“DON’T TOUCH THAT!”
They all stopped, and Thor looked over at the leaf he’d almost touched. It was large and yellow, and seemed innocent enough.
The boy reached out with his stick and gently touched the tip of it; as he did, the leaf suddenly wrapped itself around the stick, incredibly fast, and a hissing noise followed, as the tip of the stick evaporated.
Thor was shocked.
"A Rankle leaf," the boy said. "Poison. If you touched it, you’d be missing a hand right now.”
Thor looked around at all the foliage with a new respect. He marveled at how lucky they had been to encounter this boy.
They continued on their hike, Thor keeping his hands close to his body, as did the others, and trying to be more careful about everywhere they stepped.
"Stay close to each other and follow my footsteps exactly," the boy said. "Don't touch anything. Don't try to eat those fruits. And don't smell those flowers either—unless you want to pass out.”
“Hey, what's that?" O'Connor asked, turning and looking at a huge fruit dangling from a branch, long and narrow, a glistening yellow. O'Connor took a step towards it, reaching out.
"NO!" the boy screamed.
But it was too late. As he touched it, the ground give way beneath all of them, and Thor felt himself sliding, racing down a hill running with mud and water. They were stuck on a mudslide and they could not stop.
They all screamed as they slid in the mud, hundreds of feet, straight down to the black depths of the jungle.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Erec sat on his horse, breathing hard, preparing himself to attack the two hundred soldiers facing him. He had fought valiantly and had managed to take down the first hundred—but now his shoulders were weak, his hands trembling. His mind was ready to fight forever—yet he did not know how long his body would follow. Still, he would fight with all he had, as he had done his whole life, and let the fates make the decision for him.
Erec screamed and kicked the unfamiliar horse which he had stolen from one of his opponents, and charged for the soldiers.
They charged back, matching his lone battle cry with theirs, fierce. Much blood had already been spilled on this field, and clearly no one was leaving without the other side dead.
As he charged, Erec removed a throwing knife from his belt, took aim, and threw it at the lead soldier before him. It was a perfect throw, lodging in his throat, and the soldier clutched his throat, dropping the reins, and fell from his horse. As Erec had hoped, he fell before the feet of the other horses, causing several to trip over him and sending them crashing to the ground.
Erec raised a javelin with one hand, a shield in the other, lowered his faceplate, and charged with all he had. He would charge this army as fast and hard as he could, take whatever blows he would, and cut a line right through it.
Erec screamed as he charged into the group. All his years of jousting had served him well, and he used the long javelin expertly to take out one soldier after the next, knocking them down like a row of dominoes. He tucked himself into a ball and with his other hand covered himself with the shield; he felt a rain of blows descend on him, on his shield, on his armor, from all directions. He was slammed by swords and axes and maces, a storm of metal, and Erec only prayed that his armor would hold. He clung to his javelin, taking out as many soldiers as he could as he charged, cutting a path through the huge group.
Erec didn’t slow, and after about a minute of riding, he finally broke out the other end, into the open, having cut a straight path of devastation right down the middle. He had taken out at least a dozen soldiers—but he had suffered for it. He breathed hard, his body aching, the clang of metal still ringing in his ears. He felt as if he had been put through a grinder. He looked down and saw he was covered in blood; luckily, he did not feel any major wounds. They seemed to be minor scratches and cuts.
Erec rode in a wide circle, looping back, preparing to face the army again. They, too, had turned around, preparing to charge him once more. Erec was proud of his victories thus far, but it was getting harder for him to catch his breath, and he knew that one more pass through this group might finish him off. Nonetheless, he readied himself to charge again, never willing to back away from a fight.
An unusual cry suddenly arose from the rear of the army, and Erec was at first confused to see a contingent of soldiers attacking the rear. But then he recognized the armor, and his heart soared: it was his close friend from the Silver, Brandt, along with the Duke and dozens of his men. Among them, Erec's heart fell to see, was Alistair. He had asked her to stay in the safety of the castle, and she had not listened. For that, he loved her more than he could say.
The Duke's men attacked the army from behind with a fierce battle cry, causing chaos. Half of the army turned to face them, and they met in a great clang of metal, Brandt leading the way with his two-handed ax. He swung at the lead soldier, chopping off his head, and swung his axe around in the same motion and lodged it another man's chest.
Erec, inspired, got a second wind: he took advantage of the chaos and charged the other half of the army. As he galloped, he leaned over and snatched a spear protruding from the earth, leaned back and threw it with the force of ten men. The spear lodged through one soldier’s throat and continued going, lodging in the chest of another.
Erec then raised his sword high and brought it down on the first soldier he reached, chopping the shaft of his mace in half, then swinging around and chopping off the man's head.
Erec continued fighting, throwing himself into the group of men with all of his remaining energy, thrusting, blocking, parrying, attacking all the soldiers who swarmed him from all sides. He alternately raised his shield, blocking blow after blow, and attacked; within moments, the soldiers were all converging around him, dozens of them, attacking him from every direction.
He killed more than he could count, but there were just too many of them, even with the Duke’s men preoccupying the rear flank. One of them slipped a blow of his mace past Erec, into his back, between his shoulder blades; Erec cried out in pain as the spiked metal ball landed on his spine. He fell from his horse, down to the ground, the impact winding him.
But he did not give up. His instincts kicked in and he had the presence of mind to roll immediately, raise his shield and block a blow descending for his head. Then he parried with his sword, severing the man's arm.
A soldier aimed to trample Erec’s head, and Erec spun out of the way, swung around and chopped off the horse’s legs, sending its rider to the ground; Erec then rolled over and stabbed the man in the chest.
More and more men converged on Erec, and he rolled to his knees and blocked blow after blow, countering when he could as he was swarmed. His shoulders were weakening. A particularly large knight with a straight, long beard stepped forward and raised an axe high. Erec raised his shield to block it, but another soldier kicked it from his hand, and before he could react, a third soldier stepped on his chest, pinning him down. There were just too many of them, and Erec was too weary. There was nothing left he could do but watch as the huge knight began to swing down his axe.
Suddenly there came a great commotion, and Erec looked up to see Brandt arrive, raising his sword high with a fierce cry, swinging with all he had, and in a single blow chopping the shaft of the axe in half, and also chopping off the huge knight's head.
There followed the Duke and several others, attacking all the soldiers around Erec, clearing a path to him. Erec spun, grabbed the soldier’s leg who was stepping on his chest, and yanked him down to the ground; he then rolled over and snapped the man’s neck with his bare hands.
Erec grabbed a dagger from the dead man’s waist, spun around, and stabbed another attacker in the side of the throat who had been swinging for him. He then gained his feet, grabbed his sword from the bloody battlefield, and got his third wind.
Erec swung in every direction, invigorated to fight with his friend Brandt at his side again, as they were reinforced by m
ore of the Duke's men. They soon cleared a path, together, killing the dozen men converging on them.
Erec found a horse and remounted, and was soon up there along with the others. He took stock of the situation: he had been joined by several dozen of the Duke’s men, and together, they faced what remained of the lord’s army, about a hundred men. He immediately searched for Alistair, and found her mounted on her Warkfin on the edge of the battlefield, watching over everything. She was safe from the battle, and Erec was relieved.
Erec breathed hard, Brandt beside him breathing just as hard, also covered in blood.
"I knew I would fight by your side again," Brandt said. "I just didn't think it would be so soon.”
Erec smiled.
"It seems I owe you my life once again,” he said.
"No you don't,” Brandt said. "Remember Artania, ten years ago? Now we’re even.”
As they all prepared to charge against the hundred remaining men, suddenly, another cry arose from the rear of the group, and Erec turned in confusion, trying to process what was happening. He narrowed his eyes and in the distance, he thought he saw a battle occurring at the rear of the lines. He could not understand what was happening. Were the lord’s men fighting each other?
"More of your men?" Erec asked the Duke.
But the Duke shook his head, puzzled, too.
"My men are all with me. I do not know who attacks them.”
Erec was baffled as the army facing them broke out into chaos, and as the men began to turn and flee from the battlefield.
As the turmoil neared, Erec finally saw what it was. He was breathless at the site.
The lord’s army was being attacked from the rear by a huge group of creatures. They were twice as tall as any man, twice as broad, their skin a glowing yellow, each with two heads, and arms eight feet long. Erec recognized them at once. Covenies. They were fabled creatures, known to bear a superhuman strength that could tear a man in half with a single hand. They didn't carry any weapons—they didn't need to.
Despite himself, Erec’s heart flooded with fear.
"It's not possible," Brandt said. "Covenies only live on the far side of the Canyon. What are they doing here?”
"The only way they could be here is if they found a breach in the Canyon," the Duke said.
"Or if the Shield is down," Erec said gravely.
As Erec uttered the words he suddenly felt them to be true, and his heart flooded with true fear. The shield down. The Ring open for attack. It was more than he could process. He did not worry for himself, but for the fate of the Ring. If the shield was down here, it could be down all over the entire Ring. They could be overrun. And worse, the Empire could invade.
The army before Erec disbanded, fleeing for their lives as more and more Covenies appeared, attacking them from behind, picking them up with a single hand and biting off their heads.
"Retreat to Silesia!" the Duke commanded. "We must seal the gates at once!”
As one they all turned and charged from the battlefield; Erec stopped only long enough to ride up beside Alistair, mount Warkfin behind her, and take off with her. He felt her soft hands clutching him tightly from behind, and feeling her hands on him, knowing that they were together, that she was safe, made everything right in the world.
"I owe you my life," Erec said to her, as they rode with the others.
"And I owe you mine," she answered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kendrick stood before the rebuilt town wall, admiring his handiwork. He, along with a small group of Silver, had been fortifying this wall for days, camped out in this large town on the Eastern borderlands of the Ring, which had been badly damaged by the McCloud raid. As the Legion had been dispatched to repair the smaller villages to the south, Kendrick thought it fitting that the Silver fortify the bigger cities to the east, in the more dangerous territory close to the McClouds. It was the right thing to do, to lead by example.
Their rebuilding efforts had been a success and their time here was almost up. He hadn’t been home in weeks, hadn’t had any news from the world, and he sorely missed King's Court, missed his sister, his close friend Atme, all of his brothers in the Silver—he even missed his squire, Thor. He wanted to get back to King's Court as soon as possible, to make sure his sister was safe, and to help her oust Gareth. Having been imprisoned by him, Kendrick, more than most, had felt the touch of his wrath, and he burned to make wrongs right and to put his sister on the throne—for the sake of his dead father, for the sake of King's Court, and for the sake of the Ring.
The second sun sat long in the sky and it was nearing the end of another back-breaking day of labor, Kendrick supervising a hundred townsfolk as they carried oversized stones and plastered the ancient wall. Kendrick and his men advised them on the best place to fortify and defend, where to build parapets and how to build stone towers that served as lookout points. Before he’d arrived, the openings to this town’s fortifications had all been too wide, there had been no slits in the stone for firing arrows, and the walls were merely a few inches thick. Now, the stone walls stood several feet thick, there was but one entrance in or out of the city, and it was shaped and built in such a way that it could be well-guarded from the inside, held with just a few men. New parapets had been built from which the townsfolk could defend with a few cauldrons of tar and a host of bows.
Kendrick was satisfied. In this new place, but a few hundred well-trained men could fend off a few thousand. These people had desperately needed the eye and labor of professional soldiers and it was now vastly more secure.
As Kendrick stood there, he felt satisfaction from a hard day’s work, from helping his fellow citizens—yet there was something in the back of his mind which troubled him. He wasn't quite sure what it was. Earlier this morning he could have sworn he spotted Estopheles, circling up high, screeching in a way that disturbed him. It felt like a warning. Worse, the night before he had been up hours with troubled dreams of this town burning, of all his handiwork being toppled to the ground. He had dreamt this dream not once, but three times, the third time waking him for good, too vivid to allow him to return to sleep.
He did not understand what it all meant. He hadn't had bad dreams since he was a child, since the night before his grandfather died. He hoped it was not a premonition of something evil.
"My lord!" came an urgent voice.
Kendrick turned to see a messenger come running up to him. It was the boy whom he had appointed to the new position of lookout on the newly-built watchtower.
"Come quick! I spot something on the horizon. I do not understand it.”
Kendrick turned and ran off with the messenger, several of his men following. They cut through the winding streets of this town which Kendrick had come to know by heart, and he ran down the narrow path that twisted up a small elevation at the far end of the city, taking him to the top of a hill upon which they had built the new stone tower. It was the highest ground in the city, and the place at which Kendrick had instructed they should keep a twenty four hour watch. This was the first time the lookout had spotted anything, and Kendrick guessed that it was just a false warning from a skittish boy.
Kendrick reached the top and stood on the narrow, circular platform with the others, and followed the scout's finger as he pointed at the horizon. It was a clear, blue and yellow day, no clouds as far as the eye could see, with perfect visibility. Kendrick could see for miles, and he looked east, towards the Highlands, towards the McCloud border. As far away as they were, on this day, Kendrick could see the faint outline of the Highlands, the mountain ranges spotting the horizon, shrouded in mist.
As he looked closer, Kendrick, to his surprise, spotted something, too.
"There, my lord," the scout said, pointing to his right.
At first Kendrick did not see exactly what the scout was talking about. But as he scrutinized the horizon, he began to see it, too. There was a small, faint cloud, in the very distant horizon, appearing a tiny bit thicker than the others
, and appearing slightly lower to the ground. As Kendrick watched, it seemed to grow ever thicker, darker.
"It looks like smoke,” the scout said. “It doesn't make any sense.”
Kendrick nodded. He was right: it didn't make any sense. Why would there be a fire on the McCloud side of the Ring? None of his people had launched a raid, as far as he knew.
"Perhaps it is a random fire that has broken out in one of their cities," one of Kendrick’s men, beside him, volunteered.
Kendrick nodded, thinking. While that was a possibility, he felt it was not the case. He sensed that something was wrong, that something bigger was happening. Something he did not understand.
Kendrick stood there, wondering, debating what his next move should be. He had been gearing up mentally to leave these borderlands, to return to King’s Court; to lead an expedition now to go and investigate this would take he and his men nearly a full day's ride in the opposite direction, closer to the Highlands. It was not something he wanted to do unless there was good cause.
There came a sudden commotion, and Kendrick turned to see a lone rider approaching the town from the long road that led in the direction of King's Court. His heart soared as he recognized the rider immediately: his horse and armor gave him away. It was a man he had known and fought with since the time he could walk. His close friend of the Silver, Atme.
It warmed his heart to see him; but as Kendrick watched him gallop for the town gate, he could tell by his urgency, by his posture, that something was wrong. This was not a casual visit. Atme had urgent business, and Kendrick sensed it was bad news.
He braced himself as Atme charged through the town gate, spotted him, rode to him and dismounted, running up the stone steps for Kendrick three at a time.
"The last time I saw you run like that, you were running from your debts," Kendrick said with a smile as his old friend arrived, gasping for air, and they embraced. An attendant rushed over and handed Atme a bucket of water, and he took a long drink, then dumped the rest on his head.