First Rider's Call

Good feeding was the key. He didn’t have to compete with anyone else for these grasslands. The good feeding helped the mommas make strong lambs in the spring, and when the lambs weaned, they grew eating that same fine grass. All the other grasslands were overgrazed and trodden to death by other farmers’ livestock. If Barston had chosen to graze his sheep there, he’d have scrawny, sick lambs, instead of the fine, strong beasties dotting the land before him now.

As dusk deepened, mist crept along the rolling countryside. On a near hillock, the huge old cairn and the obelisks that surrounded it turned into menacing silhouettes.

Barston grinned. Mad Grough, the other farmers called him. The crazy old man.

“Crazy? Bah.”

He’d have thought they’d figure it out when at every market he got the best prices for sheep and wool. The rest of them were a bunch of superstitious crybabies.

“All the better for me,” he said with a scratchy laugh. He didn’t have to share with anyone.

The old legends claimed this was haunted ground, that a demon spirit inhabited it, and that anyone who lingered here was doomed.

Barston admitted the old cairn was forbidding enough, the ground within the circle of obelisks barren of the grass that grew so prolifically elsewhere. The obelisks were carved with strange sigils, but he figured they did nothing more than tell the story of the one interred beneath the cairn. Probably a clan lord.

He was surprised grave robbers hadn’t broken into it to plunder whatever treasures had been buried with the clan lord, but he supposed the legends kept off thieves as well as sheep farmers. Or, better yet, maybe the fact the tomb had no entrance had discouraged thieves.

The clan lord probably had been terrible in life, spawning the legends, but the fact remained he was dead. Dead for a good, long time, Barston guessed, and gone to dust. Not a threat to one sheep farmer, two collies, or a flock of sheep.

The legends only served to keep others away, much to Barston’s profit. He’d been bringing his flocks here for a very long time, and no demon spirit had bothered him yet.

He turned back to his little campfire and stirred up the embers. He had made himself a little shepherd’s hut here on the grasslands, lugging all the materials himself, piece by piece, except for the sod that covered the roof. He found that aplenty all around him.

Barston was just contemplating making himself a modest supper when the ground began to tremble beneath his feet.

“Wha—?” His pipe slipped from his mouth and landed in the fire.

A silent concussion slapped the air, followed by terrified bleating by the sheep. Polly and Bill started howling.

Barston whirled about, holding his shepherd’s staff before him. What in the five hells was going on? Were wolves on the prowl? He hadn’t heard any, nor seen sign of them. This was more than wolves, though; the ground had shaken.

When lightning exploded in spidery arcs between the obelisks, crowning the hillock of the cairn in white-blue light, Barston threw himself to the ground. His sheep stampeded. They stampeded right past the dogs, right past him. Some even trampled over him. Polly and Bill ran off whining, tails tucked between their legs. They ignored Barston’s calls and whistles.

Silence followed, and Barston did not move. He dared not. Immense, cold dread fell across him like a blanket. When he risked looking up, he saw a shadow form with the face of a gaunt cadaver staring back down at him with pale, dead eyes. A length of chain dangled from a manacle on its wrist.

Skeletal fingers twined around the hilt of an ancient sword, the blade etched with strange jagged runes that burned Barston’s eyes and made tears stream down his cheeks.

All the others who had forsaken these grasslands had not been so foolish after all. They were right: a demon haunted these grounds.

The slit of the demon’s mouth parted, and there was a subtle shoosh of breath that had not been released for a very long time. It moved its jaw as if to speak, but at first nothing came out. When it did, the voice was cracked and grating like rusty hinges.

“I seek the Galadheon.”

With those words of death ringing in Barston’s ears, his heart failed from pure terror.

Journal of Hadriax el Fex

The ships from the Empire stopped coming a long time ago, and we do not know why. We send courier ships back to the Empire, but they do not return.

I do not know what to do with Alessandros. He has always been high-tempered, but now he is given to bouts of grief and depression, declaring the Emperor, his father, has abandoned him, despite his successes here. These bouts turn into rage, which leads to broken objects and dead slaves. This then turns into long periods of silence, and melancholy, where he locks himself in his chambers to work on “experiments.”

Without resupplies from the Empire, our mechanicals are fading apart. Our artisans have been doing their best to fabricate new parts, but now the clans have targeted them for assassination, and we have lost many skilled men. We are also out of ammunition for the concussives, and we’ve found no source of saltpeter. The one thing that keeps the clans at bay is Alessandros’ Black Star device.

Renald has made lieutenant in the Lion regiment. I attended the ceremony, as I am the closest thing to family he has in this wilderness. He is devoted to Alessandros, and shows only courage, loyalty, and honor. I miss him terribly, and not just as a squire, but as a friend and confidant. I even miss his boyish jokes, but he is a true man now, and I see him more often on the field of battle than elsewhere.

TRUE AND FALSE

Laren had to hurry to keep pace with Zachary. He swept through the castle corridors leading the way, his attendants and Weapons striding behind him. They were headed toward the throne room for the day’s public audience. There was no urgency despite the haste, but she knew that expending physical energy was Zachary’s way of coping with unpleasant problems, namely Lord-Governor D’Ivary. Hopefully he’d scheduled a bout with Drent for later in the day, to take off some more of the edge. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">