck out of the swirling sands were like the crests of waves⁠—only the foul mists that rose here and there from the pallid ground broke the illusion that she was standing on an island in the sea. Though the sun had not yet risen, the peaks of the mountains in the distance were lit by a fiery glow, and the wildlands were slowly growing brighter with each passing moment. Yet there were no birds here to warm the heart with their song, no woodland creatures to cry out the beginning of the day.

As she stood staring out over the wildlands a red glow crept slowly over the sands until all was the color of blood, and the sun rose, far more lurid than it ever seemed on the plush side of the Kes. So day began in Nospherus.

Faint wisps of white angel hair came blowing on a light wind, wrapping around the faces and armor of the general and the four men behind her, only to dissolve a moment later.

Amnelis eyes narrowed.

She lifted a hand and pointed out and downward, to the east.

There, from the shadow of a clump of boulders, rose a thin wisp of smoke.

Amnelis lowered her faceplate and lightly rapped her horsewhip across the neck of her mount. At once her strong steed wheeled and charged back down the rocky slope at full gallop. The others hurried to keep up. They had found their fugitives.