Old Manuscript

Here is an early attempt at writing some of the story that began many years ago. The storyline isn't necessarily real, as it really proved more of a writing experience for the creator, especially a practice on description, dialogue, and building plot intensity. A goal in the future is to cut out more of the fat, and certainly have shorter chapters and a fresh story. 
Chapter One: Close to the Edge
The wolf paused and lifted his head. His ears sprang up and he sniffed around as if there were a ghost in front of him, hypnotically, with his eyes widening yet focused on something only in his mind. A scent had taken a hold of him, but only briefly. He moved his nose from side to side and relief came over the wolf as he combed the scent blithely in the forest air. It was the scent of the man in black.
The scent had returned and to the wolf it smelled like metal and sweat, or like a bird caught in wire. He turned his head and scanned the forest. It was dark, and as focused as he was now standing vigilant amidst the forest fern, he was tired. He had been tracking the man strenuously for days with the scent weakening or disappearing here and there. The wolf stood panting, his eyes glowing like dusky stars in the darkened wood. He knew he was getting closer. Finally he bowed his head and continued trotting onward to his left and to the southeast. A firefly sailed past somewhere overhead. 
The wolf looked like a small black cloud as he padded along through the underbrush. His shoulders were five feet high and his bushy tail made him twice as long. He was a giant wolf, tall enough to overshadow the plants that came up to his chest. His muscles stood out under black fur as he jogged through the pathless plant cover. He was strong enough to turn over the carcass of a horse with his forelimbs, or a man with his snout.       
The scent grew stronger as he chased the man through the trees. The forest was old and the trees were broad and aged. They were red cedars and firs, which rose at this hour black and unbending to heights unseen from the forest floor. To the wolf they were merely obstacles in the darkness. Many of them he bounded past without interruption, but some of his time was spent pushing past trees that were wider than his body length, with trunks that were more like slopes and roots with lives that changed the lay of the land. He could at least rub up against them without scratching himself, for many of these trees were covered in moss that held their trunks like soft hands reaching forth from the earth.    
Ten minutes passed and the land began to rise. Soon he could see a dim light nestled in the distance through a gap in the pale of trees. He shifted towards it. His breaths became heavier as he issued forth, trying to keep an eye on the light, which slipped in and out of sight as the trees broke the glow. He grunted as he leapt over a fallen tree he noticed only seconds before it was upon him. The wolf hit the ground running and sped up the low rise. Growth around him thinned until it was just a forest floor of grass and weeds. At last he approached the light, slowed, and walked on.    
The wolf found himself at the opening of a small glade. He poised himself at the edge of the last two trees and glanced around. The glade was lit up by starlight and a moon that was nowhere in sight. Dew covered a bed of phlox laden grass that gleamed subtly under the open sky. The scent was strong now, and the wolf turned his head and shuffled over to a tree a few trunks next to him. He could smell the man on this tree. He looked up and down the bark and started to claw at it uncertainly. The wolf whined faintly between breaths as he clawed and tried to push the tree down in futile. Then he stopped, walked around the tree twice, bobbed his head and then stopped again with the side of his body touching the tree. He looked back out at the glade dreamily. There was nothing there but the wolf, the trees, and the glade. 
All of the sudden the wolf noticed something as he sniffed the ground. He could see a line of trampled grass to his right that bore the scent heavily. He sniffed his way over and followed the trail with his nose grazing the floor of the glade. At about midway he stopped, let go of the scent, and started licking dew in the grass around him. The wolf had spent the entire night licking dew while he tracked the man; it had been nearly a day since he drank from a pond or a stream. He stood there under the stars for nearly ten minutes poking around the phlox. An owl hooted staunchly in a tree nearby and the wolf paid no attention. Eventually he licked his mouth, sniffed the air, and cantered back over to the trail with his nose and mind pressed hard on the scent.
The footpath of trampled blue phlox led the wolf to a thicket on the opposite edge of the clearing. He paused and sniffed the bushes in front of him, turning his head around intermittently to survey the glade. The wolf knew the man in black had crossed through here at some point, yet the only sign of his passing was ahead. The scent and the footpath led straight back into the trees, so the wolf broke through the thicket and followed. 
The forest continued to rise. The wolf ultimately lost track of the footpath, but that didn’t matter because the scent was a path of its own. For another twenty minutes he jogged through thick and thin, ever anxious and watchful of catching sight of the man standing somewhere, or sitting on a rock, or laying down in front of him in the underbrush. He tired quickly, and the only thing that kept him going was the feeling of knowing that he would reach the end of the scent: the man.
It didn’t take long for the wolf to become irritated as well. There were times where he would stop and growl at a stump in the distance, or a tree that for a split second looked like the man. At one point after sniffing out a hollow log loaded with the scent, the wolf having no avail, finally stood on top of it and howled as loud as he could. He howled until his mouth ran dry and his eyes started to water, and then he looked out and started barking in different directions of the forest. This did nothing but tire him more, and the scent remained lingering in the air calling him just as it had through the night. It hung like pipe smoke suspended before pulled, gesturing him to keep moving. Annoyed, he finally came down from the log. His growl was converted to a whine as he hit the ground, and he hurried on.    
The wolf kept going until the moon crept in above and bats few and far between could be seen skimming along the openings of the canopy. The woods grew brighter. He pressed on lightly and watchful through the trees. The sound of chirring nightjars had set in around him. It was a low and inflectioned trill; a constant and ceaseless vibration impressed in his surroundings. It made the place seem as if something sudden were about to happen, as if the nightjars themselves were taut on the edge of their nests in the forest bracken, stunned by the wolf’s imminent encounter with the man. The sound made the wolf stop and look up a few times. It had surfaced well before he thought it was there.
It wasn’t long before the wolf stopped for water again. He stood next to a wall, which was really a huge vine tasseled tree surrounded by plants with broad leaves. He had taken a break there after having lost himself through a really thick and wet stretch of brush. The wolf was soaking wet as he drank and paced beside the tree. He finally scratched his back against the tree and shook out his fur. He then carefully moved down an adjoining ledge of roots, pawing his way over as if to untangle his feet from a spider’s web or a knot of string. Upon landing on solid ground he stretched out and shook off again, yet as he walked on his mane was still sullied, and his coat remained a sopping array of matted hair. He eventually came to a strip of low hanging vines, moving quietly and intently through them. The wolf stopped in a dimly lit open space and looked out with weary eyes. No sign of the man. A drop of water reflected the moon as it fell like a bead from his chin. There was an aperture in the forest above. A line of bushes ran through a clearing, past the sweeping arms of the giant fir trees. Beyond that was another wall of trees, and through a break in the foliage he could see an opening of stars and sky. It was the end of the forest.  
The wolf tore through the brush. He imagined there being a pond or even a lake at the tree line. He thought of chasing the man around the edges of the water, and how good the water would taste after he killed him.
The air was warmer in the clearing. The scent slipped in and out of his senses. His heart raced as he slid past the last line of ferns up to the edge of forest. A vine shook, and a bird was expelled into the air. The wolf walked out from behind an old cedar that stood like a door in front of a bright light. He strode out panting, staring a few prolonged seconds at what was in front of him. There was only the sky, the heavens revolving, and instead of being a lake there the land just ended. There was a cliff and the wolf slowed, swung his head to the side, and he found himself peering down a dirt road. The road wound along the cliff-edge, going straight for ways until it curved off around a corner of trees beyond where he could not see.
The cliff was hardly a leap and bound in front of him. The moon stood in plain view, still and almost full, beaming down on the edge where the land met the sky, down onto the road from high above. The wolf walked up to the cliff adamantly, as worn out and impatient as he was, he forced himself to keep moving. He bowed his head over the rocks, nosing a patch of clover before he looked out over the edge. It was a sheer drop, and there was a valley far, far down that spread out over a great distance. The cliff was part of a wall of rock that ran continuously in both directions.
He stood on a plateau over a kilometer high. The wolf glanced out merely for a brief moment because he was unable to see anything in detail. He could only make out patches of green and black under a haze of moonlight in the expanse below. There were a few low, sparse clouds that passed by closer to him than the valley floor. He could also see a mountain range to his left running along one side of the horizon; a miniscule grey strand leagues away. There wasn’t a wind or a breeze of any kind; only a warmth and the nightjars stirring, and the wolf breathing, ever ready to whip back around should the man sneak up from behind. The scent was barely there.
The man in black did not sneak up from behind. There was no one anywhere. The wolf looked left down the road and then back to the cliff. He started walking down alongside the edge, sniffing around and looking back out at the sky. He appeared to be doing this as if to make sure the man wasn’t hiding on the face of the cliff or perhaps in the air somewhere. He wandered, speeding up and slowing down as he skirted the edge of rock and dirt. It was almost as though the wolf were a bit of tumbleweed rolling on the brink, a disoriented cluster adrift that could fall off if it made the wrong turn or if the angle were just right. He was so small to everything now. He went on for a minute this way, curious, until it sunk in that there was nothing for him there and he traipsed back onto the road.
The wolf kept his nose to the ground. Immediately he could smell more of the man in the middle of the road. It took him a second to notice, but there were footprints in the dirt as well. There were fresh boot prints running dead ahead, shallow on the hard path. Parts were mixed in with older prints of men and animals, and lines where wheels had passed, yet the boots ran unequivocally forward, distinguishable among all the rest. He already knew the man had gone this way down the road, but after seeing this he grew anxious again and picked up his pace.  
The trees towered darkly over the left side of the road, the forest gaping as if it were swallowing the moonlight. The wolf ran straight towards the point where he could see it take a sharp left turn with the cliff. An excitement rose in him. As long as the man was on this road the wolf could follow him as fast as he wanted. The question was: was he fast enough? This was it. After two and a half days the chase had come to this point, this night, this road. If not here then where? How far would he go?   
He reached the turn. The wolf strolled up to very corner of the precipice where the cliff suddenly switched directions. He walked with the edge to catch a glimpse at what was hidden to him only moments before. He saw the road wind far around a recess in the wall of rock. There was a chasm, and he could see to the other side where the road had wrapped around to it. The road there was a little lower than he was, about a hundred meters away. His eyes squinted as he looked down and out, directly across the divide. He really wanted to just leap over, but he would have to go around. It would take triple the amount of time.    
The wolf’s eyes held to the tree line and the highway on the other side of the chasm. He could make out the overgrowth of vines creeping and plant life bound to the cliff face. Where that stopped at the very right end the road curved around another corner, continuing on in the same direction. He could see faintly, a boulder sitting close to the corner on the edge of the road. For a split second it looked like it was about to fall off, and then it moved. The wolf looked twice. It was the man.
The wolf sprang up and raised a folded paw as if he were about to run. He stood staring in that posture, paused while the dark figure rose. He gritted his teeth and started growling. The man in black turned and ran down the road. This set the wolf off, so he shot down the road barking.
Echoes were fading from the chasm. The wolf was already kicking up dust a rock’s throw down the road. He was enraged now as he hit the path hard in a fury.    
He felt trapped behind that chasm, so close but so far. The man’s reaction lit a fire in him. Throughout the course of night the wolf had become increasingly impatient and angry at the man’s persistence and the mocking traces he left of himself snaking away. This was the third time the wolf had seen the man in black since he started following him. It happened once days ago in the foothills, the other deep in the forest, and now…      
He ran and ran like never before, and now he would have to kill the man before he stopped running. The road dipped and the scent sort of pulled him toward the chasm. He rocketed down the road, no longer in a mood to pace himself. Eventually the road arched in a u-shaped turn. The wolf raced around the first corner. He could see pairs of eyes in the woods watching him sharply. He topped his speed and flashed past them in a rage. 
There was a fire in his eyes and a steam that blew him around the circumbendibus. He rounded another bend and sped down the second straightaway. The wolf dashed on at a constant speed, and finally after the five minute sprint around the chasm he made it to the breach on the other end where the man had been. He slowed only a little, his feet slapping past the line of boot prints that nearly streaked back into the trees. He whizzed past and fired around the corner at full tilt. The wolf kept his eyes peeled as he made the turn. He came in spry from the outside in, pulled around like a stray gust of wind. The man undoubtedly took to the road. The man was far ahead of the wolf to be sure, yet he wasn’t as fast and could only top his speed half as long.  
The wolf flew around the corner and ripped down the road. This was his second wind, his last stretch, yet he felt like he was just getting started. He was livid now as the chasm sat behind him like a ball with a broken chain. The scent clung heavily to the air. The road bowed while the wolf gained considerable ground. He ran on and on along the rim of the plateau. He didn’t’ stop running at full speed. The road itself bowed in a way that only allowed him to see it continue a fair distance ahead. The out wall of rock arched in a general direction, so that beyond the cusps of dogleg turns, he could see it way beyond carrying forward across the land.   
Seven minutes passed and the wolf was still going, still sprinting. His body was on fire. He couldn’t feel it now, pushing and sweating for that moment. He rounded a corner. The moment came. There in the distance he could see the man in black running; a black dot hustling down the road. The wolf’s heart jolted like a battery and he charged forward like lightning.  
Something on the man caught the moon’s light and the wolf could see it flickering. It was then that he noticed the vault of sky had changed. There was a tinge of brightness with a newfangled light; a heavenly body that he was unable to see before from previous angles on the cliff. It was a planet half the size of the moon. It was like a glowing marble, another bright ball gleaming, except it hung in front of him as opposed to his side. The wolf had seen it on the previous nights, yet it presented itself so suddenly that it seemed as though the man himself had conjured it as a last minute trick.    
The wolf paid no heed and ran on. He ran with his wrath, in overdrive, his muscles burning as he closed in on the man like a hawk on a trembling mouse. He riled himself up at the thought of jumping on the man and tearing him down to the ground. He was only thirty meters away…twenty…fifteen; for a minute he felt like he was floating, and then…zing.   
Something terrible happened. A numbness shot through his body in the spur of the moment. It started in his hind legs and radiated through his body like a surge of electricity. He gnashed his teeth and for some reason he instinctually looked up to the planet in the sky. He let out a whine and slowed. A few seconds passed. The chase was over. The man disappeared around another doglegged turn. He was gone.          
It was as if the wolf had been tethered the whole time. Now he was cut off, yanked on and strangled at the end of the line. He came to a stop. The wolf was in a state of shock. He felt exhaustion, hatred, and despair all at once, yet he couldn’t control what was happening to him. It was something out of the ordinary. He limped over close to the edge of the road. He stood facing the tree line panting, drooling. The wolf was out of breath, his heart turning over in his chest like a turnstile. It felt like something was entering his body through his heart, taking him over, and he couldn’t stop it. Instead of slowing, it just kept beating.    
He started coughing as if a piece of something were caught in his throat. He looked down, his head dizzy and his mind half in space. The wolf could see his own blood splattered in the dirt. He then managed to limp his way towards a tree about six meters deep in the forest. He staggered through the grass, inching his way beneath the bows. His heart was beating faster and faster. It felt like it was going to explode.
The wolf trembled as he approached the tree. He no longer thought with a sane wolf mind. The forest seemed to be attacking him, the trees surrounding him like vicious monsters. The one tree in front of him became his only savior, his light at the end of the tunnel, a spirit beckoning him to safety with outstretched arms. The wolf lifted a paw helplessly toward the tree. He lurched, and then his ears began to twitch and his withers spasm.     
He made it to the tree then he let out a low mewl. His body convulsed. There was a snapping and crackling. The mewl changed pitch as if he were a squealing bird being choked. Then something extraordinary happened. His heart grew. The veins around it burst like stretched cables. His entire body changed in one explosive moment. His hair shrank and his muscles burst through his skin. The wolf’s canines grew smaller as his snout caved completely into his face, morphed into an unbroken sphere of tissue, nerve, and bone. His body was now upright. His hind legs branched out and grew upward, while his forelegs shifted, expanded, and became arms. The mewl continued, vacillating throughout his transformation. It was now a scream. Somewhere from within his body a thin green light had shown, and disappeared. There was a hanging odor of flesh and blood. Clammy, upright, and hairless, he had changed into something else entirely. Silence fell, the body wobbled, trembling. Thereupon what was once a wolf collapsed, metamorphosed into a man.
Chapter Two: The Earthquake
Alone and in the dark, he awoke. Hours had passed. The man lay sprawled to his side within a niche in the roots of a red cedar. At that moment his eyes were still closed, yet his shoulder budged and his fingers were moving all by themselves. It was a muscular man, his naked body covered in sweat from the mutation.   
He stirred. The man’s eyes opened. There wasn’t anything for him to see. His world was just a black vibration and his ears were ringing like an explosion had gone off next to him. He propped himself up against the tree trunk, blind, numb, and burning with pain. The blackness turned to violet, then to grey. Slowly, forming little by little, emanating from the darkness were tenuous dilations of light. Their glow intensified and he felt a pressure at the back of his eyes. A spark of sensation ran from there down through his body, out through the tip of his toe. There was a numb pang as the man’s head was brought forward. Then a searing pain flared up his spine, his face tightened, and his head slammed back unto the bark. His eyes were lifted to the treetops. He screamed, but he could barely hear it. He breathed, though he could barely feel it.  
The man looked back out in front of him. His sight was coming back. The alighted blur of lines attenuated to form the rigid outlines of grass and plants. He could see the trees, the road, the cliff, the sky, all opening up under silver moonlight. It was then that he realized that he was a man; that he was alive somehow on the edge of a forest. The strange thing was, the man was so detached from his own body that he felt like some unknown entity, viewing the world at rest from a pair of eyes suspended in the air. He only felt numbness and pain. The man could see his body trembling, yet it didn’t feel like it was a part of him. The only time he could feel anything was when he moved, but when he moved he felt pain. 
A slight feeling did return, but he felt dizzy and began to hallucinate. He felt like he was coming to life upon the moonlit crest of a wave. The wave seemed to be frozen in its crescendo, held in a timeless crash upon the valley. Then, as inundations of feeling swept over him in cold layers, he felt the wave give way beneath him as if to continue on its intended course. The man’s eyes were half open and his gut was lifted as he experienced himself falling, crashing with the wave way down into the valley. He fell through a numb darkness for what seemed like several minutes, until at length there was an intense spinning and sharp pain swept up his sides. He opened his eyes, and now with a bit more feeling he strained against the tree, smashing into it with his back and shoulders. His body struggled to rise off the ground. The stings were so electrifying that it felt as though a giant had taken him by the hand and dragged him up against the rocky wall of the plateau, tearing his back on the escarpment and scraping his breath away as he tried to scream. It was all a pain ridden, tumultuous nightmare.       
It was at this point that the man looked up directly at his enemy among the stars: the moon, his foe the giant beaming down at him, gripping his throat against the tree with tendrils of light. There his feeble form took pains to produce another scream. It was a dry and helpless attempt, scant tears trickling down his face as droplets of expended energy. His eyes were fixed intensely on the beacon of light as he thought of his short life there on the cliff.
Then, as if to grin and lend him a hand, the moon shrank, his hallucination abated, and the man passed out once again. He lay on his side within a hollow of the arm-like roots, unconscious but alive in blackness.
***
By the time the man woke again the sun was shining, birds were chirping, and the moon was gone from its perch in the starry sky. This time as he stirred his eyes blinked open and he shielded the light with his forearm to catch a glimpse of his own body. He propped himself up a bit, slouched like a king in a throne, his arms soft pressed against the moss on the roots around him. He was a handsome young man with dark brown hair and mossy green eyes.   
After he rubbed his face and scratched his arm he sat more upright and took a better look around. When he saw the cliff in the distance a sliver memory from the middle of the night came through him and he thought of the pain. He looked down at his hands, his arms, and his body. He was still a little sore, and he felt a slight numbness and tingling as if inside him were a thousand bits of confetti still glowing. Other than that he felt fine, elated even, though he had no memory. The man looked up through the sheltering bows above. He had been reborn. He was however, totally confused.  
He looked down and noticed a slug slithering slowly across a moss coated root. He thought about it only for a second, sized it up, then he tried to piece together and recount his scant memory of the previous nights, staring at the slug for several seconds.
That’s when he came to his first realization. It all came back to him. He didn’t know where he was, or why he was there, but he remembered who he was and that he had been a wolf. The strings of memory he had of himself and his past sort of cinched themselves together all the way up to the last point with which he could remember himself being a man. Beyond that were hanging strings, flashes, or glimpses; an image here or there of his black fur brushing against something in the forest, a paw in his face, or the sound of heavy breathing.     
It felt miraculous when his memory came back and he at least knew who he was, and to be alive and perfectly in tact in his original body. He brushed one of his hands over the moss as he stared into space. Then he said something.      
“Whoa..." he said. 
The man looked out at the sky in front of him and finally stood up.  
“Wow,” he said.
The man took his first steps, naked and sweaty, his eyes fixed on the road and cliff. It was still very warm on the edge of the forest. A breeze would have been better, but there wasn’t any wind or breeze and that was ok. He stretched. The man could feel the air touch the moist skin of his groin and there was relief between his legs. His body felt great, yet in the back of his mind there was something averse and uncertain.   
He came out from the forest fringe, only to stand puzzled in the middle of the road. The sun was there with him, approaching high noon and beaming bright; the sky completely clear without a cloud in sight. He scratched his head and looked both ways down the road, disarranged. He raised his arms, brushing his hands through his hair in bewilderment. He then examined the road to try to figure out where he was. Still unsure, he walked up to the edge of the cliff. He looked out at the land with concern.   
The man kneeled down and peeked over the edge of the cliff with his palms on the rock, one knee bent and the other stretched out behind. He was definitely lost, and that would be a problem, yet he still felt confident that he would find his way. He knelt as straight and strong as iron, only he was hungry. He sat down with a hand hanging on one knee sticking up. His stomach growled. 
The man thought and thought. The more he thought the more the initial elation faded, and the more he felt hungry, thirsty, and lost. He wondered if anyone saw him change into a wolf…anyone he knew. He thought he had a good idea where it happened, but he didn’t remember the exact moment and how. What did he do as a wolf? How far had he traveled? It was the second time this had happened.   
Fear spread over him like a sudden wave. A wolf? This is impossible, he thought, though he couldn't lie to himself. The first time this happened nearly a month ago he swore to himself that it was all a dream; that he blacked out and none of it was real. Now he knew. This is not good. It's real. This is a curse. Tears welled up from the pit of his soul to his eyes. He crossed his arms over his knees and cried. He gritted his teeth as he cried alone on the dirt road.      
He wiped away the tears. His possessions were gone, which was another concern. All of them gone. He sat perplexed, staring at his leg and wondering whether his belongings were as lost as he was.
He looked back out at the sky. He wanted to forget about the fact that his possessions were gone, and he couldn’t let it go. It was a badgering thought, because he could sense that there was one thing that, if lost, would drive him mad. He lifted his eyes and gazed out with his palm blocking the sun. His hands were dirty; he just noticed. Then a thought with subtle beginnings seemed to slip with the sunlight through the cracks of his fingers, and it hit him. His ring was gone. His ring was stolen. A cold sweat swept over him as he realized what had really happened, why he was a wolf…why he was here. He remembered chasing the man that stole his ring; the ring given to him by his wife. It was a magical ring that he promised to keep safe with all of his power. All of his power…   
The man shot up and cursed. “Damnit I knew it!” He brushed his hands with tenacity through his hair, so that his eye sockets stretched and his teeth clenched. The man was angry. He paced along the cliff-edge, irritated, powerless. He tried hard to remember who the man was. “…all black…I couldn’t see…” he whispered to himself. He still couldn’t remember the events of the chase, or see himself being a wolf completely. It was all a void with mere fragments of memory sliding past. Trying to remember didn’t help. He didn’t know who the man in black was, and he didn’t think he ever knew.  
He finally kneeled down again, staring down into the valley. He scanned the land below like a mountain lion, and it wasn’t long before it came to him. He figured out where he was. It was obvious now. There was a place he could go; a city: Farandale. It was somewhere in that valley, somewhere down that road. The problem was he didn’t know how far away it was, or in which direction, yet it was most likely in the northeasterly direction the road traversed. He didn’t move, jump up, or budge. He just kept staring. It was a relief knowing, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about that man. 
He turned his head to take a look down the road. He could see the tree line fold and the road take a turn in the distance. He wondered how close he had gotten to the man and imagined him speeding away around the corner like a thief on cobblestone in an ill lit town. How will I find him? he thought. 
The man walked naked down the dirt road. He walked for a ways until he came to a wooden rail fence that blocked the roadway. A white sign on it read the word in red: DANGER. He climbed over it and jumped to the other side, where continuing on the rail ran alongside the cliff. A fork in the road ran in the reverse direction back into the forest behind him. He passed it, continuing on in the open air along the road. He walked on for a long ways on and on.       
After awhile what he expected came to be true. The man noticed, where the road took a turn, a cloud of dust sweeping up into the air, and there he could see a horse drawn wagon coming around the corner, hustling in his direction.   
The man got excited and ran back into forest. He hid there and watched. The wagon was far off over a hundred meters away. He stood quiet and listened. He couldn’t hear it. There were only the sounds of the forest; insects, falling twigs, and lofty finches and wrens. He thought with his back to a tree about what he was going to do.  
He had to pee. He stood behind a tree and let loose in the brambles. I'll spy them out first, he thought. People around here could be dangerous. He was far from home and the man had been here before. He knew that the people of this land were crude, defensive, and racist even of his folk. It was possible that someone traveling like this in the depths of the wilderness, without the civil constraints of the city and society, would take advantage of someone like him; alone, lost, and bereft of possessions. He would have to be careful.    
He thought of stealing their supplies. I may have to rob them, he thought, and then he laughed. He thought of sneaking into the back of their wagon and knocking them unconscious to pilfer it. If few in number... 
He thought about Farandale. The man had connections; there were people there he knew who were friends in high places. He even knew Fertiens, the King and Lord of Farandale. Fertiens would help him certainly. He would help him with clothes, with food, and would probably help him get back home. As the man wizzed away in thought, anxious and excited, all that he could call to mind now were sizzling sounds and the smell of meat cooked bare. He could eat a whole horse. Eggs, bacon, butter, toast...anything. The king would have good drink on top of that, and if he were really lucky...fairy dust.    
He finished his leak, and after some time listening the man could hear voices. When the wagon got closer he peered out from behind the tree. He could see through the low hanging branches, six large horses and a man in a dark blue sport coat driving. He was an older looking man with graying hair, yelling gung-ho in his direction.
“We can see you! We saw you run in there!" There was a pause. "I saw you whatever you are!" The old man yelled as the wagon continued driving. "Show yourself! Don't try us we saw you run!"  
The driver yelled as if he were alone, it appeared to the man. There could be a family in the carriage. The wagon seemed in the midst of a more leisurely travel. I can take a chance, he thought. Probably run of the mill folk.
"I saw you!" The driver prodded in exclamation to the forest. The man noticed as the wagon got closer that the old man at the wheel held drawn a crossbow he pointed low in case there were danger. He concluded that surely the wagon would simply continue on, and that the old man was probably nervous.       
"I'm quick enough anyway," the young man said to himself. He took the chance. He stepped out, raised his voice and said smugly, “Alright, alright you got me. I need help sir!” He had one hand over his private parts while the other blocked out the sun. He was embarrassed as ever. "I need help!" he yelled. 
The old man tapped the horses. “Whoaa…whooaaa,” he said. There was a neighing and a grinding of leather as the wagon came to a protracted halt. The old man set down his crossbow and stood up squinting at what was naked, standing absurdly in the road. “Are you kidding me? Son. Who are you and where are your clothes?”          
“My name is Gale. I’m from Ronia. I'm lost all the way out here. It’s a long story. Do you have any water?” He was beginning to feel a bit lightheaded.
"Is someone chasing you?" the old man asked.
"No sir. No one's around. I'm lost out here. Could you help?"
The old man turned to yell. "Fysel! Grab a shirt and a pair of old trousers. Decius! Take a step out here." He stepped down from the wagon’s seat and calmed an excited horse. "Whoaaa," he said. All was quiet for a second as he kept his eyes on Gale, walking slowly up to him. "Are you a patrolman?"
“I'm not a patrolman. I'm a messenger,” Gale said.
The old man tilted back his head as he came closer. “A messenger eh? How’d you get all the way out here?” He had grey scruff for a beard and Gale could see that some of his hair was still black. The brass buttons on his coat glinted under the noon sun. “I’m Mortimer,” he said as he handed Gale a worn leather canteen.   
“The king sent me.” Gale said. “Thank you Mortimer.” The water drizzled down his chin as he drank, then he paused with the canteen in mid air. “Do you mind?”
“Sure. Take all you want,” Mortimer replied. 
Gale could read the honesty in the old man in the reaction to his plight. Good people were usually apt to help him. It typically started with his looks. Anyone would be curious.
Gale poured the water all over his face and gasped for air. “Thank you sir.”
“Eh, it’s alright. I try to help people when I can. You spooked me and my grand boy.”
A silvery armoured guardsman stepped out of the back of the wagon and took a stance still, watching them from one of the wagon wheels. 
Gale took a glance at the guard and looked back at Mortimer as he took another slug from the canteen. “Heh. Yeah, and you spooked me.” It was an innocent lie.
There was a clatter as a small boy appeared out from the wagon. He clenched his fists tight around a bundle of clothes, jumped, and thudded down onto the road. Gale recognized his brown unkempt hair and was reminded of himself. 
Gale handed Mortimer the canteen. The old man smirked as the boy stepped up to Gale and gave him the clothes. He turned around naked and put them on. There was a white tunic and brown trousers. The trousers were a bit short, but it didn’t matter. 
“This is Fysel,” Mortimer said.   
Gale nodded. “Good to meet you Fysel. I mean no harm.”
“Hi sir. Erm…are you a soldier?” A laugh was escaping the cracks of his grin. “Why are you naked? Are you a knight?”
“Embarrassing yeah," Gale said. "Not a knight lad or a soldier. I'm a messenger, and I'm lost in this blasted forest." Gale looked over to the forest and raised his arms. "It never ends!” He nodded to the boy. “I do work for the king. Andraste himself, and I do have a message.”
“Whoa. Are you here because of the earthquake?” Fysel asked.
“Hmf?”
“I doubt he knows Fysel,” said Mortimer. “You hungry Gale? I’m sure you are. We were just about to make lunch before you snuck up on us.” 
“I really am. What's he mean there was an earthquake?”
Fysel continued. “There were monsters Mr. Gale! The castle collapsed into smithereens…” He made a sign with his hands to illustrate something blowing up. "People died. That’s why we left.”
Gale cocked his eyebrow and tilted his head back at Mortimer with concern. “Wh-”   
“I’ll explain it to the young man Fysel. Why don’t you go put that chicken on the burner so we can have ourselves a lunch? You washed your hands before you touched his clothes, right my boy?
“I did.”
Mortimer rubbed Fysel’s head playfully. “Good lad.” He looked at Gale. “Fysel’s a proper cook. Okay what do you say we get some food?”
“Well, you’re so kind,” Gale said.
The three of them walked back to the wagon. Fysel hustled inside and Mortimer stepped back up to the wheel so he could move it out of the way. The guard Decius said his greetings to Gale and walked around the area. Gale stood petting one of the horses, looking at it in the eye as if he were having a staring contest. He stepped back after Mortimer yelled, “Haww Buck.” There was a snap as he took to the reins and the wagon was in motion again. “Haww.” Mortimer steered the wagon to the tree line so that after a “Whoaa Buck,” he had it parked along the edge of the forest. Then he stood up, asked Fysel to grab a couple chairs and hopped out of the seat. Fysel held the chairs out from the flaps. “Thanks pal. Here we go,” Mortimer said, and handed one to Gale. Decius stood his guard. They both made a space and set them down next to the carriage. 
Facing the cliff under the sun and the clear blue sky they sat and waited for Fysel to finish cooking the food. Gale could hear the boy tinkering around with pans and switches and such. Fysel shouted, “Grandpa you sure I should fire the stove? Remember last time we cooked in the hot sun and the smoke went everywhere." He laughed.   
“It should be fine Fysel. It’s not as hot like it was.”
“You have a stove eh?” Gale rubbed the dust out of his eyes.
Mortimer wasn’t paying attention. “Stov-? Of course! Oh yes. We’ve gotta eat right on the road. I've got plenty of pork and bird and food preserved. New wagons have new inventions in store. I've got bridging contraptions, an automatic mass converter, and even rocket fire for the elves. She’s got a few other surprises too. Hail Taelineus the inventor.” 
“I've seen the new Station model archetypes."     
Mortimer nodded. “Right." He sat relaxed in his wooden chair, one leg crossed over the other. He pulled out a pipe and packed it, looking over Gale with a curious intent. "Sir Gale," he grinned. “You do at least know where you are, right lad?”
Gale knew it was the dried leaves of the ilthirn that Mortimer was keen to light. Commonly referred to as pipe weed, the Andoreans called it the Green Herd, or often the herd. It was a much sought after weed that produced a stimulative effect addicting to smoke. 
Gale told as many truths as he could because he trusted the travelers and also himself wanted to hear his situation out loud and open up to someone. “I woke up…in the middle of the forest. I must have blacked out. I walked up to the road, and when your wagon came around the corner I was just starting to remember everything. Tell me sir, how close am I to Farandale?”
Mortimer lit a match. “Ya know where ya are son,” he said. “Of course, it’s only a league down the road. You don't have to lie about it. Is it too embarrassing? I can understand that, but there’s no way a Ronic’s lost all the way out here with no clothes. You’ve got to be from Farandale or around here.”
Gale had leaned forward in his chair, his arms posted on his knees. "I knew it," he said as he eyed the ground. He was still a little out of focus, caught up in his imagintion for just a moment too long when Mortimer chimed in again.   
“Are you alright? You don’t have to lie to an old man like me. I’m just a farmer. Look, if you’re not from Farandale you’re either a lost soul from Elspeth or a daft bloke from Portigol. Unless you’re from Loeunblum (Lordorion), but no man could scuttle like that through the mountains naked. An’ you’re not with any elves. We’d be dead by now. Or, what, did you bring a lady out here and get lost? She knock you over the head and leave you stripped down like that?” 
Gale chuckled at that and looked Mortimer in the eye. “No, Mortimer listen. This is the truth I lie not. Loeunblum. Yes, Loeunblum. I was on my way here, sent with an urgent message. I was attacked by a man. Everything was going fine the first two nights, but then on the third he snuck up out of nowhere. He must have been following me the whole time. He was dressed in black and moved so fast I couldn’t see him.” Gale leaned back as he brushed a hand through his hair, shaking his head as if he were jarring away a bad thought. “Son of a bitch. He took everything.”
Gale stared at the rail on the edge of the cliff. There was a silence.
"No lie eh?" said Mortimer. 
"I got here from Ronia."
“Wow...and now all of it's gone,” said Mortimer. 
“All gone.”
“…All gone. Loeunblum, that’s far.”
“It’s closer than you think. I’ve made the trip before.”
“Then why are you lost?”
“I told you. I blacked out.”
“…Fair enough. I don’t mean to bother you with it, but it’s hard for an old guy like me to believe it. Anyway I’m sure you have friends in Farandale that could help you. Terrible thing when a man loses his possessions, or his…messages. Keep your head up. Carry on.”
“Yeah.”
“You need a drink?”
“Oh no, definitley not. I’m still a bit dizzy.”
Just as he was saying that Fysel stuck his fuzzy head out from a flap in the side of the wagon. “Do you like apples Gale?” he asked.
Gale turned around. “I do indeed. Have you got one?”
“Here you are! The meat won’t be ready quite yet.” Fysel tossed him a small red apple.
“Thanks!” The food was indeed taking too long, for Gale that is, who was much hungrier than he had shown. Ever since he sat down in that chair his head grew light and his stomach felt like it was caving in on itself.
Mortimer sat reticent in his thoughts, puffing away at his pipe. The smoke rose undisturbed in the still air. “Gale,” he said. He looked at the young man as if there was something heavy on his mind that he felt reluctant to lift onto him.  
Gale took a bite out of the apple and looked at him. “So wait a second. What was Fysel talking about earlier?"
“There was an earthquake. Half the castle was destroyed.”
“You’re joking…”
He kept his eyes on Gale. “Fysel and I are going to Meadshed. The city is a terrbile mess.” 
“Oh my god, and the king? I know Lord Fertiens. I know him.”
Mortimer sighed. “Oh you know em’? Fertiens was lucky enough to make it out alive, so be it with the remainder of his castle. I’m sure you know of the Two Towers of the Farandale Keep. I’m afraid one of them has collapsed Gale. The South Tower; it’s crumbled, gone.” Mortimer took a puff as his words pierced the air. 
Gale pressed the back of his hand, the one that held the apple, against his forehead chewing slowly, his eyes taken off Mortimer and onto the road. “Alas,” he said. He found some reprieve in this bit of information, safe in the knowledge that Fertiens, an old friend, was alive and well. He couldn’t believe that such an outstanding structure had collapsed, and all of those people…
Gale’s body had sunken back into a state of nausea. The apple hadn’t caught up, his stomach ached still, and he felt a little queasy. 
Mortimer blew smoke, “Funny thing is, some people think it wasn’t an earthquake at all.”   
“What do you mean?”
“A few of them are saying they saw giants pass through.”
“Giants?…”  
There was a pause. Mortimer took another pull. There was sweat on the old man’s brow and as his lips unfurled the smoke seemed to hang about his face. “Giants,” he said. 
“Giants…” Gale repeated it quietly. He stared spaced out at the road. 
At that instant he felt another cold sweat. His hairs were standing up and he grew dizzy. Something wasn’t right. He dropped his apple. Suddenly everything faded away: Mortimer, the wagon, the road...the cliff. Dreamlike images flooded his brain until he was in a completely new place. He was a wolf again, this time stooping upon a high rock. He looked out at an endless ocean of forest below. In the distance, closer to the horizon he could see gigantic beings stomping across the land. They ran with enormous strides, trampling over the forest with massive arms like great oars wading through a sea of stars. The trees came up to their ankles, crushed under bodies easily twenty times taller. Gale, the wolf, moved his bulbous yellow eyes with them, staring like a dog would at a man passing by on a bicycle. There was a shooting star. Then as they passed on through the starry night, Gale sniffed the air and suddenly everything went white. He woke up on the ground next to the wagon, Mortimer staring in his face and Fysel standing over him with a plate in hand. 
There was a splash of water that drenched Gale’s face and Mortimer was slapping him on the cheek. “Wake up. There you go. C’mon, drink this.”
Before Mortimer could pour it down his mouth Gale was shaking and spoke, “I saw them. The giants. I didn’t remember.” He looked around. “I saw them.” He looked at his hands, his arms, his body. “What’s happening to me?”
Mortimer forced more water into his mouth. Gale hesitated at first then he gulped it down eagerly. 
“Saw what?” said Mortimer. “The giants? You saw giants? You fainted, that’s what you did.” 
It was true. Gale was still lightheaded, his heart racing. He had gained his consciousness for the most part, though he felt again the pain in his sides. He took the tin from Mortimer and downed the rest of the water, and then he staggered up with his hands on his knees, turned around with them on his head and looked out beyond the cliff. After a brief moment’s thought he finally turned back around, wiped his face with his hand and walked sluggishly back to the chair. Gale sat down rubbing his hair. He kneeled forward, drying it with his hands. 
Mortimer glared at him. “You’ll be ok Gale. Fysel’s got some food here for you.” 
Fysel stood with his back leaning against the wagon. He handed Gale the plate. There were four strips of bacon, seasoned chicken, two fried eggs, and a fried biscuit.  
“Thank you Fysel," he said. His eyes were bloodshot; a watery vermillion as he took the plate.
“Never seen anyone faint before.” Fysel said. Did you say you saw the giants on your way from Loeunblum Mr. Gale?” 
Gale chewed and forked into his eggs endearingly. “Yes.” He looked at Fysel for an extra second then he addressed the old man. “Mortimer, I saw the giants you speak of…on my way here from Loeunblum. I just realized—”  
“I didn’t say I saw giants boy. There were other people who said they saw giants. It was late. The whole city was asleep. I didn’t believe them really. Everybody tries to get excited by sayin’ they saw giants. Not me. We’ve had earthquakes before.”
Fysel broke in. “Not like that one Granpa. And remember ol’ Gwyl said there were lines of fallen trees around the city.” 
Mortimer stared down at his food as he ate, shaking his head from side to side. 
“I did see them,” Gale said. 
“Alright Gale, then what did they look like?” said Mortimer.  
“Giant goblin monsters?” said Fysel.  
“Not exactly my friend. There were only three or four of them. I don’t remember how many, but they looked like us except…they were probably as tall as that cliff.” Gale pointed to the rock on the edge.
“Like…us? Naked?” said Fysel. 
Mortimer chuckled. “Where were they headed?” he asked.     
“North,” said Gale. 
“Hmf. North. Stranger I don’t know whether you’re out of your mind or if you really believe yourself. Either way, you’re uneasy.” He set the plate in his lap and drank from his tin. “I don’t believe that. I wouldn't think so. ”
“I can’t believe the castle was destroyed.” Gale said.  
“Half of it. The tower,” said Mortimer.
Gale washed down his food. “This is horrible. I’m sorry to hear all of this.” 
“Be glad you weren’t there Gale. Hundreds died in that castle and we’re grateful that the whole damn city isn’t in shambles. Other buildings went down. It was a complete disaster, and it's still a mess in town.”  
“What about you? Wait did your house collapse? You must need a place to go!”
Mortimer answered the question with his mouth full.  “No, our house, our ranch, is fine. Thank the gods. Some of our friends however, were not so lucky.” As he ate he looked down at his food as if he were talking to it, continuing on with his story. “I'll tell you what happened. One of the largest farmhouses in Weatherbee collapsed,” he said shaking his head as his fork poked around the plate. “Unpleasant. It all started in the middle of the night. Fysel rushed into my room. Heh, might’ve slept right through it if it wasn’t for him. Told me our horse Jack ran off.” 
“He jumped the fence!” Fysel said. “I saw it with my own eyes. When I woke up I ran out back and everything was shaking; I could barely stand up.” He giggled. “The mules were as scared as turtles. I looked around, thought maybe the horses were trying to knock the house down, but no, they were way off, and then I could see Jack running to the forest and it was an earthquake.” Fysel waved his hand in an arch and smiled. It was a huge jump over the fence. Then I thought maybe there were elves or trolls so I ran back in. Never saw any giants myself.”      
“That’s right, and for some reason the other three couldn’t get out. Jack was always the strongest, wasn’t he lad?” 
“I told you pap.”
Mortimer grinned, then his face fell flat again and he sighed. “Yep. At least we’ve got eight left. Feel bad for the Orvals. They were devastated. Our closer neighbors the Tooeys came over by their son Callyn to ask for help first. Their place hadn’t collapsed, but it was shook up alright. Windows were busted, furniture was broken everywhere. Qeneval damn near had a heart attack and his wife Virgil hit her head somehow. We did what we could, but no one saw it coming when Gunther Orval came over with a broken arm, having a hard time with his words. That’s when he told us the farmhouse had caved in; that they found his father under the wood, dead. Even worse, we went over there and found his sister too...didn’t make it. That was bleak. She wasn’t much older than Fysel.” 
Gale sat listening, enrapt in the ill news as he devoured his food. It was a strange feeling: sitting there amid strangers in the eerie discussion so unforeseen, snug as if reawoken in a plush chair; his hunger all of the sudden met upon his discovery of himself upon the cliff and the unpredictability of the world staring him in the face, surrounding him so unrestrained, yet so naturally and inviting even as to buttress his inquiring mind...his determination...his sense of purpose. “This is mad,” he said as he bit into a piece of biscuit. There was a squelching of jam. “So why did you leave?” 
“Well after that we were up all night helping folks, Gunther and his family. We left because we wanted to get away from it. Before dawn in the Bee people had made quite a scene around the Orval’s. Lots of them were just scared, didn’t know if we were under attack. We all just camped out there…a sad sight around the rubble it was, with Gunther loafing around the debris, pissed at his arm and his mum drinking and burning leaf, endlessly, staring at everyone while his aunts and uncles and cousins made fires and argued at their roasts, gathering from the wreckage what they could, embarrassed. Many were drunk, or shocked rambling on about the tower and there was all this clack of dark magic and beasts of old. Nothing got done, they’re still cleaning it up. I don’t blame em.'”
“That’s when Gwyl came out to the Orval’s at dawn, said he’d been up and saw giants runnin' off past the castle. Too many people believed him. He's an old hunter; spends a lot of time in the forest. Gwyl's always got a story to tell and people are fond of him for it. I'd believe him if any other person of worth could prove it and explain it. When we went into town there was another guy, Lexley, who claimed to have seen them too, ‘cept he went around the Tudor District with some queer story about how one of the giants peeped through his window and touched him. Said it shook his hand and left some magic dust on him. I didn't see giants not at all. He sells fireworks and art in front of the Irewalk in Tower's Square. Never understood him. He said the giant remembers him and he thinks they're coming back. Rode around town like us, still selling his works; he had to move his business after a manse near the Tudor Observatory fell. Fysel and I were helping people with water and train to different parts of the city. There were a lot of desperate people out there." Mortimer burped politely in a clenched napkin. “Excuse me. Those two individuals were the only ones I know really who said they saw the giants. There were other people who believed them, or were shoutin' around yellin' about it. The royalty and the king dismissed the idea of giants, and Lexley voiced they were all lying to us. The king of course said it was an earthquake indeed. They didn't see any sense in a story like Lexley’s."
Gale wondered whether his flashback was just an illusion; a trick played on his mind simply because he heard the word giants as he fainted. It was so real. The flashback felt much more like a memory than a mere picture from dreamland. If it was true, that giants had set foot in Farandale then the king himself may have seen them. And who else was awake at that hour? Not many it seemed, though that certainly would have awoken them. The crown must have been able to cover it all up…surely, though unseemly, to prevent a panic.
“What if it’s a secret Granpa? What if Gwyl and Lexley are telling the truth?” Fysel said. 
“Then we’ll be long gone and far away by time those things come back. I reckon if that’s true then Lexley spoke only of his own doom and Gwyl will have some game to kill might he yet. I just don’t believe Lexley, and the trees Gwyl mentioned…they could easily be the trails of trolls or may have been there long before that and so he mentions them all of the sudden. Don’t believe every man’s story Fysel. Take history's side of it, lest you want his hands in your pockets. The giants disappeared or drown they say when the seas rolled over all of Perth. It’s been hundreds of years.”  
“Thousands,” said Gale thinking about how a Giant running would feel like an earthquake.   
“Right,” said Mortimer. “It’s moot.” There was a moment of quiet then he continued.
“It turns out anyway whether there were giants or not, lots of people, especially royalty it seems, were scared, and if they weren’t scared then that earthquake damn sure shook them out of their estates. Just yesterday a great number of city folk took caravan down this road to Elspeth. Many nobles and the patricians of the Inner Courts fared with them, along with some of the wealthiest in the Tudor District. Families from the Outer District left as well, and the whole caravan was guarded by League knights and soldiers. There were a few farmers; those scared tenants and sharecroppers who left on behalf of the Orvals and families I know on the north side of the Bee. The caravan assembled in Witsney field for two days while they tried to convince other people in town to go with them. There was fire set to one of the wagons and the soldiers had to restrain people with sheathed swords. There was no end to the fights and bickering and shouts in the courtyards and squares as they packed up and left, while on one side you had people who thought it their duty and service to Farandale to stay and help. The others, many of whom had no choice but to leave because their homes were destroyed, wanted to get away from it all or start new lives; and then there were those that believed the stories of giants, so they left to get far away at once. We chose to go also, but to stay and help with what we could for another day. We need a break.” 
“I’m sure you do, but it sounds like the city is going to need some serious help," Gale said pausing, concerned. "Did Fertiens send word to the other kings? Was there any talk of help coming?”   
“Aye there was. They sent drakes and riders to the other cities, but you know things will be screwed up for awhile yet. We’re on our way to Elspeth and Meadshed with food and aplenty stock of ale to bring our friends good spirits in hopes that some of them will come back. My family lives far north. Of course, Fysel wants to go anyways. It’s been almost a year since we’ve left.”    
Gale leaned back in his chair with a deep breath. "That's good. I'd say you two are lucky to fare so well amidst your countryman. I can only hope the best for you." 
“I like to think so too. Know that when you get to town things won’t be as you remember it.”
The Ronic belched and patted his stomach. “Yeah. Wow.” He took a quick glance at Fysel. “These are odd times. An earthquake here...incredible. Last thing you need." He paused. "I've heard also of the attacks by elves in your land; that Ronia has sent legions to Weatherbee and have been guarding Andorean freight along the roads. A lot has changed in so little time Mortimer. Andor and Ronia were once at each other’s throats, and now we’re helping you fight elves and trade with you our bighorns. To think that Portigol and Farandale have joined the Ronic Confederation, and by that fact you and I are countryman. The realms of our fathers have grown in strength where the might of elves have minished. New allegiances have taken afoot, and dark elves stir. This is why I must speak to your king. There are larger forces in the world to unite against."
Mortimer set his plate down and put his hands in his lap. "Yes the roads aren't as safe as they used to be. I know what you mean. Elves, I know." He slouched himself in the chair, eyeing the treetops and the sky beyond. "Sometimes I think it’s that planet.” He nodded and pointed his eyes to the ball in the sky just over the outline of the canopy.
It had been sitting there the whole time, unmentioned yet noticed by all; a cesious pellet sized astronimcal object that was a beryl and grey planet. It appeared like a bolus in the far reaches of the stratosphere. The planet had come to pass for a third year and had taken place of the moon that morning, as it had so for many mornings in the month since its reemergence that year. This was an alignment event of planets percieved as very strange to the people of this land, as it was considered by many to be a sign from the Gods. The planet would come and go as a faint mass circuiting the skies of Perth every one hundred years. Only every thousand years would it make an approach this close, billowing like a hot air balloon in the atmosphere, growing larger and larger with every year, with every apex of its approach, until it would come so close you could see oceans burning teal neon with slate continents far flung like distant metal plating, and it was said as Gale remembered in old writings of Celt men that it was god Midir's crystal ball waxing with the reflection of the sun's light judging the men of the age. The Romans thought it could be a portal to their homeworld from which they were lost. The planet would always grow in a month and recede in the next, continuing its cycle for eight, or ten, or twelve years until finally it would disappear for another century, only to reemerge as a small body while the next thousand years had passed. For a Ronic this was something spectacular and rare. It was a once in a millennium occurrence that one could only be lucky and proud to see; a sign of a new age and positive things to come, or otherwise a natural thing. For others it was said to be a potential disaster collision, and for Mortimer, it seemed to be a knot in his head.                        
“It seems like ever since that rock popped into sight I’ve had the worst of luck. The first year it came, what was it two years ago? My crops didn’t grow but dirt. The second year Fysel broke his arm. And now this. Earthquakes and the castle collapsing. Nobody knows how many times it comes around. For the grace of all of Perth, I’ll be crippled by the time its run its course.” 
“Ah, don’t say that Mortimer. You’ll curse yourself. I’d say we’re one of a kind to see such a sight. To behold the passage of heavenly bodies; to witness the alignments of their courses and stations."  
“You speak as fair as a Ronic would, though I’m not quite so convinced,” said Mortimer with a grin and the faintest trace of glitz in his eyes.
"They say it's halfway round. It'll vanish in another four years." Gale said. 
“It looks like a pea.” said Fysel. 
At that the three of them finished their food. Mortimer swigged his tin as Gale made sure to glean every bit of meat and Fysel threw his bones over the cliff.
Mortimer got up and stretched. “I've got to go.” He walked up and around the horses a ways down the tree line. 
Gale and Fysel looked at each other and grinned.
“Want to see something cool?” Fysel asked. 
“I'll see it,” Gale replied as he himself stood up and stretched. 
Fysel hopped back up into the wagon and he was back out in a second’s time; only now he jumped out laughing and landed waving a small sword. He slashed it around and attacked the air smiling, and as his smile stayed his face he handed it to Gale. “It's my sword!” he said. “Look.”
“Aye aye. You swing like a swordsman mate." 
The boy watched Gale weigh and test the sword, looking down the blade as if it were the leg of a lady. It was a short sword that shone silvery anew; a light sword fit for a young soldier.
“The old man bargained with a smith in Tudor. It’s sharp and quick. Tailor made. I love it.” Fysel said.  
“Yes this is a good sword. Every man should have one…” Gale waved it around and spoke slowly as he looked up from the sword, to Fysel, and back to the sword as if he were the master and Fysel the pupil. “…To be able to defend himself from trolls...to hunt for his compatriots...to settle disputes…” 
“To kill elves!” Fysel said with gleaming eyes.  
Gale tried not to wince; for the elves were his friends, and the friends of all of Ronia. Only a moment ago he had refrained from mentioning elves, because of what he thought it would look like to the travelers. The truth was that the people of Andor feared and hated all elves, and through a deep rooted prejudice, justified as much as it was, they were unable to tell the difference between a dark elf and a light elf; a drow and a fay. The very word elf, described a monster, yet it was hard for Gale not to bring them up because he knew how much help these friends of his would be to the now destroyed city of Farandale. The discussion may have spoiled their lunch, and it was perhaps indeed that he had felt more tied down to the two in the thick of their conversation, especially to Mortimer and the nature by which the old man was helping him so. Though it was time to get going, and he no longer felt as groggy and uncertain, and he felt replenished and definant as he was called upon by the open road. The only thing that constrained him now was the fact that he could see it coming from the boy a mile away. It was the way that Fysel said 'elves' that bothered him. He would trifle with the matter.         
“An elf!” Gale said. You have to be quick to do that. Thrice as fast as it took you to fetch your sword. Who’s teaching you to kill elves?"
“No one yet. I practice on the posts in the stable. I like it where the horses can watch. Don’t tell pap, but before we left I tore down our scarecrow. He went mad all morning thinking about it. Pap didn't know whether it was the earthquake, or if it was stolen." He laughed snickering. "He was so confused." 
For the first time in awhile Gale laughed; a fulsome, hearty laugh that made him clutch his gut and close his eyes.
“Any man can kill a scarecrow, or even an elf. Only the best can take them down without being killed themselves…or caught by his pap.” He handed Fysel back the sword with the hilt pointed at the boy. “Know that there are good elves too lad. Not all are monsters that attack you cruel and unawares. There's a difference. You slay a dark elf and you'd be doing your country a favor. It would be like killing a bug; akin to trolls they are, like demons and goyles in the dark…ruthless and evil creatures from the depths of the vols. Drow we call them...the offspring of black fairies who lurk now in the Great Stalk and in the vol around the Dark Lake in Tharn wherefrom they've spawned. But mate if you kill one of the elfin fay of Avalon, the glorious most powerful creatures of all, now...now that would be like cutting off your right hand and melting the hilt of your sword."
"Haha, you're funny."
"Little traveler, I mean to tell you that if a friend is made of an elf of Avalon it would be like having a leprechaun grant your wishes, or having a giant for a friend.”  
“Friends? I don’t believe in elves. Mortimer says they’re only in stories the Ronics tell."     
"The stories are true. You can't pretend they don't exist. The elves guard you while you sleep. I wouldn't want to kill an elf. Only a dark elf." Gale said. 
“While I sleep?”
Gale nodded.  
...Just then Mortimer walked back from around the horses. He latched on to one of the harnesses as he stumbled on his way around. Just as he caught himself he looked up and met eyes with Gale. “Fysel’s showing you his sword eh? He’s growin’ up quick. I’d say he’ll kill his first troll within a year.” 
"He looks about ready," Gale said. Then he looked at Fysel who was now twirling his sword around again. "Keep at it."  
"He's a natural," said Mortimer.  
“Pa, I think the Ronic's elf kin! He says we shouldn't kill them." Fysel said, his eyes fixed on his little whirlwind of swordstrokes. 
“Bah! Gale the messenger…a Ronic you might be after all."
Gale grinned as he looked at the boy. "Fysel wants to kill an elf. Only the best will know the difference between light and dark. The difference between those that us Ronics have intervened in such a situation here in Andor, and those that we have an allegiance with." He was curious as to what the old man would say. 
"I've heard this a thousand times about elves. Good elves are they? Like good goblins and good trolls? I'll give it to you Ronics; you're strong people, intelligent...good at building ships and casting iron for war, able even with plows and cattle prods. I've only been to Ronia a few, when I was younger, in earlier years of their supposed great allegiances with gnomes and elves. It's been long, though oft they pass through our city. I've talked to the whole lot. They say that elves can bless our lands with magic, or enchant our crops with sprites, or rid the rock ranges of goblins and forests of trolls and ill-wizards, as if they should be our gods. One thing is for certain Gale. Men ought to have control in this world. Not elves. We're indepenent. We're nothing like them. The only elf laid eyes upon in these lands by lord, or lady, or common man has wanted to take their jewels, or their gold, enslave them, or rape them to boot. The elves of Avalon in their hearts are the same, and in the end they would rule this whole world. Besides they just want to use you the blights, for all the stone in the Saddle.
Gale was still gazing at Fysel slashing the sword when he turned to Mortimer. "Our allegiances have much to gain from the elves in the east, just as much as there is to lose to elves in the south." Mortimer dealt him hard stare. "You think you're independent?" Gale said. "What would you do in a war? Who do you think protects this land from darkness if it weren't for the High Elven Kingdom. Elves have power in this world. You can only confront that. That is how men rule, and we grow in might. Fysel's a smart enough lad to know where his allegiance is, especially when Ronics and elves come to protect you from dark elves scaling your walls and menacing the roads as they are. It could be worse."
"Heh, I don't know anythin' about any high elves around here. We have our own walls and fortresses. Elves will be elves, and I don't believe in any good there might be of their fake little kingdoms. They're all a rot. He chuckled and pointed at the nearest red cedar. "I should sling you by your trousers for speaking of such in front of my boy."     
Gale grinned. "I wouldn't speak. It is our allegiance that keeps this land safe."
Mortimer just stared at him. The two stared at each other for a moment, until somewhere between the droning cicadas and the beating of the sun on their faces, Gale tilted his head and went on. "Have any more apples Fysel?"  
Before Fysel could respond Mortimer raised his voice and snapped, "Fysel get the man a bite before we leave. He's got a long walk and his hunger reaches beyond our reckoning." His eyes finally panned out to Gale. "Fair enough Ronic. We all have our own points of view. Though come to think of it, heh, it was probably an elf that lost you back there." 
"Maybe," he said. But he knew it wasn't. 
"Heh heh, well. I wouldn't want to hammer on about elves when we both have a hard ways traveling. From the looks of it, we won't reach Elspeth till nightfall." 
"Good point. It's time I get back home. I have someone waiting."
"As do we."
After Fysel had put away his sword and handed Gale the apple, he and Mortimer put away the plates and chairs and readied the horses for the going, until they were both sitting in the wagon's seat, the old man now chewing on straw holding the reigns with his chest beaming at his destination. 
"It was good you came out of that forest Gale. Heh heh, you must've been crazy to run out like that naked, and me with a crossbow," Mortimer chortled. "We would have kept riding, probably wouldn't have stopped for lunch until we reached the Brithandel. You spooked us, certainly gave our horses a start." 
Fysel laughed. "Thought you were an elf!"
Gale gave them a hard look over. "Hmf. Sure you did. I move as fast lad. I didn't know if your wagon had cleared through Doriand or if it was on its way to Thrace. Haven't a clue where that man in black went, or where he came from. I'll be on my way."
The guard Decius stepped back up into the back of the wagon. Mortimer handed his grandson straw. "Now we know you're a messenger. Hope you get your word across Gale."
"Of course. You saved my afternoon. Fysel your lunch was spot on." 
"Always is sir." 
"Be careful on the road Gale," Mortimer said. "There are more than elves on the borders of the forest. I'd keep an eye out for creatures that get to the road..."
"Very well. Trolls are around, yes, and wild boar." 
"Indeed boars like to charge onto the road. I hear of it quite a bit. There are climbers. Wolverines. And wolves Ronic." 
"Right."
"Alright stranger. It was our pleasure."
"Aye."
Mortimer gave him pleasant nod, and just then Gale noticed the branded silver lining of the sword, nudged and gleaming behind them in their wagon's seat. He gave Fysel a hard look over. 
"Fysel. Never stray from your sword," he said.  
"Won't get eye from a fight!"
Gale nodded and said his final farewell. "I'm off travelers."
"Fare you well Ronic." Mortimer said. Finally the old man snapped the reigns. "Gee," he said. "Gee Buck," and the wagon was off.
Gale took a step back, and he noticed as the end of the wagon passed him by, there was a rattling and uplifting of feathers and he could see a dray of chickens all flapping and clucking in cages as it wheeled away. He stretched and stared off at them for a moment until he continued on and the dray faded out of sight. The travelers were gone.
Chapter Three: A Messenger's Parley
Gale made his way down the road to Farandale, at ease to be on his way, while on edge still by his encounter with the man in black and what ill foretokening there was of his missing ring. His mutation set in a new nervousness and anxiety that he never had before, and he knew he had to be strong to get through it.   
His heart pumped at the thought of the mutation occuring again. When would he turn, and why was it a wolf? It must work according to the cycles of the moon, he thought. His eyes dilated over the thought of himself plagued with metamorphisis in perpetuum. He had read the tale The Changer once. It was the story of a man who caught a rabid disease after being stranded in the wilderness and ingeniously befriending a wolf pack. By the time the man was rescued in the story and brought back to his hometown, he had become a giant wolf-man monster that the author called a Werewolf, and would regularly transform whenever the moon was full. The main character began to eat and murder the citizens uncontrollably, terrorizing the town until the Count's officers had to shoot and kill him. Gale had heard rumors of it really happening; of people who came down with afflictions that turned them into monsters as ravenous as wolves. Lycanthropes people called them. It might be a disease, he thought.  
Gale thought of his father and fear swept over him. No. Someone's against me. He hadn't come into contact with any beasts or wild animals, and the reality was that the same thing had happened to his father. His father Galigor defeated Salimath the Sea Würm in the year 1197 VI E, and became a king who ruled the island of Avalar. He later turned into a monster in a war for his castle on the island during a crisis with Roman Avalarians and Druids. He died in battle, and it was after said that he contracted a disease, yet the truth was that he was either poisoned or a spell was cast upon him. Gale was a boy then.  
This is probably an evil spell, he thought more deeply chilling. A wicked spell sewn by a witch or a secret enemy. He brushed off the thought. I know there's a cure somehow for this, and whoever did this will pay. He wondered also whether there might have been a gene passed down to him, lurking in his bowls for years unseen. He would have to seek a wizard. 
He was glad to have met the travelers, and even though he felt robbed, like a man in a boat without oars; they had with lunch and cordial palaver reawoken and encouraged him to get to the bottom of things. Being glad enough that he was no longer a wolf, that King Fertiens was alive, and that he had made it here under the sun’s light able to move on, restored, and nearly unscathed by his metamorphosis; he continued on with spirit and a buoyant heart upon the road.
He had told the truth that he was a messenger; that he worked for King Andraste who was Lord of Ronia and Ruler of the Ronic Provinces. He lived in those lands; in a cabin with his wife Lindsel in the hinterlands of the realm. Mortimer and Fysel had no way of knowing how important of a messenger he was, yet all the kings in Ronia knew him, as did those in Andor; for he had come to this land often to bring word of provincial matters, the initiation of Ronic defense projects, the building of roads and supply routes, and the movements of the enemy in the mountains. Now he would bring an urgent message from his king to Lord Fertiens.  
Now, Gale was a strapping young lad of twenty-four, yet he was no ordinary messenger. He was a man raised by elves. After his parents died in the crisis on the island, both he and his brother were carried off by an elf-wizard name Llewellyn, who sailed them to the lush forests on the eastern strands of the mainland, and who brought them before the high kingdom of elves in the great city of Avalon. Llewellyn raised them there and guided them in all things wise. It was Llewellyn the wizard he would seek in regards to his mutation. It was Llewellyn who trained him well from a young age to fight like an elf.
***  
Daylight beat down on the hard-trodden road when Gale could see the city at last. He walked along the cliff-edge as he glared out at the blip of Farandale far down in the valley. It was a castled city built incisively against the wall of the plateau. From a distance the city looked like a sundial, as if the base of the plateau had a nose and a jutting lip. The Farandale Keep was a tower built a thousand feet high, while projecting forth the city walls encircled its towns and districts like a carving made from the wall; a sculpture bound in the green and grey rock of an enmeshed chiseled formation. 
Farandale was a large place despite its reputation as being a quiet, lesser city; a sort of rural castle-city sequestered in a valley far removed. The city slipped in and out of sight as the edge of the cliff took angles, but it wasn’t long before he could see it now closer before him. Alas, it’s been a year…
Gale made it to a divide in the road where a slope ran for a great distance down the cliff. At the top of the slope sat a wooden signpost; a milestone boulder served as its base, and set around it were charred torches in copper bowls raised in black iron sconces. Engraved in the boulder, chiseled in stone were the words:  
Andor
Highway of the Shard
The Road to Farandale
…The signposts were tipped with carvings of wings and read:
Way of the West: Elspeth & The Brithandel ~ The River of Andor
Way of the East: The Saddle Vale
Northward Way of the East: Portigol & The Mirror Lake
Far North: Meadshed
Gale looked at the ashes and charred remains in the torch bowls. He imagined the man in black passing the torchlit post in the dead of night. Which way did he go? he thought. Surely east, only…is the man in Farandale? Is that where he's going? 
Gale made his way down the slope. The road was wide enough for five large wagons to ride alongside without any trouble, though anyone afraid of heights would still be afraid of this slope; for the edge of the road revealed the land that lay fathoms below and was impossible to escape from sight. It was only relatively steep, and so the road's descent took a long travel down, though finally after over an hour since he left Mortimer and Fysel he could make out figures below him toward the bottom of the road.     
There was a group of soldiers; four of them guarding the road in green and blue leather armor, laughing. As he neared them, he noticed they all had horns tied to their belts. One of the shorter ones wearing green turned and shouted.
"Oy straggler, ye'd better run back up! There be giants running around here!" 
Two of the others laughed as he approached. They also wore green leather. The tallest one in blue chuckled and stepped forward. "Don't listen to this one," he said. "He's not right in the head. What's your business here traveler?"
There was a caw in the sky; an eagle flew high, circling above somewhere near the edge of the cliff. 
"I'm Gale. I'm a messenger from Ronia," he said. "I heard there was an earthquake. I'm here to speak to your lord."
The guard nodded to him. "Alright Gale. Just have to ask."
The other guard stepped up. "Ho now, where's your horse?" he laughed. Bloody why are you naked? Who walks down the Shard without any shoes? Are you ok mate?"
"I did have a horse," Gale said. He pointed behind him. "A wolf attacked me on the road. He got my horse, and all of my supplies are gone. I had to run barefoot. Lucky he just wanted his ass and not mine. Should have seen the size of it mate."
Another guard was laughing under his breath. 
The questioning guard's wild grin turned into an expression of concern. "Ehem, wow. No way." He held his belt buckle, looking down at Gale. Be careful then traveling alone. It's ill-advised. You're a dare devilin’ bloke I can tell."
"Yeah. It's been a long journey."
"I'm sure. I'd see a cobbler. You can go ahead."
Gale looked up as the eagle cawed once more. "Alright soldiers," he said. "I'm going."  
"Give a hand when you can traveller," the taller one said. "People need it."
"I will," Gale said, and he continued on.
At that Gale walked with repreive down the road. He could hear the soldiers voices as he trailed away. He was at the very bottom of the cliff now; the city towering, distant, and there were grasses spread around him as the dirt road veered off to the right, away from the thin shadow of the cliff now forming motionless under the quiet stone wall. He passed a stream as he walked over a small stone bridge and noticed in the distance now against the cliff: a mote log cabin with a horse tied under the shade; a guardhouse for the soldiers on the road.    
The grasses around him ran up to a tree line about a hundred meters away from the road, for the valley was filled with forests that surrounded the city, covering the land with hemlock and madrone. 
In front of him stood a vastly fortified wooden wall. It was the city's far outer wall thence built to perfection by the pertinence of the Farandale Army; an agrestic barricade that separated the valley wilderness from the farmlands of Farandale. The barrier ran unseen along the woodlands for leagues, circling the city in the shape of a horseshoe aligned with the castle walls. A tower stood where the edge of the forest and the wall met, looming over Gale as he passed through a guarded opening under a wooden arch that said: Weatherbee and the Winding Road. 
Before him lay the endless farmlands of what the travelers had called 'The Bee.' It was a vivid sight to behold; the dirt road turning to a pale sett stone, winding through golden wheat and barley fields. All was quiet and the chalk-white road deserted, furrowing through the blades. 
Gale felt as if still in a dream while half his body clung to the wilderness and his other half steadily woke up to the approaching rhapsody of society. There were still remnants of pain, and a soreness from walking, and he had to be careful not step on anything man-made.
The fields of Weatherbee were like a golden collar around the city. The castle-city walls awaited at first distant and grey, gently looming as he moved down the empty white road. Even from afar at the point where he could no longer see the east end of the fortification, the wall made the land look like it had reached a sudden end. Gale lost track of how much time it took to reach them, for it was some considerable length, and by the time the road took its turn to meet the ramparts he was deep in thought about dark elves creeping and prowling like demonic sheep through the fields, to set their attacks against the watch on the wall. 
The wall had to have been at least twenty meters tall and ten thick, bestrewed with archer’s nests and the bellies of drum towers made of dark granite. It was a big wall for their modest city, and it was clear that the king who built it didn't want to take any chances, for Farandale was farthest south, there were no major towns or cities, and there was only a cliff that bound them in the endless forests that had once belonged to the elves. 
It was once that all of Andor was united under the banner of The Forest Lord Andarth, who ruled the only sovereign kingdom of men independent of the realm of Ronia. Discovered originally by the explorer Andorion, the forested land that lay west of the Saddle Mountains was the bosom of village-towns and tree forts in the heart of which stood the king's throne in the halls of Meadshed to the north. King Andarth defended his realm from the evils of dark elves, who claimed the land for their own despite vacating the territory and basing themselves unerringly in the Dark Lands to the south, and who, with laughter at the weakness of men underestimated his power. Andarth warred with them in many battles, and in the years pushed them down the waters of the Brithandel south to the borderlands of what the Forest Men hailed as the Great River, that which to Ronics is named the Avalos or the Sphahovian River, in dark elf tongue the Elduin, and in high elven tongue the River of Avalon. His right hand King Haemon commanded fortresses built farthest south, and his men had glorious victories routing the dark elves severely to Tharn in claim of their kingdom.
When early warlords settled here the caves and grottos behind the cliff had served as refuge for the masses of Forest Men fleeing fortresses in the south. A river flowed from sources in the Saddle through the dale, while there were wide waters in the cave that were a sanctuary for people, and a great mere that was inhabited by a domicile of sea drakes. The drakes were tamed and bred to fly for them, while the area was fortified and a redoubt built that became a major interior bastion. Eventually a town flourished and it was called Farandale. 
The road curved and ran beneath the shadow of the wall, running alongside the immense stone curtain. Seldom had Gale come to Farandale this way, so up close to its towering form and the guards above, as he had usually entered the city by horse through the north gate, once by a prodigous Gryffin of Ronia, or by drake to the caveports. 
He quickly came up to the South Gate, while in all there were five gates of Farandale; two south gates on the southwest wall, two north gates to the northeast, and an east gate called the front gate to the southeast on the head of the horseshoe. The gates closer to the cliff were commonly called cliff-gates, and this south gate was such, and it was open, as the cliff-gates usually were in the afternoons of Farandale.     
He proceeded under the gateway inside the great arch and burrow in the wall. The gatekeeper’s workhouse was a house built masterfully into the corner piece of the gatehouse, of which Gale slid idly past. Inside the gate he saw that the inner portcullis was closed, to his surprise, so he approached a window within the chamber. In the corner of his eye, beyond the wrought-iron lattice of the gate were the paved streets of the Outer District.    
He knocked on the wood window. No one was there. He waited a minute and then he rang a bell on the wall. Peering into the candlelight of the stone-shod room, he rang the bell again. He could see empty tins on barrels and papers strewn on stacks of hay. The gatekeeper must’ve been off having lunch somewhere. Three times he rang the bell. Finally he could hear jangling keys and footsteps approaching. A short, burly guard walked up to the window, sweat on his brow.        
"Left and come back I take it?" he said. 
"Hm?" said Gale.  
"Oh, well hey! Thought it was somebody else."
"Ah. Just coming in from the road. I’m Gale.”               
“Gale…” The guard pointed at Gale's waist. "Hey now, what's that? We don’t take those."
"Huh?" Gale looked down at himself. 
"Hmf, ho-ho just a joke big guy,” he said. He winked. “There's the gate. Ye can pass.”
“Thanks,” said Gale dog-tired, with no regard to the joke, and the portcullis opened as he saluted the guard and strode forth. 
The Outer District was a semi-suburban purlieu of rich inhabitants who lived in tall, elaborate buildings and luxuriant residences. The buildings were made of bathstone; they were green and purple, or cream colored brick, and they rose lining the streets and avenues with smooth marble pilasters and windows of sea blue glass. 
The gateway had lead Gale to a posh boulevard lined with planted trees and benches on pearly sidewalks where the city-goers would mingle with pipe weed and barley tea in front of a mélange of shops and townhouses; with talk of their wagers in stocks and of cliff climbers, and the gallantry of archduke Artorius to so splendidly speak out against the king when he prohibited cockfights in the district.    
There was mid level traffic on the road; for there were individuals strolling along in redingotes and top hats with their arms around their best’s and others laughing with children pointing at the wardens along the watchtowers, while, alongside the streets were women with long hair under hats broad brimmed, with their eyes on the sons of wealthy merchants as they stepped up into noble carriages to catch a ride back home in the late afternoon.          
He passed on turning down another main street. It didn't feel to Gale that there had been any disaster here at all. He could see no damages, or reparations made, and everyone seemed calm and the district at peace. The damages to the Outer District must have been elsewhere; for the buildings were all intact and he caught glimpses of people socializing on second story verandas, a banker airing out of a great doorway to check his pocket watch, and a child with his eyes covered hanging over the balusters as he yelled for his mates in a dangerous game of blind man’s bluff. 
The rooftops were tall with sloping mansards, curving like metal slides along the old stone cornices, and if they weren’t mansards or domes, they were cone-shaped towers adorned with flags or roofs of glass. These were the most expensively laid buildings in the city, other than the kings own keep, many of which were banks or guildhalls, a courthouse crowned on the corner, a trade union towering uptown along with various offices of post, coin, and draft. 
As he continued down the city’s main drag he approached a crosswalk passing a clinch of curious newsman, and in the spur of the moment nearly bumped into a very large man in a ginger greatcloak bungling around the corner. The man cleared his throat after as they squeezed past a lamppost and Gale pressed on, ponderous of whether the man could be a chamberlain of one of the estates, or a guildsmaster of sorts hurrying inside on this quiet day. At length there he fared by the occasional passerby on his afternoon stroll, at times with a Great Dane or a terrier, or the wife of a nobleman careening out of a portico to catch a carriage to an art show.    
He reached the end of the district at a wrought-iron arch over the street lights; a terminus and a sign that reminded him that he had come at last to the vast green lawns of Witsney Field. 
The field separated the Outer District from the Farandale Keep and the bustling streets of the Tudor District. Gale took a walkway that wound through a massive turf of clean-cut grass. The districts alone were shaped like horseshoes rung in descending size so that, like the field, all the districts were wrapped in U’s in ambit with the castle walls. The field of Witsney spread curving so far around that there were tracts he couldn’t see, and unmistakably in front of him, far ahead at the very end of the field stood a colossal stone bridge. It was a great archway to the Tudor District, or the Bellwalk as it was called; a basalt bridge that stood abounding like a giant aqueduct. 
The Bellwalk was a monumental gateway between the field and the two districts, and the last bastion of defense for the townsfolk and the city as a whole. The denizens of this city had never experienced a siege, or a full-scale invasion, but they prized the bridge as an unstoppable fortification of the castle; for the field was a trap, an esplanade, so that if any attackers breached the outer walls and stormed through the Outer District, they would be met and slayed in the field by endless volleys of arrows slung from archers along the Bellwalk. 
The field was a leveled plain of placid grass, laid flat and smooth, in the midst of which as Gale passed on toward the bridge he was met with awe as he noticed in the distance a sudden rupture in the arches; the first sign of disaster. He stopped and far along the bridgeway where the horseshoe wrapped out of sight, faintly on the butt-end of the bridge he could see the king’s demolition; there were great cranes turning around a massive collapse of rock. Just barely he could see people moving bit by bit around what was now a rockslide on the front end of the Bellwalk. There were lines of carts saddled by mounds of broken boulders in the field, and just barely he could make out individuals on top of the bridge clamoring with ropes while hazes of dust rose drifting away from the work sight. 
A giant had stepped on the bridge, veritably so, or else by passing the bridge had simply cracked under the quake. Gale then looked at once beyond the arches over the Tudor District toward the cliff and the two towers of the king's keep and could see at once that it was half gone. The South Tower was destroyed, and there rose not two but one lone tower rising forth over Farandale. 
He could only imagine there could have a been a big round footprint somewhere in the field. There were at least two giants, he thought. The others surely went around the walls while a reckless one either riddled his way through or reached into the town to toy with the citizens. Who’s the King fooling to a lie? he thought. Are they all deceiving themselves? 
As Gale moved on he noticed that amidst all of this were drab camps raised in distances across the field; for here in the greens of Witsney were an unlucky group of people who had lost their homes or businesses to the quake. There was no mistaking the scattered tents of the camps of those mislaid from the disaster who, with wagons and lean-to’s and what else they could muster had hatched their own little shelters and a turf habitat of people poor now, displaced and waiting for the day to come when their rubble would rise again to house them once more in the heart of the city. Incredible, he thought. "Where are the giants now?" 
Gale was at the end of the field now. He made it to the bridge, passing into the Tudor District under the richly hung flags of the Bellwalk and its towering arches. He was in town now. Downtown. 
He entered the Tudor District as if from the mouth of a river, the cobblestone narrowing from an open plaza to a streetway, delving. He passed a couple of teenagers laughing their way into a pub hung with a sign that said: The Cave Drake. 
The town smelt of sawdust and steaming broth. The sounds of smelting and hammering made it feel as if the district were still being built, and Gale had once thought of its people watching it grow over the early years, making japes and breaking bread along the gables. He moved along at a quickening pace past a girl gawking at a cider stand as a farmhand slapped a pig into an alleyway. There were fruit dealers plodding along on tumbrel-horses with carts of foodstuffs half empty, and he could hear a man somewhere portly yelling, “Kingsale! Kingsale! A bottle a crown! Knave, take a Kingsale!” as a bottle was tossed and caught by glove-torn hands.    
He strode along a confusion of streets and alleyways, some of them crowded with people bustling along, while others were empty side streets with the occasional young man brushing himself off out the door, or a bored mistress fanning herself from an upper story window. Turning a corner he noticed a rat scuttling away from a group of townsmen in dark coats. They were heckling an older woman who threw a shoe at them from her balcony, shouting, “Go away! Rid your purse of coins! Up the street!” 
He passed them by rounding a corner, and all of the sudden he saw the man in black. His heart skipped a beat. The man’s hood was up, his cloak flowing down the alleyway. It’s him! Gale thought. The man was speeding up. He turned a corner and Gale hurried after him.  
A buggy zipped right past and he was forced to stop in a flash. It flew by a group of children playing tag in the street with wooden swords. One of them climbed the beams set in a house of timber and plaster, and he hung from the jetty conniving as he swung his head at Gale.  
Gale ran past them, bouldering past an old bread stand and nearly crashed into a rack of potatoes. He cut his side on a disjointed nail in the boards and grunted, Agh!...seeing the man hurrying away down the street.  
He limped, and then he ran, and ran, and ran. Gale closed in on the man just as people were starting to turn their shoulders and raise their eyebrows. Finally he caught up, grabbed him by the cloak, and twisted him around. 
“Who are you?!” he yelled. 
“Wha-?” The man’s fiery blue eyes and the lips on his haggard face twisted, contorted into the awkward expression of confusion and surprise. “J-Just a…huh?...just a watchman of the wood…reporting sir. Who are you?” 
Gale could see the Farandale insignia; the brooch of a silver-rung drake. “And what wood do you watch?” he demanded. 
“Why, the Drakenwood of course. What does it matter? I don’t know you!” 
Gale’s anger clung hard. The man tried to wiggle out, but Gale wouldn’t let go.
“You have my ring!” 
“Ring?! I don’t have any rings sir look. I’m not even armed.” The man raised both palms open. They were empty. 
Gale checked the man’s waist and there was nothing but an old belted satchel and a black telescope tied with heavy cord. He wasn’t the one.    
He shoved the watchman forward. “You’re lucky I’ve got the wrong watch. Gale said. “To hell with you,” he said to the man. “Run off!” 
The man took awkward steps back. “Oh you’re not going to say you’re sorry?! To hell with you man, spit on your madness!” And with that he ran his way off.
Gale stood there as he watched the man press on down the street. He knew he was wrong, but he wanted to grab that man and just throw him into a heap of cow pies. Agh, the chap. I hope he trips on his own cloak, he thought. Gale had his eye out to be sure, and he swore to himself that no man striding in black like that would ever go untested. He shook it off, cursed the man again and continued down the streets of the Tudor District.  
He made it to Tower’s Square and the Farandale Keep after some time ambling forth. Gale had crossed many of the district’s cobbleways and the side rails of open roads with an airy anxiousness and ease, past the sounds of crumbling stone along the alleyways and detours of blocked roads at their reconstruction, until he set foot on a ring of flagstone in the great marketplace of Tower’s Square. 
The risen tower of the keep uprose possessing the square, while the cliff spread wide behind, beyond the old brick chimney pots and slates of the grey-colored rooftops of Tudor buildings surrounding the marketplace. The stony grey wall remained eclipsed in the backdrop, draping like a curtain on the stage of the town.   
He passed by a booth with a grizzly old man selling swords, whose husky laugh could be heard as he pointed a small blade at a group of gentlemen huddled around a rack of razors. “It’s sharp enough to slice through old Mort’s brick of cheese over there, and his fat cow's hambone! Hey. Did I say lady, or cow? Which one sharp-skull?” he told them as he pointed the razor and laughed at one.   
The market was empty of its usual crowds in the late afternoon, though merchants were just as at ready, arranging their jewelries and glyphs of pyrite, one examining a Thracean gemstone in the sunlight, while others polished gold-wrought medallions and moonstone sculptures by the stands.  
Right in the center of the square there was a fountain of marble immense and splendid, and from its waters upsprang a great statue of rearing horses. The water could be heard quietly thrumming in the plaza. Suddenly a clock tower at the other end of the square struck the hour and rang most naturally.
“Good cheese and baps!” Gale heard a man as he flashed past on a unicycle with a silver platter upheld in his right hand. He rode round and round the square serving whoever could stop him.  
Gale cocked his head and noticed two young girls in pleated miniskirts. They were flirting with a mounted patrol, and across from them on the fountain bench sat a haggard looking man in tattered leather playing a pipe of reeds. The man sat facing the girls with the brim of his hat bent low over his eyes as he played continuously a quiet and high pitched tune.
In the corner of his eye he noticed a cook busy cleaning a mini spit in his marquee, where there was sure to be the usual spinning of flavoury duck on the rim of the square. He could smell gravies and wine sauce and see racks of baked bread at the ready for the next rush in the marketplace. 
Tower’s Square was a place where the lay of the township met the keep and the King’s Courtyard; where the nobles and courtiers met with the common man.  
Gale drew nigh to the gate of the courtyard at the other end of the square; pigeons flitting away from his footsteps.
The gatehouse was an entryway to the King’s Portal, or Irewalk as it was called because it was oft throughout history that folk would see the His Royal Highness storming through the gate in anger to assemble his knights and kingsmen during rebellions. On his horse or with his henchmen he would charge through the gate and coldcock the nearest protester or rebel. The gate was closed now, as this morning’s session of open courtyard was over and the way would be barred until the next opening at the twilight of the hour.  
He approached a window with a large open counter to check in with the portalist at the gate, who was a gaunt looking man with rock like features and scraggly hair. He sat back with his feet propped and his nose pointed at a book in his lap as he twirled a fountain pen in his fingertips.
“Keeper, open the gate,” Gale said. “I’m a messenger.”
He looked up at Gale through a pair of sharp spectacles, staring at him as if he were a storm cloud far, far away across a great distance. 
“Where are you from?” he asked. 
“Ronia. I seek to parley with the King.” 
“And from what province?”
“Ronia.”
“Okay.” The portalist questioned Gale, sliding across the counter a large open book. “What is your name?” he said. 
“Gale Gothsvane of Andraste’s Third Aelirion.”
The portalist flipped through the pages and spoke under his breath, “…Gale Gothsvane…Gale…Gothsvane…ah, here…yes…a Gryffin of the River’s Rim…?”
“Yes.”
“And what is your wingcode?” 
“Globetrotter.”
The portalist stared over the text quizzically out from under his spectacles. “Agreed.” He reached to open the gate. “Now, the King is here, but there’s a short wait. Record your meeting in the courtyard.”
“A fair day to you keeper.”
“Farewell.” 
They called him Gale for short. His real name was Galeon. The elves called him Galeas, and some would call him Gadelas. 
The mouth of the portcullis opened and Gale made his way through the tunnel of the Irewalk. The passageway of the King’s Portal was a stone ramp that rose under open arches filtering sunbeams, which lead high unto the keep. He passed on into the courtyard upon a fair disk of grass where in the center stood an illustrious fountain with a statue of a sea blue drake. 
The King’s Courtyard overlooked the Tudor District in its entirety, and looking out from the ledge of the stone prominence one could see the arching horseshoe of the Bellwalk in the distance containing the metropolis and the shadow of the cliff cutting across the city. 
It was late in the afternoon when Gale spoke to the second recorder in a booth at the foot of the North Tower. He spoke to an older lady with red hair, and asked her to summon the King for a message from Ronia. “I’ll send for him,” she said. “Take the stairs and wait for him in the audience chamber.” 
On both sides of the courtyard straddling the walls of the keep were two mammoth sets of pale marble stairs. They climbed up to the cliff and lead into two great doorways on each side of the fortification. Gale made his way up the left side of the Tower, and when he came to the turn of the stair he could see the rubble of the South Tower decimated beyond the outer rim of the courtyard far, far below; and that’s when it really sunk in that it was gone, and he could imagine a giant’s foot smashing down upon the ground, and the tower just cracking utterly in the seismic trembling of the cliff and the terra firma beneath the keep. He tossed it over in his mind as he carried on into the Lord’s Hall through the southwest portal.
The Lord’s Hall was a wide entrance hall with a domed ceiling and high plinths and pillars of white windsor marble. There were a few lords and ladies, the King’s attendants, and courtiers passing through the hall, while a couple sat back relaxed on a ring of steps in a shallow pit in the center of the chamber.
Gale walked along the far wall where there were benches under paintings of monarchs and majestic landscapes, and he took a seat on a red-cushioned bench. Set against the wall across from him on the opposite side were pillars abutting doorways that lead to other chambers and stairways in the Tower, where sat the throne of the King, and where Gale noticed a steward hastening around a banquet table, upholding a plate of half-eaten grapes while he gave orders to his servants as they cleaned the table for the next open court.  
Sitting on the nearest bench was a gorgeous looking lady speaking to two gentlemen. One of the men laughed sitting next to her while she giggled between them both, staring up at the one standing in front of her. She wore a flowing white corseted dress with cerulean folds and her hair was spun in a messy high bun. After a few moments passed the men walked off and she turned and spoke to Gale.
“Oh hi fellow. You look cute. Where are your shoes?”       
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Gale said with a grin. 
She giggled. "Oh yeah. Try me big man."
"I'm a messenger. I was attacked by a wolf on the road from Ronia. I'm waiting for the lord."
"Did you defend yourself?" 
"I did. He tore into my boot. I sworded him and threw him over the cliff."
"That's impressive. You must have come a long way. What's your name?"
"I'm Gale and yours?"
"Lindsel," she said. 
"That's a pretty name. I have a wife of the same name. Are you from here?"
"I am. I stay at this court. I'm the wife of a nobleman. I'm quite glad this tower was built with strong hands. I've been unwinding for days since the south tower collapsed."
They had only been talking for a moment when Gale noticed the King out of the corner of his eye. Fertiens came down out of one of the passageways. He was a slender man of average height in his thirties, with long brown curly hair. He wore a blue-black morning coat with a stark white neckband and ruffled cuffs. His cocky head of hair was like a bang-up lion’s mane or a King’s mane as one could call it, and his nose narrow as an arrow. He was talking to an armored guard, and walking alongside of them was another older courtier in dark violet robes. The elderly courtier walked off, and Gale had been speaking to the lady when the King approached and hailed them. 
“Gale! If it isn’t my devoted little Ronic messenger. Oh and Lindsel, hey!”
The king walked over to them with his guard by his side, who, while the group conversed stood with his hands behind his back and his eyes moving around the room as if there were a fly buzzing about him. 
“Fertiens, so good to see you my lord,” Gale said. 
“Aye chap,” the king said. He grinned down at the lady. “Well you’re looking superb this afternoon. Catching the shade are you? Enchanting my court with that beautiful hair of yours?”
“Yes, I am. Thank you,” she said nodding her head, covering the faintest suspicious glare with a smile. 
Fertiens gave Gale a pat on the back. “Gale I miss you, but since you’re here it must mean something terrible has happened somewhere.”
They all laughed as Gale replied sneering, “There has, there has as always."  
“I didn’t realize you know each other,” Lindsel gestured toward the king.
“Oh yes, and I’m sure Gale has traveled far to see me. Such a breezy fellow: always on the move, yet somehow untouched by his treks through the woodland noose. Only this time…Gale where are your shoes?”
Gale chuckled. “A wolf ate them on the road. It’s been a long day mate. I’m just glad to be here.”
“Yes, yes well. It’s turned out to be a surprisingly good day despite all the terror that’s been going on.” There was a moment’s pause. “Say, shall we go up and have a word?”
“Yes my lord. Indeed more than a word!” 
“Certainly. I’m sure you’ve got a fine tale to tell!” He bowed to the lady. “Lindsel. I won’t steal him for too long.”
She nodded to the king and as they started away she said to Gale, “So long Ronic.”
“So long,” Gale told her in a deep curt voice.  
The three of them: Fertiens, Gale, and the guard walked off across the Lord’s Hall toward an open doorway behind pillars that the king had come down in through. On their way the king snapped to the steward, calling him tersely, “Elenger come with us!” The steward nodded and followed them up an enclosed stone passageway. The steps lead up to another doorway connected to an open corridor that Fertiens disregarded. They passed on through lamplight further and further beyond another four of these openings, wending their way up through the dim, until on the fifth they came out into a wide marble hall. It was completely empty looking and pristine as the sun came in through a row of enormous windows set into the opposite wall. 
“Here we are,” said the king. “We’ll go right up here.” He raised an arm gesturing toward a doorway on their left down the hall. 
Gale could hear the sound of clanking keys as they approached the doorway, while the steward leaned over to unlock the set of double doors to let them in. Gale noticed a rich carving of sea drakes designed on the doorway. It was a master relief with a drake etched on each door; one swooping down to catch a fish in the water and the other flying up over the ocean towards the sun. 
The doors opened. “Well I know this is unfamiliar. Not where we usually meet, but, let’s just say that since the disaster a few things are being moved around!” 
Gale nodded, and both the steward and the guard remained quiet as they stood near the wall and he was ushered inside. 
Fertiens stopped him for an instant. “Excuse me Gale, I’ll be there in a second. I need a word here with Elenger.”  
“Alright,” Gale said, and the doors were closed behind him.
It was indeed, as Fertiens said, not where they usually met. Typically in Farandale a messenger’s parley with the king, or any royal diplomat, either took place in the courtyard or in a private chamber with lavish furnish and comfortable chairs. It would be a smaller, cozier room with a fireplace and candles burning. There might be the smell of pipe smoke with a domestic animal cooped up like a beagle dithering or staring up at you from the windowsill. 
This was a conference room; a lofty assembly hall with a high ceiling and a long, broad wooden table. There were hard wood floors, and across from him were the same enormous windows he had seen in the hallway. He noticed a lone chandelier hanging way above the table and a suite of armor to his left mounted on the closest wall. 
The table sat nearer the window, and he walked up around it to catch a glimpse of the cityscape. It works, he thought. The room was well lit by the sun. The curtains were still open, it felt cool, and there was a faint smell of tipple in the air.
Gale stood at the window contemplating. All of his muscles were sore and he still felt a skiving burn in his sides. He was thinking about what it would have been like to look through this window in the middle of the night and see giants running at the castle, when suddenly Fertiens came back into the room. 
“Ok, sorry about that,” he said closing the doors. “I had to remind the steward of a few business matters.” The king took a heavy breath as he looked up at Gale and started walking. “…Hasn’t been up to speed lately. I also bid him fetch us a bottle of Port, which I know you like.”
“Aye, you’re always on the ball with that,” Gale said. “I could use some.”
Fertiens snickered. “Me too!” He slid his hand across the table still grinning. “So, tell me, what’s on your mind?” 
“Well first off I’m in a scad of pain.”
“Are you?” Fertiens came up to the window and they both stood leaning on the stone sill. “I was wondering what happened. I’ve never seen you come in here like this.”
“Yeah, it’s a long story mate. I’ll tell it soon. I’m alright. I just need dust. Do you have any fairy dust?” 
“Ah, no I do not. Gale, you think if I had fairy dust I would give any to you?” 
“Oh you think that’s funny mate? I’ve been at it for days getting here. I thought you might have a dab at least.” Gale grinned and there was silence while his heart sank at the verity of the deprivation and he thought of what to say.  
“Haha, I do joke.” Fertiens said. "I wish I had some dust. It just doesn’t last long around here."
“Of course. Well the Port will be good either way.” Gale forced himself to forget about it. “Anyways my friend…are you ok? I came here in a flurry with intelligence and ill news from the north and here I see that a disaster has befallen your city. When I heard I couldn’t believe you were alive. This is unprecedented.”
The king nodded. "Yes, good god Gale can you imagine. The tower just collapsed completely. To answer your question yes, I'm ok, but there are many people who have lost their lives and the city is under a great deal of stress."  
“This isn’t good,” Gale said. “Andraste will be shocked to hear.” He paused as he thought of a way to carry on with his next concern, leaning with his palms on the windowsill. He turned to face him. “Fertiens with all due respect I don't think Andraste would praise of your handling of this. Nay, the confederation neither."
"The confederation? Gale I’m doing the best I can. We lost an entire castle. There were countless supplies, decades of records and libraries. People were obliterated; politicians, lawyers...my most trusted financiers. Gale, I have to move the new airship port..."
"Listen king. I saw the giants with my own eyes. Why are you lying to your citizens. You must be."
"Giants?...What do you-" His faced twitched. 
"I saw the giants Fertiens." Gale leaned lax on the sill. 
"Giants...giants yes, well I'll be!" His eyes brightened.   
"Yeah. Giants. Everyone from here to clear across the mountain will see them. You sound like a fool my lord."
"Why, yes there were giants. How awkard. When did you see them?"
"I saw them running north on my way here. I felt the quake. I counted three of them. There's something monstrous going on. There's no time." 
"That could be true. Blasted giants ran through my city Gale. The truth is no one here is saying much. That was tremendouly huge," the king said in an exasperated tone.  "I saw them also. I saw one out of my window running for the cliff. It was insane. I lied, yes. It stills fears Gale. I don't believe enough people even saw them honestly. It happened so fast..."
"When you lie to your citizens you only put them on edge. They don't know how to talk about what they saw. When the truth comes to surface you'll look like a clown, sure." 
"I reacted Gale. We all did."
"I would have told the truth and sought for the aide of elves."
"Elves? No one takes to elves here you know it."
"They could rebuild this city in thrice the time that it would take you, and save the lives of many if not all who are of injury. That would be a miraculous sight in Farandale."
"This is a racist town. No elf will ever set foot here. I wouldn't be hopeful of that."
"That's a pity my lord. We live in their graces. That's why we're committed to the confederation. To be stronger nations."
Farandale was the second nation out of Andor (after the lake-city of Portigol) to join the Ronic Confederation, which was a league of dwarves, elves, and men. Nearly a hundred fifty years of age, the confederation was brought together by King Gwydion in 1085 VI E, who forged a stronger alliance with the Elves of Faywood and their King Illidor after wars with the demon Volgoroth. A council was formed and a summit attended at Rim's Hill every three cycles of the moon to address the relations of elves and men, and to discuss the deepest matters of the world. The Dwarves of Anarkand by their King Melegond joined the league only seventy-one years ago after their own civil wars in the north. They were called forth and welcomed by the Ronics to build a city in the mountains of the Saddle, which was a token of friendship and the bidding of King Alastar that "the mountains deep were fit only for dwarven hands to delve." The city was built on what was once the dark and terrible goblin city of Orcum, that was hollowed out in 882 VI E after the Battle for the Saddle Vale when General Salitius of Spark under King Aelysius sacked the city and defeated the last of the goblins in what had been a four century old war for their mountains, the golbins of which were forced to retreat north to thence named Grimstone, The Last Hold of the Goblin Orcslen. The dwarves named the city Grimore, who built there now great quarries and a mine delved to depths untold. The League established peace among the three races and of the realms, while they pledged to work together to build a free world and ally against dark forces, neath stone and tree and water, in all the depths of Perth. There was an Order also formed, the Order of the Council, which was the highest circle in the league forged in secret to command and secure with intel and elite champions who were bound by an oath to bring the land to justice. So, Farandale now was accepted into the league despite their hatred toward the elves, because they pledged to provide troops for combat in lands far off and to trade with dwarves of Grimore their ingots of arkstone used to make Riverring steel. It was now year 1228 VI E.        
Pray to such a graceful goddess that these giants aren't out to destroy our kingdoms. What if they're going northward to Ronia. Who knows what this means?..."
"Who knows, though they don't seem to be. I heard a story of a guy in your Tudor District who said one them reached their hand out to him. I don't think their purpose is to destroy us. Aside from that my lord, this is going to cost a fortune. You've borrowed quite a bit of gold from our confederation. To limits I believe." 
The king removed himself from the window and started walking off. “Look, tell your king it was a total disaster.” He moved to the table, pulled out a chair and sat in it reversed, with the back facing outward. “Tell him it was a catastrophe. Thousands of civilians have died here and this is complete mess. If he has problems with how anyone in this castle is recovering from that then we would gladly use his help. Since this city has joined the Ronic Confederation it has been his duty to—”
“King, it is no one’s duty but your own. I would expect neither Andraste nor anyone else in the confederation to compensate you for this.” 
The king slouched and let his head fall back. “How else would you expect me to react to this? I can’t have people running around panicking about monsters or beasts of legend or whatever they are, and I certainly cannot have any more people leaving the city. I’m lucky only a few saw what happened. Gale, no one knows where they came from. They swept through here like a walking crack of thunder. What if they come back?”
“That’s what you might tell yourself. Remember lord, the less you work with the other nations, the less you will get ours in gold.” 
“Look, it was enough sending my riders to the other cities on the Shard. They should be here any day now with word and a few more hands. Shortly after that I’m sure we’ll be swarmed with folks of strength and yeoman."
“Where are they? Last I remember the horseriders of Andor the Diamonbacks of the Shard could ride to Meadshed and back in a day. And what of the drakes? What’s taken them so long?”
Fertiens sighed. “I don’t know Gale. Who knows what they’ve gotten themselves into out there. The damned giants might’ve picked them up.”
“Just remember what I told you,” Gale said. He took a seat at the table, and the king also moved up forward. 
Fertiens sank back in his chair. “Where is the bloody Port?” There was a silence.
Gale could tell that at some point Fertiens had his glass. It had been almost a year since Gale had a good glass of Port, since the last time he was here. The funny thing was that it became more of a necessity in the court of Farandale. The vintners in Portigol had to make a killing with all the Port that came in and out of this city and it was even rumored that without Farandale’s business the crown would take over the trade and the city would be so awash with grapes that the homeless would rise to seats of nobility. He looked forward to it every time he paid Fertiens a visit. The drink tasted like bottled sunshine with the slurry of grapes in the mouth, and when you popped the bottle out came the mists at dawn in the grape vines.
Gale went on. “Indeed. I can tell you’ve had some”
Fertiens nodded. 
“It’s been too long,” Gale said. You know, you can always smell a bit of Port in the air around here.”
“Haha, yes that’s what they say, though I’ve grown accustomed to it and cannot tell.”
“Aye, I’m surprised your steward wasn’t back in a flash with all the Port that floats around this castle. What’s his name? Elenger?” 
“Elenger, yes.” He sighed again. “…if only he wouldn’t bull.”
There was a moment where they both sat there, halfway expecting the Port to come through the doors. It didn’t, so Gale went on with his business. He put his arms on the table. 
“Alright mate. I don’t mean to stir up a debate, but we have to speak truths. I’m sure you’ve guessed that what I came to tell you has nothing to do with the earthquake in Farandale. I bring troubling news from Ronia. I’ve landed here through a quest of my own. I wanted to tell you what’s going on up there, and yes, to give you advice, but more importantly to ask for your help.”
“Oh really old friend. Does this have to do with the giants or is this Order business?”
“There's been an attack. The lords of our kingdoms have sent word to all the cities of Andor. The dwarf city Grimore has been attacked.”
“Grimore? How so? Was it by goblins?” 
“Goblins, yes, and others. There was a terrible horde organized into a huge army of goblins that just overran the city. We counted four legions at least that drove each and every dwarf out to Loeunblum. It was an invasion. And I know what you're thinking: The dwarves of Grimore are dwarves from Gondol, Thain's kin and their other kinfolk from the Hammering. One would think they would fight to the death to protect Grimore. Not only that but they've built bastions in the undermines to guard over the construction of their precious gnomestone and all of their mox and deepstone to protect from just such an attack, but...
“Precisely, who didn’t see that coming? They’re building a city in the place that the goblins have wanted to take back from the Ronics for decades now, and given enough time they’ll always come back because their numbers grow so god damned quickly…” His eyes followed Gale as the Ronic got up and walked back toward the window.
“Yes, but the problem is the dwarves weren’t overran because of their numbers really. The reason why the goblins were able to invade is because the army was invisible.”
“Invisible…” There was a pause. “An entire army of invisible Goblins?...Haha, that’s ridiculous.”
Gale faced the other way, his eyes lost into something else. “I wish it was.”
“What kind of magic—”
“Or wizardry.” He turned and leaned against the sill again. “It could be the work of a wizard. Thain said his mining kin saw a bright light in the caves with fire spewing forth. There were several accounts of a ball of light in the main hall and other sorts of elemental magic; a great wind and shockwaves that felled many of the dwarves. The army took the city cave by cave, chamber by chamber. The dwarves held their formation early on in the attack deep in the mountain hold, but it wasn’t long until they realized: they couldn’t see them, and you can’t fight what you can’t see. So they ran, and fortunately Thain and most of the other kin escaped with their lives.”
“One wizard? That’s impossible. Even twenty wizards couldn’t conjure enough magic to cloak an entire army.”
“It is indeed unlikely, but that’s the only clue we have. However we did find one other thing. Shortly before the retreat, as Thain fought what he could under the protection of his Orbshield, he killed something that was not a goblin or a wizard. A few days later after word had been sent out, Llewellyn and I arrived and were sent in to scout the caves to prepare for a counter attack.” He noticed Fertiens getting up again. “Andraste, Aslan, a troupe of elves, Thain’s kin and other dwarves from Gondol are still in the vale. They’ve probably marched in the mountain by now.”
“You went in there? I know you’re elf kin but that’s daring.” Once again they stood next to each other at the window. 
“It is, and Llewellyn gave me his own magic.”
Gale stretched the truth there, simply to hide the fact that it was his magic, not the wizard’s that had protected him in the caves; a magic he had now lost.
“The old elf is cunning. I suppose he would be a good guide,” Fertiens said.
“It turns out that Thain had killed a drow elf. When Llewellyn and I went into the caves we found the dead drow, wingless. There weren't any fairy-elves. It was a drow foot soldier, and we found others that the dwarves had managed to kill.”
“Dark elves…”
“Dark elves. Working with goblins from Grimstone.”
“Working with them? Or…”
“We don’t know. No one has ever seen goblins and drow fighting together.”
“Incredible.”
“It is, and it could be dangerous for us all.”
Fertiens shifted his body on the windowsill in an awkward way, as if he were trying to figure out how to conduct himself with the next question. 
“So, Andraste has already sent word to Andor, yet here you are before…”
“Here I am,” Gale said. He faced the king as he leaned with his side against the wall. Fertiens you should send men. Send cavalry up river. Meet with the king's army in the Saddle Vale." 
Fertiens raised a scrutinous eyebrow.  
"Even if it's just a small force Andraste will think strongly of it. That will strengthen your ties with Ronia. It will show your loyalty to the confederation."
Fertiens looked calmly out of the window and gazed out at his metropolis. 
“Gale look around. People are tired, and today is the first day we’ve all been able to relax a little and think about what happened…or even better: to forget.”
“Do you need not the gold king?” Gale said. 
Fertiens stood quiet, staring. Then he spoke softly and dreamily. 
“This isn’t about money. There’s so much work to do around here I wouldn’t have enough men if Titus came down here from Portigol with his giant party wagon.” He glanced at Gale. “Now, you've asked me to force my people to work with creatures who they loathe, and now you’re telling me to take man power out of the city to a place where they won’t be of help in the least. Does Andraste have nothing else for you to do?”
"Eh? You live in the past my lord. You ought to be an active nation in the League. That is what my king would put forth. You owe us a grain over three hundred thousand crowns. Doing these things will strengthen your ties, and Andraste might actually do something good for this city, yet again.”
“It doesn’t work in that way. Farandale is self-sufficient, and Andraste, if he looks at us at all, will see that we took care of our own problems and didn’t pull his elves while he needed them to chase out a horde of invisible goblins.”
“There are plenty of elves in this world, as you know. What happened to you? I can remember the movement in this city, when you were the lord of new. What happened to King Fertiens I knew who wanted to bring glory and prestige to the cities of Andor. You were unstoppable then!” 
“I still am.”
“Well if you are then come on! Get up! Move around! Motion creates emotion! Do something!”
Fertiens stood pensive against the window. 
“Let your soldiers go sight-seeing in the Saddle. Bring elves to this beautiful city. For god's sake what has gone wrong?”
“Gale perhaps only in the future. It is now that it cannot be done.”
“Agh. I had a feeling there’d be plenty of Port, and you wouldn’t listen.”
“Plenty of Port…where’s the damned Port anyway?” 
“Remember what I told you. Don’t expect Ronia to help you with this. If you're not willing to change, who are you in our League but someone to take advantage?”
Fertiens chuckled to himself. 
“What’s funny?”
“Hah. It’s funny watching you stand there barefoot in such silly clothes telling me Ronia can’t help me.”
Gale couldn’t help but snicker with him. “Well alright mate. Mark my words.”
“I will never forget young Ronic.”
Gale sighed. “So be it with that,” he said. "Always that will be my message for you king. There is one last request I have of you my lord.”
“And what is that?”
“There’s more to my story.” He looked at Fertiens in the eye. “I was attacked in Grimore. While Llewellyn and I were scouting the caves we had split up deep in the main hall. At that point the place seemed empty and I still felt safe under his spell.” He looked off into his own mind. “Somehow they saw me.” There was a pause then he continued in detail. “It had to have been a man. It was so dark in the caves even with my light it was hard to tell, but I know it was a man. It was a powerful man, yes a man for sure. He swooped in out of nowhere donned in a black hood and cloak with all black clothing. Before I knew it he kicked me in the face and I nearly blacked out. Somehow he stripped me of my magic, yet he took nothing else. I do not know what happened to Llewellyn, he may be in danger. Nevertheless I chased him and followed him all the way out of the mountain. Then, it had to have been approaching early evening, somewhere near a ridge high in the mountain pass he attacked me again, revealed out from some nook between the rocks. I fell down a steep incline to another shelf of rock, and this time had definitely passed out. I was so lucky not to have broken any bones. There I woke up about an hour later and I thought I was dead. Anyways I felt a little…different, and somehow I still had the energy to keep going so I tracked him. He fled through the foothills of the Saddle all the way to the forest. It was at some point in the night shortly before I made it to the tree line that I saw the giants. They were heading north. It seemed like they were following the mountains, maybe even looking for a way through. Well anyways I managed to follow the man for days. He led me all the way to the road to Farandale. Eventually I lost him on the road about a league west of the city. That was last night. After that I never caught back up with him, or found out exactly where he was going…” He paused for a second as he took a breath, envisioning his own words. “…So I came here.” 
“Ah, so here you are.” 
“Here I am, in a farmer’s old clothes and no way back to Loeunblum but to run back through the forest like a mad man. I thought I’d ask an old friend for help.”
Fertiens lifted a finger as he thought for a second, and said with the hesitation of freethinking curious inquiry in mid-contemplation, “Do you think he came here…to Farandale?” 
“I don’t think so,” Gale replied. “I guess its possible…”
“You don’t know where you are do you?”
Gale was confused by the question. “What do you—”
Suddenly Fertiens yelled toward the doors. “Elenger bring in the Port!”
Gale looked over his shoulder as at that instant the double doors flung open and Elenger stumbled in with two empty wineglasses and a bottle of barrel aged Port. Behind him ten guards rushed in the room. Five stood by each door facing them, and he could see more in the hallway. 
As Gale turned back around he noticed that Fertiens had stepped closer. To his shock the king had drawn forth his sword; a short sword he held pointed straight at the Ronic’s neck. A chill crept through Gale as their eyes met and Fertiens remained still with a stolid glare. 
“What the hell is going on?” Gale said. 
“Gale, if a man dressed in black was able to do to me what he did to you, take my ring, run for days through the forest to the road to Farandale, where in god’s name do you think he was going?”
“Take your what?”
The king lifted his head, and as his piercing eyes held fixed on the Ronic he stretched an arm out toward the window, revealing sly in the fingertips of his free hand a plain ring of gold, which caught what little there was left of the fading rays of sunlight passing through the room.
“Your ring,” he said. 
Gale’s eyes grew fierce and widened as he realized what was happening, and they moved from the ring to Fertiens, back and forth like a wild animal.   
Before he knew it Fertiens slipped the ring on his finger and all too quickly he was gone. His entire body and catlike form had dematerialized. Gale could no longer see him, as the king had become invisible. 
At the same time Elenger walked up to the table, set the glasses down and poured Port for them both. The steward nodded to the empty space as Fertiens thanked him, then, with disregard to Gale he walked coldly back to the doors. 
Gale made for his glass, but just then he felt cold metal pressed up against his chin and a sharp poking at his throat. It was the sword, for it too was invisible. 
“Ah-ah-ah, don’t even think of moving or I’ll have you bleeding in a cinch,” said the king. 
Gale couldn’t believe the lunacy of this. He stood frozen, overcome by the fact that Fertiens, not only had somehow come under the possession of his ring, but that he had mindlessly rejected all of his requests, and that now he was telling him he couldn’t move. 
“Listen to me Gale, and listen closely. You are under arrest. After I read off your offenses my officers will escort you to our pens in Gorvindol. There you will be held to await a fair and speedy trial. 
“Under arrest?! For what?! This is insane, you knew. You knew about the invasion. Who’s corrupted you, you traitorous loon."
As his shock turned to anger he could hear traces of something crumpling in the air, of which, as Fertiens continued with his next statement, he could only imagine to be a roll of parchment unraveling.
“You are under arrest for the following offenses: Three accounts of theft. Vandalism. Two accounts of assault. Looting. Invasion of a fortification. Espionage. Treason. Conspiring against the crown, and two accounts of cold blooded murder.” 
Gale lit up with rage. “Murdrrckk!” His words were squished and muddled as Fertiens pressed the sword harder against his throat. Suddenly he could now see the parchment flung into the air. Fertiens had apparently tossed it aside, and now it was gliding down to the table. One of the glasses of wine had vanished.
“Yes, murder, and if convicted there will be an execution, unless of course you get lucky and a mariner from Thrace pays a high price and you can become a slave there.”
“Who?!” With the sword at his throat Gale could hardly speak. He had to spit the words out like someone foaming at the mouth. 
There was a pause and he imagined Fertiens had taken a sip of the Port. 
“My two guards. The watchman and bellman.”
“The Order will have a say in this!” Gale warned, though he knew Fertiens would ignore him. 
Gale had done none of these things, yet now he really was ready to kill someone. This was beyond anything he could have expected or understood. Fertiens had clearly betrayed him, along with the Order, Ronia and the confederation. Somehow this had been premeditated, and the king had worked in collusion with the man in black and possibly even, although this was hard to imagine: dark elves. Gale couldn’t help but think something terrible was being planned somewhere on Perth and that this trap of Fertiens’ was part of a bigger, larger scheme beyond him or even Ronia. He didn’t believe there would be any fair trial or a trial at all. His life was in danger. He had to get out of there. Gale felt like he could grab that sword with his bare hands, or break through the window and somehow climb down, but no, he couldn’t do those things without being cut down by the king or shot with arrows. Now his face was like a red balloon and his racing thoughts in suspension like expanding air. Something had to give. As he stood there choked in a nervous sweat, so shocked and angry and high strung with his life so close to the edge of the sword…there was only one thing he could do. 
Fertiens continued. “And to think you had the gall to come back to the scene of the crime.”
“Who gave you the ring?!”   
“Do you want your Port?”
“Who gave it to you?!”
“Take him away!”
The guards shuffled towards them, and it was then that Gale felt the sword tilt in angle, as he had before when Fertiens would move his body or look away. Only this time he took full advantage of it under the calculation that Fertiens was distracted, even if just for a fraction of a second. With one swift stroke he sidestepped and unpinned his chin from the sword point, wisped himself under the blade, and in a spurt of momentum knocked it clean out of the king’s hand with a sliding ground kick.  
Time seemed to stop as the sword popped up into the air, unveiled in plain sight as it hung revolving, rising and then falling back toward the two men. Gale rose with his palm uplifted, caught the sword in the air and brought it down in a flash upon the invisible king. He drove the sword down with such ferocity that the blade stabbed through his buckled shoe and pinned the king’s foot to the floor.
“AHHH!"
There was a horrid scream, as Gale could see the blood trickling, plashed out from the unseeable spot where Fertiens’ foot now stood impaled into the wood. He had sought for the king’s right foot, which he could pinpoint by a faint outline of displaced dust on the boards. As quick as he could he grabbed the king, wrangling with his arm until he could feel the ring around his finger. Then he tore it off, and as the guards grew ever closer Gale slipped the ring on. He was free.
“Kill him!” Fertiens cried. 
Arrows flew. Only then Gale ducked low under the table. He could now see Fertiens’ red face with watery eyes and the look of terror. The Ronic didn’t spare a second, and as the guards approached them he rose and punched the king in the face so hard that he fell back senseless on his ass. He was out like a light.  
Gale ran gliding past him toward the suite of armor at the end of the room. No one could see him, but the guards were shocked as they saw their king lying on the ground, knocked out cold with one knee stuck in the air and his foot impaled to the assembly room floor. 
“Block the doors!” one of the guards yelled. 
“No, shut them!” another said. “Trap him!”
They were too slow, for now Gale had made it to the doorway. He busted out from under the two guards standing there and forced his way out to the open hallway. 
“After him!” Gale heard them call from behind. There was a blast of horns. “Send the guard! Line the exits!” 
It was too late. Gale tore down the hall and didn’t look back. With the vigor of a man and as spry as an elf he stole out of the castle of Farandale.
Chapter Four: The Watchman & Bellman
The man in black stopped in the middle of the road. He walked up to the cliff and knelt over the edge, his gloved hands clasped on the rocky brim. All was quiet and the air still. The remote castle of Farandale sat distant below him as impalpable as a stone compass. He stared at it deep in thought; his cape spread behind him on the ground untarnished. The city would soon be nothing but a souvenir. It was all going to burn.
He stood up and tilted his head to look down again upon the parapets of the city’s main tower. It was the king’s stronghold over two hundred meters high, built inflexibly against the wall of the plateau. Its topside, still faint to the eye, was a dark space that made the tower look hollow. He paced back and forth staring, moving around to inspect his position. The man was just where he needed to be. 
He pulled out a device and turned around as if he were about to stretch, pointing it at the edge of the forest. It looked like a pipe or a black haft, shiny and cylindrical. He aimed and clicked the device and out of one end shot a rope with a fine hook. It was a grappling hook. 
He walked up to the tree line and secured the grapnel to a band of roots, walked back straightening the cord to the cliff edge, aimed once again, clicked, and out of the opposite end he shot another hook and cord far down toward the tower of Farandale. He let it fall for a brief moment, let go of the button and put his back to the cliff. A third, shorter cord was released from the shaft and the man wrapped it around his waist. He gave all the ropes a final tug, whipped the cord behind him and braced his feet on the edge of the plateau. The man took a look to his left down the road. A giant wolf had chased him just hours earlier, and now the beast would never find him again. He looked down his side, down the cliff as far as his eye could see. Then he jumped. 
He fell into the darkness then he swiftly halted suspended in mid-air. His feet hit the wall soft as he came down on the cliff and kicked himself off to break the fall. The man continued kicking off back and forth, for a minute swaying from side to side, launching off of different points to assess his freedom of movement and leeway with the rope, until at length he came to a stop yet again and remained still. He craned his neck to see as far out as he could, his hood undraped and dangling, then he kicked off and down he went falling suddenly.
He free fell for great spans, kicking off the cliff as he went down like a hare springing in long arches. His feet would sink into the overgrowth as he bounced sponge-like off the cliffside with ease. His boots worked well for this, being divided in two pieces and designed so that there were softer bottoms that were more like pads or sparring shoes. The pads, which gave him more flexibility and better grip because they were tailor made to fit his feet, were softer leather made of night-blue elk hide lined with shearling wool. The upper pieces were high strapped boot toppers that came down covering half his feet and were fashioned of hardened leather armor. As light and tractable as they were, his boots held a sturdy tread that altogether made him as fleet as an elf. 
He fell continuously; falling like a rock until he was far removed from the road, and with the forest no longer visible he was unable to see the top of the cliff. The growth had disappeared and the air felt cooler. It was then at some point high in altitude against the weathered rock that he decided to catch some wind long enough to think about other things. As he hung at rest suspended, he twisted himself around to look at the land before him. The valley spread before him like a spilled puddle of green and black paint, suffused by the moonlight and pressed up against the night sky as he dangled next to the wall thinking.     
The man had black hair, which was now wet and scruffy from his three day excursion through the wilderness. His mind would not rest. His mission was almost finished, and everything he needed to happen had come to pass at the nick of the hour. Upon a mountainous task every minute counted, every moment of focus, while just as important: every moment of rest he could take to reflect on his next move. 
The man tightened his gloves and leather vambraces, taking another look up at the wall and its rocky height, the rope slowly turning him back around. The moonlight caught in his pauldrons, which were wrought of black metal that resembled a pair of shining marble spheres. He swiped away a bit of falling debris and wiped his forehead as he put his feet back on the wall leaning out sort of diagonally. 
He grasped at something hanging from his neck and held it up under the moonlight. It was the simplest looking ring on a chain. The man looked at it with concerned curiosity as it glinted a silvery gold. Three days of navigation through the wilderness in the depths of the wood he had endured for this little stone, this ring of metal, all to simply put it in its proper place. It was at least a ring of magical design, one of legitimate power, yet it was naught but a ring of power for those who lacked their own. There were warriors and kings and the finest adventurers in the land who had traveled to the ends of Perth for it, and so would kill for this ring. It was no use to the man. He had no need for it, and now the task simply had to be done.
The moon sat beaming high behind him, its light spread gently on the cliff. He could almost feel its presence with the light cast on his back as if the moon were checking to make sure he was on schedule. Likewise he also noticed, with its light scintillating at the margins of his periphery, the orb of a smaller heavenly body. It was the planet, which had somehow been hiding behind the trees before, yet had after all appeared naked in the sky not more than an hour ago on the road shortly before he came to the city; a bobber aglow in the heavens of the astral sea. Another world to portal, he thought.  
The man let himself fall and continued plunging with an ebb and flow along the wall. Minutes passed and six hundred meters he had descended in all, so that now, as he came closer and closer to the tower, turning his pithy head to look below him more often now than before, he could make out a small notch in the rock below. It was the rim of a hole that was a circular window in the stone; a gaping porthole that lead to a deep cave behind the wall that was an opening to a completely hidden part of the castle.
It was an opening to the cave of the King’s Grotto, or Gorvindol as men called it, named after a prince who was one of the first to bridle and yoke the drakes and fly them freely in Farandale. It was here where the drakes were bred and quartered for use as transportation for the kings men and the wealthy who took steed to other cities along the rivers of Andor. For the drakes it was a cool subterranean habitat where they had plenty of water and space to fly around. For the man in black, tonight it would be his way out.
He slid down the rope to the top of the hole, thereon lowering himself gently to the base of the open ring of stone. The man looked in as he gripped the rope, leaning against the rock and an empty birds nest. There was a blue hue cast about the cave and the cavern air smelled of brine and mossy stone. Though the window to the grotto was too high up to see anything in detail, the man could make out the outlines of stalactites and boulders along the flowstone, and beyond that far, far below a faint glow of torchlight in the distance. If he stayed his eye he could see the reflections of shimmering pools at the bottom of the chamber, and for a split second he thought he caught sight of a drake swooping in the depths, yet it was only a sparkle ever so faint in the waters below. He was sure they were down there somewhere amid the shafts of light, some straddled to posts slumbering around the torches, others perhaps in different chambers flitting around like pelicans or lazy dragons.
Prince Gorvince was a gifted illusionist rumored to be able to speak to the drakes, and he had designed the King’s Grotto so that there were two giant slits or long thin airways in the cliff that allowed them to fly in and out. To fly freely and be our silent escape…our most noble treasures...in all of the realm, the prince would tell them, and they grew to great numbers in the grotto and made Farandale their home. Eventually nets were raised along the openings and the drakes were kept as beasts of burden for haul and transport. The man took a glance out at one of the airways far out in the distance. When the task here was done he would have to use these airways to make his exit of the city, and the nets, for he would find a way to tear them down. 
He dropped another twenty meters and at last the man made his approach to the tower. The rooftop was the size of a town square, and connecting from the tower to the cliff were rampart bridges with aisles of gypsum that lead into the King’s Grotto.   
The man could make out the top of a great canvas tarp apparently being used to office the lookout while the king built his airship port. Wood scaffolding lined the edges of the Keep and the crenellations while there were stacks of crates in every direction. In the middle of the rooftop there was an elaborate stone belfry crowned with a gilded drake wing weathervane.
He zipped his way down closer and closer, until he could see a light flickering beneath the tarp. There were guards on their nightly patrol and he could hear their muffled voices below. 
There must be two of them, he thought, and seconds later a figure popped out from beneath the far side of the tent to continue his lookout on the tower. And that would be the watchman, he thought.   
He shimmied down close to the ramparts until he dropped and landed like a black cloth unto stone. He folded over the hood of his cloak and crept forward quietly down the aisle between the stacks of crates. As he approached the tent he could hear the guard fiddling with something and he could see his feet outstretched between the lines of the tarp. Closer and closer he inched toward the guard. Suddenly he heard a shout. It was the watchman in the distance.
“…Oh and you migh’ as well change the lamps and bale the casks of port before ye get too drunk Galvin. I’m tired of doin’ it.”
There was the sound of a package crackling and mumbling in the tent. He crept low, inching his way forward with all of his weight in his thighs. Within seconds he was inside of the tent and the guards’ drunken mumbling could be heard while he played childishly with a flint and tinderbox. 
“Bloody Port’s too sweet,” the guard said to himself. “Get some liquor!...there’s never anyone out there, let’s play a game a’ Speed!” 
The man crept forward like a spider approaching the guard from behind. He crawled up to the chair. And this would be the bellman, he thought. Suddenly with one quick jab the man wrung his arm around the guard’s neck. There was a blunt gasp as the man locked his arm around his adam’s apple gagging him. “This is the end,” the man whispered in his ear. The bellman choked sputtering, flailing in the chair, while the man only tightened his grip like a vice around his throat. He strangled him and cracked his neck with a final wrench. There was the smell of drooling wine and flint as the bellman dropped to the ground dead like a baby seal. 
Immediately the man in black walked over and blew out the oil lamps. The roof grew pitch dark, while the moonlight was marred by a passage of clouds hightailing in the night. He heard the watchman again approaching.  
“Liquor? What was that? Galvin what in the world don’t blow out all the lamps at once ya drunken doof. Get yourself together.” He paced off in another direction continuing his patrol.       
The man grabbed a purse of coins as he slid past the table and hid behind a crate. He threw it at the watchman and the coins were launched in all directions, ringing in the air. 
“What the hell is this Galvin?!” 
   	As the clouds passed and the moon dispelled the bittering darkness, the man took out his knife and held it up to the moonlight. He angled it at the guard, flickering the light, taunting him with his shining knife…calling him. The watchman started walking in his direction. 
“What’s gotten into you tonight mate? Alright, alright I’ll play some Speed, but your picking up those coins ya fool, and what are you doin’? Playing with flint?” 
As the Watchmen approached the tent the man in black crept around in silence. He sprang up to a stack of crates and climbed his way quietly to the top. He poised himself crouching, glaring down at the guard like a coiled snake in the dark. 
The watchman at once could see the body and his friend’s legs sprawled out beneath the tent. “Just what ‘ave ya done here? Passed out again ya seal!” When he relit the lamps he knew immediately that there was something wrong, for the bellman’s head lay twisted grotesque and out of proportion. He backed out cautiously from beneath the tarp.    
“Hold on– Galvin? What in the eyes of hell…”
The watchman had no time to draw his sword. In the cover of darkness the man in black swooped down and his cape engulfed the guard like wreathing shadow. Blood splattered the canvas as his throat was sliced wide open and his eyes rolled back as still as stone. It was as swift a death as the gaze of a basilisk. 
The man pulled his two dead bodies out from under the tent and dragged them to the far side of the Keep. He picked up a handful of the coins along the way, tossing them hastily on their breastplates. When he reached the edge of the rooftop the man stuffed the coins in their eyes. Then he wiped his knife off with their cloaks, grabbed one of the guards by the bootstraps as he pulled him forth, and said aloud, “Let this be a message. That I am your guard.” He tossed them both over the edge and they fell spiraling down into the courtyard while the coinage of the castle city went with them.
The man looked out over the edge of the keep at Farandale in the dead of night. He gazed out upon the moonlit metro, mulling over the doom. In that moment he considered the conscience of a generation; the unsuspecting youth who now lay asleep, woolgathering in their dreams with their families and friends, with futures filled with laughter and promise. These were their last days, and soon the clock would strike at the hour of death and the true masters of the world would come for them, and there would be no compromises. 
Just below him etched into the high walls of the keep was the king’s balcony. He whisked his cape behind and made his descent. 
There was no longer any need for the rope and he left the grapnel behind for his escape. The man in black had the very skills, the acrobatics and the agility of elves, and he could climb like a champion; for he had spent most of his lifetime in the great city of Avalon, and like no other man before him mastered all likeness of elven martial arts and calisthenics.
He used the stonework to work his way down, clinging to the putlog holes and oillets in the wall. There was sure to be a great storeroom at the top of the keep where they kept fuel and supplies for the new airship, and there were wooden pegs projecting from the wall. From there he dropped tip toeing along an architrave and the etchings in the stone, setting himself down further past a ledge and its corbels, until finally he reached a great banner with the swooping drake coat of arms. He took hold of the cloth, clambering his way down until, as he had calculated, the banner ripped and he clung hard tearing it down, swinging by tassels way down like a flying trapeze artist until he landed brisk, settling himself down with grace unto king’s balcony.  
The entry was open and the curtains swirled in the night air. He issued forth from the balustrade, clinging to the shadows as he listened for any sign of the king’s presence. There was no one in the room, but the man could hear voices. The door far in the bedchamber stood ajar and there were people conversing in the hallway. It wasn’t long before someone opened the door, and it was surely the king. Fertiens walked over to his nightstand and began jotting something down on a piece of paper. His hair looked just as exotic as usual, yet it was pressed down a bit, as if someone had told him to calm down. He wore a caramel justacorps with spindly goldwork and black breeches with buckled shoes. 
“Fertiens,” the man said aloud.  
The king jerked his head to the side. “Who is that?” he said in a nervous tone.   
“It’s Salus,” said the man.     
“Salus?” He turned around. “Oh! Haha. What in bloody princes? Why didn’t you just come in through the gate?” 
Salus stepped toward the balcony. “The gate’s shut, I dropped in,” he said. He heard a sudden sound above; a sharp ring far off…a clang in the distance. He glared outside with a slacked jaw. “I don’t have time,” he said.  
“You never do. I'm lucky there aren't any whores in my bed this hollow night. You’d have given them nightmares.”
Salus smirked as he approached the king. He was a fierce looking man with striking features. His hair was ruffled and spangled with dew while his deep blue eyes probed, piercing the king as if they were secretly commanding him to hold his tongue.     
“Ah, yes. Your ladies of the evening!” Salus said. “I suppose they could have taken council with you here in your bedchamber. They would certainly be impressed with the gift I’ve brought for you tonight my lord. Though in bed I think a girl would be confused by an invisible king.” 
“Hah! Invisible…?” The king tilted his head back with surprise and his expression slowly shifted as he realized. Salus’ eyes were like puzzles and riddles in the candlelight. 
Salus looked down as he pulled the chain out from his leather garments. “I wish things could be more…ceremonious my lord, and yes, invisible. I’ve brought you the ring.” He held the ring of gold up to the light. 
“The ring, wait…Salus is that the Ri-”
“Yes. The Ring of Gyges. It’s yours now.”
“…The Ring of Gyges…you finally…your master Llewellyn had it didn’t he? How did you get it from him? Salus watched as Fertiens gazed at the ring with wonder and pretended to care where it came from. 
“That’s, what I want to discuss,” Salus prompted. “Gale had the ring.”
“Gale?” Fertiens looked down before he looked at Salus. “…Gale…Haha it makes sense! So the old elf entrusted it with him. Gale had it the whole time that lucky little clod.”
“You mean my brother?” Salus said. He gently slipped the ring-chain back beneath his leather. The king’s face fell flat and he looked confused. “See this is why we have to talk about this first,” Salus said. “Gale is coming here. He’s following me.” 
“You mean, he knows?” 
“He doesn’t know anything Fertiens. He’s lost.”
“Lost? How far did you…I thought you were in Grimore?”  
“We took Grimore. Everything is going according to plan. And yes I have traveled hard and far to bring this to you tonight. So I want you to listen to me, and listen carefully. Gale is going to ask you for help.”
“Gale, coming here? After what he did? And for him to think I don’t know…”
“Look I don’t want any funny business with this. Yes, we all know he once freed a servant girl from Gorvindol and flew her off to god knows where, ha, I remember. And she was the daughter of your diamantaire, and on that fateful day many prisoners escaped and took off with one of your drakes. But it’s all water under the bridge, you really need to forget it Fertiens. Promise me that you will help him.” 
“That assface of a messenger. Every squatting, poaching gangrel in the land should have him tarred and feathered, or even worse he should be drawn by horse across the fields of Witsney.”
“Do you want this ring or not?”
“Okay, okay. But I refuse to greet him. I’ll have my guards see to the matter.”
Salus began to pace in front of the king with gentle steps. “Oh my lord, my lord. You know, the only reason why I’m handing over this little madstone of ours to you, is because the Lady of the Lake demands it.” 
“Yes, and so…”
Salus forearmed Lord Fertiens by the throat and pinned him up against the corner of his four-poster bed. 
“Now I want you to promise me that you will help him. He’s my brother.” He drew forth his knife and pressed the flat end of the blade on the king's cheeks. 
Fertiens shuddered as he was taken aback, breathing heavily by the knife until his eyes glowered at Salus and he laughed all at once, chortling in a tizzy.     
“It’s so funny isn’t it. Fertiens I have high expectations of your role in this war. We all do, and you will get your end, but I don’t trust you. Now shut up and deal with this or we’ll proudly have one of your ducks in the grotto sitting on the throne of Portigol.” 
The king squirmed and tried to utter a promise, but he was interrupted as Salus only tightened his grip and pressed the knife harder against his mouth. 
“Noo king. Keep the ring a secret,” Salus said. “Show him your respects and your prodding swine of a face and help him.”
Fertiens nodded his head. 
“Promise,” Salus said. He slowly withdrew the blade. 
“I will help him, for god’s sake Salus. I promise,” said Fertiens. 
“Promise…”
“No funny business, I promise.”
“Say it again,” Salus said finally letting go of the king. 
“I promise. Really.”
“Good. That’s three times you promised.”  
Salus wiped his blade, then he padded the king’s shoulder and went on.   
“Alright Fertiens, king, there is of course another condition I have about this ring business.” 
Fertiens cleared his throat. “Eh em. A condition?”
“Yes. In exchange for the ring you will hand over your wand. Consider it only temporary-”
“You’re kidding! That’s unfair. C’mon Salus I can’t-”
“Fertiens!” 
Silence fell before he continued. Salus looked at him with concern wagging his pointer finger. “This is at the request of our good friend Taliesin. Now you wouldn’t want him coming here to pry it out of your hands.” 
“Alright, alright. Fine then.” The king made for his wand, reaching for his side. 
Salus gave him a hard stare. “It’s only for the time being. Hand it over…”  
“Okay,” said the king. “Okay…” Yet with a sudden jerk King Fertiens drew forth his dainty wooden wand to cast a spell. “Nullif-” 
Only before he could finish Salus intervened. “Praepostero,” he said with a simple wave of hand. 
There was a sudden crack like wood popping in a fire with wisps of smoke. In a wondrous explosion the wand in Fertiens’ hand multiplied to ten, twenty, fifty identical wands that grew into an unwieldy bundle which burst from his palm. Before the king knew it hundreds of them were lying on the ground, replicating, popping about in a pile of copies like crickets hopping to and fro. 
“What is this!?” the king gasped as he dropped to the ground aghast.  
Salus smiled. “Ah, see what I did there? You make it too hard on yourself Fertiens. You’ll never be able to nullify me, don’t try it.” 
The king scrambled on his knees, fumbling over the heap of wands. “They all look the same. Where is it?” he said. He picked up one of them and shouted, “Lumio!” Nothing happened. “Why, we’ll never find it now,” he cried as he continued sifting through the wands.        
“Rectro Incantus,” Salus said with a whisper. The pile shook as the one real wand shot forth and flew into Salus’ hand. “Here,” he said. “No need to worry about it. It’s safe in our hands now.” 
“Damn you!” 
Salus took out the chain with the magic ring and tossed it on the heap of wands. “And here is your prize my lord. Be fond of it. Keep it out of sight.”  
“Oh that’s splendid,” said Fertiens sarcastically. “Invisibility without the power of my wand. Bloody great!”  
“Weapons will work just as well Fertiens, you know that. Anything you possess will be veiled away with you into the ether. Oh and know that, in darkness the ring will illuminate on its own. No more need for little Lumio, which I’m sure is your favorite spell.”
“I’d better hear from it soon.”   
“Wands are for kids Fertiens.” 
“Oh really? And what magic would you indulge with me? Gremlin.”
“Learn to use your hands.” 
“Yeah well I don’t have the privilege of being weaned by elves as you do.”
“And I don’t have the privilege of backstabbing freely without consequence. You’ll get your wand back. Don’t fret king.”
Fertiens continued to try to cast spells with the fake wands. “Rexum Fortunum!” he shouted. 
“And to think! You will be the first King of Andor! Look at you, hahaha. Emperor of the Brithandel! Lord of the Forest west of the Saddle! Rejoice king it will all be yours.”
“Blimey useless,” Fertiens said as he threw down one of the wands. “Salus, what am I going to do with all these?”
“Throw them away,” Salus said. There was a pause as an idea cropped out from within the depths of his mind. “Oh and by the way my lord, what in god’s name happened to the South Tower?” 
“Oh nothing really,” Fertiens sighed. “Giants. What do you care?”
“Giants? You must be-”
Just then Salus could hear shouts and guards approaching in the hallway.
“My lord! Two guards are dead in the courtyard!” they called.   
“This better not be about you,” Fertiens snarled at him over the wands. He slung the ring-chain around his neck and nearly tripped over the pile of wands as he scurried out to meet them. By the time the king returned to his bedchamber Salus was gone.
Chapter Five: The Mirror of Unseeing
Salus gave his drake a tug on the reins as it swooped over the forests of Andor and closed in on his camp near the Saddle Vale. The drake snorted with discontent, bowling forth a low and drawn groan as it bowed its head and veered off in a more northeasterly direction. The packsaddle creaked as they made the bend, while its scales of deep azure glanced under the moonbeams and its backbone rocked like the waves on the high seas.  
Salus gave the drake a light and friendly pat. “We’re almost there my stoic friend,” he said just loud enough for the beast to hear him. He could tell by the way its eyes dragged lazily over the treetops that the creature was in need of water. 
He took out his knife and cut the rope from one of the hanging water pouches, which were all spent. He tied it to his own pouch, which he had robbed from a guard in the King’s Grotto, and he lowered it down near the clutches of the drake’s dangling claws. Unmoved, the drake wrapped its talons around the rope and lifted the pouch to its snout. The pouch burst in a splash, so that only half of the water went in its mouth. The drake gave forth a sluggish heave and drooped further down setting his sights toward the forest.
They landed in a glade close to the treeline where there was a great field, which had arched its way further abreast the western borders of the Saddle Mountains, where fingers of the Sphahovian river had cloven paths behind both Grimoire and Loeunblum.
Salus alighted into the dampening wood and tied the drake to the bole of a hemlock tree. He approached the creature as it folded its wings and curled up in the fern with its head bowed, furrowed in a tidy bit of growth. He stroked the drake’s neck and tried to assure it with what he could. “It grieves me friend, that your tongue and your scales are so dry, but I must leave you. Wait here. Water is coming.” The drake blinked when Salus said water, and stared at him with peeping eyes. He gave it a final pat before he parted from the drake and strode off through the underwood. 
***
Salus walked out from under the trees, his camp spread before him in the field in the lowlands of the mountains. It had been impossible to see in the air before, in fact impossible for anyone to see if they weren’t close enough, because it was all invisible. The camp lay hidden under a cloak of magic.   
There were thousands of tents and he could see hundreds about fifty meters ahead running in a dashed row toward the mountains across the open field as far as the eye could see. To his left and to the west he could see where the row stopped, as with the tree line a ways past, so that he stood closer to one end of the camp and the field opened up beyond the bordering forests to an even wider boundary of verdurous expanse.
Salus strode across the field under the waxing moon, making a path through a sheen of dew overlaid on the grass about him. As he proceeded he could see the night’s patrol of the camp. Pacing near the tents were guards of goblins. They were viridian in skin, donned in leather and furs with cutlasses at their sides, and their bald green heads shone under the moonlight. Some were near the treeline far afield, others were gathered westward around a tall watchpost that sat distant from the end of the camp, but there were two specifically near the tents in front of him. As he continued across the field there was a sound of a ringing blade unsheathed, and a shout came from one of the goblins. 
“There’s a shadow in the grass!” he heard one say in the distance. 
“It’s a stranger!” the other said in a gruff voice. 
Before he knew it he could hear the wisp and drub of an arrow as it struck the ground beside him. Salus couldn’t believe it. It was harmfully close. 
“Stop!” he called. “It's your General Salus!”
“Not ours in the dark. Greasy man kin.”
The goblin fired another arrow and this time it was sent in a deadly spang at his face. Salus pulled out his knife as quick as a flicker of light and in deflection rent it in two. His face grew livid and he screamed. 
“WHOA! It’s your Gremlin!” His face jolted and he almost spat as he uttered the words. 
“This is our camp stranger.”
Salus set off trotting toward them as light and quick as he was angry; his eyes fixed on the one talking. The two goblins drew their cutlasses. 
He sped up very close to the one, but far enough so that as he breezed past him he juked the goblin by suddenly widening the distance between them in a way that when the goblin swung his sword he awkwardly missed. Salus continued wily in the other direction, his path bent off in an arch so that they were now to his side, only, just then as he turned he flicked his wrist. Without notice the goblin’s eyes rolled back into his head as the man's knife struck him clean through the skull. 
The other goblin was taken aback for a second as he stood aghast and watched his friend drop to the ground. Salus was only getting warmed up. He slowed as he turned circling around to meet him with the character of a horse in a joust amidst the turnaround; catching a breath and bowing his head as he faced his opponent for the second run. In silence the goblin looked away from his friend and stood his ground, his cutlass gripped tight in hand. 
Salus cracked his neck and rolled his shoulder, breaking himself in for the kill. He made his advance. 
“Do you not see me?” he spoke aloud.
The goblin only stood still in his fighting stance, bent quietly with bowed arms. 
He proceeded to move around the goblin in a circle, loose limbed and limber as if shuffling to music; his padded feet tapping on the grass. 
“Are you afraid?” he said. 
The goblin remained quiet, his body turning to follow Salus’ as the man wheeled around him. Gradually, Salus closed in on the creature in a fractal’s path. 
“Are you afraid?” he said louder. There was no response. 
Salus swept up to him in a sudden lash. The goblin tried to cut through his belly, grunting as he swung his sword in a level arch. Salus spun himself around like a whirlwind spirit, the goblin missed, and in one rapid move his commander yanked hold of the back of his wrist, bent up the goblin’s arm and shoved the blade’s flat end against his breastplate. The two stood face to face, glaring at each over the sword point.  
“Are you?!” 
The goblin looked up at him with puppy dog eyes. “Gremlin?” it muttered. 
To the creature’s surprise Salus merely yanked the sword out of his hands and cast it aside. 
“Yes, Gremlin!” Salus shouted. The goblin took a couple steps back. 
Salus brushed his hand through his hair, shaking his head in frustration. He wanted to backfist the creature square in the nasal, but it would be a waste of time. So he walked away to the other goblin who lay dead in the field, pulled the knife out of his forehead and strode back over to the one, who stood facing him frightened and uncertain.   
The bloody blade dripped to the ground. Salus swat the knife to his side, drying off the ghoulish purple drip. Looking at the standing goblin, he pointed it to his temple. 
“Think!” he said. The creature remained silent.  “Think, before it is the end of your goblin dreams.” He motioned for the goblin to come in his direction. “Let’s go, c’mon. Look, I want you to go over there and pick up your friend.”
The goblin bowed and said, “Yes master.” Then he scurried off before Salus could continue.
“Wait!” Salus yelled.
The goblin stopped in his tracks and turned around. 
“I want you to take your friend over there.” He pointed off to a platform around the corner of tents on the end of the camp. “Bring him up, set him down on the landing and leave him there. Do you understand?”
“Yes Gremlin.” He turned around. 
“Stop!” Salus yelled. 
The goblin stopped again, slowly turning his face to his master. “Yes Gremlin?” he said.
“Ok. After that I want you to pick up your sword, go back to camp and pack your things.”
“Pack?”
“Yes. We’re going to Portigol.”
“Thank you Gremlin.”
Salus nodded and swiped his nose with the backside of his knife hand as he watched his goblin hobble off toward the body. As the creature struggled to drag his friend’s body across the field, it looked like a dwarf or a little old man bent over a pot of stew.
They called him the Gremlin. Salus commanded of a vast goblin army and they all referred to him as one of their own. 
He made his way to the far end of the camp, proceeding towards a space between the last two tents, and as he slid past them his shadow was cast on both the canvas and the white enamel of the larger marquee; fleeting silhouettes spun from both the moon and planet. 
He moved with haste out from the row of tents and across the clearing in the middle of the encampment. The platform looked like a stage overlooking the camp site, and from it one could see at least half of the camp; the grass enclosure running back, and on both sides were the two rows of tents. There was a lookout tower stationed in the middle of everything, built with wooden ramps and a guardhouse made to be mobile just like every single other piece of equipment and apparatus in the army’s possession. Even the tents were wagons, or wagon-tents that could be packed or unpacked on call. Beyond that way down against the mountain backdrop at the east end of the camp stood the array of outfitted siege; ballista of gargantuan size, along with huge belfries and towering catapults, and trebuchets that rose like giant wheels and pendulum rides at a carnival.  
Salus continued past the platform in the direction of the opposite marquee. Most of the goblins who had grown tired of waiting for their fearless leader were asleep, and the others were drinking fire-ale, known to the goblins as Goblinskey or blinskey for short, as they huddled around small fires; their bellies full with the late nights roast of boar or elk or mountain goat. As he unbuckled one of the flaps on the marquee he noticed one of these fires out of the corner of his eye within a lane on the far row of tents. 
Salus entered the tent and it was completely dark. There were people sleeping, but he couldn’t see how or who. There was the smell of burnt coals and steak sauce.
“Taliesin!” he whispered. There was no response. 
“Taliesin,” he said with a direct tone. “I’m back. It’s time to get ready.”
“Oh! Huh?” said a voice. 
Suddenly someone moved. Salus could see them stand up. There was a grumble and it looked like a monster. It was the oversized shape of someone hunched over under the cover of a fur blanket. Then it spoke with the deep commanding voice of a relentless old man.
“It’s about bloating time you’re here!” The old man had gotten up as if he were sleepwalking, and said it as if he were still in a dream. “There was a windstorm,” he said. 
“What? Wake up...c’mon. I’m ready.”
With that Salus motioned to exit the tent. He stopped for a second as he heard a, “Eh em,” then he walked out from under the flap. 
He strode over to the platform and went up a small set of steps that lead up to the stage. The stage was actually the back of a large truck the army had previously used for supply and light artillery. Now there were two giant war drums and a light haul of crates and barrels, and Salus leaned over to pick up one of the drum mallets. 
Next to him was another object not quite as large as the drums, yet just as noticeable on the stage. It was a huge block of glass nudged in between the war drums. The block was in the shape of a prism, by which the base, a vertically standing rectangle, stood facing the camp covered on both sides by a black cloth. It sat looming in its own way, salient yet mysterious and somehow out of place; like some sort of ancient sculpture with a blank face, except it had no face. It was a mirror.
The strange thing about his mirror was that, not only was a prism an odd shape for a mirror, but its reflection was completely empty of any evidence of there being a camp at all. The image was simply the field and the landscape, and its reflection void of tents and fires and siege. Even the platform’s surface was gone. It was nothing but a hush subterfuge of an image that was the grass and the distant tree line with the mountains against the night sky.
Salus only glanced at it before he picked up the mallet and started pounding. He was still pissed off that one of his own guards had tried to kill him. 
“Orcslen!” he yelled in a long drawn call. 
Doom! The war drums sounded. DOOM! DOOM! DOOM! At that moment as he kept beating he could see the goblin emerge hauling his dead friend from between the tents. Others were peeping out at the field from their fires, until they walked slowly forth and shouted with the Gremlin to get the attention of the other goblins, or what they so called themselves: Orcs. 
“Orcslen!” they shouted. “It’s the Gremlin!” 
The drums kept beating as another one cried with a deep goblin bellow, “The Black General!”
Suddenly the one who Salus had called Taliesin hulked out of the tent. He was a dirty looking old man in brown robes with sea green eyes. He emerged with a staff in hand and a leather-bound sword at his belt. The staff was made of wood and looked like a dark tree branch, warped and gnarled with twisting corrugations and a knobby end. There were faint smears of soot on his brow, his grey beard tousled, and his hair long and wild.
As he adjusted his belt and composed himself he looked out and spoke aloud, “Yes, yes he’s here you goons.”
Upon saying this he tipped his staff and poured out of its end a blob of metal like quicksilver. The metal dripped off of the staff and immediately took the shape of a perfect sphere that hovered above the ground. Then with the sleight of his staff the old man sent it off into the air, sailing towards the drums. From there, as the wizard shifted his attention to Salus and walked up the platform, the metal sphere began bouncing from drum to drum. In a straight line it did this continuously so that the beating of the war drum became automatic and Salus now stepped away to face the camp. 
“Orcslen!” he yelled again. 
One by one the goblins issued out of the tents. Apparently for Taliesin it wasn’t happening fast enough so he raised his staff with both hands and slammed it down on the platform. There was a sudden rush of wind throughout the camp and instantaneously the spark of kindling torches as they all came alight. All of them, including the alignment of torches on the corners of the platform caught fire, and the whole gathering was lit up with a fiery glow. At the same time he raised his arms and pointed his staff with his eyes closed and all of the flaps on the tents swung open. 
Salus, who had no time to waste, walked over to one of the barrels and picked up his bow with a quiver of fire arrows that he had left there a few nights before. He lit one of them with a torch flame and aimed as he yelled Orcslen! again, firing it out toward a tent far down the line. It burst into flames, and there was a dispersal of frenzied goblins running around on fire. He shot another one at a tent down the second row and there was a similar fatal conflagration.
Steadily all of them now began to file out into the field. At first there was much confusion and disorder as there were long lines and throngs forming, some unable to see what was going on on the platform, others who had awoken from their slumbers only to hear screaming, until as the minutes passed each one had heard from the other that their Gremlin had returned. Then the ground shook as a humungous troll the size of a willow tree broke out from a hiding spot somewhere towards the back of the camp, stomping along the outside of the line of tents to get a better view of what was happening on the stage. Three others came out more slowly and quietly along both sides; two of them with their very own drums of war beating. Soon the goblins rushed out in droves with great crowds converging, until eventually the whole army stood amassed in the enclosure, congregated under Salus’ words. 
The little goblin had now made it up the platform steps, measly and faithfully pulling his dead friend along, until at last he set him down in front of Taliesin. He started to walk off when the wizard stopped him. 
“Not now little orc. You will stay and watch.” The creature backed up between Salus and Taliesin, embarrassed now in front of the crowd. 
There was a moment when the camp grew quiet and Salus paced around looking at his army from the platform. He stepped up to Taliesin and the wizard handed him the sheathed sword, for it had belonged to the Gremlin. 
“Orcs!” he yelled once more. “Tonight we take the road north to kill the lake men of Portigol!” There was an explosion of cheers as he held up the sheathed sword with his fist high in the air and his voice carried over the crowd.  
Horns resounded and all the goblins yelled and roared with flexed shoulders and fierce open mouths while they brandished their cutlasses. Their cries rose into the air like clacks of thunder, while drumbeats rolled over the land like tumbling boulders down the mountainside. Many of them clanked their shields and steel, and stomped their feet in a great rumble of excitement. Some of them were mounted on hideous cave worms that were like giant snakes with sharp teeth whose shrieks rent the air. Others stood on the backs of the oversized trolls that accompanied the army, some of whom were only annoyed by the pestering goblins and swiped them off their shoulders like flies, while most of them stood buddy-buddy, yelling and cheering together. 
At that moment amidst the deafening roar upon the platform came another three goblins. Two were guards clad in heavy metal armor, while the one in the middle was the largest goblin in the entire camp. He stood nine feet tall; a brawny broad shouldered orc decked out in thick leather armor the color of chestnuts. He wore a dark green cloak with cutlasses of gold sheathed to his sides, and strapped to his back was a razor thin sword as long as he was tall. His name was Asmodeus, the Green Hand of the Goblin King of Grimstone; the war general that the goblins saluted as their Orc Commander. His eyes glowed red and maleficent, and when he walked across the platform he raised his cutlass under the torchlight roaring with the army.  
The Orc Commander's presence and booming call allowed the crowds to get louder, though after some time the cheering stopped and the camp grew quiet to hear what the Gremlin would say next. Salus stood now leaning with his foot propped on the backbone of the dead orc, his palm hanging over his knee. He looked out at the goblin crowd, his green army who had served him faithfully. At an angle under the moonlight it looked as though the bald heads of the army had meld into the film of a fly’s eye.  
“Goblins! Here I am and here we are together once again. Let's leave this blasted camp! Get ready! The attack will be in seven days and tonight we’re on the prowl!” 
Salus grinned as he took his foot off the body of the orc and started pacing the platform. He laughed, continuing. 
“Ahaha! The moon will laugh as we ride to their death and the sun will weep the day we take another city of men!...Orcs! I have traveled far and wide and as light as wind. Tonight I will pass on as a feather once again, and when I return in seven days none will be left alive!”
Salus drew forth his sword and screamed, “To war!”
They all roared as the Gremlin yelled with his sword held high; a mighty longsword it was, and as he raised it over the camp it cast a hot bright sapphire light. It was a magical sword, a Volblade with edges lined a burning blue; a glowing strip that outlined the blade like a wire of neon light. He continued with the flair of a pirate waving the blade, and when he walked there were streaks of blue trails left behind as he swept his sword through the air.
“Our black elf hand in the west has already set fire to Elspeth and are at the gates of Meadshed now. In seven days we will meet with them at the lake, as with the rest of your horde in Grimstone…and in seven days our three armies will come together as one force…a force like none seen before! The goblins will be like spreading flame across this land, and when the cities of Andor are piles of ash, Loeunblum will tremble like a naked goat. Orcslen! Keep your eyes on the prize! Ronia will be ours for the taking! The mountains will be yours!”
With another blast of cheers and roars the goblins couldn’t stop their applause. They were often entertained by the Gremlin's speeches, as he talked to them as if they were his own kind, and yet somehow they understood him as if he spoke their own tongue. Salus had always brought good news, and while most of them already knew that Portigol would be the next target for the army, they were so excited at the announcement and the windfall of Salus’ words that they were finally leaving the campsite, for they had been there for a week surrounding the attack on Grimoire and they were tired of lingering on the same grounds, while the camp had grown too hot and confining and slowly the creatures had moved to each other’s throats.
Just then Salus and the others on the platform noticed something approaching them in the air. It flew past the watchpost in the middle of the camp, headed straight for the stage. The goblins noticed it fly over them, yet not with as much interest as the Gremlin. As smooth as a swift it landed down with two feet on the boards in front of them and folded its wings. It was a drow fairy-elf.
The drow faced Salus and spoke immediately when he landed. “Commander,” he nodded. “I’ve been waiting. Lucifel’s word…” As Salus looked at him with the perceptive eyes of masked anticipation, the drow walked up and whispered in his ear.
The elf’s skin was deeply dark and his hair a pillow white. It was fine elven hair that came down shoulder’s length, and as he leaned forward whispering, one could see the pointy ear stick through that was such a distinct trait of the elfin folk. 
He stood about seven feet tall, which was shorter than the average fairy-elf of eight feet. He was a messenger elf with word of their assault in west Andor. His wings were feathery and angelic, the same color of his hair, and now they were tucked over the sides of an emerald cloak. 
The blare of cheers died and a quietus had fallen over the camp while the two elf kin spoke. All that could be heard was the metal sphere hitting the drums, until finally Salus nodded, and the drow walked aside and took back off into the air. He launched himself from the platform as if it were a springboard, and at the moment he took flight there was a fleeting wisp of feathers and a gentle gust as he flew back toward the east end of the camp.   
Salus smirked, and as the drow departed he leaned a bit forward, his sword still clutched in hand. 
“Ah! Here this!” he shouted to the goblins. “Meadshed is dead! The elves are on their way to the lake!”
With another blast of roars the goblins screamed, brandishing their cutlasses. Some of them laughed and others danced around their fires. The trolls brought back their drumming and the cavern worms spewed flames into the open air. 
While the camp teemed with excitement Asmodeus walked up close to the dead orc and said something to Salus, inaudible to the rest of the camp. He pointed down at the body while they talked, until at length Salus backed up and made a gesture toward Taliesin, twirling up his hand with a pointed finger. 
“Raise him,” he said to the wizard, and no one else heard.  
Taliesin pointed his staff at the body, and with wizard’s craft he raised it in mid-air as if he were pulling down an axed tree with a rope. The dead orc’s body lifted with the movement of the staff until it was floating high enough so that the whole camp could see it hanging there above the edge of the platform. 
The little orc on the stage followed the corpse with wide eyes, Salus could see. It took some time before the goblins settled down and realized, but as things grew quiet they knew. Some had suspected it at the rally’s commencement when they saw the dead orc on the stage, and they were fervid for this very moment. 
“Filthy orc!” one of them yelled. 
Salus stepped up and raised his palm to silence them. Then he called out, “Goblins! Warbloods! Another orc has crossed our flesh tonight! He mistook me for blundering man kin. I warned him as friend and he tried to kill your Gremlin! He thought like a filthy orc, and so will burn like one.”
“Filthy orc! Filthy orc!” they chanted.
The little goblin, who had been leaning back against one of the barrels, stood up without hesitation to watch what was happening. He could see Salus step up to the floating dead orc. Salus crossed and waved his arms as a magician would if he were conjuring a cloth or a bird out of his bare hands. There was a spark and kindling flame when suddenly a burning ember came to light in his hand. It burst into a fireball, hovering there in the incorporeal clutches of his palm.
Then with a swift straightening of his arm and a blast of magic from an outfaced palm, Salus sent the fireball upon the dead orc and its body burst like hay into flames.  
“Burn!” many of the goblins yelled. Some stood in amazement, struck with wonder at the Gremlin's magic. Others cheered and roared. Salus glanced over at the little goblin, and he could tell he loved it and had probably never seen magic like it before. 
Taliesin let the dead orc hover for a minute, until he added his own twist. He spun the body gradually around then he launched it and let it fly high into the air. Within seconds there was an explosion and a windblast that sent the falling embers zooming around like fireworks around the camp. 
The camp cheered once again and chanted, “Filthy orc! Filthy orc!” The little goblin stood against the barrels with his arms crossed, seemingly content and now glad that he had been allowed to stay upon the stage to watch. 
Then as the wizard stood leaning on his staff and Salus was saying something to the Orc Commander, a fight broke out in the middle of the crowd. The fight went from a struggle between two goblins to a violent scuffle of five. Suddenly someone pointed toward the platform and shouted, “Kill the orc!” The fight continued, though most of the goblins weren’t paying attention. Steadily they all started focusing on the stage, and one by one they repeated, “Kill the orc!” Finally there was another great chant and they were all staring and pointing at the little green goblin leaning against the barrels on the platform. 
“Kill the orc! Kill the orc!” 
Salus turned and looked at him standing there, farthest back on the stage but distinct and noticeable by all. 
“Kill the orc! Kill the orc!” the chant went on growing louder. 
The little goblin’s expression changed from gratification to confusion and fear. For a second he stood frozen, until he started walking away casually in the opposite direction toward the other end of the platform. He made it a ways, but then he was instantly stopped in his tracks by an intangible force. With a sudden freeze his body was paralyzed and he could only move his arms and legs, and just then the force started pulling him back. It was Taliesin, and the goblin was being lifted and carried to the center of the stage. As he was dragged backwards, he looked back at Salus with pleading watery eyes, but the Gremlin only stared at him with his own piercing glare. The goblin squirmed, and at that moment was lifted and turned on his back upside down, floating just like the dead orc before him. 
“Kill the orc! Kill the orc!” Everyone in the crowd was chanting now. 
Salus walked up with gentle steps toward the goblin, inching his way closer, cool and unperturbed. The creature squealed and was now flailing uncontrollably, his body constantly turned around by the force of Taliesin’s staff. The wizard held him, turning his body until he stopped him so that his head faced Salus. There was a brief moment when the goblin’s eyes met with Salus’ and he quit fighting, hanging helplessly. Salus stood suave and once again cast the fireball in his hand. 
The goblin tried to utter the words, “Grem—”
The Gremlin let loose his fire and the last thing the goblin saw was Salus staring at him upside down, the fireball’s reflection flashing in his eyes. 
The crowd went wild and Salus raised his sword, shouting. 
“Burn!”
The goblin flailed afire, until finally Taliesin blasted him into the air sending his body parts in sparks across the lowlands.  
Salus stood hot for a moment with a glowing sweat before he shouted again, “Orcslen!”
The army stomped their feet and they raised their weapons in a final chant and growl; for the goblins thirsted indeed for the sacrifice of their own kind.
“Kill the Orhrrgghargh!”
The drums shifted tempo and the worms spat more fire as the rally went on. After much roar and jeer the orcs at length composed themselves and Salus continued.
“Orcs I call upon you! Burn them all! Rage fire across the land! That’s how you will take your mountains!” 
There were shouts from the crowd. 
“Hail the man-chief!” 
“Hail the Gremlin!”
“Your kind has grown massive over the years. Wiser and braver you are than the last. You goblins! You will take it all back!”
“Hail the Black General!” 
“Now, let us pack camp and make hard for Portigol. Draw your wagons and draught the ale! As you march the mirror will hide you and the wizard will guide you! At every step show the man kin from whence the fire flows...that the mountains belong to the Goblins of Grimstone!”
“To war with them all!”
“I shall remain your scouring eye just the same as we are warbloods. Now I stride with devilry to Loeunblum, where I dissuade and speak in tongues to the fleeced men of the north…to their ruin!”
“To war with the Gremlin!”
"To war!" Salus reached through the firelight with his sword pointed to the stars, screaming with his goblin army in one last spirited roar.
***
The raving goblins had delivered their final salute with the blowing of horns and slobbering jaws as they roared with a great call that rose, swelled, and faded over the open field. The Orc Commander who had been yelling with them all along, walked up to Salus and they both stood facing each other on the platform. Salus sheathed his sword with a smirk while the commander held out a lone fist with his cloak flowing. 
The sounds of worm-fire like blowlamps could be heard spewing forth as Salus bowed to the general amid the goblin din.
“I praise you man kin,” the commander said. He set his meaty hand on Salus’ shoulder in honor. The two locked fists and raised their hands to the sky.
“And I at war with you as always Asmodeus.”
As they bowed, nodding with fists held to the heart, Taliesin walked up to Salus and the two made way to step down from the platform. Asmodeus turned to his goblins and raised his sword. They all cheered for the captain of the warblood orc.    
There was a tenuous issuance of smoke from the nostrils of worms while fires around the camp were crackling, and Salus and Taliesin walked off to let the Green Hand take command. Together they walked down the platform steps through the cheering and dispersing crowd, while a parting aisle took shape in front of them. As they descended Taliesin spoke close to Salus. 
“I liked your speech young general. Now where is this drake you brought me?”
Salus leaned over as he raised his sword, grinning and nodding with an open face at his army. 
“Be cool wizard. He's landed in the glen. He waits so patiently for a soothsayers tender care and buttery fingers on the harp.” 
“Ah! You never fail your old man. Goblins care not for the gifts of a bard. The creature will give me solace…and he’s being watered?
“Drow are sure to be with him now. I have a surprise for you just as well.”
“Oh good. Well then let us make way to your tent.” 
The two of them walked down the lane made for them by the goblins, upstanding and upright as respected commandants of the army. Taliesin would bang the base of his staff on the ground as they went, and from a constant flambeau wavering at the staff’s end the wizard would send forth a breezy fireball over the heads of the goblins. Salus beamed his sword to different directions of the sky, yelling in turn, “Fire!”   
The goblins constantly screamed and howled as they passed along, with open jaws of hot tongues and drooling teeth like wild pigs. The screeches of smaller goblins could be heard as they were tossed into the air by trolls, and two fat goblins whose ears were pierced with gold rings had strolled up on cavern worms, their mounts bellowing flame as they went along following on each side. Trolls walked along the tents drumming, and far behind them the Mirror sat insidious in the subtle recess on the platform; the overmind of the secret campsite.     
As they finally proceeded towards the east end of the camp, the lane began to close behind them, the cave worms trailed off, and they walked out away from the crowd into an open field. Asmodeus could be heard faintly in the background shouting orders in orc tongue as the goblins turned to face the stage again. 
The firelight faded as they walked across the open tract. Salus’ tent could be seen in the distance under the shadow of the towering siege. There was a grouping of other tents and marquees arranged in a crescent behind his own; they were dark elf tents, and Salus’ was front and center; the formation of a star and crescent. 
The starlight thickened over the open field, as the stars themselves were more numerous and apparent now, dilated and aggrandized, almost as if in invitation to the two men; a larger world was out there for them to conquer.
Taliesin spoke and his voice could be heard plain and clear, undivided by the clamor of the army.
“This plan is going exceptionally well Salus. I’d say we’ll have Portigol before Titus even has a chance with the dispatch. He’ll have to surrender by balloon.”
Salus laughed. “Aha, that is most probable. However, it is neither Portigol nor Andor that we are challenged with. The goblins won’t rest until they have these mountains."
“Yes, yes, which is why we must overkill these lands and strike swiftly up the Saddle Vale. And you still want to meet at Grimstone?”
Salus nodded. “The plan remains.”
“Good. You know at times I think after this bloody warpath of ours that goblins will be all too populous. "In Grimore," he laughed, "it was overcrowded. How does the world contain them?"
"Another phase of the moon, and a million goblins will reckon with the kingdoms of men."
"And it will only take a moon to crush them."
"There's is difference between invincibility and invisibility"
“Salus are you so eager to obey the foam that pours from the mouth of that Lady of the Lake. Is that why you've handed over that ring of yours. Don’t be so stark, by the gods, we’ll have to raze all realms for you to delight in victory."
"I did finish the task so all is in place Taliesin. The ring is scrap metal. Gale stole it from me when we were little, and I've taken it back from him."
"He who finds the flame, keeps the torch. Why did you give that to him, and tell me, how was your late nights jig with princess Fertiens?” 
"Aha, I'll have to show you."
The tent was half the size of Taliesin’s marquee, its shape more in the likeness of a cottage than a longhouse. A barrel of water stood near the entrance next to a bay travel horse, and close at hand were the remnants of a fire glowing hot with coals. There were two low hanging lamps, and standing on each side of the door-shaped flap were two drow. They were on night watch guarding the tent; dark elf legionaries neither of which had wings, and they stood cold and stony, eyeing the two approaching men. They wore dark leather armor and thick black cloaks, while their eyes were deep blue dots, like gaseous planets upon their dark faces. 
Salus motioned toward the two elves with a welcoming gesture; standing in the same lax posture he had when he approached them, he brought his right hand to his chest, and as if to signal that someone could move in front of him he brought out his hand to oblige them. It was a common salutation among the elves, both light and dark.   
He nodded. “Catacus. Lunolin. You are sharp for us,” he said. 
They both bowed and one of them spoke in a deep mystic voice. 
“We are ready commander.”
“Yes, and when I leave it will be time to take your friends to the lake,” Salus told them.  
“Very good. Your provisions will be safe with us. We will meet with you at the night beacon.” 
“Thank you both,” Salus said, and he entered the tent. Taliesin followed with his staff upright and smiling. 
The tent was completely dark save for the dim green glow hanging near the ceiling like a glowworm. Taliesin thumped his staff on the ground, and after a brief moment’s silence Salus walked in front of him to the other side, leaned over, and the whole room was lit up with a dusky incandescence like candlelight.
There was a four poster bed in the corner thickly laid where a beautiful elf maiden lay naked asleep. In the opposite end was a broad wooden table on which sat a map of parchment with ends rolled up like a cinnamon stick. The map sat next to several pouches spilled with gold and gemstones, and a book set face down entitled: The Elf Wars. Between the bed and the table was an immense wooden wardrobe with a low sitting bench running along the doors. A flute, a satchel, and a telescope lay on the bench, along with a set of blue keys, an empty flask that lay open and fallen over, and a black safety box underneath. There were vials filled with liquid crystal and glass jars packed to the brim with pixie dust, and strewn about the table were spiked pellets and capsules of tear gas. Next to the table on their far left was a great rack of casks filled with spring water and Andorean Mead.  
Taliesin thumped his staff on the ground once again in an attempt to conjure a light. It flickered briefly and went out. 
“Agh. What is it in here?” said the wizard.
“Your lights won’t work Taliesin. Not tonight.”
The green glow was now drowned out, yet when the wizard tried to find it squinting his eyes he noticed that the green had actually intensified, only now it was sequestered and more localized, no longer hanging in the mid-air of darkness, but resting still and propped on a wooden girder that was a part of the tent’s framework. He gave it a smug look and glossed it over, “Oh sweet Lesle, are you not in the spirits to greet your high and mighty?..."
“She’s mad I left her,” Salus said as he set his knife down on the table. He raised his voice, “Aren’t you Lesle?” 
The green light suddenly jumped while there was the faintest ringing sound and a sparkling wisp of dust; glittering xanthene crystals as it flew off unseen behind another wooden post. 
“Hmf,” said the wizard. “I think I heard a tear, or was it a titter? You can never tell.” 
“She’s not going to peep a word until you’re gone I’m afraid,” Salus said. He unclipped his cape and pauldron armor, and set them on the bench. Then he pulled out Fertiens’ wand. 
“Taliesin my good wizard behold. I’ve got his wand,” he smiled. The elf maiden laying in the bed stirred.  
“Mmmmfff” His breathing hard through his beard, the old man gazed at the wand moving ever closer. “I didn’t think you were serious. Why, my young whip, this is what I like to see…” 
“I told him you were looking for it. I knew you’d be excited as a wizard would be.”
Taliesin looked up at him in the light. “If he has that ring, 
“Better in your hands for what use you can put to it, or to whichever spell weavers or witches you have in your tent."
“Yes, yes. Oh this isn't for me.”
“Well who’s it for?” 
The wizard smirked. “Ogrim.”
"Ogrim...Ogrim? Salus looked away for a moment then he glared at Taliesin. "The Goblin King, yes. As a gift. That is a tact decision." 
“Yes, hm. Ogrim will put swell purpose to this”
“He’ll be rolling in his cave. Literally rolling,” Salus grinned. 
“I’ve got a bag of spells for the goon.” 
“And the goons will go wild," Salus concurred.   
“Anything to keep them rolling,” Taliesin smiled. He turned the wand over peering up the narrowing grain. "How did you get it from him?"
Salus chuckled as he thought back to that moment with King Fertiens. "I used preposterous," he laughed. "I made a thousand copies of his wand instantaneously...and they busted his hand out and flew..." He made the hand bursting gesture and couldn't contain his laughter. "Hahaha..." 
The wizard’s face shone in the light and a smile cracked across it. He burst out laughing.
"You should have seen the look on his face..." Salus died laughing.  
They both laughed with each other hilariously. After finally settling Taliesin tucked away the wand in the folds of his robe, leaning on his staff once more. “Say, shall we have a drink of mead?” he said. 
“Have some. I’m going to change and make my pack for Loeunblum, before the Ronics come looking for me and fly into this camp of ours.” 
“Indeed, hmf,” the wizard said as he grabbed a mug of stone from a shelf on the rack of casks. He continued, filling up the mug, while Salus opened up his wardrobe and drew out a pine green cloak. Taliesin then stood again near the opening of the tent and took a draught of mead. 
“So anyway, really, what is the deal with Lesle? Is she going with you?” he asked.
“Not before she racks me,” Salus said, unfastening his black gorget.
“With what? Her—”
“Unbelievable!” Taliesin flinched as he was cut off by the voice of a girl transmitted in the tent.  
Just then the green glow shot out from behind the girder and whizzed through the air above their heads. It flew, darting around them this way and that, over the wardrobe and past the casks, and with it again came the sound of rings like tiny bells jingling ever so faintly, as there was, bristled through this blur of sphery light, a set of thin filmy wings carrying it weightless across the dimly lit tent. The glow zipped along, brightening to a burning yellow as it did and aerial and sparkled, hovering over the table. 
It was the fairy Lesle, whom Taliesin had expected a greeting, and she was white-hot and angry, though very thin and beautiful she was in her mini womanly form; eyeing Salus with her verdigris eyes while her itty-bitty arms were crossed upon her hips. It is to be said that fairies can be nasty creatures when they’re at their brightest radiance, though they are ever-beautiful and cute to look upon even when they’re upset, so slender and naked amid their threads of light, and that even though they care deeply for their masters; their hearts are truly never broken. 
Tiny crystals fell from her illume, vaporized in twinkling sparks, and there were traces of dust left below her on the tabletop. 
“You left me!” she exclaimed. 
“I didn’t have time to tell you Lesle, and I don’t have time for this now.”
“I waited Salus. Two days I waited in those stupid caves!”
“My dear fay I am sorry. I made sure to have everything ready for you here.”
“Yeah, and you think that’s a plan? Leaving me in this fly trap of a room…with Cattlebrains and Lunatic!”
“Knock it off. You made it back did you not?”
“A Sentinel never leaves his fairy in the dark.” 
“Lesle. I came back as fast as I could. Say hello, Taliesin’s here!”
“Meanie!”
“Then go. We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the road.”   
“Oh really? And you think you’re a boss? There’s nothing to talk about. You’re just a…pyromaniac!”
“Enough now! Begone!” 
With that the fairy zipped out of the room and Taliesin was forced to lean back when she whisked past his face and broke through the tent flap.  
“Not swell,” said the wizard. 
“She has a hell of a mouth,” Salus replied. 
“And a sharp tongue,” Taliesin said. 
Taliesin stood near the flap knocking back draughts of mead, while in the wake of the moment Salus proceeded to don himself in his new set of armor; for he was a Sentinel of the Lady of the Lake of Avalon, the Fairy Queen Morgan le Fay, and as one of her nine guardians a Sentinel has their own kind of outfit.  
He would be on his way north, and what he donned himself in tonight was a lighter more informal kind of armor; the green cloak, a fine suit of mahogany leather, with lobstered spauldrons and braces. His boots were designed very much like the previous, with toppers latched to his greaves and in two pieces, so that his feet wore their own sparring pads of pine green elk hide.
On the other side of the bed, Salus stowed away his black armature in a war chest of obsidian. He picked out an Elfblade, and for a moment thought about his journey to Loeunblum. He was going to meet with his brother Gale and the Kings of Ronia, and for the first time in a while the old flame had kindled in his heart and he felt thrilled to see them. He stood up and clipped his brooch of a single wing. 
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Like a stool pigeon.” Taliesin said.   
“C’mon Taliesin. Is that how you talk to the chosen one? You’re a bully and a traitor, and the brassiest brown-robed wizard-bard no one ever knew." 
“Hmf, we are thespians of war. No, Salus you are indeed befit of the most valiant dark lords of old; a fine spinner in the arts of double-dealing. You put the elf kin to shame!”  
“Where would I be without you?” 
“Trapped in the Timeless Tree.”
Salus made himself ready for the journey as he laced his utility belt and picked from the table one of the vials of liquid crystal, his coins, his flute and the other things on the bench, including his Volblade that could cut through anything, a telescope, and a goatskin pouch of fairy dust. From the depths of his war chest he pulled out by the links a golden locket with floral scrollwork inscribed with the words: Miramel. 
With the flick of his wrist the locket opened and he stared at what lay within: an old picture of a Ronic princess with hair of noble blonde and eyes that were royal blue. For a split’s second he gazed at the nestled portrait and let her image burn in his mind. Then he closed it and tucked the locket in his belt. He kissed the elf maiden that lay now awake, and he played with her until she laughed. He then slipped on a pair of gloves and with the tightening of his greaves and leather vambraces he was ready to go.  
“All is ready. Let us make way to the tree line.” 
Taliesin nodded. “With pleasure, my lord.”
As Salus put out the lights he added, “Oh and did I tell you one of our own goblins tried to kill me tonight?…”
“Oh yes, I figured something must’ve happened. Was it Gorf or Gurm that we burned?” 
“Walk with me,” Salus said. 
They said their farewells to the two guards as they made their exit and proceeded across the sphere of open tract that stood between the elf tents and siege. Salus walked with his travel horse, while in the twinkling of an eye they could see the green glow of Lesle gliding above them, coasting in the vespers, as she sailed in quietude while they let her follow. 
They passed on through the crescent files of drow tents and Salus could smell the wafts of burning pine and liquorice that seemed to follow the dark elves wherever they camped. Most of the drow were gone in the forests hunting, while few could be seen standing guard at unpredictable corners of the tents, watching…listening…marking their path with espial eyes. 
After they had passed through the complex of towering siege, and the trodden grasses in a lane within, they came upon an open field that was the end of the camp and the beginning of the wide western Saddle Vale. Nearly a kilometer ahead stood a tree line of alpine fir, which bore a dark road deep in the narrowing woodlands that Salus would traverse through the mountains to Loeunblum. 
A light gust stirred as they went along, and before Salus could speak his nearest thought Taliesin spoke, groping at something in his robes the old man said suddenly, “Oh I almost forgot. I will need your help with a certain task…” 
“Are you asking a favor?”
“We need to stall the captains warship.” He handed Salus a small phial of black-green liquid. “That is a phial of Icritus.”
Salus held it up in the moonlight. “Basilisk venom,” he said. “I’ve never seen it contained in this fashion. Basilisk venom melts through anything.” 
“Yes of course. Rock and metal, and glass. Now, the bottle is enchanted Salus. I need you to sneak into the airship hangar bay and strike it on one of the turbines. Yes, and it will melt through the engine of an airship.”  
“Acid, very well. I might as well do something productive while I’m there.”
“Make sure it is the captain’s ship.”
“It might be tricky getting in”
“You and I both know that is what makes you special.”
“Yes, yes it won’t be a problem,” Salus said mesmerized as he stared up at the bottle.
As they walked Lesle flew high over them in the updrafts, and Salus said his final words to Taliesin. 
“Taliesin, I expect you to be punctual at our meeting place. Guide the division to Dimdale about three marches from the Shard. Let Asmodeus make camp there and make all haste to Grimstone. See to it that he holds his position until you return with the signal. Keep the horde at the foot of the mountains closest to Portigol, fly with the signal, and both armies will make way in unison. Are you prepared to take the drake?"
“We are more than ready. I’ve already explained to Asmodeus that he may be camping in the dale for days. It will take me three to make it to the choke point.”
“Very well. And I will arrive in Grimstone three days from now.”   
Salus thought of anything else he would tell the wizard about their plans. He remembered King Fertiens mentioning giants destroying the South Tower of Farandale, yet he decided not to mention it. He didn’t have enough information. 
“I will make sure that the Green Hand has the Mirror behind his forces by the time we approach the rear,” Taliesin put in. Portigol will be surrounded, and it will take damn near too long for them to react. They may see me on the drake but they can kiss my rosy ass for all I care.”
“I’d spare you ol’ chap.”
They continued on finally slowing to a stop, Salus mounting his travel horse. Taliesin looked up at him. "Titus's sentry vexes all sights of his castle. They're a nag to deal with."
"I wouldn't worry about sentry," Salus replied.
"...and the guards? There's sure to be Lakemen on the path," Taliesin said.
Salus reared his horse. “You know the drill,” he said. Nothing gets through the mean, green, fighting machine!” He smirked. “If a man is beheld on the path let him be sucked in and spat out like a limb caught in a mill.” 
“Ah! You devil!" 
Salus turned his horse down the road, his cloak rippling and his hand held high in the air. “So long my friend!” 
The wizard leaned on his staff, his hair wavering in the winds. “Godspeed!” he called back after him.