The Iron Throne

1

The Southern Coast, with its vast, rolling, grassy plains, gradually gave way to the patchwork farmlands of the Heartlands, roughly one hundred miles inland from the Straits of Aerele. The two regions encompassed all the territory from the province of Osoerde to the east, on the shores of the Gulf of Coeranys, to the tangled woodlands of the Erebannien and its coastal marshes to the southeast, to the forests and lush meadows of Mhoried and Markazor in the north, and west to the provinces of Taeghas and Brosengae, on the shores of the Sea of Storms. Located at the southern end of this whole region, which covered the lower half of the western portion of the Cerilian continent, was the capital city of Imperial Anuire.

When the land bridge connecting the continents had still existed and the first humans had crossed over from Aduria, it was in Anuire that they had established their first settlement. Over the succeeding years, that settlement eventually grew into a thriving town, and the town into a teeming city, and the city, as the people spread throughout the land, into the seat of government of the Anuirean Empire. As the oldest and most populous human city in Cerilia, Anuire was a vibrant center of trade, learning, and entertainment, a bastion of the arts and of political intrigue. Each time Aedan left the city, he always felt as if he were leaving civilization behind to venture out into the wilds of the outlying provinces, and he could not wait to return. This time, in particular, he was eager to get back … not only to Anuire, but back into the world of daylight.

As they rode through the cold and misty woods, he knew that they would soon be approaching the lands of Diemed, roughly sixty miles from the city of Anuire, which lay just across the River Maesil. The river marked the boundary between the provinces of Diemed and Avanil, where the capital was located, and Aedan was extremely anxious to see it once again. He knew they would be there soon, and he kept trying to reassure himself with that knowledge, while at the same time forcing himself to remain constantly on the alert. He could not afford to become preoccupied. Not here.

They had journeyed this way several times before, and Aedan had learned, over his last few reluctant and uneasy expeditions to this foreboding, chilling land, to recognize some of the natural features of this most unnatural place. Even though some of it had begun to look familiar here and there, other parts of it kept changing, and he knew he would never, as long as he lived, truly grow accustomed to the Shadow World.

As they rode their horses slowly through the thick, dark woods, past grotesquely twisted and misshapen trees choked with hanging moss that resembled the gray hair of old women, Aedan thought about the first time he had traveled through the Shadow World, eight years earlier. He hadn’t liked it then, and his tolerance for the world between the worlds had not increased with time. It was, after all, the world of his worst childhood nightmares and, unlike most things in dreams, in this case, the reality was worse.

Eight years ago, he and Michael had set off from Tuarhievel together with the elven mage Gylvain Aurealis and his sister, the elf warrior Sylvanna, on their return journey to Anuire. They had traveled with an escort of elven fighters and a halfling guide named Futhark. From the elven city, they had traveled on foot for two days through the Aelvinnwode until they reached the foothills of the Stonecrown Mountains to the south, near the lands of Markazor.

Even back then, Aedan had known that they were venturing into dangerous territory. Markazor had goblins living in its forest highlands, and the Stone-crown Mountains sheltered gnolls and ogres and desperate human renegades who had fled from persecution by the law in their own lands. Yet, this was where Futhark had brought them, because for some unknown reason, as the halfling had explained, the veil between the worlds was thinnest in those regions where chaos reigned over order.

Futhark was unable to explain why this was so. Perhaps, he had said, it had something to do with the energies generated by negativity and evil. Perhaps those places where people had descended into depravity were brought closer to the Shadow World, which became more and more permeated with evil with each passing year. Or perhaps, he theorized, the awnsheghlien rendered their domains temporally unstable by their massive expenditures of dark power and the profligate bloodtheft required to support it. The halfling didn’t know for certain, and Aedan found it difficult to follow even his theoretical explanations. All the halflings really knew, said Futhark, was that it was easier to cross over in certain areas than in others. And those “certain areas” were definitely not places Aedan would have visited by choice.

This time, as in the previous few journeys they had made through the foreboding Shadow World, the place where they had crossed over was the Spiderfell, but that first time, returning from Tuarhievel, it was a little-known mountain pass in the Stonecrowns, near the border of Markazor. Aedan thought back to how it was then, and the memory seemed as sharp as ever. Even though it had occurred eight years ago, when he was just eighteen, it seemed as if it had been only yesterday.

Aedan had always wondered about the reputed ability of halflings to create dimension doors so they could shadow-walk. While he had dreaded actually crossing over into the world of his childhood nightmares, at the same time, he had been perversely curious to see how it was done. As they had moved up the path leading to the mountain pass, Futhark had gone into the lead, a bit out in front of all the others, but not so far that they lost visual contact.

As he walked, the halfling seemed to sense the air, almost as if he were an animal, stopping on the trail every now and then and sniffing the wind to detect the presence of any predators. There were halflings in Anuire, but Aedan had never really spent any time with one before, so he watched Futhark closely, with fascination.

The halfling looked like a more-or-less normal adult human male, except for the fact that he was about three-and-a-half feet tall. Everything about his proportions was in proper scale, unlike dwarves, whose legs and arms were smaller and out of proportion to their heads and torsos.

Futhark’s hair was thick and black, rising in a crest on top and descending to the middle of his back almost like a horse’s mane. His features were angular and sharp, similar to those of elves except that his eyebrows were thick and lacked the pronounced, delicate arch that elves had, and his ears were not as sharply pointed. In fact, one had to look closely to notice that they were pointed at all. City halflings, Aedan had heard, tended to adopt the dress styles of whatever locality they lived in. Futhark, however, dressed in leather hides. His arms and chest were bare beneath a dark brown leather doublet laced together with rawhide thongs, and his breeches were made of soft, natural buckskin with the rough side out. On his feet, the halfling wore leather moccasins that came up to just above his ankles and were likewise fastened with rawhide thongs. Perhaps, thought Aedan, he dressed this way because most elves in Tuarhievel wore similar attire.

As they walked, Futhark kept stopping and looking around, head cocked as if he were listening for something. Occasionally, he would stretch out his arms, his hands held palms out, fingertips splayed and extended, as if he were feeling the air. And then, abruptly, as they started on a slight downward slope entering the rocky pass, the halfling stopped and made a pass with his hands, as if clearing cobwebs from before him, and a gray, swirling mist appeared on the trail just ahead.

It was as if a fog had suddenly risen, but in only one small area, an arched space in front of them no larger than a portal. And it was a portal… a doorway into another dimension, a bridge to the world between the worlds.

Aedan recalled how his stomach had suddenly tensed and a sharp pressure had started in his chest. His mouth had gone completely dry, and he found it difficult to swallow. His breath began to come in short, sharp gasps, and cold sweat trickled down his spine. His curiosity had been fully satisfied. He had seen a halfling make a dimension portal. He did not quite understand how he did it, but that was something he could pursue another time. He had seen the door to the world between the worlds opened. However, he did not want to find out what was on the other side.

Anyone with half an ounce of sense would have known enough to feel at least some trepidation at passing through that swirling mist and into the unknown, especially since people had been known to pass into the Shadow World and never emerge again. Anyone in his right mind would have thought twice about entering that misty portal that had suddenly appeared like a low-flying cloud upon the trail. Anyone except Michael Roele. Michael was positively thrilled and could not wait to go through. It was then, seeing the eager expression on his young face as it lit up with enthusiasm, that Aedan became convinced the new and not-yet-crowned young emperor was not merely fearless; he was crazy.

With Futhark leading the way, they had gone through the swirling cloud into the Shadow World, emerging in a place that looked, in many ways, much like the world they had just left… except, at the same time, it was different.

They could recognize the trail they were on. The path ahead of them looked much the same as it had back in the world of daylight. The countryside was similar, as well, and so far as Aedan could tell, they were still in the foothills of the Stonecrown Mountains, heading into the pass that led to Markazor. Only after that, things were not quite the same.

For one thing, the light was completely different. Even though it had been a clear and sunny day when they passed through the portal, when they came through into the other side, everything was dark and gray and damp, as if on a foggy, heavily overcast day out in the coastal marshlands. Tendrils of mist rose up from the ground, over which hung a perpetual fog that came up almost to their knees. Vision was limited to no more than a dozen yards or so, except for brief periods when the mists parted from a sudden gust of bone-chilling wind. And it was cold. Numbingly cold. The kind of cold that seeped into the bones and made them ache. It was a mirror image of the daylight world, only this mirror was a dark one, reflecting only … shadow.

At first glance, the surrounding countryside looked similar to the place they had just left, except that everything was gray and mist-shrouded, but on closer examination, the trees turned out to be twisted into macabre shapes and choked with hanging moss that trailed down from the branches and raised unpleasant shudders if it contacted the skin. The underbrush was different, too. It was more sparse and spiky, with thorns large enough to cut the flesh like daggers. The ground was mostly bare and rocky, save where a strange silvery-blue moss grew in widespread tufts, like a diseased carpet. And there were nervous scurryings in that tangled thorny underbrush, creatures stirring that Aedan didn’t really want to see. He found out about some of those creatures soon enough.

“Aedan, stop! Don’t move,” Sylvanna said, as they headed down the trail.

She had spoken calmly but forcefully, and something in her tone had made Aedan freeze at once. “What is it?” he asked uneasily.

“Just don’t move,” she replied. “Not even a muscle. Don’t even twitch. Stand very, very still.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her draw her dagger from its sheath on her belt. He frowned in confusion, then felt something moving across the back of his neck. He swallowed hard and clenched his teeth as he fought down the shiver that threatened to run through his entire body. Something was crawling on him … something hairy.

Sylvanna stepped forward quickly, and her blade flashed at the back of his neck. He felt just the faintest scratch as the tip of the blade barely brushed his skin, then saw Sylvanna stomp her thick-soled moccasin down on something white and multilegged. A violent shudder went through him, running down his spine all the way into his feet.

“What was it?” he asked, uneasily.

“Albino spider,” she replied. “A small one, just a baby. They grow as large as your head, and that’s just the body. Sharp fangs, deadly poison. One tiny bite, even from a little one like that, and you would have died in horrible agony within moments, beyond the help of any healer or magician. The poison simply works too fast.”

Aedan had paled. “Thank you,” he said. “It seems you’ve saved my life.”

“Just be careful of that hanging moss,” she replied. “They like to make nests in it, and they can’t tell the difference between the moss and your hair. If you let one get into your hair, even if it doesn’t bite you, it might still lay eggs.”

Aedan still felt rather queasy whenever he thought about that. Since then, he had fought in many battles, and had faced several of the horrors the Shadow World had to offer, but nothing had ever made his skin crawl like the thought of tiny eggs hatching in his hair, releasing a horde of little white spiders with sharp fangs dripping poison. He had avoided the hanging moss ever since, as if contact with it would be lethal. And, he thought, when one considered what it sheltered, it easily could be.

“What are you thinking?” Sylvanna asked, riding up beside him on the trail through the misty woods. Her voice brought him sharply back to the present once again, and he realized he had been preoccupied with reverie. That was entirely too dangerous to be countenanced under present circumstances, but he was exhausted—they all were—and his mind had simply started drifting of its own accord.

“I was thinking of spiders,” he replied to her question. “Little white spiders, hatching from a score of tiny eggs.”

For a moment, she stared at him, frowning with puzzlement, and then her face cleared as she suddenly made the connection. “Ah, you were thinking back to the first time we journeyed through the Shadow World.”

He nodded. “In some ways, it seems as if it were only yesterday. But in others, it seems like a lifetime ago.”

“It was about five years ago, wasn’t it?” Sylvanna asked. “Or was it longer?”

“It was eight years,” he replied, smiling to himself. Elves were not good with the concept of time. Being immortal and consequently having all the time in the world, they found little significance in time, unlike humans, who had less of it and therefore paid it more attention. “Eight years in which a great deal has happened.”

For one thing, he thought, as he glanced at the emperor riding a short distance in front of him, Michael had grown up. At twenty, he was still young, but physically, he was a full-grown man. He had shot up to over six feet and was now taller than Aedan. He outweighed him, too, by at least forty pounds. Michael had taken his training very seriously, working out with the weapons master every day. As a result, he had developed a husky, muscular build, with a thick chest and large, powerful arms able to swing a two-handed broadsword with great speed and strength.

Many young men of the empire were little more than boys at his age, but Michael had done a lot of living in the eight years since Tuarhievel, and those years had been fraught with unrest in the provinces and heavy responsibilities at home.

Boeruine had been only the beginning. When they had returned to Anuire after their abduction by the goblins and their brief stay in Tuarhievel, they discovered that a little over a year had passed on the outside. That was the difficulty in traveling from the elven lands, where time’s flow was affected in peculiar, inexplicable, and unpredictable ways. One was never certain how much time would have passed when one came back to human domains, even when going through the Shadow World.

Shadow-walking was not Aedan’s preferred mode of travel by any means, but Michael had employed it many times since that first journey. By creating a portal into the Shadow World, a halfling could at least temporarily suspend the flow of time. As Futhark had explained it, if they had a desperate need to travel from Anuire to Kal Kalathor, clear on the other side of the continent, and they absolutely had to be there as soon as possible, if they were to travel on horseback, even at a fast pace, changing mounts on the way, it could still take as much as a month. It would mean covering a distance of at least a thousand miles, even more if they went out of our way to avoid traveling through such potentially dangerous territories as the Coulladaraight and the Tarvan Waste.

On the other hand, if they were to shadow-walk through the world between the worlds, their journey would take roughly the same length of time … but they could emerge back into the world of daylight almost at the same time as they had left to go into the Shadow World. In other words, for them the same long span of time would have passed, but little time in the daylight world. With one exception. Elven realms.

In the same mysterious way that the laws of time were twisted in the Shadow World, so were they affected in the elven realms, which to Aedan suggested a correlation of some sort, though he could not venture to guess what it could have been. The point was that while time within the Shadow World seemed almost to stand still, in elven realms, it was completely unpredictable. It either “expanded” or “contracted,” and there was no way of predicting which way the effect would go. As a result, traveling from the elven realms into the Shadow World and emerging in human domains could have some interesting effects.

“I have never forgotten our first journey through this dreadful place,” Aedan said as he and Sylvanna rode side by side, holding their horses at a walk. Galloping or even trotting through the forests of the Shadow World was risky. There was no way of knowing what you were likely to run into—unless, of course, the unknown was preferable to the risk of facing whatever was behind you. “As if it were not enough that we faced death by choosing to come this way, to discover that a year had passed while we were in Tuarhievel for merely a few days….” He shook his head and sighed. “Well, at least we have not had to repeat that particular experience, even if the emperor does insist on saving time by traveling through the Shadow World whenever we need to cover a lot of distance. I used to suspect he didn’t fully understand the risks involved. Now I realize he simply doesn’t care. But that first time … I shall never forget it. I never truly understood the strain my father had been under until I saw him. Only a week or so had passed for me, but it was a year for him. A year in which he was never really certain what the next day would bring. One year in which he had aged twenty.”

“You still miss him very much, don’t you?” Sylvanna asked.

Aedan nodded. “More than I can say. I miss his wisdom and his guidance. It was my mother who sustained the greatest loss, of course, but in another sense, she merely lost her mate, while I lost not only my father, but my teacher, too. There was so much more I could have learned from him, if only he could have lived at least a few more years….”

“I sometimes think it must be terrible to be human,” said Sylvanna. “All your accomplishments, your dreams and passions, are so ephemeral. Your life spans are so very short, I often wonder how you stand it.”

Aedan smiled. “You mean to say you pity us?”

“Well… no, not quite,” she replied. “Pity implies a sort of condescension, and in the last few years, I have learned a great deal about you humans and what you can accomplish if you set your minds to it.”

“Perhaps we do so precisely because our time is short,” Aedan told her. “Knowing we are but mortal is what gives us our drive to live life to its fullest. If we seem a bit desperate to you, maybe it is because, in a sense, we are. You elves, by virtue of your immortality, do not possess that desperation. To humans, elves seem … well, not desperate, like us. That is why our passions burn so brightly. When you know from the outset that your time is limited, then each day becomes precious.”

Sylvanna studied him curiously for a moment as they rode side by side, rocking gently with the gait of their mounts. “That makes sense, I suppose. I have noticed that you humans seem to feel things very intensely.” She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t mean to say that we elves are not capable of intensity of feeling, for we are … it is just that humans seem so much more intense. And uncontrolled.”

“It’s that edge of desperation,” Aedan replied with a smile. “It comes from our mortality, as I said. We live hard, work hard, play hard … love hard.”

Sylvanna glanced at him. He met her gaze steadily. She did not look away. “By extension of that argument,” she said, “I suppose one could claim that mayflies would be the most passionate creatures in the world, since they live only one day.”

“And note how very violently they beat their little wings and fly always toward the light,” said Aedan. “They are so attracted to the flame that they will fly into it and allow it to consume them. If that is not a suitable metaphor for unbridled passion, then what is?”

“I thought those were moths,” Sylvanna said.

“Well, mayflies do the same thing, don’t they?”

She frowned. “I’m not sure. Do they?”

Aedan shrugged. “Even if they don’t, it does not invalidate the metaphor.”

Sylvanna smiled. “You may have missed your true calling,” she said. “Instead of a royal minister, you should have been a bard.”

Aedan winced. “Oh, anything but that,” he said.

Sylvanna raised her eyebrows. “Oh? I seem to have touched a nerve.”

“I knew a bard once,” Aedan said. “In fact, I knew a number of them and they were all insufferable, but this one was the worst. Most bards are in love with the sound of their own words, which makes them merely conceited, but this one was also in love with an idea, which made him dangerous.”

“Why would idealism make someone dangerous?” Sylvanna asked.

“Ah, now there’s a question for the emperor’s chief minister,” said Aedan with a grin. “In my capacity as lord high chamberlain, I should tell you that all idealists are dangerous, because they are individuals who hold ideas in higher esteem than any emperor or king or noble. An idealist’s first loyalty is to the morality of the idea that he champions … or she, as the case may be. As a consequence, there is no room in such an individual for compromise. Personally, however, I find that there is a certain type of an idealist one can live with.”

“And what sort is that?” Sylvanna asked, taking the bait.

“One who agrees with you,” said Aedan with a chuckle.

“I should have seen that one coming,” said Sylvanna with a wry grimace. “You’d think by now I would have learned better.”

“Elves are notoriously slow learners,” Aedan said teasingly. “That is yet another disadvantage of your immortality … you never really feel pressed to do anything quickly.”

“Some things are best done slowly,” she replied with a sidelong glance at him.

“You mean… like courtship?” Aedan asked.

“And other things, as well.”

Aedan cleared his throat uneasily. Over the past eight years, he and Sylvanna had grown very close, something he had not imagined would be possible when they first met. For one thing, he had not expected to know her long enough, but she had returned to Anuire with them, accompanying her brother, Gylvain, and they had both stayed, together with the halfling, Futhark, and the elven escort that had brought them from Tuarhievel, a group of about a dozen warriors.

It was part of an alliance concluded between Lord Tieran, acting on behalf of the then still-uncrowned Emperor Michael and Prince Fhileraene of Tuarhievel. The elves were to act as the emperor’s personal guard, initially to ensure his safe return to Anuire and, later, to demonstrate to all that the elven kingdom of Tuarhievel had formally allied itself with Anuire and thrown its support behind Emperor Michael.

It was an unprecedented agreement and one that from the outset had been certain to arouse the ire of extremists on both sides, such as Rhuobhe Man-slayer and Lord Kier Avan; Duke of Avanil, who had about as much use for elves as the Manslayer had for humans. Since Avanil and Rhuobhe, the renegade province the Manslayer had carved out for himself in the southern region of the Aelvinnwode, shared a common border, there were frequent raids back and forth by the Manslayer’s warriors and Lord Kier’s knights, and the skirmishes were as constant as they were violent. Indeed, if not for Kier on the south and Arwyn of Boeruine on the north of Rhuobhe’s borders, the Manslayer would have spread his violent hatred much farther through the empire.

Why then, Aedan had wondered at the time, had his father negotiated this unusual alliance? And why had Fhileraene agreed to it? The answer lay, as his father had always taught him, in a consideration of the possibilities.

For Fhileraene, there were certain advantages to the alliance that were not immediately apparent on the surface, but became clear upon some consideration. Fhileraene knew that he could not hope to stand alone against the humans and the goblins of Thurazor, as well. His great-grandfather, the Man-slayer, did not share that particular problem. While Rhuobhe was beset on both sides by the Duke of Avanil and the Archduke of Boeruine, he was separated from the goblin realm of Thurazor by the province of Boeruine and the Five Peaks region. He could afford to concentrate on waging his war of constant skirmishes solely on the humans.

Fhileraene, on the other hand, was virtually surrounded by his enemies—the goblins of Thurazor to the west, the savage giants of the Giantdowns to the north, and the feral minions of the awnshegh Raesene in the mountains of the Gorgon’s Crown, to the east. He enjoyed good relations only with his neighbor to the northwest, the province of Dhoesone, which needed its alliance with Tuarhievel because it was an isolated outpost of the empire that was surrounded by demihuman realms. Fhileraene understood full well that such alliances were imperative to keep his borders secure against his enemies. In order to help ensure the survival of his realm, Fhileraene had to be adroit in his political maneuverings. The alliance he had agreed to with Lord Tieran was a case in point.

By his signing of the treaty, Fhileraene had clearly signaled the elven kingdom of Tuarhievel’s formal recognition of Michael’s birthright as successor to the Iron Throne, and this had turned out to be no small thing, as Lord Arwyn had taken steps to consolidate his own position in the year they’d been away. He had managed to induce the provinces of Talinie, Brosengae, and Taeghas to recognize his claim to regency.

Lord Rurik Donalls governed the windswept province of Talinie, and with the goblin realm of Thurazor abutting his northeastern borders and both the Aelvinnwode and the lawless Five Peaks region to his southeast, the Earl of Talinie desperately needed the protection and support of a strong warlord like the Archduke of Boeruine. His northern province was sparsely settled, with the only city being the well-fortified capital at Nowelton, situated on the coast and to some degree protected from the fierce storms of the Miere Rhuann by the rocky cliffs of Dantier Island. Most of Talinie was covered by thick forest, except for the narrow band of rocky plain along the coast. There were no teeming cities like Anuire in Lord Rurik’s domain, nor even large villages like Seasedge, but the residents of Talinie were a tough and hard-bitten lot, mostly hardy woodsmen and rough miners who carved the coal out of the highlands. The Earl of Talinie could not muster a large army of warriors, but the men he had were tough and seasoned fighters accustomed to frequent skirmishes with goblin raiders and the bandits of the Five Peaks region. Together with the knights and men-at-arms of Lord Arwyn, they made a formidable force.

Then there was the province of Taeghas, which had gone over to Boeruine. Lord Davan Durien, the Count of Taeghas, ruled a relatively poor province from his hold at Stormspoint, on the coast just south of Boeruine. Taeghas possessed a wide variety of terrains, from coastal plains to moors, from lowland forests to the Seamist Mountains, which separated the province from Avanil. The small seaport town of Portage at the tip of Finger Bay was devoted primarily to fishing, and the remainder of the residents of Taeghas were tenant farmers and herdsmen. The periodic raids by trolls who came down from the Seamist Mountains, attracted by the produce of the farms and the sheep and cattle of the herdsmen, meant that Lord Davan, like Rurik of Talinie, needed a protective alliance with a warlord like Arwyn of Boeruine.

Finally, there was Brosengae, situated where the Straits of Aerele flowed into the Miere Rhuann. Brosengae was cut up with large bays and swampy bayous that opened onto lush and fertile coastal plains that gave way, in turn, to wooded foothills and forest highlands. Like Taeghas, Brosengae had the Seamist Mountains on its borders, which meant that its populace was vulnerable to raids by trolls. However, unlike Taeghas and Talinie, Brosengae was a wealthy province, headquarters to several powerful guilds. Its sheltered bays provided good anchorage for merchant ships, smugglers, and corsairs, all of whom found welcome in equal measure from harbormasters who were not too particular whom they admitted, so long as they could pay the docking and the mooring fees.

Lysander Marko, Duke of Brosengae, shared a common border with Avanil, the province where the empire’s capital city of Anuire was located, and so far as Aedan could see, his alliance with Boeruine was nothing less than opportunism. He could easily afford to maintain a force of men-at-arms and mercenaries to keep the predations of the trolls under control, and he had no worries about goblin raids or massed bandit attacks, since his province was far to the south of Thurazor and the Five Peaks, and sheltered by Boeruine, Taeghas, and Avanil.

No, thought Aedan, Marko did not enter into his alliance with Boeruine as a result of intimidation by Lord Arwyn. He did so because he saw a chance to undermine his rival, Lord Kier Avan, Duke of Avanil. Everyone had his own personal agenda, Aedan thought, and Arwyn had exploited each of them for his own gain. Promises were made, bargains concluded, tribute paid—when the commoners of the merchant classes received such “tributes,” they were generally known as bribes, thought Aedan wryly—and the upshot of it all was that Arwyn of Boeruine had essentially united the provinces of the entire Western Coast region under his own banner.

All that had happened in the year they had been at Fhileraene’s court in Tuarhievel—a year that had actually been only about a week or so for them—and no one had suspected then that Prince Michael could still be alive. No one save Lord Tieran, who had kept that information to himself until Michael had returned safely to Anuire, the better to ensure he could return safely. By then, however, Lord Arwyn had long since reported his death and sent dispatch riders throughout the empire to spread the word and announce his assumption of the regency.

Talinie and Taeghas had formally given their support to him right from the outset, which made Aedan wonder if they had simply judged which way the wind was blowing and acted to safeguard their own interests, or if they had received some advance notification of Lord Arwyn’s plans. Either way, they were the first to grant their recognition. Brosengae followed, but not until Avan had refused, questioning Boeruine’s right to the regency and declaring for Lord Tieran and the empress. The Baron of Diemed had announced support for Lord Tieran and the empress, as well, but not until Kier of Avanil had declared himself. With Avanil across the river from Diemed, Baron Harth Diem had wanted to see which way the more powerful Duke of Avanil would go.

And so it went throughout the empire, each province and each ruling noble waiting for as long as possible to declare allegiance either to Lord Tieran and the empress or to Arwyn of Boeruine, for no one wished to be premature in his formal recognition of either party. They first wanted to see how their neighbors would declare, especially if those neighbors were wealthier and more powerful.

This, however, was precisely what Lord Tieran had gambled on, for he knew it would buy him time—time in which the young emperor might return and assume his rightful place on the Iron Throne of Anuire. And he had needed as much time as he could buy, because he had no way of knowing when Michael and Aedan might return. He knew about the strange way time flowed in the elven realms, and he had also known it was completely unpredictable. For Michael and Aedan, a few days could go by while for him and the rest of the human world, it could be weeks or months or even years.

It had to be incredibly difficult for him, thought Aedan, trying to manipulate the political situation to his best advantage—insofar as he was able—while at the same time knowing the strongest weapon he could use against Lord Arwyn was one he did not dare reveal. If he had announced Michael was still alive and safe within the borders of Tuarhievel, Arwyn and his allies could have taken steps to prevent his return and see to it he never left the Aelvinnwode alive.

It must have been a terrible strain for him, thought Aedan. And it had certainly taken its toll. His father had died a year ago, while Aedan was out on a campaign with the emperor. And those campaigns had been virtually unceasing almost since the time they had returned.

Eight years, he thought. Eight years of almost constant warfare, trying to hold the empire together. Michael was doing a good job of it, however. And with each campaign, he had improved significantly as a general. In the beginning, the campaigns had been planned by Lord Korven, commanding general of the Imperial Army of Anuire, who had been adamantly opposed to the idea of Michael going out into the field with the troops. At the time of the first campaign, Michael had just turned thirteen, and Lord Korven had believed it was much too risky for a mere boy—and the only heir to the imperial throne, at that—to accompany the army into battle. However, Michael had insisted on it, and, to Aedan’s surprise, his father had supported his choice.

“It is true he is young and would expose himself to risk,” Aedan’s father had said to him when he protested. “However, those very things also work for him. The troops shall see the boy emperor riding with them, leading them beneath his standard, and it shall both invigorate and motivate them. If they see that a boy is unafraid to fight for a cause, then they, as grown men, shall take courage from his presence.”

“But what if he should be killed?” Aedan had asked.

His father shrugged slightly. “That is the risk that every true leader must take. If he wants his men to be willing to die for him, then he must also be willing to die with them. A ruler who simply sends his troops out while he remains behind in the safety of his castle will never command the same loyalty and respect as one who leads his armies into battle. More than anything else right now, Michael must gain the respect and loyalty of the troops and of his vassals. And respect and loyalty are never freely given. They must be earned.”

So at the age of thirteen, Michael had led the Imperial Army of Anuire into the field, which sounded much more impressive than it was in fact, since a great deal of the army’s strength at any given time depended on troops sent from the empire’s provinces. And in the beginning, all they had were the troops quartered in the capital and those sent by Kier of Avanil. Messengers had been dispatched to all the other provinces with an imperial command for a troop levy, but while no one had refused outright, neither had anyone except the Duke of Avanil hastened to comply. They all waited to see in which direction the wind would start to blow. And, at least in the beginning, it had blown against Emperor Michael.

When word had been sent out that Prince Michael was alive and well and had returned to Anuire to claim his birthright, Arwyn had responded by accusing Lord Tieran of trying to palm off a pretender on the people of the empire. An entire year had passed, he said, in which there had been no word from the missing emperor and now he had returned? From where? If it were truly the prince, what had he been doing all this time? How had he escaped his goblin abductors? And why had the elves, the old enemies of humankind, chosen to help him? What did Prince Fhileraene have to gain?

What Lord Tieran had to gain was obvious, Arwyn had maintained. He was after power and sought the regency for himself. What other possible reason could there have been for his cowardly flight from Seaharrow with the empress at a time when not only the prince’s fate but that of his own son was uncertain? Arwyn even went so far as to suggest that the high chamberlain had taken the empress from Seaharrow against her will—for what mother would leave when her son was missing?—and was now holding her at the Imperial Cairn in Anuire as hostage for his claim to regency Arwyn manifested considerable outrage over this, despite the fact that it was probably exactly what he had planned himself.

It was a believable claim to many and not really an unexpected move. The Archduke of Boeruine had, after all, declared that Prince Michael was dead. When Michael had returned, Arwyn really had only two choices—back down from his claim to regency, swear fealty to Michael, and hope the new emperor would not hold a grudge, or else declare him an imposter foisted off upon the people by Lord Tieran, aided by the elven magic of Prince Fhileraene. Aedan was not at all surprised when Arwyn chose the latter option.

Since then, it had been one campaign after another, and not always against the forces of Boeruine, which had become considerable. Lord Arwyn had recruited mercenaries and bandits from the Five Peaks region to join his army and he had even gone so far as to openly ally himself with the goblins of Thurazor. His rationale for doing so was astonishingly bold. Lord Tieran, he claimed, had betrayed the empire by allying himself with the elves. And rather than face the possibility of their old enemies overcoming them with the aid of the Anuirean troops, the goblins had decided to throw in their lot with the forces of Boeruine, the rightful regent, in exchange for Arwyn’s support against the elves. What was more, in his dispatches from Seaharrow to the other provinces of the empire, Arwyn had actually bragged of this alliance, invoking the memory of Mount Deismaar and comparing himself to Haelyn, who had made an alliance with the elves against the dark forces of Azrai for the common good. And incredibly, there were many who took him at his word.

As soon as it became evident that Arwyn would not recognize the emperor, insisting he was an imposter, and would not give up his claim to regency, a number of other provinces also rebelled. At first, it was not open rebellion; they simply failed to respond to Michael’s call to arms. Coeranys sent no reply to Lord Tieran’s dispatches. Suiriene, far to the east on the shores of the Sea of the Golden Sun, likewise failed to respond, as did the province of Alamie in the Heartlands. The Baron of Ghieste, whose walled city was located in the Heartlands to the north of Anuire, sent regrets and claimed that all his troops were needed at home to secure his borders against gnoll raiders from the Spiderfell.

The implications of this were all too clear. A good number of the late emperor’s vassals were sitting on the fence, unwilling to declare for Michael and against Boeruine because they were afraid to choose the losing side. Arwyn’s strength and prowess as a warlord were well known throughout the empire, while Michael was just a boy and had yet to prove himself. The Viscount of Osoerde had even gone so far as to demand proof that Michael was not the pretender Arwyn claimed he was. And despite Michael’s coronation in the capital, the empire was plunged into an interregnum. Thus Michael had been forced to begin his reign by fighting for what was rightfully his. And unless he moved decisively, the empire was in danger of disintegrating.

Aedan’s father and Lord Korven had concurred that given their present strength—or rather, lack of it—they could not hope to successfully mount a campaign against Lord Arwyn, who’d had a year of preparation to solidify his position. Consequently, they had been forced to mount campaigns against those provinces that had not responded to the call to arms. They had marched on Ghieste first, since it was the closest capital, with its borders adjacent to Avanil.

Lord Korven led his troops on a forced march to Ghieste, with Michael riding at his side and Aedan bearing the Roele standard of a red dragon rampant on a field of white. Lord Richard, Baron of Ghieste, was taken completely unawares. He awoke one morning to find the Royal House Guard and the Army of Anuire, augmented with the troops of Avanil, encamped before his castle, prepared to conduct a siege. It was the last thing he expected. Nor was he given time to think. No sooner had he realized that there was an army camped just beyond his walls than an envoy was dispatched to him with an imperial summons to come out and meet with the emperor in his tent. A refusal would have been tantamount to open rebellion, and he could not have withstood a siege. Lord Richard had no choice but to comply.

He had ridden from his castle to Michael’s tent with only a token escort, and it was at that meeting that Michael began to prove himself worthy of his birthright. Lord Tieran had advised him beforehand, but Michael had conducted the meeting all by himself, which had taken Lord Richard by surprise. He had expected to deal with the high chamberlain, but instead found himself facing a very self-assured boy of thirteen, who comported himself with a confidence well beyond his years.

He had greeted Lord Richard warmly and expressed sympathy for his problems with the raiders. He had assured him of his support, promising that the next time there was a raid upon his city, he would send a force on a punitive expedition against the gnolls to show them that the emperor would not countenance incursions into his lands. He further reassured him that he would not dream of leaving the Barony of Ghieste unprotected by taking all its troops away on a campaign, so he would only take a third of them. And to demonstrate the high esteem in which he held Lord Richard, he would grant his eldest son the singular honor of a knighthood, so that he could lead Ghieste’s troops in the campaign under Lord Richard’s standard.

Lord Richard knew he had been adroitly out-maneuvered. He was in no position to refuse, with Lord Korven and his troops on the scene, and once they had departed, he could not once more become recalcitrant, because the emperor would have his eldest son with him as a hostage. By knighting young Viscount Ghieste, Michael would also be able to keep the viscount with him at court, which would please young Ghieste, for life at the Anuirean court was much more stimulating and vastly preferable to an unattached young man than the quiet, rural life in an outlying province. At the same time, it would ensure Baron Ghieste’s loyalty, and by having a third of Ghieste’s troops with him, even if it wasn’t a significant addition to his forces, their marching with the emperor under Ghieste’s standard amounted to a formal recognition of Michael’s birthright. And so the city had been “retaken” without a single blow being struck. It had been a masterful piece of armed diplomacy for which Lord Tieran was responsible, but Michael had done his part and handled himself flawlessly, leaving Lord Richard very much impressed.

Unfortunately, things had not gone quite so easily with some of the other provinces. Coeranys was over three hundred miles from Anuire, and there was no way of surprising the Duchess Sariele with a forced inarch across the Heartlands. Eugenie Sariele had ruled the province since her husband had become crippled by disease, and for years, she had done so more or less independently of Anuire. The lands of Coeranys, out in the Eastern Marches, were sparsely populated, and their inhabitants subsisted primarily on guild trading and raising livestock. The landrunners, nomadic herdsmen of Coeranys, were fiercely independent, ranging far and wide across the grassy plains, and many of them had gone tribal, setting up their own nomadic governments without feeling the need to answer to the duchess, who left them pretty much alone.

Much of the terrain was swampy, particularly the southern region of the province, where waters from the gulf made considerable inroads through the bayous, streams, and marshes of the lowlands. The storms that swept down regularly from the rocky highlands of Baruk-Azhik kept the land inundated with almost constant rain and much of the central lowlands of the province were peat bogs that were not easily traversed by an armed force. Unless one really knew the territory, it was easy to get lost in the swamps or stumble into a soft, deep bog and get sucked down.

The capital of Coeranys was the city of Ruorvan, built upon the banks of the River Saemil, which flowed into the swampy marshes from the foothills of the Sielwode. To the south and east and west of the city, the land was all bogs and bayous, which rendered it practically unapproachable from those directions. The only reasonable overland approach to Ruorvan was from the north, through the province of Elinie, across a narrow band of high ground running through the marshlands into the open plains to the north of the city. There was, consequently, no way that an army could approach the capital of Coeranys by stealth—unless it came through the world between the worlds.

Lord Korven had tried twice to lead his force into Coeranys to bring the Duchess Sariele to heel. Both times, he had failed. Aedan and Michael had been with him each time, and both expeditions had proved disastrous. The first one had floundered in the marshes to the northwest of Ruorvan as they tried to cross the River Saemil. Heavy rains had raised the floodwaters and reduced the roads to a sea of mud in which horses sank almost to their withers and foot soldiers bogged down to their knees. After weeks of battling such impossible conditions, the army had been forced to turn back.

The second expedition fared no better. While the weather had not been nearly so severe, by the time the second campaign had been mounted, the duchess had been warned by the failure of the first one and had mustered not only her troops, but the nomadic landrunners as well to repel the emperor’s forces.

The narrow strip of high ground between the swamps and marshes on the eastern borders of Elinie, the only practicable overland route into Coeranys across the River Saemil, was only about twenty miles wide, and much of that territory was taken up by soft and grassy peat bogs across which an army could not march. There were only a few miles of passable ground, and this narrow strip could be easily defended by a much smaller force against a larger one, especially when the defenders were intimately familiar with the terrain. Faced not only with the knights and men-at-arms of the Duchess Sariele, but with the fierce and savage landrunners as well, the emperor’s forces found themselves fighting for every inch of ground as they attempted their approach.

Lord Korven’s fighting tactics had been seriously hampered by the fact that he was not only forced to wage conventional warfare against the troops of Coeranys, but also fight constant defensive actions against the landrunners, who pursued hit-and-run guerilla warfare against the advancing army. They would strike at night or during a heavy rainstorm, inflict heavy casualties with their powerful longbows, then retreat into the swamps, where every effort to pursue them had only resulted in the loss of more men. And once again, the emperor’s army had been forced to turn back in defeat.

Meanwhile, Lord Arwyn had not remained idle. With his army considerably strengthened by troops from Taeghas, Talinie, and Brosengae, he had attacked Avanil. He had waited until his spies informed him that the Army of Anuire was marching on Coeranys and after calculating how long it would take the emperor and Lord Korven to reach the River Saemil, he launched a devastating two-pronged attack on Avanil. He had split his army, sending part of his forces through the forest east from Seaharrow and across the border into western Alamie, then south to Avanil, while the rest of his troops marched east from Brosengae, crossed the border into Avanil, and attacked the capital city of Dalton, where Lord Kier of Avan had his stronghold.

With a good part of his forces on the march with the Army of Anuire, Lord Kier was left with only half his normal complement of troops. He had anticipated the possibility of an attack from across the border of Brosengae and had concentrated most of his defensive garrisons along the twenty-mile stretch of open plain between the southern tip of the Seamist Mountains and the coast. What he had not expected was an attack through western Alamie, which was not only a lengthy route, but also entailed marching an army around the outer borders of the territory claimed by Rhuobhe Manslayer.

The temptation for the Manslayer to conduct hit-and-run tactics against the rearguard of an army marching around his territory would have been irresistible, or at least so Lord Kier had thought. Besides, an army on the march from Seaharrow through western Alamie would have had to cover some four hundred miles to reach Dalton, with at least one hundred and fifty of those miles through thick, old-growth forest that would leave them likewise vulnerable to guerilla tactics. What the Duke of Avanil failed to take into account was the possibility that Rhuobhe Manslayer might be perfectly content to let such an army pass around the borders of his territory unmolested, if he knew they were en route to attack other human forces. If such an advancing army was defeated and found itself forced to retreat, he could then attack it on its return march, when the troops were weakened. On the other hand, if they were successful, he could wait until they had departed and attack the losers.

And that was precisely what he had done, though there had been no way for Arwyn to know that for sure in advance. As Aedan’s father had told him so many times before, considering the possibilities was everything in life. Arwyn had simply assessed the possibilities and gambled on the odds. Successfully, as it turned out. While half of Arwyn’s army moved against the garrisons protecting the border between Brosengae and Avanil, the other half had marched through the forests of Boeruine, around the northern tip of the Seamist Mountain range and Rhuobhe’s territory, then crossed the border into western Alamie to slash and burn their way south toward Dalton. It was his way of making Duke Flaertes pay the price for sitting on the fence and failing to declare for him.

Michael’s third expedition against Coeranys was delayed by the necessity of having to conduct forced marches all the way across the Heartlands to come to Lord Kier’s rescue. En route, they passed through the Duchy of Alamie, marching through the capital of Lofton in a show of force to induce Lord Deklan Alam, Duke of Alamie, to declare himself for the emperor. Naturally, with an army marching through his capital, Lord Deklan had hastened to reaffirm his loyalty to the empire, whereupon Michael resorted to the same ploy he had used with the Baron of Ghieste. He had ceremoniously knighted Lord Alam’s eldest son and appointed him to command a portion of Alamie’s troops on the campaign to western Alamie, thereby making certain Lord Alam would not experience a change of heart once the army had departed.

In western Alamie, they found only the devastation left behind by Arwyn’s army as they had marched south on Avanil. Farms and villages were burned, livestock slaughtered, fields of crops razed and trampled to the ground. Western Alamie would not soon forget Lord Arwyn, and when the Army of Anuire reached the capital of Haes, Duke Flaertes did not need any prodding to declare in favor of the emperor. The Army of Boeruine had not paused in their march to lay siege to Haes, but they had laid waste to every town and village in their path, and the capital was jammed with refugees and wounded who had lost their homes and come to their lord to seek refuge and redress. What Lord Tieran had not been able to accomplish by diplomacy, the Archduke of Boeruine had accomplished with the sword. Duke Flaertes acknowledged Michael as the rightful ruler and gave him half his troops.

They had then made haste from Haes toward Dalton, and when they crossed the border into Avanil, they found even more destruction. Scouts had been sent on ahead and they returned to report that the two halves of Arwyn’s army had reunited and had laid siege to Avanhold, Lord Kier’s castle. When Arwyn learned that the emperor’s army was on the march to Dalton, he had given up the siege and crossed the border into Brosengae. He had declined to offer combat to the emperor, but his purpose had been accomplished. He had punished Flaertes for failing to take his side against “The Pretender,” as he referred to Michael, and though he had been forced to give up his siege of Avanhold, he had destroyed much of the city and had decimated Lord Kier’s inferior forces.

Michael had chafed to pursue him into Brosengae, but Lord Korven had convinced him that it would be unwise. Their troops were tired from slogging through the marshes on the failed campaign in Coeranys and the long forced marches across the Heartlands. Moreover, Arwyn had torched the fields and killed all the livestock at the crofts around Dalton, much of which was still in flames, thereby rendering the emperor unable to reprovision his forces. And to make matters still worse, the Manslayer had waited until the Army of Anuire had crossed the border into Avanil and then launched a series of savage raids against the beleaguered Duchy of western Alamie. Michael had to send out parties of rangers to scour the countryside for available provisions, then turn back to give aid to Duke Flaertes in his attempts to stop the Manslayer’s depredations.

When the army finally returned to Anuire after the long and disastrous campaign, the troops were utterly worn out. Many had fallen in combat with Rhuobhe’s elves, while others had succumbed to sheer exhaustion, hunger, and disease. It was then that Michael had vowed he would never again fail to come to the aid of loyal vassals because his troops could not arrive in time. And remembering their journey from Tuarhievel to Anuire, he had struck upon the idea of marching through the Shadow World.

Ever since, the Army of Anuire had fought almost continuously as Arwyn’s forces struck out across the Heartlands and sporadic rebellions broke out throughout the empire. No sooner would the emperor’s army have to respond to one of Arwyn’s forays than another outbreak of warfare would erupt elsewhere in the empire. The goblins of Markazor launched an assault on the human holdings in that embattled province. Osoerde was attacked by sea raiders from Ghamoura. The gnolls of Chimaeron, emboldened by the internecine conflict in the empire, launched repeated raids against Coeranys, causing the recalcitrant Duchess Eugenie to appeal to the emperor for help in repelling the invaders.

“Let her stew in her own juices,” Lord Korven had responded when the dispatch rider from Coeranys arrived in Anuire, bearing the call for aid. “We lost a lot of good men in those miserable swamps, and now she wants our help? The gnolls may gnaw on her bones for all I care!”

“No, Lord Korven,” Michael had replied. “I understand how you must feel, and I must confess that under other circumstances, I would share your views. However, I must think first of the empire, and if we could not bring the Duchess Eugenie back into the fold by marching against her, we shall do so by marching to her aid. Recriminations will not serve our purposes, however justified we feel they may be. In the long run, it is the end result that matters. The empire must be whole again.”

So they had marched to relieve Coeranys, only this time, they had taken a portal through the Shadow World. Futhark, who had led them through the Shadow World on their return trip from Tuarhievel, was once again their guide. For a time, he had incurred the resentment of the troops, for they had mistakenly thought at first that marching through the Shadow World was his suggestion. Futhark had not complained, but Aedan had noticed that the troops were surly and abusive toward him, which had prompted him to correct their misapprehension.

When they found out that it was the emperor’s idea, they were still unsettled by the notion, but no one questioned it thereafter. By then, Michael had turned fifteen and had been on each and every campaign in the field with his troops. He had fought with them and suffered the extremes of weather with them. He did not eat until they ate; he did not sleep until they slept, and he eschewed luxurious accommodations to live in the field exactly as they did. Physically, he was still a boy, but in every other respect, they had come to regard him as a man. He had won their loyalty and admiration, and they would have followed him anywhere—even into the dreaded Shadow World.

The campaign to relieve Coeranys had marked a new beginning for the Army of Anuire. They had driven the raiding gnolls back into Chimaeron and thereafter, the Army of Anuire became known throughout the empire as Roele’s Ghost Rangers for their seeming ability to be in two places almost at the same time. Michael had employed halflings as long-range scouts and messengers, so that they could pass quickly through the Shadow World and deliver intelligence about enemy troop movements and raids by gnolls and goblins and depredations by the forces of the awnsheghlien, who took advantage of the empire’s instability, seeking to increase the size of their domains and pursuing bloodtheft with an unprecedented vengeance. And with each new outbreak of violence, no matter where or how far away, Michael and his troops would be there to deal with it.

One day, Roele’s Ghost Rangers would be seen marching in Osoerde, and merely hours later, they would be engaged in Mhoried, two hundred miles distant. They would fight a battle with some of Arwyn’s forces on the plains of Alamie, then pass into the Shadow World and reappear the same day to subdue Baruk-Azhik, over four hundred miles away. Stories of their exploits were at first greeted with disbelief, but in time, the facts became incontrovertible.

Magic was initially held to be responsible, but those who spread such tales were soon countered by those with some knowledge of the thaumaturgic arts, who pointed out that no living mage, regardless of how powerful, could summon up enough magic to transport an entire army. In time, the only other possible explanation was accepted—the Ghost Rangers traveled through the Shadow World. And that was when the Army of Anuire began to acquire its fearsome reputation. Men brave enough—or crazy enough—to travel through the Shadow World were men to be feared.

It was a reputation that aided them in battle, Aedan thought, and it was far from undeserved, for quite aside from the risks involved in any military campaign, the Shadow World posed dangers of its own. Safety was certainly increased by their numbers, but they were still subject to attacks by the undead in the world between the worlds, or by the strange and lethal creatures who inhabited the misty plane. And now, after eight long years of hard campaigning to hold the empire together, the army had acquired a fine edge, like a sword forged by a master armorer. The troops were now tough, seasoned campaigners, hard-bitten and weather-worn, and though the aging Lord Korven still served as their general, Emperor Michael now made all the decisions about strategy and tactics.

We’ve come a long way, Aedan thought as he rode behind his emperor through the gray and misty realm, but there is still much to be done. After eight years, though they had fought his forces many times, they had still not managed to subdue Lord Arwyn. Seaharrow was a virtually impregnable fortress, and over the years, Arwyn had established well-fortified garrisons on all approaches to his holding. He did not travel through the Shadow World, but his army was just as strong and equally well trained, besides which, he had the tactical advantage. Michael had to protect the entire empire and respond to each outbreak that occurred throughout its borders. Arwyn had only to protect the Western Marches, most of which he had brought under his domain, and there was never any way of telling where or when his troops would strike.

Despite that, a great deal had been accomplished. Save for occasional raids across the borders from Boeruine and Brosengae, the Heartlands had all been won back to the empire, as had most of the Eastern Marches. The Southern Coast had been secured, save for periodic outbreaks of fighting on the borders of Avanil and Brosengae. The Northern Marches of the empire and the territory still farther to the north remained wild outlands, and there had been no opportunity to campaign for the lands of far eastern Cerilia, where the Khinasi held sway in the south and awnsheghlien and other demihumans controlled the north.

In eight years, Michael had taken an empire that had been plunged into an interregnum and was disintegrating into warring states and brought most of it back together. All that remained now was to deal decisively with Arwyn of Boeruine. And that, of course, was much easier said than done. Boeruine had always been one of the strongest duchies in the empire and Arwyn the empire’s greatest warlord. His forces and the empire’s were fairly equally matched, and he had the advantage of terrain. All approaches to his holding at Seaharrow were covered by thick forest through which an army could not march without rendering itself vulnerable to destruction.

The only other approach, the one always taken by the court when it had traveled to summer in Seaharrow in the past—and that seemed so long ago now, thought Aedan—was the southern approach through Brosengae, through a narrow band of coastal plain about twenty miles wide between the southern tip of the Seamist Mountain range and the Straits of Aerele. There were several small passes through the Seamist Mountains, but taking an army through them would be an invitation to disaster. They would have been trapped like rats in a maze. And attempting an invasion along the southern route, through Brosengae, entailed all sorts of knotty problems.

Arwyn was an experienced commander, and he had anticipated every possible invasion route. He had strong fortifications built along the twenty-mile stretch of land between Avanil and Brosengae, south of the Seamist Mountains and north of the southern coast. And those fortifications had been tiered in several ranks. If the first line of garrisons happened to fall, the forces holding them could retreat to the second line, and then to the third and fourth, meaning that an attacking army would have to advance repeatedly against well-fortified positions.

Even if the garrisons all fell, the forces holding them could continue to retreat into Brosengae, fighting holding actions all the way. Their supply lines would grow ever shorter, while those of the attacking army would extend farther as they fought for every foot of enemy ground. Despite that, Michael had attempted to advance along that route repeatedly over the years. Each time, he had been forced to turn back. It took the entire strength of the Army of Anuire to assault the garrisons along the border, while only a portion of Arwyn’s troops were needed to hold them.

Each time they had advanced, Arwyn had forced them to turn back by employing the same tactics—as Michael attacked the garrisons south of the Seamist Mountains with his full strength, Arwyn detailed the troops of Taeghas and Brosengae to hold them, meanwhile using his own Army of Boeruine, augmented by troops of Talinie and goblin battalions from Thurazor, to advance along forest trails he knew well to attack western Alamie.

The situation had seemed virtually insurmountable, no matter how Aedan looked at it. Attack Arwyn in the south, and he would send the troops of Boeruine and Talinie to attack the empire in the north. Counter the attacks in the north, and the troops of Brosengae and Taeghas would attack in the south, advancing into Avanil. Back and forth it went for years, with a steadily mounting body count, and nothing was resolved. There was only one possible alternative, but it was highly dangerous.

If they could find a route through the Shadow World into the coastal region of Boeruine, then they could bring the war to Arwyn’s doorstep. However, finding portals into the Shadow World was easier in regions like Thurazor, Tuarhievel, or the Spiderfell, where confluences of ley lines occurred. These lines of force that ran beneath the earth were what enabled halflings to open portals to the Shadow World. Somehow, the halflings tapped into the energy that flowed through these “underground conduits” and used it to break down the barriers between the world of daylight and the world of shadow. No one knew for certain exactly how they did it. Aedan had seen Futhark create these portals many times, but watching it gave him no clue. It seemed to work like magic. And there was a limit to how much Futhark would explain.

He had explained, however, that portals into the Shadow World could be created more reliably at or near points of ley line confluence than elsewhere, and exiting the world between the worlds in similar regions, such as Markazor, the Sielwode, or the Erebannien, was likewise more easily accomplished. In a region like Boeruine, however, where ley lines did not meet, exiting the Shadow World would be more difficult and unpredictable.

They could enter the Shadow World through a portal created just within the borders of the Spiderfell, the nearest point of ley line confluence, and then march through the Shadow World in a northwesterly direction until they reached the region that corresponded spatially with Boeruine. But with no confluence of ley lines in Boeruine, there was no sure way of predicting exactly where they would come out.

Sending halfling scouts through an exit portal first would not address the problem, since if the ley line on the other side was weak—in other words, too far away from the point at which they intended to leave the Shadow World—the area in which the scouts came out might not be accessible again.

“I don’t understand,” Michael had said when he and Aedan had discussed the plan with Futhark. “Do you mean the scouts would be unable to return, or that we would not be able to follow them out?”

“No, we could send scouts through,” Futhark had explained, “and they could come back and report to us what they had found beyond the portal, but the portal would not necessarily open out onto the same place twice. It is conceivable, even probable, that we could come out in a different location altogether, and accidentally wind up surrounded by the forces of the enemy.”

That was not exactly an encouraging thought. Nevertheless, Michael had decided to attempt it. They had gone in near the Spiderfell, which was risky in itself, as it was the domain of one of the more powerful awnsheghlien. It was said that the Spider could see through the eyes of all the arachnids in his domain and thus knew everything that went on within the Spiderfell. If this were true, and Aedan had no idea if it were, the Spider had thus far refrained from taking on the entire Army of Anuire. However, he could decide to send his creatures against the emperor’s forces, and Aedan did not relish the thought of being attacked by millions of poisonous arachnids. The very thought made him shudder with disgust and fear. Nor were lethal spiders the only danger in the Spiderfell.

The awnsheghlien had the ability, empowered by bloodtheft, to create other creatures like themselves, less powerful, but still quite dangerous. And awnsheghlien also had human and demihuman troops at their command, some of which the emperor’s forces had engaged on previous occasions. It was bad enough to have to face the combat-seasoned forces of Lord Arwyn without also having to do battle with gnolls, monsters, and human predators along the way. Regardless, Michael had decided that the attempt was worth the risk. Futhark and his halfling scouts were highly dubious, but they agreed to try. They had taken on ample provisions and marched from Anuire into the Spiderfell, then gone through a portal into the Shadow World. Once they had crossed over, they turned east and marched for about three hundred miles, across the region of the misty world that spatially corresponded with the Heartlands, heading toward Boeruine.

Unfortunately, as Futhark had feared, they had failed to find a portal that would lead them to Boeruine. Instead, they had emerged on the high slopes of the Seamist Mountains, where they had fought a battle with a savage tribe of ogres into whose territory they had blundered. The hulking, brutish demihumans had been greatly outnumbered, but they had fought hard to protect their domain against what they had thought was an invasion. Reasoning with ogres was impossible. They were only slightly above the level of beasts. The army had been forced to kill them all in order to defend themselves, and despite being outnumbered, the ogres had inflicted heavy casualties. When it was over, there was no question of continuing the campaign. Michael had been forced to give it up and retreat.

So they had trudged back through the misty Shadow World, having failed in their objective. On the way back, several men were lost to poisonous snakes and the voracious albino spiders, and three of the advance guard had blundered into a sinkhole as they crossed a marsh and disappeared in an instant. The morale of the troops was low, and Michael felt responsible. He had fallen into a sullen silence and not said a word for days. Aedan had tried to lift his spirits, but it was no use. He had known the emperor all his life, and he had seen his sullen moods before. At times like these, it was best to leave him be.

Talking with Sylvanna as they rode before their troops helped Aedan keep up his own spirits, for which he was very grateful. In the past eight years, they had grown close, and with his heavy responsibilities as the lord high chamberlain, it was a great help to have someone he could talk to without having to weigh every word he said.

Aedan was not sure when he first realized he had fallen in love with her. He had guarded himself carefully against such feelings ever since his ill-considered affair with Princess Laera. However, with Sylvanna, there had never been a time when passion simply struck and overwhelmed him. His feelings for her had grown gradually, almost unnoticeably, until one day he realized she meant more to him than anyone else in the entire world, except perhaps Michael.

Michael was his liege lord and his friend, and he had a duty toward him, a duty to which he had been born. He loved him as a friend and as his sovereign, but he loved Sylvanna with all his heart and soul. He had never told her outright, but he was sure she knew. And he was sure she felt the same way, too. It was something that neither of them had ever acknowledged openly, for there were many reasons it would be unwise. They served different sovereigns, allied for the present, but still with a long history of enmity. Aside from that, Sylvanna was immortal, and though she looked younger than he did, she was many years his senior. By elvish standards, she was still quite young, but in human terms, she was old enough to be his mother. And then, of course, there was Gylvain, who had become both a friend and mentor to Aedan and the emperor. And Aedan felt sure he would not approve a match between them. So he kept his peace. He had learned his lesson with the Princess Laera.

She was still at court, for with Arwyn in rebellion, the marriage had never taken place. And though she was still unwed, her beauty had only increased with the passing years. However, things between them were extremely awkward. Aedan had made an enemy for life, and he knew that if she were given the slightest opportunity, Laera would not hesitate to take revenge for his having spumed her. Her eyes seemed to burn with hatred whenever she saw him, and Michael took pains to keep the two of them apart as much as possible. Marrying her off to a noble in a distant province might have solved the problem, but Laera’s disposition had driven off a number of likely suitors. Nor were the whisperings about her at court likely to attract a husband desirous of a faithful wife.

Laera had been a mistake, thought Aedan, and he could live with it. But he did not wish to make a similar mistake with Sylvanna. The two women were as different as night and day, thought Aedan, and Sylvanna was easily ten times the woman Laera could ever hope to be, but that was no reason to do his thinking with his heart and not his mind.

“What?” asked Sylvanna.

“I said nothing,” he replied.

“No, but you were looking at me very strangely just now,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing,” he replied, shaking his head. “I only wish we were back home already. I have had about as much of this dreary place as I can stand.”

“It will not be long now,” she replied. “We should reach Anuire tomorrow.”

“I wish it were today,” said Aedan uneasily. “We have had nothing but misfortune on this journey, and I have never seen the emperor’s spirits so low.” He glanced back at the marching lines trudging wearily behind them on foot. “It cannot help but affect the troops.”

“They have experienced setbacks before,” Sylvanna said. “They are veteran campaigners. They can handle it. A few weeks of unwinding in the taverns and brothels of Anuire, and they’ll be ready to go out again.”

Aedan glanced at her curiously. “And what about you? How do you unwind?”

“I am an elf,” she replied. “Unlike humans, I am not a slave to my emotions.”

He could not read her tone or her expression. For all the years that he had known her, it was still sometimes difficult to tell when she was joking and when she was serious. Elves had a rather peculiar sense of humor, different from that of humans, and he had never quite grown accustomed to it. Was she simply stating what she believed to be a fact, or was she directing a subtle barb at him?

“If you expect me to believe that,” he replied, “I’m afraid you will be disappointed. I know you too well.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think so?”

“No one can control her emotions all the time,” he said. “Not even you elves, for all your smug superiority. I have seen what you are like in battle. And I have also seen how you respond afterward, when you find out how many of your people fell. We are not so very different, after all. You only like to think we are.”

“I suspect it is you who likes to think we are more similar than our natures warrant,” she replied. “We are different, Aedan. And wishing otherwise won’t change that.”

She had spoken flatly, in a matter-of-fact tone, as was her manner. However, Aedan thought he had detected a trace of wistfulness in her tone. He chose not to pursue the subject.

Ahead of them, the emperor suddenly reined in, then leaned over to address Lord Korven, riding beside him at the head of the formation, some distance behind the scouts and the advance guard. Aedan and Sylvanna reined in as well, then turned their mounts and rode off to the side, as had the emperor and Lord Korven, so as not to halt the troops coming up behind them.

“What is it, Sire?” Aedan asked as they rode up beside the emperor and his general.

“I don’t know,” Michael replied, frowning. “Look there, on that rise.” He pointed.

At first, Aedan couldn’t make out what he was pointing at, but a moment later, he saw it. To their right, several hundred yards away, the land sloped up to form a rocky hogback ridge. The lower slopes of this ridge were shrouded with a thick fog, with here and there some of the scrubby, twisted trees and sparse undergrowth showing through. The upper portion of the ridge was devoid of trees or growth of any kind and rose up from the fog like rocks protruding from the sea. There was something moving along that ridge, paralleling the course of the army.

Aedan stared intently, trying to make out what it was. The shape that moved across the ridge was black as pitch and amorphous. From this distance, it was difficult to gauge its size with any accuracy. It seemed to flow, undulating in a peculiar way, extruding projections that seemed almost like legs, but did not quite hold their shape. Aedan counted four of them. It was as if an inky black cloud were cantering across the ridge, thought Aedan, though of course that was impossible. Or was it? In the perpetual twilight of the Shadow World, there was much that was different from the world of daylight. Was this some sort of strange creature they had not previously encountered? And if so, what was it?

Aedan recalled how, as a boy, he had watched clouds roll across the sky and had searched for shapes within them. If he looked at them long enough, some would appear to take on the shapes of animals, or faces, or birds. So too, he now watched this bizarre apparition and began to see an approximation of a form. The four leglike extrusions that flowed from its main body seemed like a horse’s legs, and after a moment, he began to see the rough shape of a horse’s head, even a mane, which streamed like dark and misty tendrils from the horse’s neck. And the lower part of the strange black cloud looked rather like the horse’s body, while the upper part seemed to take on the appearance of a rider with a cloak streaming out behind him.

“It looks like a small storm cloud,” Korven said, and then echoing Aedan’s thoughts, he added, “and the way the wind is blowing it across that ridge, it almost resembles a mounted knight.”

“I feel no wind,” said Michael with a frown.

“That’s because we are below it,” Korven said, then shrugged. “It is nothing. Just a cloud, that’s all.”

“That is no ordinary cloud,” said Aedan. “It looks too small. And there is no wind propelling it. Look closely, my lord. It moves as if of its own accord.”

“Nonsense,” Korven said. “With all due respect, Lord Aedan, you are allowing your imagination to run away with you.”

And as they watched, the cloud suddenly stopped, directly opposite them on the ridge.

“Nonsense?” asked Aedan tensely. “Look again. If the wind has ceased to blow it, why does it not drift? It’s stopped. And now it’s watching us.”

Up on the ridge, the shape of the black cloud shifted. It seemed to solidify before their eyes, and it unquestionably took on the distinct form of a horse and rider, except the two seemed to be one form.

“That is no cloud,” said Michael. He turned to young Viscount Ghieste. “Davan, ride ahead and bring me Futhark.”

Young Ghieste set spurs to his mount and galloped off, returning shortly with the halfling guide seated on his horse behind him.

“You summoned me, my lord?” asked Futhark.

Michael nodded and pointed to the ridge. “Look there,” he said. “See that dark form on the ridge?”

The halfling looked, then paled, and his eyes grew wide as he beheld the shadowy form. “May all the gods protect us!” he said.

“What is it, Futhark?” asked Sylvanna.

“Doom, my lady,” the halfling guide replied fearfully. He swallowed hard. “It is what I feared the most each time we came this way.” He turned to Michael. “We must flee, my lord! We must leave this place at once!”

“Flee?” Lord Korven said. “From what? What is that thing?”

“That which has driven my people from this once sunlit world to yours,” said Futhark. “It is the Cold Rider.”

2

“What manner of creature is this Cold Rider?” Michael asked, curious at Futhark’s reaction. In all the battles they had seen, with either humans or demihumans, the halfling had always displayed crafty survival instincts, but he had never shown any fear. Until now. The dark form on the ridge had not moved since he—or it—had stopped to watch them. Yet there appeared to be movement within the form. Watching from a distance, they could not make out any facial features or other details, if indeed there was a face, but like a reflection cast upon a pond that rippled when a stone was tossed into the water, the outline of the dark figure on the ridge appeared to shift, as if unable to retain solid form for more than a moment or two.

“He is the Usurper,” Futhark said, averting his gaze from the dark form on the ridge. “Many years ago, he first appeared in our world, no one knew from where, and wherever he rode, the green plants withered, the animals died for lack of forage, the numbing cold spread and the gray mist followed. Hence the appellation he was given, the Cold Rider. As to what manner of creature he may be, I cannot say. I know only that where he passed, our world was blighted until it became the dismal place you see about you now.”

“Is he dangerous to us?” asked Aedan. “However powerful a creature he may be, surely he would not attack an army.”

“The Cold Rider has never been known to attack directly,” replied Futhark. “It is enough merely to see him. Those who have the misfortune to lay eyes upon that evil apparition soon experience some awful tragedy, and many do not live to tell the tale. He is a harbinger of doom, a manifestation of evil itself. We must make haste to get away from here, my lord, before some evil fate befalls us.”

“It all sounds like a lot of superstitious nonsense to me,” Lord Korven said scornfully. “Such things as weather and the climate change purely of their own accord, and not because some ghost decrees it so. For all we know, that shape upon the ridge is nothing more than swamp gas or some strange trick of the light.”

“With respect, my lord, there is much about the Shadow World that you have yet to learn, despite your travels here,” said Futhark. His voice had a hollow ring to it. He was clearly frightened. “Before the Cold Rider came, this was a world of sunlight and bountiful beauty. Brightly colored birds sang in the trees; the meadows bloomed vividly with wildflowers in profusion; faeries flitted in the forest clearings like playful fireflies; and there was game aplenty. Now look about you and tell me what you see.

“And there is much here that, thankfully, we have not yet seen or experienced. Wherever that ghastly apparition rides, the undead are sure to follow. Monsters such as your world has never seen are presaged by his appearance. Whether he commands them or they simply follow in his wake, no one can say, but it is not for nothing that my people have fled this world for yours and only return here for brief periods, and often at great risk.”

“Why come at all then, if this Cold Rider poses such a danger?” asked Lord Korven, still skeptical of the halfling’s claims.

“Why have you come?” Futhark countered. “Sometimes necessity entails acceptance of great risk. Shadow-walking is something only we halflings can do, and in the case of my scouts and myself, we are being well paid for the risks we take. This world is wide, and there is only one Cold Rider. The odds against encountering him are great, but this time, they have turned against us. If we do not leave this place as soon as possible, there is no telling what may happen, but I fear we may not even live to regret it.”

Michael shook his head. “If you were to create a portal back into our own world now, it would bring us out well within the borders of the Spiderfell. We could easily get lost there, and I have no wish to make my weary troops do battle with the Spider’s minions. We must go on, at least until we can emerge in Diemed.”

“As you wish, my lord,” Futhark agreed reluctantly. “But I would strongly advise that we make all haste and do not camp for the night. I know the troops are tired, but they can rest far better and more safely once we have reached Diemed than they shall here.”

Michael pursed his lips, considering the halfling’s suggestion. “I am loath to push the men more than necessary. They have already marched a long way after a failed campaign in which they lost many of their comrades.” He fell silent for a moment, and Aedan could tell that those losses weighed heavily upon the emperor. “But if you feel strongly about the matter, we shall press on.”

“I do, my lord,” the halfling guide replied. “The appearance of the Cold Rider bodes us ill, very ill, indeed, and I shall not rest easy until we are well quit of this place.”

Michael nodded. “So be it, then. We shall press on. Inform the men. Tell them we shall march tonight and make camp in Diemed tomorrow, where they shall have two days to take their ease. I am anxious to reach home, but that is the very least that I can do for them. Haelyn knows, they all deserve a rest.”

“Look,” Sylvanna said, glancing back at the ridge. “He’s gone.”

They turned back to the ridge. The shadowy horseman had disappeared, as if he were never there.

“An ill omen,” Futhark grumbled. “An ill omen, indeed.”

Night within the Shadow World was not much different from night in the world of daylight, at least insofar as appearances were concerned. It was the days that were different. During the day, the sun never showed itself in the world of shadow. It was like a heavily overcast and foggy day back in the world of light, with gray skies and mist perpetually floating just above the ground. At night, however, with the twisted trees and scrubby undergrowth camouflaged by darkness, one could almost think that it was any other place in Cerilia, save for the ghostly silence, occasionally broken by the cry of some … thing … out in the darkness. And despite having journeyed through the Shadow World on previous occasions, Aedan could never quite grow accustomed to those sounds. Or to the deathly silence when they ceased. No crickets, no night birds … nothing. He did not know which was worse.

On previous expeditions through the Shadow World, they had always made camp at night, for the curious suspension of time in this unearthly place meant that there was no reason to conduct forced marches through the night. They could remain within the Shadow World for days or even weeks, and when they came back out into the world of light, only minutes or hours would have passed. However, that was no reason to tarry. There were too many dangers in the Shadow World for that, and the longer they remained there, the more they risked.

When they made camp in the Shadow World, they kept bright fires burning and posted sentries around the perimeter of the camp, more than they would have in their world. And in the Shadow World, there was never any temptation for sentries to sleep on the watch. While the others warriors slept—always very lightly—the sentries on duty would remain wide awake, eyes always scanning the darkness just beyond the camp perimeter. These were lessons they had learned the hard way.

Once, Aedan recalled, during their first excursion into the Shadow World, a sentry had fallen asleep on watch. The others had been alerted by his frenzied screaming. The nearest sentries to his post were merely a score of yards away, but by the time they reached his picket, there was no sign of him. They never found him. He had simply disappeared without a trace, dragged off somewhere into the darkness. No one knew by what. After that, there were never fewer than three sentries at any one picket, and the memory of what happened to that poor soul who had disappeared kept a fine edge on their alertness. No one ever fell asleep at his post again.

This time, however, the Army of Anuire, the famous Ghost Rangers of Emperor Roele, did not make camp. They kept marching through the night, lighting their way with torches. They would be visible for miles in the darkness, but that was less cause for concern than the inability to see whatever was around them. A good number of them had seen the ominous figure of the horseman on the ridge, and it had not taken long before word of the Cold Rider spread throughout the ranks. Many of the troops had become friendly with the halflings that marched with them, and by nightfall, there wasn’t one of them who did not know what the Cold Rider represented. Aedan supposed there was nothing that could have been done about that. Though it was cause for unrest among the troops, at the same time, if would keep them on their toes. With men that were as tired and dispirited as they were, that was perhaps only for the best. They could not afford to relax their vigilance until they had passed back through the portal and reached Diemed.

They kept moving at a steady pace, with the emperor and his retinue leading the formation on their mounts, Aedan bearing Michael’s standard, and Sylvanna riding by his side just a few yards behind them. The advance guard had been strengthened and pulled back, so that they were only a short distance in front of the main body, their torches clearly visible. The archers marched with arrows nocked in their drawn crossbows, and almost every man had his hand upon his sword hilt. The tension in the air was palpable.

How much farther? Aedan could not be sure. He did not know this territory as well as did the halfling scouts, but by the first gray light of morning—if one could truly call it light—he felt they should have covered enough distance to be able to emerge just beyond the borders of the Spiderfell. Morning could not come soon enough.

As he rode at a slow walk, Aedan kept thinking about the apparition they had seen upon the ridge. Just who or what was the Cold Rider? Could he be human, demihuman, or something else entirely? How much of what the halfling said was literally true and how much was merely his belief?

Halflings were a strange lot. Over the past eight years, Aedan had come to know the halflings who marched with them, but there was still a great deal about them that he did not fully understand. Their beliefs, for one thing. They swore by the gods—or at least Futhark and his scouts did—but Aedan had never seen halflings attend services at any of the temples. For that matter, there were many humans who never took part in religious services, but still had faith in the gods. With the natural tendency that halflings had to assimilate themselves into whatever culture was predominant in the places where they lived, it was difficult to tell what they really believed. And the halflings never spoke about it.

They were willing to answer certain questions about themselves, but only to a point. They had a way of turning aside unwanted questions by speaking in circles, appearing to give replies when in fact they were engaged in loquacious obfuscation. Talking to a halfling could sometimes be like trying to catch a will-o’-the-wisp, thought Aedan. They seemed outgoing enough and friendly, but there was still much that they kept to themselves.

For all the times that Futhark had guided them on expeditions through the Shadow Word, this was the first time he had ever made mention of the Cold Rider, and if they had not seen him—or it—Aedan was sure Futhark would not have volunteered the information.

If he was so afraid of this mysterious apparition, why keep coming back to this place? Why agree to guide them through the Shadow World? Why not simply stay in Cerilia, in the comparative safety of the world of daylight, and never return to this place that he and his people fled? Was it truly only a question of money, or necessity, as Futhark had put it? Halflings needed to live, like anybody else, but there were many halflings—the vast majority of them, so far as Aedan knew—who had found vocations for themselves as craftsmen, traders, merchants or entertainers in Cerilia and never went back to the world from which they had come. What made Futhark and his scouts so different?

Of course, they were paid extremely well. But could that have been enough? If the Cold Rider filled them with such fear that they had fled their world, why return and risk encountering him? Aedan tried to put himself in Futhark’s place as he considered possibilities, the way his father taught him. Suppose something had made him flee his own world, the home that he had always known? Might there still not be, despite the dangers, a desire to go back? Perhaps. He could not imagine leaving Anuire permanently. It was the place of his birth, the city where he had grown up. He knew every street and alleyway like the back of his own hand. It would be difficult to leave, never to return. Always, he felt certain, there would be a pull back to his own homeland—and if something had happened to blight Anuire the way this world had been blighted, he had no doubt he would nurture a desire to see it returned to the way it once had been.

Here he was now, out of time, riding through a cold and misty world that always seemed more nightmare than reality, and he felt a desperate longing to be back in his own world, on familiar ground. Might not, then, the halflings feel the same?

Back home, he would visit the grave of his father every time he returned from a campaign or felt the weight of his responsibilities pulling him down. He would go early in the morning, when the cemetery was still deserted, and sit down on the ground beside the mound of earth that marked his father’s resting place, and he would speak to him, unburdening himself and asking for advice and guidance. It was not the same, of course, as when his father had still been alive, though Aedan liked to think somewhere in the heavens his father could still hear him and send him strength and wisdom. He took great comfort in it. Perhaps it was like that for Futhark and the other halflings who periodically returned to the world from which they fled. It was no longer the same, but they still took some comfort in returning.

“Of all the humans I have ever known,” Sylvanna said, breaking into his thoughts, “your silences speak loudest.”

Aedan looked at her and smiled wanly. “Forgive me. I am not being a very good traveling companion on this journey.”

“That was not what I meant,” she said as she rode beside him. “I was not complaining. I was merely remarking on the fact that I can always tell when you are troubled.”

“Have I become so obvious? That is a bad trait in an imperial minister. I shall have to correct it.”

“We shall make it back; don’t worry.”

“It is my job to worry. The emperor has neither time nor the inclination. I must do his worrying for him.”

“And who worries for you?”

“I worry for us both. It can be quite exhausting.”

“If you like, I can worry for you. Then that would relieve you of at least some of your burden.”

He glanced at her and saw that she was smiling. He grinned despite himself. “You know, sometimes I think you’re actually beginning to act human.”

She sniffed disdainfully “Well, you don’t have to be insulting.”

The screams were sudden and terrible. They cut through the stillness of the night, coming from behind them, at the rear of the troop formation. Aedan and Sylvanna wheeled their horses simultaneously, and Sylvanna’s sword sang free of its scabbard. The men in the ranks immediately behind them stopped and without hesitation instantly turned to either side, prepared to meet anything that might come up on their flanks. Their battle-seasoned instincts served them well, thought Aedan, and it was a good thing too, as became frighteningly apparent within moments.

In the darkness, Aedan could not see what was happening back at the rear of the formation, but he could see the torches there bobbing wildly and erratically, some falling to the ground as the men dropped them to engage whatever was attacking … or else fell to the ground themselves. But before Aedan could do anything, he heard rapid hoofbeats coming up behind him and an instant later saw the emperor gallop past, sword in hand, heading full speed toward the rear of the formation.

“Sire, wait!” Aedan called out, but Michael was already disappearing into the darkness. He had moved so quickly that not even Lord Korven or any of his retinue riding at the front of the formation had time to react. Aedan swore. “Go after him, you fools!” he shouted, setting spurs to his own horse.

Sylvanna was right behind him as they set off at a gallop in the emperor’s wake. And it was then that Aedan heard a sound that made his blood run cold. An unearthly, ululating, keening sound that was half moan, half cry. He had heard it once before, on a previous expedition through the Shadow World, and that time over a hundred men had died.

It was the cry of the undead.

“Aedan! Watch your flank!” Sylvanna called out from behind him as they galloped headlong after Michael. Aedan glanced to his left, since the troops were on his right, and he saw the walking corpses coming, shambling through the twisted trees like drunken specters.

Some of them were wearing battle dress … or what remained of it. Rusting armor that squeaked and scraped as they moved; battered helms, some of which were cut almost clean through where a sword had split the skull; rotting tunics beneath chain mail encrusted with rust and covered with spiderwebs; greaves covered with dirt and mud; buckled shields with faded devices on them; tattered remnants of leather shoes and flapping breeches that were little more than rags. Others wore the rotting garb of peasants, through which decayed flesh and age-browned bones were clearly visible. Decomposing faces stared at him with eyeless sockets in which worms and maggots writhed. And as if the sight of them alone were not bad enough, every one of the horrific things was armed. Those that did not bear swords or spears carried pitchforks, axes, or makeshift clubs.

They had flanked the army, perhaps even surrounded it, Aedan didn’t know, but the first attack came on the rear of their formation. Now the walking dead were pouring out of the woods on both sides of the trail. One of them came out in front of Aedan, brandishing a spear. Without slowing, Aedan raised his sword and brought it down as he passed, cutting the shambling corpse’s arm off at the shoulder. It fell writhing to the ground, but still the creature clutched at his stirrup as he went by. Aedan’s horse dragged it along for several yards before Aedan managed to kick the damned thing loose.

The army didn’t panic. That would have cost them their lives, and they all knew it. Tired as they were, they kept formation and fought the undead as they advanced. The wretched creatures moved slowly, but what they lacked in speed they made up for in relentlessness. And they could not be killed, for they were already dead. The only way to fight them was to dismember them completely, and even then they kept on coming, dragging themselves along the ground like snails. Blades rose and fell repeatedly, and tired as the troops were, they realized they could not pause in their grim work even for an instant. They had faced undead before, though not this many, and a lot of them had not survived to tell the tale.

Aedan saw the emperor. He had ridden to the rear of the formation, where the first attack occurred, and he was rallying the troops, whose formation had been broken up by the initial attack. He called out orders to the men as he laid about him with his blade, turning his horse this way and that to meet the shambling figures that came at him from all sides.

For a moment, Aedan had a memory from childhood leap unbidden to his brain. He recalled how he had tried to frighten young Prince Michael with lurid and horrifying stories of the Shadow World, spitefully hoping to give him nightmares like the ones he’d had when he was younger. And though Michael had dreamed of the Shadow World after being told those tales just before his bedtime, unlike Aedan, in his dreams, the prince had fearlessly fought the monsters and defeated them. Now, ironically and frighteningly, it was happening in real life.

And just as young Prince Michael had shown absolutely no fear in his childhood dreams, the adult emperor displayed none now. And that was precisely what alarmed Aedan as he saw him plunging his mount into the steadily advancing ranks of the undead.

Fear was a function of self-preservation, but it was an emotional response that was utterly lacking in the emperor. Courage, heightened strength and senses, regeneration, and protection from evil were all among his attributes, blood abilities that he had manifested after he had passed through puberty, and since his blood powers stemmed directly from the line of Anduiras, Michael possessed more of them than most. His blood totem was the lion, and like that noble beast, Michael possessed unrelenting courage and fearsome savagery in battle. However, his blood abilities did not render him invulnerable, though he often acted as if they did. And as Aedan saw him plowing like a juggernaut into the advancing ranks of the undead attacking the rear column of the army, his stomach tightened and fear-induced adrenalin hammered through his system.

As young Ghieste, Lord Korven, Viscount Alam, and the rest of Michael’s mounted retinue came galloping up behind Aedan and Sylvanna, Aedan raised his sword above his head and cried out, “To the emperor!”

Without hesitation, they followed him, cutting their way through the staggering, animated corpses to Michael’s side. However foolhardy Michael’s heroics may have been, thought Aedan, they had galvanized the troops. On seeing him riding to join in their defense, they rallied, and their battle cry of “Roele! Roele!” went up, echoing through the darkness. Most of the torches had been flung to the ground, since the troops could not fight and hold them at the same time. Some of them had ignited the undergrowth, which was slow to burn because of the misty damp, but it nevertheless gave Aedan an idea.

“Torch the trees!” he cried out repeatedly as he laid about him with his sword, and in moments, men not in the forefront of the fighting began throwing their torches into the woods and snatching up those which had been dropped and tossing them, as well.

With so many torches soaked in pitch flung into the woods and undergrowth, the flames began to spread despite the dampness, and it gave them light by which to see. At the same time, it provided an unexpected bonus. The undead burned.

With all their bodily fluids long since dried up, the corpses caught fire like kindling. Despite that, they kept on coming, impervious to pain, burning as they walked. Men hacked away at flaming bodies that advanced upon them, but inevitably, the corpses succumbed to the fire and collapsed to the ground.

However, they were not the only ones who fell. Aedan saw many bodies lying on the ground, and among the burning or dismembered and still writhing corpses of the undead were many of the troops. Some were badly wounded, others had been slain, and dismembered corpses gnawed at many of them. Those still alive but too injured to move screamed horribly as the flames reached them, but there was nothing to be done. There was no time or opportunity to pull them back to safety, for there was no safe ground anywhere. The formation of the troops broke up into a wild melee. The undead kept pressing forward, rank upon rank, and the soldiers of the Army of Anuire hacked away at them like men possessed.

Aedan fought his way to Michael’s side, with Sylvanna and the others close behind him. They tried to form a protective ring about the emperor, but Michael was not cooperating. He did not remain still for an instant, turning his horse this way and that as the animal reared and plunged through the grisly ranks as flame and smoke rose all around them. Then Aedan felt a strong wind come up behind him, and as he felt it plucking at his clothes, he heard Gylvain’s voice within his mind.

“Futhark has opened a portal ahead,” he said. “The front ranks are passing through. Get the emperor and bring him back to the front while the rearguard fights a holding action!”

The wind passed on, circling the fighting, fanning the flames away from the main body of the troops and blowing them back at the undead.

“Sire!” Aedan cried out. “We have a portal! Hurry, Sire, come quickly!”

“Not until the troops are through!” Michael shouted back.

“Sire! For Haelyn’s sake, come on!”

A number of the men around them heard the exchange and shouted out for Michael to go back. Within moments, the cry was taken up in unison by everyone around them until the firelit night reverberated with the shouts.

“Roele back! Roele back!”

But before he could respond to the entreaties of his troops, disaster struck. As Aedan watched, horrified, Michael’s horse reared up, striking out at several advancing corpses with its hooves, and one of them plunged a spear into the animal’s belly. The horse gave out a shrill, whinnying cry of pain and went down hard. Michael tumbled from the saddle.

“No!” Aedan shouted, urging his mount forward, but several walking corpses blocked his way. He chopped at them frantically with his blade, trying to reach the emperor. The troops fighting closest to him saw it too, and the men surged forward, heedless of their own safety as they tried to reach him. But already Michael was encircled by at least a dozen of the undead, and Aedan could catch no glimpse of him as he desperately fought to reach him.

Suddenly, one of the undead near Michael was brought down, and then another literally went flying, hurled through the air with astonishing force. Another one went down, and another, and bodies were flying everywhere. Aedan reached Michael, who like a dervish lay about him with his blade, eyes wide, lips pulled back in a grimace of bestial rage, blood pouring from several wounds. He had unleashed his blood power of divine wrath, and Aedan knew there could be no reasoning with him till it was over.

It was beyond control, and in this godlike state of fearsome rage and bloodlust, Michael would smite friend and foe alike. The episode would not last long, for it called upon all the resources of the body, and when it had passed, it would leave him so exhausted he could barely move. But while he was caught in the grip of this overwhelming power, Michael was like an indiscriminate juggernaut of death, and Aedan did not dare approach him.

“Stay back!” he shouted to Sylvanna as she started to the emperor’s aid. She glanced at him, startled, then realized what had occurred when she saw Michael laying waste to the undead around him, snarling and growling like a cornered animal, oblivious of his wounds.

Among all the powers that had passed down to the blooded from the old gods, divine wrath was the rarest and most dangerous, for once it was unleashed, there was no stopping it until it ran its course. Those few who had it used it only as a last resort, and only in the most dire extremities because it was a power that possessed its wielder absolutely, releasing the feral beast within and magnifying it many times. It turned a human into a raging berserker incapable of rational thought or self-control, bent only on mayhem and survival.

Blood powers were not a certain thing. It was known which hereditary blood abilities ran within each line, but there was no way of predicting which ones would be inherited by any given offspring. The potential for all the blood abilities that ran within the line was there, but some remained latent, to be passed on and perhaps manifested by the succeeding generation. Some manifested themselves shortly after puberty, while others could remain latent for years, dormant until they suddenly manifested without warning.

In most cases, this was no cause for concern, as the majority of blood abilities could manifest themselves without risk to others. Heightened senses could suddenly appear, or animal affinity reveal itself through communication with a totem beast, or iron will appear, or the power to heal. Such abilities did not expose anyone to danger. But others, such as the power to raise elementals or manifest divine wrath, or—in the case of those bloodlines that came down from the evil Azrai—commute decay through touch, could cause injury or death.

The first time Michael had released his divine wrath in battle, he had done so unintentionally. He was sixteen then, and the army had been attacked by gnolls one night after it made camp. The feral demihumans, a species that appeared to be part man, part wolf, attacked them while they slept, butchering the sentries so quickly and efficiently that they never knew what hit them. The only warning that the sleeping army had were the screams of the first victims.

Michael had come out of his tent, bearing his sword, and was immediately attacked. And that was when it had happened. Suddenly, it was as if he had become a gnoll himself in all but physical appearance. Though he was just sixteen, several years of campaigning had put plenty of lean muscle on his frame. Still, Aedan was not prepared for what he saw that night.

Michael had suddenly stopped being Michael and instead became some demonic force, unstoppable and unrelenting. His features had become almost unrecognizable as they twisted themselves into a mask of bestial savagery, and the sounds that came from his throat were growls that were not even remotely human. He killed every one of the creatures that came at him. Afterward, the soldiers who had seen it spread the word, and Michael’s reputation grew. They all knew what it was. Many of them were blooded themselves, though in the entire army, no one else possessed that power. It was known to run only in the purest bloodlines of Anduiras, Basaia, and Masela, but only a few of the blooded ever manifested it. Aedan knew of only one other blooded noble who was known to have it—Arwyn of Boeruine.

This time, the soldiers recognized the state their emperor was in and did their best to move close enough to give him protection while at the same time keeping well out of his reach. In his state he would attack them as well if they got close enough. Aedan’s problem, aside from trying to survive himself, was that with Michael in this state, there was no way he could get him to the portal Futhark had opened back into their own world. He had no choice but to wait until the wrath had run its course, and then whisk Michael away. Once the wrath had faded, Michael would be helpless.

There was no time to pay attention to it, but with a quick glance behind him, Aedan saw that the troops had been withdrawing gradually as the battle had progressed. The tide of it had carried them forward—backward the way Aedan was facing as he fought in the rearguard—toward the portal the half-ling guide had opened for them. Ranks had formed on either side of it, protecting the opening as those in the middle moved through, and by now, most of the troops had already passed into it. They had formed into an inverted V formation, with the point of the opening of the V leading directly through the portal. Aedan was close enough to see it now.

All around them, the misshapen trees and scrubby undergrowth were in flames, fanned by Gylvain’s wind as he circled round and round, keeping the fire burning while at the same time blowing the flames away from the troops and toward the undead attackers. There were fewer of them than there were before, and the ground was littered with dismembered, flaming body parts that writhed and jerked. The portal behind them appeared as a swirling, opaque opening in the air, outlined by smoke and flame. As the troops poured through, only a few warriors remained now, along with the emperor’s mounted retinue, which would not leave without Michael. Aedan could not tell how much time had passed, but the sky was beginning to turn gray. The fire had spread outward from the battle, so that a wide swathe of forest was burning all around them, lighting up the area for a considerable distance and sending clouds of smoke into the air. As Aedan fought, with Sylvanna at his side, he glanced toward Michael every chance he got, when there was a moment’s respite.

The emperor’s movements were slowing now, the wrath fading. He had struck down all of his opponents and, in normal battle, his sword would have been red with blood. However, the undead had no blood, and all their blades had remained clean. Aedan’s arm was tired from slashing and hacking for what seemed like hours. The muscles in his shoulder burned with exertion, and he was breathing heavily. But though the Anuirean numbers dwindled rapidly as the troops passed through the portal, so did those of the undead, falling aflame. Aedan cleaved one burning attacker from head to waist with a powerful stroke of his heavy blade, and the force of the blow almost made him fall from his saddle. Now there were no more of them within close reach, and he quickly turned back toward the emperor.

Michael had disposed of the last of his opponents, and though some still advanced through the trees, staggering on even though their bodies were in flames, there were none within reach of him. He saw Michael slump, supporting himself with his sword, and knew the wrath had passed. At once, he spurred his tired mount and rode to Michael’s side.

“Sire! Sire, give me your hand, quickly!”

Looking dazed, Michael gazed at him dully, but he held out his hand. Aedan took his right foot from the stirrup so that Michael could use it to get up behind him. He pulled him up onto his mount and felt Michael slump against his back as he got on. He was too weary even to sheathe his blade. His left arm went around him, and Aedan sheathed his own blade, then grasped Michael’s wrist to hold him steady. Immediately, he wheeled his horse and spurred it to a gallop, heading for the portal.

“Come on!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Pull back! We’re going through!”

The others needed no encouragement. They turned and followed Aedan and the emperor, the mounted retinue pausing only long enough to allow the foot soldiers to run before them. As they passed through the portal, the ranks guarding its entrance collapsed their V formation and went through after them. The last ones shouted to Futhark, and the halfling raised his arms to close the portal behind them.

“Wait!” Aedan shouted. “Gylvain!”

He felt a breeze ruffle his cloak, then a familiar, lilting voice spoke in his mind. “I’m here.”

“All right!” shouted Aedan. “Go on, close it!”

Three more flaming corpses staggered through the portal, and the men fell on them, hacking them to pieces until there were nothing but burning body parts upon the ground.

As Aedan watched the portal close, the air folding in upon itself in surreality, the glow of the flames beyond it disappeared from view, and only the gray light of dawn remained. In fact, he thought, the troops guarding the portal had not been the only ones left on the other side. There had been many wounded they had been forced to leave behind. Aedan hoped the fire had gotten to the poor devils. Burning to death was an awful way to go, but there were some things that were worse.

He heaved a long and deep sigh of relief, then looked around and realized his relief was much too premature. As the sun began to rise, he saw the thick pine forest all around them and the heavy underbrush and realized they had not reached the safety of the open plains of Diemed.

They were in the Spiderfell.

* * * * *

“He’s up to something, by Haelyn, I can smell it!” said Arwyn of Boeruine, smashing his fist down on the table and upsetting his goblet. The servants rushed to mop up the spilled mead, right the heavy silver goblet, and refill it. “Why has there been no word from any of our scouts or informants?”

“There has been word, my lord,” replied Baron Derwyn calmly. He knew that when his father was in one of his surly moods, keeping a calm temper and demeanor was advisable. “Our spies reported that the emperor—”

“The Pretender, you mean,” his father interrupted, scowling.

“Indeed,” said Derwyn, agreeing indirectly, though he still could bring himself to use that detestable term. He knew the truth and would not be a hypocrite, not for his father’s sake or anyone’s. “They have reported that Michael left Anuire with his army over a week ago, but there has been no word of him since. And our scouts along the borders have reported seeing no signs of any advancing troops.”

Arwyn gritted his teeth and shook his head. “They’ve gone into the blasted Shadow World again,” he said. “The question is, where will they come out? And when?” He smashed his fist down on the table once again, once more spilling his mead. The servants mopped it up again and once again refilled his goblet. Arwyn paid no attention to them.

“Our garrisons along the border are on full alert,” said Derwyn. “And advance parties of rangers have been sent out from Taeghas, Brosengae, and Talinie, in addition to our own complement, which departed to scout the border between our lands and Alamie. There is no way they can approach unseen.”

“Unless he figures out some way to come out of the Shadow World well within our borders,” Arwyn said. “Perhaps even on the plain outside Seaharrow, itself.”

Derwyn frowned. “I thought you said that was not possible, that they needed to employ a portal in the vicinity of Thurazor or the Five Peaks region, where the ley lines come in confluence.”

Arwyn nodded, “Yes, and for a long time, I had thought so, too. However, our halfling scouts tell me that it is possible to create a portal where there is no confluence of ley lines, though it entails great risk and cannot be done reliably.”

“How?” asked Derwyn.

“How in bloody bollocks should I know how?” his father replied irritably. “You try to get one of those miserable knee-whackers to explain anything and all that happens is you get lost in word salad. They’ll answer amenably enough, but half of what they say makes no bloody sense at all! The point is, it can be done, but there is no guarantee they will be able to open up a portal when they want to, or come out where they want to.”

Derwyn shrugged. “Then it amounts to the same thing, does it not? They cannot do it.”

“But they can try,” said Arwyn. “And however slim, the possibility exists that they just might succeed, despite the risks.”

Derwyn leaned back in his chair, frowning thoughtfully. Yes, he thought, that was just the sort of thing Michael would do. The risk factor, no matter how significant, never seemed to bother him. It had been that way when they had played war games as children, and it was the same way now, when they made war in earnest.

As if echoing his thoughts, his father said, “I wouldn’t put it past that miserable Pretender to attempt just such a thing.”

Derwyn gave him a quick glance. His father had repeated the old lie so often, perhaps he actually believed it now. It was as if he thought that if he said it often enough, it would become the truth.

At first, his father had insisted that a strong hand had to assume the regency when Prince Michael was abducted by a goblin raiding party and taken back to Thurazor. He had appointed himself regent and vowed vengeance on the perpetrators of the hateful crime, but after Lord Tieran had outfoxed him by fleeing with the empress and her daughters while his father made at least a token effort—more of a pretence, really—at leading a rescue party into the Aelvinnwode, the story had begun to change.

As soon as he found out that Lord Tieran had absconded with the empress, his father had flown into a wild rage, smashing furniture and kicking the servants. Then after he’d calmed down, he had sent out dispatch riders across the empire to report that Prince Michael’s remains had been discovered by his rescue party in the Aelvinnwode. What his knights, who had been on that rescue party along with Derwyn, thought of this was anybody’s guess. Needless to say, they had never seen any remains, because the entire thing had been a fabrication, but they knew better than to contradict their lord. Derwyn’s father had not seen fit to mention Aedan Dosiere in his dispatches, as he had not considered him important, which was fortunate for him, as it would have made later permutations of the story somewhat awkward.

After he made his formal alliance with Gorvanak, the goblin prince of Thurazor, his father changed the story once more. It would hardly do to vow vengeance on Prince Michael’s murderers and then enter an alliance with them, so the goblins of Thurazor could not bear the blame. It was bandits who had killed the prince, renegade brigands from the Five Peaks region, as had been revealed by certain evidence the goblins had turned over to Lord Arwyn. Precisely what the nature of this “evidence” was had never been made clear. But that was not the final version of the story, either.

When Aedan and Michael had appeared back in Anuire, that had to be accounted for somehow, so Michael was accused of being an imposter, a look-alike or some boy whose appearance had been changed by elven magic so that he would resemble the prince. Since Aedan had never been mentioned in the original dispatch, that made the next variation easier. Aedan Dosiere, whose duty it had been to protect Prince Michael, was branded a coward who had fled his liege lord’s side when the bandits had attacked, and to safeguard his own claim to power and the reputation of his son, Lord Tieran had cooked up the outrageous tale that the two boys had been rescued by the elves. The boy who called himself Prince Michael was a damnable imposter, a pretender, a tool to enable Lord Tieran to justify his claim to power. And then, of course, after Lord Tieran died, the story needed to be modified once more, and the final version had it that this “Michael the Pretender” had merely assumed Lord Tieran’s place, following his plans, with “hidden interests” behind him to support his claim to the Iron Throne. Exactly who or what these “hidden interests” were was never specified, but it was broadly hinted that the elves, those old enemies of humankind, were the ones behind it all.

Derwyn never thought people would believe any of these stories, but many did. Repeat something often enough and loud enough, and people eventually came to accept it. Or at least some people. And now it appeared as if his father had managed to convince himself, as well.

“With my own eyes, I saw the poor boy’s broken body …” was usually more or less how the refrain went whenever Arwyn told the story, with subtle variations, depending on his audience. And now he apparently believed it, too. Derwyn had no idea what to make of that, but he knew better than to contradict him.

He had been there. He knew that no bodies had ever been found, neither Michael’s nor Aedan’s nor anybody else’s. They had simply ridden out across the fields, headed down several forest trails without even going in very far, and then returned. It had all amounted to nothing more than exercising the horses. But none of the men who had gone out on that so-called “rescue party” ever talked about it, not even among themselves, so far as Derwyn knew. The archduke was the man who buttered their bread, and they all knew it.

Derwyn didn’t like it. Not one bit. His father had always seen to it that he was trained properly and hard so that he could take his place one day and, to that end, as Derwyn got older, he eventually became his father’s second-in-command. He had led troops in the field against Michael, the rightful emperor, his childhood friend. He had seen him several times, once fairly close, and had recognized both him and Aedan. Once, in one of the many battles over the years that had failed to resolve anything, they had almost crossed swords. The two armies had clashed, and it became a huge melee, dust raised like a cloud by churning hooves and feet, and it had been one of those occasions when suddenly, for a moment, one found himself in a small island of calm in the midst of a pitched battle. And there was Michael, mounted on his war-horse.

Derwyn had recognized the imperial symbol of Roele on his shield and tabard, as Michael had recognized the eagle of Boeruine on his. Derwyn had lifted his visor and Michael had done the same. For a moment, they had simply looked at one another, and then the tide of battle forced them apart. But in that one moment, Derwyn had seen the prince, the boy he had remembered. He had grown older, and his hair was longer, and a dark beard was starting to come in, but he had recognized his childhood friend. If he had ever harbored doubts about his true identity—and he had not—they would have been dispelled right there and then. It was Michael. No question about it. And the expression on his face had been one of sadness … and disappointment.

Derwyn felt torn. He was his father’s son, and even if he had not loved his father, which he did, despite his harshness, he would have owed him a son’s obedience. And the Duchy of Boeruine was his birthright. He had to fight to protect it. But to protect it from the rightful emperor, by whose ancestors’ grace they had the holding? That was treason. Yet he was caught in a situation not of his own choosing, in circumstances he could not control. Be loyal to his father, and he would be a traitor to the emperor. Or else loyal to the emperor and a traitor to his father. Damned for a dishonored traitor either way.

Derwyn was tired of the civil war, though no one save the common people called it that. Michael called it a rebellion, which Derwyn supposed it was, in fact. His father called Michael a usurper and a pretender and called it a struggle against tyranny and referred to the forces under his command as “freedom fighters.” He would never admit to the truth, that in his bid for power, he had underestimated Tieran. Though they had never spoken about it directly, Derwyn realized … now … what his father had intended.

Back when it all started, eight years ago at Summer Court, he had not really understood any of it. But now that he was older, looking back, he recalled how solicitous his father had been toward the empress, how he had tried to ingratiate himself to her, to charm her, taking every opportunity to do her some little service and express his sympathy for all she had been going through. He recalled being puzzled by his father’s manner toward the empress. He had not acted that way with anyone else, not even Derwyn’s departed mother. Back then, Derwyn had assumed his father was merely being a gracious host and doing his duty to the empress. Still, there had always been a tension in the manner of the empress when his father was around. Now, of course, Derwyn knew why.

His father had been trying to court her. Derwyn supposed he might have been able to excuse it if it had been love, but he knew his father did not love the empress, no more than he had loved his mother when she was still alive. Arwyn of Boeruine did not love women. He possessed them. What his father loved was power … and the fighting. That was where they differed. Arwyn of Boeruine loved war. His son was sick to death of it.

How things had changed since he and Michael were both children, Derwyn thought. He was only a few years older, but eight years of ceaseless campaigning had made a lot of difference. He had grown up hard and fast. He imagined Michael had, as well. That expression on his face when they had met on the field of battle that time had spoken volumes. They were no longer children who dressed up in toy suits of armor and played at war with wooden swords, thinking it was grand and glorious. They had learned the truth, that war was terrible and sickening and ate away at a man’s soul. So why, then, did his father love it so? What made him different? Derwyn couldn’t understand it.

They would never have thought that war was some noble and wonderful adventure if, as children, they had seen a battlefield in the aftermath of conflict. The ground torn up and littered with the bodies of the dead and dying, men with wounds so terrible that it made the gorge rise in one’s throat to look upon the sight, the moans and groans and screams of agony, the horrid buzzing of the flies attracted by the blood and the smell … the smell! Nothing could possibly be worse, thought Derwyn, than the putrid smell of war. When a man died in combat, his bowels let loose, and after a battle had been fought, the smell of human excrement and bodies rotting in the sun was so overpowering it brought tears to the eyes.

All those times when they had “killed” each other in their play and clutched at imaginary mortal wounds, each trying to outdo the other in the dramatic manner of his “death” … Would we have found death so dramatic, Derwyn thought, if we had actually seen it? He had seen more of it than he could ever have imagined, and there was nothing even remotely dramatic about it. Except, perhaps, its ugliness and pathos. And the soldiers were not the only ones to suffer.

Derwyn had seen the tormented faces of the families as they waited on the streets along the route of the army’s return, watching anxiously, fearfully, for their husbands and fathers and sons. He had heard the wails and screams of wives and mothers when the men that they were waiting for did not return, or came back maimed and crippled. He had heard and seen the crying of the children when they saw the broken bodies of their fathers or learned that they were never coming back. And each time he went through such a terrible experience, he felt as if another part of him had died. How could any man in his right mind love such an awful thing as war?

Perhaps, in some way, despite the horror of the reality, his father had somehow retained that part of boyhood that thought war was something grand. Or perhaps he had simply seen so much of it that its awful cost did not affect him anymore. Was that what he had to look forward to?

The first time they came back from a campaign, his “baptism of fire,” as his father had proudly referred to it, Derwyn had been so shattered by the experience that he fled to his room at the earliest opportunity, bolted the door, and fell down and wept. It was not himself he wept for, but those who had been killed or crippled, and he wept for their mothers, wives, and children, whose torment had struck him to the quick. But over the years, each time it became a little easier, affected him a little less. And that scared him more than anything else. He saw himself gradually turning into his father, who saw only the prize at the end of the journey, and not the toll one paid along the way. Perhaps that was why his mother had died brokenhearted. When the capacity to feel the pain of others had been burned out of a man, the capacity to love was gone as well.

Why did it have to be this way? Why was it not enough to be Archduke of Boeruine, one of the most powerful and respected nobles in the empire? Why did his father have to have it all? The people were sick of war. Derwyn saw it in their faces when the army was on the march. He had seen it in Boeruine, in Taeghas, in Brosengae and Avanil, in western Alamie; everywhere they went, he saw the faces of the common people watching from along the roadway, or in the fields where they worked as the army passed, or in the towns and villages they went through. It was their toil that supported the conflict, their crops taken, their livestock butchered, their fields trampled. And they probably didn’t care who won. They just wanted it to end. As did he.

“I grow weary of this waiting,” said his father in a surly tone. He picked up his goblet and drained it, setting it back down on the table so hard that Derwyn thought it would break. “If Gorvanak had done his part, we could have ended this cursed stalemate by now. He promised he would take Dhoesone, then cross its borders and attack Tuarhievel, striking from the west while the goblins of Markazor attacked the elven kingdom from the east. Trapped between the goblin forces, the elves could never have prevailed. Once Tuarhievel and Dhoesone had fallen, we could take Cariele and the goblins could march through Markazor on Elinie. Then the Pretender’s holdings would be encircled by lands that we control.

“It seemed a foolproof plan, but now Gorvanak complains that Zornak of Markazor refuses to cooperate. He fears to march in force upon Tuarhievel for fear that troops from Mhoried will move against his holdings while his forces are away. He will do it when Mhoried has been secured by us, but not before. And how in bloody blazes can I march on Mhoried when I have no idea where the Army of Anuire is? If I take Mhoried and they attack the garrisons at Brosengae again, or strike into our lands, we will be cut off.”

“We should have seized western Alamie when we had the chance and held it instead of marching on into Avanil,” said Derwyn. Then we would not have needed Zornak, and Avanil would have been flanked by territories we controlled.”

“Oh, so you’re a general now, are you, you young pup?” Arwyn said derisively. “If we had held western Alamie, it is we who would have been flanked, you fool. If we were cut off from the forest trails back into our lands, our forces would have been trapped between Duke Alam’s troops and the Army of Anuire. We would have had to fight every inch of our way back home, with nothing to be gained. No, Avanil is the key to victory. Take Avanil, and we have Ghieste. Then press south and push the Army of Anuire right into the Straits.”

“Only we cannot attack Avanil without marching through western Alamie once again,” Derwyn replied. “And each time we try, Michael counters by striking at the garrisons in Brosengae, preventing our forces there from crossing into Avanil to support our attack from the south. And the distance we must cover through western Alamie leaves him plenty of time to break off his assault upon the garrisons and march north to counter our advance while Avan holds his southern borders. It is a no-win situation. The Seamist Mountains, which secure Taeghas from attack by Avanil, also work against us by forcing us to march around them every time. If we could only find a way to march across them—”

“And lose half our forces to the ogres before we even meet the Army of Anuire? You tell me how we can avoid the ogres and get our supply train across those bloody mountains and maybe I will try it. Until then, leave the strategy to me.”

“I did not mean—”

“Who cares what you meant?” Arwyn drained another goblet. “That bastard Gorvanak won’t move against Tuarhievel unless I support him with troops from Talinie, but I need those troops to keep the Army of Anuire at bay. Especially when I don’t know where in blazes they are!”

“Perhaps if we used the Shadow World for transit, the way Michael does—”

“And risk having him outflank us while we are in there? No, we cannot afford to take that chance, and he knows it, damn his eyes. He has the advantage of mobility while we have the advantage of position. And neither of us can give up those advantages. He has proven himself an able commander, though of course, he has Korven to help him. Besides, each time he travels through the Shadow World, he sustains losses that cost us nothing. He cannot keep that up indefinitely.”

He’s kept it up for eight years, Derwyn thought, but said nothing out loud. What kind of fanatical loyalty does a man inspire who can keep leading men into the Shadow World? At least one major campaign each year, with sporadic fighting here and there throughout the winters, when the weather was too severe to mount campaigns. During the rainy season in the spring, the roads all turned to mud, the plains were soft and damp, and the bogs became more treacherous than ever. It was impossible to march in force with supply trains and siege engines. The catapults and rams sank into the ground up their axles. Summer and autumn were the times for war. So during the past eight years, how many times had Michael led troops through the Shadow World? A dozen? More? And how many of his fighters had he lost in there?

Intelligence about such things was not all that difficult to come by. When soldiers returned from a campaign, they always talked about it in the taverns. But they always exaggerated, too. Numbers could not be trusted. However, one could get a general sense of the campaign by comparing stories. Their spies reported that the Army of Anuire had fought undead within the Shadow World, monsters like albino spiders, only even larger, big enough in some cases to drag off a cow, if the stories were to be believed. They had encountered deadly vines that lay dormant and withered-looking on the ground till stepped on, then suddenly snaked around a man’s legs, rapidly climbing up his torso and sending root tendrils deep into the flesh to suck out the vital fluids. Cut the vine and the tendrils keep on growing underneath the skin, sending shockingly rapid new growth out through bodily orifices. Death came within hours, filled with excruciating agony. Derwyn shuddered at the thought. What would make men risk such things time and again?

His father could not command such loyalty. He seemed to know it, too. Arwyn ruled by fear. Michael ruled by inspiration. Perhaps his reasons for not taking troops into the Shadow World were strategic, as he claimed. Or perhaps he was secretly afraid his troops might mutiny if he attempted it. Indeed, thought Derwyn, it was a crazy thing to do. Maybe that was it. Even when they were boys, Derwyn had seen traces of that craziness in Michael, but at the same time, it was an infectious craziness. He could always get the other boys to do the most amazing things, things they never would have considered doing on their own. He was a natural-born leader, with a very special and powerful charisma.

Doubtless, it ran within his bloodline, as it did within Derwyn’s own, but Derwyn had never manifested it. His father had if to a degree, but Michael possessed in abundance the blood power known as divine aura. His troops would follow him anywhere. And if a man were to fall in battle, Michael would see to it that his family was provided for. It had to be a ruinous expense considering the losses his army had sustained over the years. If we tried it, Derwyn thought, it would quickly bankrupt our treasury, but Michael had the advantage there, as well. The Imperial Treasury had built up a considerable surplus over the many years of the empire’s history, and the Roeles had never been profligate spenders. Until now, of course, but the entire empire knew Michael dipped into his treasury to support his people, and so they contributed all the more willingly. Surely they were as tired of the war as the people in Boeruine or Brosengae or Taeghas, but they loved their emperor because he never forgot them. Still, there had to be a limit. If this war continued for much longer, it would break them both.

If it weren’t for the considerable resources of the guilds in Brosengae or the merchant shippers in Taeghas, thought Derwyn, our own war effort would have stalled at least five years ago, and the interest on those debts was mounting steadily. The only way they would ever be able to repay the debt would be to conquer Anuire, seize the empire, and then bleed the country dry. He didn’t want to think about the possibilities of what might happen if the guilds called in the loans. His father had the troops, of course, but the guilds had powerful alliances with other guilds throughout Cerilia. They could easily raise a mercenary army or else freeze Boeruine out altogether, isolating them and cutting off all trade. They could not afford to lose this ill-considered and seemingly interminable war. But then, Derwyn knew, as did his father, that if they did lose, they would undoubtedly be put to death, so there was little point in worrying about the debt. If they won, it would be paid off by taxing the people of the empire, who would certainly not love them for it.

Even his father was growing tired of the war. A man who had always lived for the thrill of leading troops into the field on campaigns, Arwyn was showing the strain of the long fighting. He brooded about it obsessively, spent long hours with his advisors and field commanders, planning his campaigns, constantly sending observers out to report on the conditions of the border garrisons, which he expanded and refortified each spring. He so often complained about the goblins’ failing to hold up their end of the alliance that Derwyn could recite most of his litanies by heart. How long could it possibly continue?

Given the continued support of the guilds, or some significant victories such as the seizure and garrisoning of western Alamie, the war could go on for years. It had taken over all their lives, and Derwyn was weary unto death of it.

Once, and only once, he had broached the subject of a negotiated peace. His father had flown into such a rage that Derwyn never brought it up again. Still, it seemed the only sane alternative. Assuming Michael would negotiate. And knowing Michael… well, he didn’t really know him anymore, did he? Michael seemed to truly care about his people. Perhaps he would be willing to negotiate a treaty wherein Boeruine, Taeghas, Talinie, and Brosengae could form their separate empire, but the Michael he remembered would not give up on anything. And so it went on. And on, and on, and on …

“Milord,” said Arwyn’s chamberlain, entering the hall, “the wizard waits without and craves an audience.”

“Send him in,” Arwyn said in a sullen tone, gesturing for the servants to clear away the plates. “Perhaps he has some good news to report. I could use some for a change.”

A moment later, Callador came in, walking slowly and supporting himself with his staff. Derwyn had no idea how old Callador was, but he looked ancient. As a child, Derwyn had been afraid of him because whenever he had misbehaved, his governess had threatened to have the wizard turn him into a newt or strike him dumb or make him “feel the fires.” He had never been entirely clear on what it meant to “feel the fires,” but it had certainly sounded unpleasant. Such impressions, gained at an early age, died hard, and Derwyn still felt uneasy in the wizard’s presence. He shifted in his chair uncomfortably as Callador approached.

He was as bald as an egg and extremely thin, so slender that it looked as if a stiff breeze would blow him over. He had no hair at all, neither beard nor eyebrows, the result of some illness he had contracted many years ago, which had also left his voice hoarse and gravelly. Perhaps he could have cured these conditions with magic or gone to a healer, but he didn’t seem to care. He was not very much concerned with his personal appearance, as evidenced by the threadbare robes he always wore, which were a faded brown wool, coarsely woven. Derwyn grimaced, hoping he would stop before he got too close. He smelled perpetually of garlic, and his body odor would have stunned an ox. His father, apparently sharing his olfactory sensitivities, spoke before the wizard got within a dozen yards of them.

“What news, Callador?” he said curtly.

The wizard stopped and stood, leaning on his long staff as he gazed up at the dais where they sat at the long table. “I bring word from our special friend at the Imperial Cairn,” he said.

Derwyn raised his eyebrows and glanced from the wizard to his father. “We have an informant at the palace of Anuire?” he asked with surprise.

Arwyn smiled. “It has been a fairly recent development,” he replied. “One that has taken some time and considerable trouble to arrange.”

“And you never told me?”

His father shrugged. “There was no pressing need for you to know.” Then, as if abruptly realizing he had indirectly spoken deprecatingly of his own son, he added, “Besides, I was not certain how reliable this source would be. Considering …” He let it hang. “Well, what is the report?”

“I was not given the report, milord,” Callador replied. “As usual, our friend desires to speak with you directly.” He glanced at Derwyn.

“Perhaps I should leave,” said Derwyn stiffly. He pushed back his chair and started to get up. “With your permission, Father …”

“No, stay,” said Arwyn, waving him back down. He turned to Callador. “Proceed. I have no secrets from my son.”

You have secrets even from yourself, thought Derwyn, but he said nothing as he resumed his seat. He was highly curious as to who this source might be.

The wizard shrugged, then extended his staff and slowly outlined a circle on the floor with it, about nine feet in diameter, Derwyn guessed. It was difficult to tell, because the staff did not leave any mark upon the stone floor. However, even though the circle he’d just laboriously drawn was invisible, Callador seemed to know exactly where its boundaries were. Having drawn it with his staff, mumbling some sort of incantation all the while, he next proceeded to remove a vial of some clear liquid, perhaps water, perhaps something more esoteric for all Derwyn knew, which he proceeded to sprinkle around the edges of the circle, again mumbling all the while. He stoppered the vial, though it was now empty, and put it away within the folds of his robes. Then he removed a small, well-worn leather pouch tied with drawstrings. From the pouch, he took pinches of herbs, rosemary—Derwyn recognized the bright green needles—mixed with something else. Once again, he went around the outside of the circle, sprinkling the herbs upon the floor.

Now, at least, with a faint dusting of herbs outlining the circle, its boundaries were clearly visible. Callador took his time carefully pulling the drawstrings of the pouch closed and tying them, then put it away, reached into another hidden pocket of his robe, and took out several thick candle stubs. He placed four white candle stubs on the floor on the outside of the circle—north, east, south, and west, muttering under his breath as he did so. Finally, he reached into his robe once again and pulled out a piece of chalk. This time, he went inside the circle and outlined it with the chalk, then drew an arcane rune inside it.

Arwyn sighed and rolled his eyes with impatience. It seemed to be taking an inordinately long time. Finally, however, the wizard finished with his preparations, and he stepped outside the circle, surveying his handiwork and nodding to himself.

“Come on, come on, get on with it,” said Arwyn irritably.

“These matters cannot be rushed, milord,” Callador replied somewhat petulantly. “If the circle is not cast properly and precisely, there is no telling what manner of visitation may occur. These things do not always work out as planned, you know. In case some other entity should force its way into the circle, for safety’s sake, we do want to make sure it is contained.”

“Yes, yes, by all means,” grumbled Arwyn, making little circles with his hand, indicating that the wizard should continue.

Callador grunted and nodded, then made a pass with his hand, and the four white candles stubs ignited. Callador called the quarters, invoking the spirits of fire, water, air, and earth to preside over the circle. That done, he made a brief invocation to the gods, then began to cast the spell. Derwyn couldn’t understand a word of it. He’d seen adepts at work before, but increased exposure to magic did not make him any more comfortable with it. There were entirely too many stories about wizards conjuring up some entity and then being slain by their own handiwork. Callador was a master mage, the finest in Boeruine, but even he admitted that magic could be unpredictable. No wizard fully understood the forces he dealt with. Those who claimed they did usually had life expectancies that were very brief.

He felt the temperature increase subtly within the great hall. The candles placed around the circle and the braziers in the corners flickered. Through the window, Derwyn could see the twilight fading fast, but within the hall, it seemed to grow even darker. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and stood up as the air within the circle became hazy. Something that looked like smoke appeared within the circle, except it wasn’t smoke. It was more like a mist, but it didn’t simply rise; it swirled and undulated, coalescing into a pattern that spiraled back into itself like a smoky whirlpool.

Derwyn moistened his lips nervously and leaned forward in his chair as the outline of a figure started to appear within the spiraling mist, or whatever that ethereal smoke was. As the smoke faded, the figure resolved, walking toward them slowly as if through some sort of tunnel. In a sense, thought Derwyn, that was exactly what it was. Somewhere in Anuire, in some locked room, that spiral had appeared, and their informant was walking toward it. If such a smoky spiral had appeared within his room, Derwyn wondered, even knowing where it led, very little could have inspired him to walk toward it. It was like contemplating entering the Shadow World. If the need were great enough, he supposed he could do it, but it would take a lot.

As the figure started to come through, Derwyn saw that it was female. The long hair down almost to the waist and the slender curves were unmistakable. And then the smoke faded behind the woman as she stepped out into the circle, and Derwyn sucked in his breath sharply as he saw who it was.

It was Princess Laera! He had not seen her in some years, not since that last, fateful Summer Court when all of this had started, but he recognized her at once. She was, after all, the woman who would have been his stepmother, even though they were almost the same age. She had grown even more beautiful since he had seen her last, and despite the cold anger in her gaze, Derwyn couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was stunned, and not just by her beauty. The emperor’s own sister was spying for Boeruine! He glanced at his father with disbelief, but Arwyn just sat calmly, sipping at his mead and watching her.

“Welcome, Your Highness,” he said, his lips twisting into a slight, ironic smile.

She glanced angrily at Derwyn. “What is he doing here? I told you I would speak to you alone!”

“Since when do you dictate conditions here?” his father replied coldly. “Need I remind you, Laera, that it was you who came to me? If I choose to have my son present, that is my prerogative.”

She glared at him, but accepted it. “As you wish,” she said. “I suppose Derwyn can be trusted.” She spoke of him as if he weren’t even there. “It is just that I am taking an enormous risk in contacting you like this.”

“Risk?” said Arwyn scornfully “What risk is there to you? If you have left your bedroom door bolted, as you doubtless have, who would force his way into the chamber of a princess of Anuire? And if someone came knocking while you were here, you could easily claim to have been asleep. The chances you are taking here are negligible, so don’t speak to me of risk. You took a greater risk in sending word to me by messenger when you first contacted me with your kind offer of assistance.” He grinned wolfishly. “Now, what word do you bring?”

She lifted her chin defiantly, but kept her temper in check. Her eyes, however, spoke volumes. “My brother has returned to Anuire with the army,” she replied.

Derwyn noticed the corner of his father’s mouth twitch slightly when she said, “My brother.” He did not like any contradiction, no matter how unintentional or indirect, of his claim that Michael was only a pretender, an imposter. “He’s returned, you say?” He glanced at his son. “And none of our troops or garrisons reported any engagements?”

Derwyn shook his head. “No, not as of the last report.”

“That is because there were no engagements,” Laera said, “at least, not with your troops. They went into the Shadow World, intent on finding a portal to your coastal region, but something went wrong. They came out in the Seamist Mountains and were attacked by ogres. And then when they went back into the Shadow World, they fought another battle, this time with the undead.”

“How unfortunate,” said Arwyn with a grim little smile. “I take it the casualties were heavy?”

“Apparently,” said Laera. “I do not know how great their losses were, but it seems they were significant. Michael came back very much depressed. I do not recall when I’ve seen his spirits sink so low. The troops looked utterly exhausted and disorganized. If there was ever a good time for you to march upon Anuire, then this it.”

“Indeed, it would seem so,” Arwyn concurred. “You have done well, Laera. Very well, indeed.”

“Just remember your promise,” she told him.

“I remember,” he replied. “I shall keep my end of the bargain. See to it that you keep yours.”

“You may count on it,” she said. She glanced at the wizard. “I am ready now.”

Callador raised his arms and spoke an incantation. The whirling smoke appeared behind Laera in the circle once again. She turned and went back through the misty tunnel. Derwyn watched her walk away, disappearing into the smoke, and then it dissipated, and she was gone.

Callador took his staff and held it out before him. He walked around the circle in the opposite direction to the one in which he’d drawn it, clearing it, then blew out his candle stubs, picked them up, moistened his thumb and forefinger and pinched the wicks to make sure they were out, put them in his robe, turned, and walked away.

“Wait,” said Derwyn.

Callador paused and turned around.

“What about those herbs you sprinkled on the floor? And the chalk-marked circle?”

“A broom and a scrub brush should do adequately,” the old wizard replied flatly. Then he turned and left the hall.

Derwyn snorted. “The least he could do was clean up after himself.”

“Never mind,” his father said. “The servants will see to it.”

“If we can find one who will not fear to come near that thing,” said Derwyn.

“They will fear me more if they do not,” said Arwyn. “Forget the circle. I swear, sometimes I think you should have been born a woman. Haelyn knows, you’re fussy enough. We have far more important matters to consider. The Pretender will be vulnerable now. As Laera said, the time is right.”

“And you trust her?” Derwyn said.

“Oh, yes. I trust her.”

“By all the gods, why? She’s Michael’s sister! Why should she betray Anuire?”

“Because she seeks revenge,” his father said. “And I trust her desire to get it.”

“Revenge? On Michael?”

“No, on Dosiere. She claims he raped her.”

“Aedan?” Derwyn was shocked. “A rapist? I don’t believe it!”

“For that matter, neither did I,” his father replied dryly. “I never cared much for his father, but the boy was a good lad. One should always check one’s sources, and I had some of our people in Anuire make a few inquiries. With enough drink in him, one of the Roele House Guard admitted knowledge that Laera and Dosiere had an affair. Right here, in fact, during the last Summer Court, under my very nose. It seems she had a habit of stealing into his room at night, wearing nothing but her bedclothes, and staying nearly until morning. That hardly sounds like rape to me.”

“Aedan and the Princess Laera?” Derwyn said with astonishment.

“The passions of youth,” his father said. “She probably seduced him. I had all the palace staff questioned, and several of them admitted knowing of it. They had no proof, of course, which they claimed was why they never reported it to me. It was merely palace gossip, and they feared recriminations. I reassured them I was not interested in either proof or punishment, just what they’d heard or suspected. Several of them admitted hearing of it from the guards. Two of the housemaids found stains on young Dosiere’s bed sheets, which is not incriminating in itself, of course, but bears weight when added to the rest. And one of the grooms reported hearing quite a row between them in the stables. He claimed not to know what it was about. He was not close enough to make out what they said—or so he claimed—but it appears they had a falling-out, and she bears him a grudge for it. My guess is that Dosiere finally came to his senses and ended it. And there is nothing more spiteful than a woman who’s been spumed.”

“But to betray her own people …”

“She cares nothing for anyone except herself,” said Arwyn. “She is selfish, willful, arrogant, and spoiled, a spiteful, vicious little twit. I never really liked her. I would have much preferred her mother. But in denying me the empress, Lord Tieran also spared me the task of marrying her daughter. I thought if I could not have the mother, I would bolster my claim with Laera as my wife. I was furious with him for interfering with my plans, but I suppose I should probably be grateful to Tieran, rest his sanctimonious, self-righteousness soul.”

“This promise that she spoke of,” Derwyn said, “what did she mean? Did she bargain with you to spare Michael’s life?”

Arwyn snorted. “He didn’t even enter into it. She cares nothing about what happens to him.”

Derwyn frowned. “So then, what was the nature of the bargain?”

“She had but two demands in exchange for her cooperation. The first was that she decides the fate of Aedan Dosiere.”

“And the second?”

“She is, of course, concerned about her own fate, as well,” his father replied wryly. “She wanted to ensure rank and position for herself under the coming regime. Our little princess has no wish to step down in station.”

Derwyn’s eyes grew wide. “Surely, you don’t mean to tell me you promised to honor your original betrothal?” he said with dismay.

“Of course not,” said his father. “I promised her she could marry you.”

3

It had been a long time since Aedan had been back to the Green Basilisk Tavern, but tonight, he felt in the need of some strong drink and some company outside the palace. At the Imperial Cairn, there were always demands on his time, always at least a dozen things that required his attention, from routine matters having to do with the running of the household to correspondence and dispatches from distant provinces—one noble or another making entreaties to the emperor—matters of strategy and policy having to do with the war against Boeruine. However, there was nothing so important that it could not wait till morning. His staff was well trained to handle matters in his absence, and if anything urgent did happen to come up, such as the emperor’s requiring his presence, he had left word where he could be found. He did not think the emperor would require his presence tonight.

They had returned to the capital late in the afternoon, as the shadows lengthened in the plazas of Anuire. The streets had all been eerily silent as the weary troops trudged back to the parade ground by the docks, where they drilled regularly and assembled to go out on campaigns. A lot of people had turned out to watch the army as it marched through the city. They lined the route all the way to the parade ground, but no one cheered their arrival. When they saw the condition of the troops, they just stood silently and watched with grim faces, many of them scanning the ranks as they went by, searching for loved ones. Too many of those faces would be twisted with grief tonight, thought Aedan. Too many wives, mothers, and children would be crying for the men who had not returned.

After the troops had been dismissed from the parade ground and they had broken up to go back to their homes or their barracks, Aedan had returned to the palace with the emperor and some of the other nobles, such as young Viscounts Ghieste and Alam, whose rank—and hostage status, though that was never mentioned—gave them comfortable quarters at the Carin. Michael had retired to his rooms, saying he did not wish to be disturbed. All the way back from the Spiderfell, right up until the time they disembarked the boats at the Imperial Cairn, he had spoken not a word, brooding all the while. In a war that had its share of defeats as well as victories, this campaign had been the most disastrous yet, and Michael blamed himself.

Aedan knew better than to try lifting his spirits at a time like this. Michael needed time to be alone, and Aedan needed to get lost in a crowd and take some time away from his responsibilities. So he had bathed and changed his clothes and taken a boat back across the bay, then headed through the dark streets alone toward the artists’ quarter and the Green Basilisk Tavern.

He recalled the sinking feeling in his stomach when they came out of the portal from the Shadow World and realized they had not reached the plains of Diemed, but the depths of the Spiderfell. Of course, there had been little choice. Risk the dangers of the Spiderfell or remain behind in the Shadow World to battle the undead and try to outrun the fire. Their chances if they had stayed in the Shadow World would have been slim. Perhaps now, thought Aedan, Michael would finally give up this madness of trying to cheat time. Even by going through the Shadow World, the army could not be everywhere at once, and each time they had gone in there, the odds against them had increased. This time, their luck had finally run out.

There was no way, at present, of knowing how heavy the casualties were. Aedan would find out tomorrow, after the captains delivered up their muster rolls. Right now, he simply didn’t want to know. He felt depressed enough. They had wasted no time in re-forming and getting on the march again as soon as they came out into the Spiderfell. The troops were tired, and many were walking wounded, but at least the fact that they could walk had saved them from being left behind.

That was the worst part of the whole thing, Aedan thought. He had no way of knowing how many wounded men had to be left behind because they could not make it through the portal. Some had been fortunate enough to have their comrades pick them up and carry them back through, but all too many had been left to the fire and the mercies of the undead. And the undead had no mercy. If they went back, they might once again encounter those poor bastards who had been left behind, only this time, they would be marching with the ranks of walking corpses. Aedan would not have wished such a fate on his worst enemy.

The Cold Rider. The halfling had been right. Terribly right.

There was no trail where they came out in the Spiderfell. They were in thick woods, and a squad of men had to be sent forward with the scouts to clear their way through the undergrowth. It slowed their progress considerably. It was not yet morning, and even in daytime, little sun penetrated the Spiderfell. The elves, however, had an unerring sense of direction, and they were able to point the way. They headed south, toward Diemed.

As Aedan rode together with Sylvanna, right behind Michael, he felt a prickling at the back of his neck. Viscount Ghieste had insisted that Michael take his horse, and he now rode behind Viscount Alam on his. Michael had wanted to march on foot, along with the troops, but young Ghieste had insisted, and Michael was too tired to argue. The divine wrath had left him spent once it had passed, and even riding, he slumped in the saddle as if wounded.

No one spoke. They marched in utter silence, only the steady tramping of feet and the jingling of gear breaking the stillness of the forest. At some point, Aedan wasn’t sure exactly when, he realized what sounded wrong. No birds. It was just like in the Shadow World. Dawn approached and the birds should have been chirping. But there were no birds.

“You feel it, too?” Sylvanna asked.

He glanced at her and nodded.

“What is it?”

He shook his head, scanning the forest all around them. “No birds,” he said.

“I had noticed that as well,” she said, “but that’s not it. There’s something else….”

Aedan heard something scurrying through the underbrush off to his left. He glanced quickly in that direction, and saw fern branches moving from the passage of… something.

“Pass the word for the troops to be on guard,” he said.

As the word was passed down the column, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an effort to steady his nerves. After what they had just been through, he didn’t know if the troops had enough strength to fight off some new threat.

Again, scurrying noises off to the side. He looked again, but whatever it was escaped his notice.

“There’s something moving in the brush,” he said.

“I know. I heard it,” Sylvanna replied, her gaze on the underbrush around them. “And not just something. There’s more than one.”

Aedan saw Caelum Ghieste and Taelan Alam looking around them, as well. The sounds had not escaped their notice. What was more, they seemed to be increasing. There was more rustling in the underbrush around them now. Aedan glanced over his shoulder at the troops. They were aware of it. Moments earlier, the men had been simply marching at a weary pace, their faces drawn and haggard, their shoulders slumped. Now, they were all alert and glancing to their sides, watching the brush and keeping their hands close to their weapons.

Aedan spurred his horse slightly and trotted up to Korven and Michael. “There is considerable rustling in the brush around us,” he said.

“I know,” said Korven. Michael merely nodded. His earlier slumped posture had changed. He sat erect in his saddle, clearly tired, but scanning the area around them intently. Visibility was still poor, but the sky was getting lighter, and more light was filtering through the trees.

“Another few miles, and we should be clear of this place,” Korven said. He sounded more hopeful than certain. “The brush is getting thinner. We must be approaching the outer edges of the forest.”

Sylvanna came trotting up behind them. “Aedan, look at the trees,” she said tensely.

He looked and at first he didn’t see anything. Then he saw movement on the tree trunks that they passed. Spiders. Hundreds of them. Some were small, but some were fist-sized, and some still larger, like small melons. They were crawling up the tree trunks all around them, making them seem to writhe. Some were already in the lower branches and were dropping down on web strands, one after another after another. The sunlight filtering through the upper branches glistened off the web strands, hundreds of them, thousands, coming down on either side of their route.

“What in Haelyn’s name?” said Korven.

Hundreds of thousands of spiders were all around them now, spinning a vast curtain of webs.

“It’s the Spider,” Sylvanna said grimly “He’s controlling them.”

No one living had ever seen the Spider and survived to tell the tale. One of the most dangerous and hideous awnsheghlien, it was said he was once a goblin king named Tal-Qazar, who had led the goblin forces fighting for Azrai at the Battle of Mount Deismaar. What little was known of him came from ancient writings preserved in the library at the College of Sorcerers in Anuire, set down by those who had encountered him hundreds of years ago, while he had still retained some shreds of sanity.

Imbued with the god essence of the dark lord, Tal-Qazar had united several tribes of gnolls and goblins under his leadership and founded his domain within the forest north of Diemed, which came to be known as the Spiderfell. The god essence of Azrai had brought about a horrible mutation in his body, which had progressed the more he used his powers, which in turn gave him an appetite for bloodtheft unmatched by any other awnshegh, with the possible exception of the Gorgon. The upper portion of his body was said to be humanoid in appearance, but so grotesquely changed that he bore almost no resemblance to his original form. His lower half was the bloated body of a huge arachnid, with eight legs and a bulging abdomen. He never ventured from his nest deep within the Spiderfell, but he knew everything that went on within his forested domain through the eyes of the hundreds of species of poisonous arachnids that lived within the Spiderfell. And to feed his insane appetite for bloodtheft, the gnolls and goblins he controlled brought victims to him.

The woods on both sides of the army were quickly becoming shrouded with a huge network of filmy webs as the horde of spiders clambered over the strands they were spinning. It was a frightening and repellent sight. None of the spiders were attacking any of the troops. They seemed intent upon their spinning, building up layer upon layer of gossamer webs on both sides of the army’s route.

“They’re trying to trap us!” Aedan said as understanding suddenly dawned.

“With spiderwebs?” said Korven. “Ridiculous! We can break right through them.”

“Any man who tries will become covered with the insects,” Aedan said. “Enough bites, and he will become paralyzed, and then the Spider’s minions can drag him off to their awnsheghlien lord.” He pointed ahead of them, where the network of webs was growing steadily thicker as they advanced. “Look there. They are creating a corridor for us. See how it turns? They are trying to lead us back into the Spiderfell!”

“We shall burn our way through,” said Michael, speaking for the first time since they had left the Shadow World. “Pass the order for torches to be lit.”

“There are no more torches, Sire,” Korven said. “We used the last of them back in the Shadow World.”

“Gylvain!” Michael said, looking around for the elven mage. “Where is Gylvain?”

“I have not seen him since we left the Shadow World,” Korven replied. “You don’t suppose we left him back there?”

“No, Gylvain came through the portal,” Aedan said. “But I have not seen him since. Sylvanna?”

She shook her head. The webs around them were almost as thick as cloth now, carpeted with spiders. The procession stopped as Futhark came running back to them with several of the halfling scouts.

“The tunnel of webs bends around sharply up ahead,” he reported, “circling back the way we came. We cannot go on, or it will take us back into the Spiderfell. Do you wish me to create a portal back into the Shadow World, Your Highness?”

Michael’s face was grim. “And if we encounter the undead once more? Besides, by now, the fire we started must have spread considerably, and it will take a long time for it to burn itself out. Still, we may have no choice….”

The wind picked up suddenly, and the sky overhead grew darker. They looked up and saw the morning light fading rapidly.

“It looks as if a storm is moving in,” said Korven.

“No,” Sylvanna replied, as the wind increased, “it’s my brother! It’s Gylvain!”

Thunder crashed as clouds moved in a thick, black bank above them and lightning lanced the sky. The wind continued to grow stronger, shrieking through the treetops; thunder crashed repeatedly like cannon, echoing throughout the forest all around them, and it began to hail.

At first, the hailstones pattered softly through the treetops, but then they fell harder and faster, like stones fired from slings, sheeting down and ripping through the spiderwebs, smashing the arachnids to the ground.

“Forward!” Michael shouted, and the army raised a mighty cheer as they moved ahead. But their exuberance was cut short when another cry was raised, at first blending with their cheers, then riding over them as the troops stopped to listen. The new sound was a mixture of doglike howls and screaming voices. While hail fell like grapeshot, these new attackers came running through the trees, screaming and brandishing their weapons.

The weary troops unsheathed their blades and surged forward to fight the gnolls and goblins of the Spider. They had been waiting in ambush for them, waiting for them to try breaking through the webs so that they could move in and finish off the ones the spiders didn’t get. The hail Gylvain had conjured had ruined their plans, so they had charged.

Aedan only remembered raising his sword and bringing it down again, over and over and over, slashing all around him as the goblins and the gnolls descended on them. Weary from the battles that they had already fought, the troops rose to the occasion; their survival had depended on it. They had cut their way through the attackers, but it had been impossible to maintain any kind of ranks or formation in such overgrown terrain. The army broke up into small groups that fought their way through the forest and reformed several miles away on the plains of Diemed, but though they had made camp and posted pickets, waiting for three days to allow the troops to rest and the stragglers to catch up, there were many who never made it out of the Spiderfell.

As Aedan walked down the dark and narrow streets of the artists’ quarter, the buildings on either side of him reminded him of the web tunnel, dark with countless crawling spiders, and he felt sweat break out on his forehead and start trickling down his back. His breathing grew faster and more shallow as he walked, his eyes wide and staring straight ahead of him. The people who passed him in the streets saw the haunted, wild look upon his face and gave him a wide berth. He could not banish the visions from his mind. Over and over, he saw images of the battle in the Spiderfell, men and goblins hacking away at each other, the wolfish gnolls howling and snarling, their foam-flecked jaws snapping as they fought with the soldiers of Anuire, who had called upon their last reserves to cut their way clear.

He kept seeing the undead staggering toward him through the mists of the Shadow World, the flames leaping up, the shifting figure of the Cold Rider watching from the ridge. He heard the screams of the wounded and the dying, and they sounded so real that he had to cover his ears, but that didn’t help. The screams and images were in his mind, and he couldn’t drive them away.

He lurched against a wall, his hands up to his head, and doubled over, gasping. He struck his head against the wall several times, and the pain helped distract him from the visions. He straightened up, breathing hard, and looked around. He had taken a wrong turn somewhere. The tavern he was heading for was one street over. Shaking his head to clear it, he breathed deeply several times, then headed down an alleyway to get to the next street.

Halfway down the alley, three figures detached themselves from the shadows and blocked his way. “There’s a toll to be paid for going through this alley, friend,” one of them said. “Let’s see how much coin you’ve got in your purse.”

Aedan saw the glint of a dagger. Alleymen. Oh, gods, not now, he thought, exasperated. “Get out of my way,” he said, hoarsely. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Well, aren’t we high and mighty?” the leader of the trio said unpleasantly. “I think we may have to take you down a peg or two, milord.”

As they came toward him, Aedan saw that all three had long daggers in their hands. And the leader wore a sword and a vest of chain mail over his tunic. A former soldier, Aedan thought, one who had left the army and turned to crime. After what he had just seen the army go through, the thought filled him with cold fury. How many of them had laid down their lives or returned home cripples so that the likes of this one could prey upon the people of city they’d protected?

“Get out of my way, you filthy scum,” he said.

“Kill him,” said the former soldier.

As the men came at him, something in Aedan snapped. He screamed hoarsely and drew his blade, launching himself at them like an enraged berserker. With a powerful, two-handed blow, he struck the closest one so hard that he split him from the shoulder clear down to the middle of his chest. The man screamed and fell as Aedan yanked his blade free, but by then, the second one was on him. Aedan twisted around, deflecting the dagger lunge with his blade, then bringing his sword hilt up sharply to strike the alleyman in the face. Blood spurted as the man’s nose broke and he cried out; then Aedan ran him through. Only the former soldier remained, and as Aedan made for him, he drew his own blade and took a fighting stance, his cocky attitude completely gone, replaced by a deadly serious expression. He managed to parry Aedan’s first stroke, but Aedan kept at him, screaming all the while, as the man fought desperately to keep Aedan’s blade at bay, never having a chance to go on the offensive.

Aedan backed him toward the wall of the alley. They locked blades, the alleyman with his back against the wall. As they strained against each other, Aedan dimly felt a blow to his shoulder. He raised his knee sharply into the alleyman’s groin, and as the man grunted and the breath whooshed out of him, Aedan bore down on his opponent’s sword and slammed his forehead into the alleyman’s face. Blood spurted from a broken nose as the man slumped against the wall. Aedan disarmed him easily, then threw down his own sword and started pummeling him with his fists. The nearly senseless alleyman started to slide down the wall. Aedan seized him by the throat with his left hand, holding him up, and repeatedly smashed his right fist into the man’s face, turning it into a mask of blood. Over and over, he pounded him until he felt someone grasp his shoulder from behind.

Turning quickly, he swung a hard right at the cloaked figure that came up behind him, dimly registering that the alleymen had worn no cloaks. The figure ducked beneath his punch and drove a hard jab into his stomach, directly into the solar plexus. He doubled over as the wind whistled out of him, and the figure caught him, supporting him.

“Aedan! Aedan, it’s me! Sylvanna!”

The familiar voice broke through his berserker rage. “Sylvanna?” he said, weakly, as he fought to catch his breath.

She eased him down to his knees, then left him to check on the alleyman he had been battering. She bent over him, then straightened. “This one’s dead,” she said curtly. She quickly checked the other two, but their condition was obvious. She came back to Aedan, who was just beginning to get his breath back. “What’s wrong? You didn’t have enough fighting? You had to go wandering through the alleys in the middle of the night, looking for more trouble?”

“What… what are you doing here?” he asked.

“Lady Ariel sent me,” said Sylvanna.

“Ariel?”

“She was worried about you. She thought you might have gone to the Green Basilisk, so she asked me to see if you were all right. I was just passing by the alley on my way there when I heard the commotion. Doesn’t seem as if you needed any help, though. Was that you screaming like a wounded bear?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Oh, Great Mother, you’re wounded,” she said.

Aedan glanced down and saw a knife sticking out of his shoulder. He remembered, vaguely, feeling a blow and realized the alleyman had stuck him. “Pull it out,” he said.

She grasped the knife firmly by the hilt and pulled straight back. It came out with some difficulty. It had struck bone and stuck there. As she pulled it out, the blood began to flow. Aedan winced with pain, then closed his eyes and concentrated, calling upon his blood abilities of healing and regeneration. After a few seconds, the blood flow stopped and he felt the wound starting to close. Moments later, it had healed completely, leaving behind only a mild redness of the skin. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling slightly dizzy. The fight, together with the healing, had taken a lot out of him.

“Wish I could do that,” said Sylvanna, pulling back his tunic to check on the healed wound. “It’s a handy trick.”

“Help me up, please,” he said.

She assisted him to his feet, putting his arm around her shoulder so he could lean on her for support. “Are you all right?”

“I will be, shortly,” he replied, breathing heavily. “By the gods, I need a drink. I need a lot of drinks.”

“Come on,” she said, helping him out of the alley. “Show me where this tavern is I’ve heard so much about.”

After a few moments, he was able to walk without her assistance.

“What came over you back there?” she asked. “I’ve never seen you like that before. It was like Michael’s divine wrath.”

He shook his head. “I don’t have that blood ability. I don’t know what came over me. Pure rage, I guess.” He told her about the visions he had started having on his way through the artists’ quarter, and how he had become confused and taken a wrong turn somewhere, gone down the alley to reach the right street, and encountered the three thugs. “That last one was a former soldier,” he said. “He wore the style of chain mail we use in the army. I don’t know, perhaps he bought it somewhere, but I doubt it. He had the look of a soldier about him. I thought of all the men we’d lost, fighting for the empire while that bastard remained home, preying on the citizens, and I just went mad.”

“A delayed reaction,” she said. “It happens sometimes, after a long period of combat. It’s difficult to leave all that behind.”

He nodded. “I know. I just can’t stop thinking about it,” he said. “And if it weighs on me so much, I can only wonder what Michael must be going through right now.”

“At least he’s safe back at the palace, and not wandering the streets at night, looking for another war.”

Aedan snorted. “I fear you’ve been among us humans too long,” he said. “You’re developing a sense of humor. I sometimes think I’ve lost mine. Well, this is it.”

He pointed to the entrance of the tavern, marked by a wooden sign above the door with a green basilisk painted on it. They went inside.

Aedan had not been to this place for a long time, ever since he’d assumed his duties as lord high chamberlain. He had stopped going because he did not think it fitting for the emperor’s first minister to frequent taverns and drink with the lower classes. But in the years since he’d first assumed his post, especially after so much time spent in the field with the troops, he’d lost that old rigidity of opinions. Still, he had not returned. This place had seemed like a part of his past best left behind. Even then, as Lord Tieran’s son, he had never really been accepted as one of the crowd. As lord high chamberlain, he thought he’d only make the other patrons feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Tonight, however, he simply didn’t care. Even the lord high chamberlain was entitled to a drink or two or ten, especially after the nightmare he had just survived.

The place hadn’t changed at all. He even saw a few familiar faces, though they were older now, of course. It was still the same dark, windowless rectangular room with stone walls on which the shadows danced in the flickering of candles and oil lamps. Still the same rough-hewn wooden tables and benches with rushes on the floor, the same long wooden bar stained with rings of countless goblets. Bards still sang their songs upon the tiny stage while girls passed the hat for them … and the Fatalists were still holding court.

“Well, well, look what the wind blew in.”

He recognized Vaesil at once, even though the years had not been kind to him. Or perhaps more accurately, Aedan thought, the drink had not. He had put on weight, and his once flowing, lustrous hair now hung limp and oily on his shoulders. His angular features and high cheekbones, which had once given him a dashing predatory look, had a rounded softness now, and his eyes had the glazed and red-rimmed look of a dissipated drinker.

“To your feet, my friends,” he said, lurching up, “for we are singularly honored by a most stellar presence on this night, or do you not recognize Lord Aedan Dosiere, the emperor’s high chamberlain?”

The others at the table turned toward him, and Aedan saw a few more familiar faces, but mostly new ones. He did not see Caitlin. Strange, but until that moment, he had not thought of her in years. As the others rose to their feet, Aedan waved them back down.

“No, no, resume your seats, please,” he said. “I am not here in my official capacity tonight. I just came to get drunk.”

“Well, you have come to the right place then,” Vaesil said, sitting down heavily. His speech was only slightly slurred. He still had the bard’s voice, and a control over it that only a man long in his cups could exercise despite the drink. “And who is that with you?” He squinted. “By the long-dead gods, is that an elf?”

“Her name is Sylvanna,” Aedan said.

“So, you’ve turned your back on your human friends and taken up with elves now, have you?” Vaesil commented. The others sat in shocked silence, amazed that he should address the lord high chamberlain in so familiar—and so rude—a manner. “I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised,” continued Vaesil. “You’ve both butchered your share of humans.”

“Vaesil! Have you lost your senses?” one of the others at the table said in a shocked voice. “Remember whom you are speaking to!”

“It’s all right,” Vaesil said. “Lord Aedan and I are old friends, are we not? True, it has been years since we have drunk together, but then he’s been a very busy man of late. Sit down and join us, Aedan, and your elf girl, too. You can regale us all with tales of your last campaign. I understand the body count on this occasion was particularly high, and you did not even encounter Arwyn’s army. Just a sort of lethal training exercise, was it?”

Several of those present got up from the table and left without a word, their gazes sliding away from Aedan’s as they departed. The others all just looked into their drinks, not knowing what to say or do.

“Oh, dear,” said Vaesil. “I seem to have offended a few tender sensibilities.”

“I should think you’d be quite used to that by now,” said Aedan in an offhand tone.

“Oh, well struck!” said Vaesil with a grin. “An excellent riposte! I see your diplomatic duties have improved your wit. Or perhaps it’s simply been emboldened by all your heroic actions in the field. You were never quite so forthcoming in the old days. That deserves a drink. Dierdren! Some of your best wine for my esteemed guests!”

To Sylvanna’s surprise, Aedan sat down at the table with Vaesil. Frowning with puzzlement, she joined him.

“Speaking of the old days, Vaesil, how is Caitlin? Do you see her anymore?”

“See her?” Vaesil snorted. “I married the sow. Not one of my better judgments, that, but she got with child, and as I was reasonably certain it was mine, I felt it only right and proper to do the honorable thing. I haven’t done all that many honorable things, you see. In fact, I believe that was the first and quite possibly the last, as well. I rather enjoyed the novelty of the experience. For a time, at least.”

“So you’re a husband and a father,” Aedan said. “Frankly, I never saw you in either role.”

“Mmmm, neither did I,” said Vaesil, wrapping his fingers around his goblet. The serving maid brought their drinks, and Vaesil fumbled around his person, looking for his purse.

“I’ll buy,” said Aedan. He paid her, including a gratuity, and she thanked him with a curtsy and a smile, then left.

“So have you a daughter or a son?” asked Aedan.

“One son, two daughters, and another baking in the oven,” Vaesil said. “I am beset with squalling children and a shrewish wife who has grown broader in the beam with the delivery of each new addition to our loving family. Ah, the bloom is off the rose, indeed. But if I get drunk enough, I can still fulfill my duty as a husband. For a few minutes, at least.”

“I am surprised she lets you,” said Sylvanna.

“Ah, you can speak! Capital! I was afraid I should have only Lord Aedan to trade barbs with.” By now, all the others at the table had left as well, without saying a word. Vaesil took no note of it after his first comment. “Yes, well, the pathetic soul still loves me, you see, despite her constant harangues about my drinking. But you see, I must drink to support my growing family. The muse requires fuel. I can no longer compose when I am sober.”

“Perhaps you will honor us with one of your recent ballads?” Aedan said.

“Perish the thought!” said Vaesil. “I do not perform them, I merely compose for others who have more appealing stage presence. The last time I tried to regale an audience with one of my compositions, I fell off the stage. Broke both my wrist and the harp. Can’t play worth a damn anymore, not that it matters, the sort of drivel I compose these days. I couldn’t sing the stuff with a straight face, anyway. If I wrote what I really think and feel, no one would pay me for it, and I have hungry mouths to feed.”

“If you are in need—” Aedan began.

“I do not require your charity,” Vaesil interrupted him. “In truth, I am obscenely prosperous. By my standards, anyway. Caitlin’s father died a few years back and left us his blacksmith shop. I could not manage it, of course, so I took on a partner, a most industrious young chap who was fawningly grateful for the opportunity and has made quite a success of it. And my ballads, worthless, sentimental dog droppings that they are, are in considerable demand. I even wrote a few about your emperor, glorifying his wonderful accomplishments in fighting to unite the empire and his unparalleled heroism on the field of battle. If I had any shame left in me, I would die of it. But I continue to live, worse luck. Well, shall we drink a toast for old times’ sake?”

“What shall we drink to?” Aedan asked.

Vaesil considered for a moment. “To the past,” he said. “The future is too depressing to contemplate.”

“To the past, then,” Aedan said.

They lifted their goblets and drank.

“Well, I suppose I should be staggering back to my humble domicile,” said Vaesil. “I would not wish to disgust you any further, and my wife is doubtless waiting for me, wondering if I shall make it home alive or if the morning will find her a rich widow with a handsome, muscular young blacksmith at her beck and call. If I were him, I would be building on my future by working at her forge. She’s still a saucy wench, despite having lost her girlish figure.”

“Please give Caitlin my warmest regards,” said Aedan.

“I shall do that, and I am sure it will please her to be remembered.” He lumbered to his feet. “You wanted her, as I recall. I can remember how you used to stare at her, like a moonstruck calf. You should have tried to take her from me. I know you never could have married her, but I would have been too proud to take her back when you were finished, and she would have been much better off. Well, good night to you, my lord chamberlain and lady elf. And give my regards to your bloodthirsty bastard of an emperor. Tell him I shall continue to extol his noble virtues while I curse his noble name.”

He lurched off toward the door.

“What a horrid, loathsome individual,” said Sylvanna with disgust. “I have never met anyone so beneath contempt. I cannot believe you allowed him to speak to you that way. Was he truly your friend?”

Aedan sat silently for a moment, staring into his half-empty goblet. “I don’t think that Vaesil was ever anybody’s friend,” he said at last. “Believe it or not, there was a time when he was quite handsome and engaging. Oh, he was acerbic then, but not to this extent. Back then, he seemed very daring, spirited and charming in a dangerous sort of way. I wanted very much to be like him.”

“I find that difficult to imagine,” said Sylvanna. “He is the most detestable person I have ever met.”

“He has become bitter and pathetic,” Aedan replied. “As a Fatalist, he had believed in nothing greater than himself. And when he lost his belief in himself, he was left with belief in nothing. I do not think you could detest him half as much as he detests himself.”

“This girl you mentioned, Caitlin. Did you love her?”

“Oh, for a while, I thought perhaps I did,” Aedan replied. “But it was really nothing more than an infatuation. Besides, she had eyes only for Vaesil. I was never one popular with the ladies. I lacked Vaesil’s quick wit and good looks, and I would grow tongue-tied in the presence of a girl I found attractive. Aside from that, I was Lord Tieran’s son, and that set me apart. It was one thing, I suppose, for a girl to entertain the notion of a liaison with a noble, perhaps on the off chance that it might lead to marriage or at least a bastard that the noble might feel duty-bound to support, but the son of the emperor’s high chamberlain occupied too lofty a status. I always sensed they were uncomfortable in my presence, watchful of their remarks—except for Vaesil, of course, who was always recklessness personified.”

“Why did you come here then?” Sylvanna asked.

“For some relief from duties and responsibilities that I found oppressive at the time,” he replied. “Michael used to try my patience in those days. You recall what he was like eight years ago, when you first came here. He has matured a great deal since that time. As have we all, no doubt. But back then, I felt the need for some companionship of people my own age, people who were not associated with the court. I suppose it made me feel somewhat daring to come here and spend my time in company with philosophers, bards, artists, laborers, criminals. For a time, it made me feel as if I were one of them.” He shook his head. “Strange. I killed three men tonight and feel no remorse for it. They preyed upon the innocent and would have killed me if they could. And yet, I feel pity for Vaesil, for he preys only on himself. What a peculiar creature I’ve become.”

Sylvanna reached out and touched his hand, reassuringly. “I have always found humans peculiar,” she said, “but you less so than most.” Her touch lingered.

Aedan smiled. “I will accept that as a compliment.”

“It was intended as one.”

Aedan waved to the serving girl and ordered a bottle of wine. “I’m in a mood to get good and drunk tonight,” he said. “When we finish this, just bring another.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” Sylvanna said. “What happened on this last campaign was not your fault.”

“I wonder,” he replied. “I have always thought that traveling through the Shadow World was far too great a risk. I know Michael better than any other man. He listens to me. Perhaps if I’d tried harder, I could have talked him out of it.”

“I doubt it,” said Sylvanna. “Once Michael makes his mind up, nothing dissuades him from his course.”

“I wonder if he’s getting drunk tonight,” said Aedan.

Sylvanna squeezed his hand across the table.

“Does an immortal fear death?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied. “Just because we have a longer life span does not mean we have less fear of death. We can be killed like anybody else, you know. Everyone fears death.”

Aedan shook his head. “No, not everyone. I do not think Michael does. I have never known him to be afraid of anything. He seems to have no capacity for fear. That is why he has always been so reckless. And that is a large part of the reason he inspires his troops. In that respect, there is something lacking in him that most normal people have. I have always marveled at it and wished I could have his courage. But this time, something’s changed.”

“In what way?” she asked, still holding his hand. There was an expression of infinite sadness on his face, and it touched her deeply.

“I realized something this time that I never realized before,” he said, pausing to drain his goblet and refill it. He held out the bottle to her interrogatively, and she nodded for him to refill hers as well. “Courage is not fearlessness,” he continued, as he poured. “Fearlessness is just a lack of fear. Courage is overcoming fear. Without fear, there can be no courage. It struck me back there in the Spiderfell, when those horrid creatures tried to trap us with their webs.” He shuddered at the memory that was still so fresh. “It made my skin crawl. I have always hated spiders. That first time in the Shadow World, when you flicked that albino spider off me and told me how they get into your hair and lay their eggs … I had nightmares about that for weeks. I would wake up in a cold sweat, and it was as if I could literally feel them crawling on my head. I’d have to go over to the washbasin and scrub myself till I thought all my hair was going to fall out. And that was only from that one spider. This time, there thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, so many that the tree trunks were writhing with them and the webs they spun were covered with the damn things.”

His breathing quickened, and he tossed his wine back in one gulp, then refilled his goblet once again. “I never felt more afraid in my whole life. I felt consumed by stark, unreasoning terror. The only thing that kept me from spurring my horse and bolting in panic was the certain knowledge of what would happen to me if I did. And even then, I was on the verge of doing so. Until I turned around and looked at the foot soldiers marching behind us. I saw their faces and knew they all felt exactly as I did. I could see their fear. I could smell it. And yet they kept their ranks, kept marching….”

“There was nothing else for them to do,” Sylvanna said. “I felt afraid, as well, but giving in to fear would have resulted only in our destruction.”

“I understand that,” Aedan said, “but that is not the point.” He emptied his goblet once again and promptly refilled it. “The point is this: the army has campaigned for eight long years. Oh, it was not eight years of straight campaigning. There were the breaks between campaigns, and in the winter and the early spring, but each time the call for troops went out they came. No matter how bad the last campaign was, no matter how many losses we incurred, no matter the hardships we suffered in the field, still they gathered up their arms and came. This last campaign was the worst disaster we had ever faced. We never even got to see Lord Arwyn’s army, but we fought ogres, battled the undead, were terrorized by a legion of spiders, and set upon by gnolls and goblins…. Those valiant soldiers went through more than any man should endure, and yet I have no doubt that when the call goes out again, still they will come. That is courage.”

She nodded, watching him. He was getting drunk. He tossed back his wine and poured once more. This time, she joined him, but he was having at least three goblets for every one she drank. He was starting to slur his words.

“If Michael has any real courage, he will not take them back into the Shadow World again. The Cold Rider was a warning. We survived this time … well, at least some of us did … but I doubt we shall be so lucky next time. If there is a next time. That is where my courage must come in, you see. I must prevent him. I must find it in myself to stand up to him, something I have never done. Vaesil called him a bloody butcher. You wondered how I could allow him to speak that way. Because he was right, that’s why. Michael is a bloody butcher. He sees only the goal he strives for and does not consider the costs … the terrible, terrible costs. Let Arwyn have his damned Western Marches! What does it matter? So there shall be two empires instead of one. So what? Nothing is worth this. Nothing.”

He put his head in his hands and slumped over the table.

Sylvanna flagged down the serving girl. “Have you rooms upstairs?” she asked.

The girl glanced at Aedan and nodded. “I believe we still have a few available for the night.”

“We shall take one,” said Sylvanna. “My friend is in no condition to go anywhere tonight.”

She paid for the room, then helped Aedan upstairs, supporting him with his arm around her shoulder.

“Where are we going?” he slurred.

“To get you to bed,” Sylvanna said.

“I’m perf’ly able t’go home,” he mumbled.

“No, you’re not,” she said. “You couldn’t walk twenty yards without passing out.”

“Mmmph. Maybe not.”

“Come on, pick your feet up.”

They reached the top of the stairs, and she helped him down the corridor until they reached their room. She kicked the door open and helped him in, then put him down on the dilapidated straw bed. The furnishings were sparse. Merely a chair, a washstand with a battered metal washbasin and pitcher, some blankets, a few candles, and a chamberpot. Sylvanna lit the candles, then started to undress him.

She pulled off his boots, then unfastened his breeches and pulled them down. He lay back, breathing heavily, but still awake.

Tome on, sit up,” she said, pulling on his arms so she could take his tunic off. “Hold your arms up,” she said. As he did, she pulled off his tunic and tossed it aside. His arms came down around her.

“I love you,” he said.

She looked at him. “I know.”

She eased him back down onto the bed, then stripped off her own clothes and got in beside him. He snuggled up against her. She pulled the blankets over them and put her arms around him. He kissed her ear and whispered, “I want you.”

She kissed his lips. “Then have me,” she said softly.

And when they were done, he held on to her tightly and cried himself to sleep.

4

“You did not come home last night,” Gylvain said.

“No.”

“You were with Aedan.”

She hesitated only slightly. “Yes.” Her gaze met his, defiant, challenging. He sighed. This was not going to be easy.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” he said.

“I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“Did you? Need I remind you that we are guests here, serving the purposes of a sensitive political alliance? Perhaps Aedan has forgotten. Eight years is a long time for a human, after all. After such a time, things begin to take on a sense of permanence for them. But when this war is over, we are returning to Tuarhievel, and it is entirely possible the time will come when the humans shall be our enemies again.”

“Aedan Dosiere shall never be my enemy,” Sylvanna said. “And when this war is over, I shall not be going back with you. Unless you plan to force me. I know I am no match for your power.”

Gylvain sighed and shook his head. “I would never wish to force you to do anything against your will. You know that, or you should. But you are not thinking clearly.”

“I am not confused. I love him. And he loves me. I can give him what he needs.”

“No,” said Gylvain, sadly, “you cannot. I sensed that this was coming, but I had hoped you would know better. You are an elf, and he is human. You could never give him what he needs. You could satisfy his desires in bed, but even if that was all there was to your relationship, it would be most unwise. Suppose he gets you with child? Do you know what it is like for half-elves in human society?”

“The soldiers accept us,” she replied.

“Because we have fought with them, side-by-side, for eight long years and earned their respect,” said Gylvain. “But do you recall what it was like in the beginning? Think how long it took for us to earn that acceptance, and we had to earn it with our blood. Bring a half-elf child into the world and it will be no different for him or her.”

“You could prepare a potion for me that would prevent me from conceiving,” she said.

“Yes, I could,” he agreed. “And I shall, if you insist on persisting with this folly, but think what you are doing, little sister. Even if it turns out to be no more than an affair of short duration, it will be difficult if not impossible for the two of you to be discreet. Such things always have a way of getting out. Aedan is second only to the emperor in this regime. He is a blooded noble, and you are an unblooded elf. An affair between you would only bring him trouble. It would be cause for scandal. He must wed a blooded noblewoman one day and perpetuate his bloodline. He must sire a male child who will become the lord high chamberlain to the next Emperor of Anuire. A half-elf child would be unacceptable in such a post and would only taint the bloodline.

“You are just a child yourself,” Gylvain continued, “but by human standards, you are old enough to be his mother. He may not care, but others will make much of it. You say that you can give him what he needs. Well, in that regard, the needs of humans when it comes to love, true love, are much the same as ours. They need someone they can grow old with. Together. And that is something you can never give him. If you bind your life to his, you will watch him age and die, and it will happen more quickly than you realize. It will only break your heart, Sylvanna.”

“What do you know of such things?” she replied angrily. “You chose celibacy so that you could pursue your craft! Because you have never loved, you wish to deny me the chance to find some happiness, if only for a little while?”

Gylvain approached her and took her by the shoulders gently. “No, I would never wish to deny you anything. Except pain.”

“Then prove it.”

Gylvain sighed deeply. “Very well. I shall prepare a potion for you that will keep you from conceiving a child. If I cannot talk some sense into you, then the very least that I can do is help you take some sensible precautions. But I do not approve of this, Sylvanna, and I fear you will come to regret it. Both of you.”

* * * * *

There was a knock at Laera’s door. “Enter,” she said. Maelina, one of the palace servants, came in hesitantly.

“I have brought some news, Your Highness,” she said, curtsying deeply and looking down demurely.

“What is it?” Laera asked.

Maelina was one of her paid informants in the palace. The girl had no idea Laera was spying for Lord Arwyn; she believed Princess Laera was merely trying to keep abreast of palace gossip and court intrigue. There was nothing unusual in that. Laera knew she was not the only one at court who bribed the servants to report on what their masters and mistresses were doing. Maelina would never suspect a thing.

“It concerns Lord Aedan, Your Highness. You said you were particularly interested in him.”

“Indeed,” said Laera, putting down her embroidery. “No one ever tells us women anything,” she added. “We must strive to find things out for ourselves. We women of the palace must stick together. What have you learned, my dear?”

Maelina beamed at being included with the princess among the “women of the palace.” It made her feel like a confidante, almost a friend. “Well,” she said, lowering her voice in a conspiratorial manner, “he did not sleep in his room last night. When I came to change his bedclothes this morning, they had not been disturbed.”

“Really?” said Laera, leaning forward as if enjoying some salacious bit of gossip. “Where did he sleep then?”

“I do not know for certain, Your Highness, but I made a few inquiries among the other servants and learned he left the palace last night to go to a tavern known as the Green Basilisk. He had left word he could be reached there if the emperor had need of him. That tavern is said to be a most disreputable place. I have never been there myself, of course, but one hears that it is a gathering place for all sorts of lowlifes—artists and the like.”

Laera shrugged. “So he went out to do some drinking away from the nobles of the court,” she said. “After the hardships of the campaign he just returned from, that would be perfectly understandable. He must have had too much to drink and simply took a room to sleep it off. Nothing much of interest there.”

“Oh, but there is more, Your Highness!” said Maelina, clearly anxious to impart the news. “It seems Lady Ariel became concerned about him—she has always borne a great fondness for him, as you know—and she sent for that elf girl, you know, Sylvanna, the wizard’s sister? She asked her to go after him and see to it that all was well. And do you know what?” She paused significantly. “Sylvanna did not return last night, either!”

“Indeed?” said Laera, raising her eyebrows. “Well now, that is interesting. You are quite certain of this?”

“Oh, yes, Your Highness. They both came back this morning. Together. In the same boat. Can you imagine!”

“Oh, I can, indeed,” said Laera with a smile. “You have done well, Maelina.” She handed the girl a purse.

“Oh! Your Highness is most generous!”

“I shall be even more generous if you are able to report further on this matter,” Laera said.

“I shall try, Your Highness. Thank you. You may count on me.”

After the girl had left, Laera leaned back against her chair and chuckled with pleasure. So that fool Aedan was bedding the elf girl! This was too delicious! The lord high chamberlain, the oh-so-very-proper Aedan Dosiere, was sleeping with an unblooded commoner, and an elf, at that! And he had the temerity to call her a wanton slut! No one had ever spoken to her like that before. No one. And she had never forgotten it. She would have grown tired of him soon, anyway. In fact, she had already tired of him, but Seaharrow had been such a boring place and there was so little to do…. But the thought that he had been the one to break it off, and the manner in which he’d done it…. He would pay for that. He would pay dearly.

She didn’t think this was anything Arwyn could use to good effect, for he was only interested in military matters, but it still had definite possibilities. Most delightful possibilities. She could completely ruin his reputation. But she would have to move quickly. Even now, Arwyn would be preparing to march on Anuire after her report of the previous night. Michael’s army had come back from their campaign weakened and demoralized and Arwyn was not going to hesitate to take advantage of it. She smiled. It was so easy to find out what she wished to know. All she needed to do was show concern for the welfare of the troops, ask some questions of their captains under the pretext of finding out if there was anything she could do to help their families, and they would begin blabbing.

Meanwhile, her own reputation as a princess who truly cared about her people was being spread, so that when Arwyn came to conquer Anuire with his army and she was “forced” to marry his son, the sympathy of all the people would be with her. She didn’t feel anything for Derwyn, but at least he was better-looking than his father. He lacked Arwyn’s massive, bearlike frame, but his slender form was pleasing, and he had inherited his mother’s looks, so that he bore only slight resemblance to his brutish father. There was a softness about him, and he would doubtless be a more giving lover than his father, who would have been impossible for her to control. Derwyn would be easy.

She knew he had always been attracted to her. She had seen him watching her and had seen the look on his face when Arwyn’s wizard, Callador, had magicked her to Seaharrow. He had been shocked to learn that she was spying for Boeruine, she could plainly see that, but at the same time, she had seen the way his gaze traveled appreciatively over her form. She had been irritated that Arwyn had allowed him to be present, for she had wanted to keep her role a secret from everyone but him, but perhaps it was for the best. Seeing her again had served to rekindle Derwyn’s desire for her, and she could use that desire to bring him to heel. Men were such fools. It was easy to make them do what she wanted.

She had learned her lesson with Aedan. Never let them know you want them. That gave them the upper hand. Give them a taste of passion, enough to make them want more, and then withhold it. Make them earn your favors. And whenever possible, make certain they have more to lose than you.

She had carefully practiced her seductive wiles over the years until she had perfected them. She had started with Leander, a young lieutenant of the house guard, who was putty in her hands within only a few weeks. She seduced him, and it did not take long before she was able to make him do anything she wanted. When she was through with him, she had induced him to desert, tearfully telling him that someone in the palace suspected their affair and that his life would be in danger if he did not flee. With warm and tender kisses, she had bid him farewell, telling him she would always love him, and he had fled Anuire for parts unknown, leaving behind a promising career and the girl to whom he had been betrothed.

After that, she had refined her skills, careful to select only those men who could be of use to her. One was the son of a prosperous leader of a merchant guild, who came to her under the pretext of displaying jewels and fabrics. It was through him that she was able to make other useful connections, which eventually led her to the mercenary whom she had used as her first go-between with Arwyn. That had been very risky, but the man was manageable. It was well known that she had been betrothed to Arwyn, and it was a simple matter to make the mercenary believe she actually loved the brute and was willing to trade her favors in return for having secret love letters passed back and forth. She had made him think it was he who was manipulating her, and after contact through Callador had been established, she had sent the mercenary back to Arwyn under the pretext of delivering a letter. Arwyn had obligingly disposed of him.

Her greatest coup had been Lord Korven’s son, Bran, who was a captain in the army. When she had expressed an interest in his duties and professed concern about the war—and about him, of course—Bran had proudly told her not only everything that occurred on the campaigns, but all of Korven’s strategies and plans, which she communicated to Arwyn at the earliest opportunity. Callador had given her a special jeweled amulet, which she wore on a chain around her neck. Whenever she needed to contact him, she needed only to pull out the amulet, stare at the jewel, and concentrate, “calling” to Callador. She would receive her answer when the jewel began to glow. When that happened, she needed to wait for only a brief interval before the swirling mist appeared within her room, a portal to Boeruine.

At first, this mode of travel had frightened her considerably. Portals of that nature opened out into the Shadow World, and Callador had halfling blood. However, the mage had reassured her that while the portal did open up into the Shadow World, it led only through another portal directly into Seaharrow, like passing through the two connecting doors of adjacent rooms. Still, each time she went through, she felt a knot of tension in her stomach, despite the wizard’s reassurances. It would all soon be worth it, though. When Arwyn defeated Michael’s army and took Anuire, he would control the empire. It might require a few small pacification campaigns to bring some of the more distant provinces into line, but that was the sort of thing at which Arwyn excelled. And once the Army of Anuire had been defeated, no one else would be able to field so great a force except Arwyn himself. He would assume the Iron Throne, and Derwyn would become the prince and heir to the throne. And as his wife, she would one day become empress.

She had been afraid Arwyn would insist she honor their original betrothal, and with him as emperor, there was no way she would have been able to refuse. It would have made her empress that much sooner, but she knew she would not be able to manipulate him. At least not as easily as she would be able to control his son. And then she would be forced to share his bed, as well, an idea that was repugnant to her. Fortunately, Arwyn no longer had any interest in the match. He had only seen it as a means to an end he would now realize without it. Derwyn would be a far more pleasant bedmate, and much more tractable. He lacked his father’s strength. And by the time he became emperor, she would have him thoroughly beneath her thumb. She could gradually build up his ambition and drive a wedge between him and his father—which would not be difficult, since Arwyn treated him like a lackey—and then they could take steps to hasten the new emperor’s demise.

But first things first, she thought. She would ruin Aedan Dosiere and get her revenge. She would make him suffer first, and then she would destroy him. And if she hoped to do that before Arwyn marched upon Anuire, there was no time to waste. A word or two in the right ears and things would be set in motion. From there, they would gather momentum of their own accord. She would only need nudge things along every now and then. She smiled in anticipation. It had taken years, but at last, Aedan Dosiere was going to get what was coming to him.

* * * * *

Elation on the one hand, anxiety on the other. Aedan was torn between the two emotions. He had finally realized a dream he’d nursed for years. He and Sylvanna had become lovers. That night in the Green Basilisk….

He had been drunk, but not so drunk that he could not remember, nor not know what he was doing. The wine had merely removed his inhibitions so that he had been able to say those words to her that he had never dared say before. And some physical effect of the wine, combined with the sudden flow of emotions that he had held back for so long, had energized him, kept him going long into the night. It had never been so good with Laera. He pushed that thought away.

When he woke up in the morning, suffering from the effects of the drink the night before, she had already risen and gone out to bring him back a potion that would dispel the headache, and they had made love again. He had never felt so happy. But at the same time, he felt concern.

How would Gylvain react to this? It would not be right to keep it from him. Besides, he would surely find out. They would not be able to conceal what they felt from him. He knew them both too well. But it would be wise to conceal it from everybody else. It was a delicate situation that could easily have nasty repercussions for them both. And Michael. What would Michael think?

The emperor had problems of his own. He had fallen into a deep depression after returning from the campaign and had retired to his chambers. He did not come out for three whole days, and the servants had reported that he did not eat the meals they brought to him. What was more, he had started drinking. And Michael never drank before.

For the first day or so, Aedan thought it best to just leave him alone, but on the second day, he had tried to see him. However, the door was bolted, and after Aedan had pounded on it for a while, Michael had yelled at him to go away. Finally, after three days had passed, Aedan’s concern became so great he had the guards batter down the door, assuring them he would take full responsibility.

Michael was sitting by the window, staring out over the bay, dressed only in his nightshirt. His hair was disheveled and his beard in need of trimming. He had not washed, and there were dark bags under his eyes. He held a goblet loosely in one hand, and as Aedan came in, he didn’t even turn toward him.

“Some people just won’t take no for an answer,” he grumbled. “What exactly is the penalty for breaking into the emperor’s private quarters?”

“I don’t know,” said Aedan. “I assume you’ll have to think of one and charge me with it.”

“Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” said Michael. He took a long swallow from the goblet.

“Because I was concerned about you, Sire. The servants tell me you’re not eating.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten for three days.”

“I’ve made up for it by drinking.”

“A drunken monarch is not much use to anyone,” said Aedan. “Look at you, Michael. You’re a mess.”

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

“Wallowing in self-pity isn’t going to solve your problems,” Aedan replied. “Our problems.”

“Our problems are primarily of my own making,” Michael said.

“I have no doubt Arwyn would agree with you,” said Aedan. “If you’d had the sense to abdicate in his favor, doubtless this war would have been unnecessary. No war is ever necessary, so long as one side surrenders. So is that what you want, to surrender? If so, let me know, and I will send messengers to Arwyn with a flag of truce to negotiate the terms. Then he can become emperor, and you’ll have no further worries. Unless, of course, he decides to kill you. After all, you have been impersonating the emperor all these years. But then you wouldn’t have to worry about the fate of all the people of the empire and all those men you led into the field who would have died for nothing.”

“Damn you.”

“No, damn you, for sitting here and feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing in guilt! What gives you the right?”

Michael stared at him. “What gives me the right?”

“That’s right, you heard me. You are the Emperor of Anuire, for Haelyn’s sake! You have neither the luxury nor the time for guilt. Your first duty is to your people, especially in time of war. I have known you practically from the moment of your birth, Michael, and you’ve always been a self-indulgent bastard. When this war started, you talked of fighting for your birthright. Well, fighting alone is not enough. You must live up to it, as well. You must think about the living and leave the dead to rest.”

“They died because of me,” said Michael.

“That’s right, they died because of you,” said Aedan. “Because they believed in you. But they also believed in an idea. They believed in order and in law. That is what you represented to them. That is your birthright, not this palace or your throne or your crown. Those are merely things. And people do not die for things.”

Michael sat silent for a moment. Then he picked up his bottle, stared at it briefly, and suddenly flung it against the wall with all his might, making Aedan start with surprise.

“You are absolutely right,” said Michael clearly, swaying only slightly on his feet.

Aedan stared at him and wondered, how much has he had to drink? He never drinks, but here he’s been drinking for three days straight, apparently, and he just shrugs it off. He saw the slight frown of concentration on Michael’s face, the intensity in his eyes, and he thought, of course. Iron will. Another of his bloodline attributes. And he suddenly realized it must have been what kept him going all this time. The strain must have been tremendous, and finally he had slipped. After all that had happened, who could blame him?

“Thank you, old friend,” Michael said. “Thank you for reminding me who I’m supposed to be. I had forgotten.” He sighed deeply. “And now, if you will excuse me, I must bathe and dress, then get something to eat.” He glanced toward the splintered door to his chambers, lying on the floor. “And call a carpenter.”

* * * * *

It was with a great deal of relief that Aedan returned to his chambers that night. Relief not only that the emperor was himself again, but that his own duties for the day were done. After the long campaign, many important matters pertaining to the business of the empire had accumulated and required his attention. He had to meet with his staff and discuss them all, receive petitions for the emperor, review reports of the army quartermaster and city council, endless stultifying detail. He was looking forward to a good night’s rest.

He was so preoccupied that he did not notice her at first. She had been sitting quietly on a bench by the window and had said nothing when he came in. It was only when he took off his robes and started to unfasten the belt around his tunic that she cleared her throat slightly, and he started, glancing up with surprise.

“Ariel!”

She stood. She was wearing a dark green velvet gown and matching slippers, her long blonde hair twisted into a single, thick braid. An image came suddenly to him from eight years earlier, when she had come to him while he was working in the stables to tell him she had spoken with his father to tell him that she had knocked him senseless, so it was all her fault that Michael had been injured during play. She had worn green velvet on that day, as well. In other ways, however, Ariel had changed.

The awkward, coltish girl that she had been back then was gone, replaced by a grown woman, slender and curvaceous, no longer the tomboy, but feminine and every inch the lady. She had not grown into a beauty, but her rather plain face was set with green eyes, her most striking and appealing feature. There was an earnest directness in their gaze, an inviting innocence and total lack of guile. He had not seen her much in the intervening years, what with his duties and all that time spent with the troops out on the march, but her father, Lord Devan, was minister of the exchequer, so she lived with her family in the palace and spent most of her time with Michael’s younger unmarried sisters.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

She took a deep breath, gathering herself, and gazed at him directly. “Do you love her?”

“What? Who?”

“You know very well who,” she replied. “The elf. Sylvanna. Do you love her?”

He tensed and hesitated. Too long. “What are you talking about?”

“You know perfectly well. She may not have told you, but it was I who asked her to go after you when you went into the city the night you returned from the campaign. I was concerned about you. I had never seen you so dispirited before. I stayed awake all night, waiting for you to return, so I know when you came home. I saw you. With her.”

“Well, just because we stayed out all night, two comrades in arms, drinking—”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t treat me like a fool, Aedan. Just answer my question.”

“Your question is presumptuous, my lady,” he said, retreating into formality. “As is your presence here at this late hour. It is most unseemly. You must consider your reputation—”

“My reputation be damned,” she said, shocking him into astonished silence. “Answer my question. Do you love her?”

He exhaled heavily and looked down at the floor.

“Yes.”

She seemed to collapse inwardly. She stared at him with a stricken expression, then sat back down on the bench and closed her eyes. Laera’s mocking voice came back to him, echoing in his mind. “She loves you … loves you … loves you…”

“Ariel…”

“Be quiet,” she said, not looking at him. “Just be quiet and listen. Laera knows. I don’t know how she knows, but she knows. You realize what that means, of course.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” He knew exactly what she meant, but he could not accept it. How could she know? How could Laera possibly know?

“I know what happened between the two of you at Seaharrow, all those years ago,” said Ariel. “You and Laera.”

“But… how?”

She looked at him with exasperation. “Do you think I’m blind? You think I didn’t see the looks that passed between you? It was as plain as day that you were lovers. I was so frightened for you, it nearly drove me mad. I was afraid Arwyn would kill you if he found out. I do not know what passed between you when it ended, but I can guess, for she has nursed a hatred for you ever since. That, too, is clear to anyone who cares to notice. She looks at you with venom in her eyes. And now you have given her a weapon with which she can destroy you.”

“But how could she know?”

“Are you that naive? Besides, what difference does it make? She knows. She probably has half the servants in the palace reporting to her. And she has begun to pass the word. She has not done it herself, of course, for she is far too clever for that, but rest assured it came from her. Already, tongues are wagging, and you know how quickly gossip travels in the court.”

“What do I care about idle gossip? I have nothing of which to be ashamed.”

“I did not say you did,” she replied. “But instead of professing so much concern over how my coming to your rooms at night affects my reputation, you should give some thought to your own. Having elves among our troops was cause enough for controversy in itself, at least in the beginning. Since then, they have proven themselves our allies and been accepted as such, but this is something else entirely. If she were an ordinary, unblooded commoner, it would be bad enough, considering your position, but Sylvanna is not even human.”

“Why should that make any difference?”

Ariel rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Don’t be an idiot. I hold no prejudice toward her because she is an elf, but you know perfectly well that many people look upon race mixing as perversion. Even if she were human and a commoner, it would still be cause for scandal. Oh, I know that many of the noblemen have such liaisons, but you are not just any nobleman. You are the lord high chamberlain, second only to the emperor. Your honor and reputation must be beyond reproach. If nothing else, it calls your judgment into question, and as the emperor’s first minister and advisor, your judgment must always be considered sound. It is not only yourself that you are undermining, but the emperor, as well.”

Aedan could think of no reply to that, for she was absolutely right. He stared down at the floor, morosely. “I suppose I could resign my post….”

“And leave the emperor to choose a new high chamberlain in time of war? He depends upon your friendship and your counsel. You have been trained for this from birth, Aedan. Who would replace you? In time, perhaps, an adequate successor could be found from among the nobles of the court, but if you resigned while Anuire is threatened, you would not only be utterly disgraced, but you would also weaken and demoralize the emperor at a time when he needs most to be strong and confident. You cannot afford to make the noble sacrifice, Aedan. You don’t have that luxury. You don’t have the right.”

Ironically, he thought, she had used the same words he had spoken to the emperor earlier that day. And they were no less true applied to him than they had been when applied to Michael. He sighed and sat down heavily on his bed. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “But what am I to do? I suppose I could deny it, but the damage will have already been done. I knew Laera was spiteful, but I never suspected she would go so far.”

“There is one thing that can be done, before the story spreads farther than it has. I am loath to suggest it, but I can think of nothing else that would serve to quell the gossip before it can erupt into a scandal. You must take a wife.”

“A wife!” He thought quickly. Yes, that could work. And it would add further plausibility to the story that he and Sylvanna had merely stayed out drinking all night, comrades in arms unwinding after a long and difficult campaign. It would be a lie, of course, but a lie that people would find easier to accept with his being betrothed. His father had died before he could arrange a marriage for him, and what with the war, there had been no time for him to give any thought to marriage, even if he’d had the inclination. And even if people still suspected the liaison with Sylvanna, they would be unlikely to bring it up if he were married. Not without proof. Ariel was right. If he married, it would deflect Laera’s plan for revenge, but that still left him with a difficult situation. Quite aside from the problem of finding a wife, he would have to marry someone he did not love. The marriage would be a lie. And how could he bring himself to do that to some innocent girl?

As if she could read his mind, Ariel said, “I will marry you.”

He glanced up at her sharply. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Ariel, I could not possibly ask you to sacrifice—”

“What sacrifice?” she asked in a faintly bitter tone. “I have always loved you, ever since I was a child. And if I cannot have you, I do not want anybody else. I would almost rather die than marry you under such circumstances, for I know you do not love me, but good marriages have been made without love before. We are of the noble class. Such things are a way of life with us. A marriage based on love is rare among the nobility, and I have not yet been promised by my father. Nothing would please him more than to have you ask him for my hand.” She swallowed hard, and tears came to her eyes as she spoke. “I will make you a good wife, Aedan. Who knows, perhaps, in time, you might even come to love me a little, but if not, I will understand and turn a blind eye to any liaisons you may care to have. Just don’t flaunt them is all I ask. Let me keep some shred of pride. And one more thing. My father must never, ever know the truth of this.”

“Of course,” said Aedan. He got up and came over to her, then got down on one knee. He took her hand. “Ariel—”

“Don’t,” she said, shaking him off and getting up. “Let us not make a mockery of this. It is purely a political arrangement,” she added stiffly, “between friends. Speak to my father in the morning. He will joyfully give his consent, and we will announce it to the court tomorrow. It would be best for the marriage to take place as soon as possible. The war provides an excellent excuse.”

“Yes, I suppose it does,” said Aedan woodenly. “Ariel, I—”

“And for Haelyn’s sake, don’t thank me. Please.”

He looked down and nodded. He moistened his lips. “I must… tell Sylvanna. It would not be right for her to hear of this only when our betrothal is announced.”

“No,” said Ariel firmly. “You must not see her now. It would only add fuel to the fire. I will go to her tonight and tell her myself. I will explain the situation fully and make her understand the necessity for this.” She took a deep breath, and her voice broke slightly as she said, “And as I know you are too well mannered to ask it of me, I will also tell her that you love her. And I will try hard not to cry. Good night, Aedan.”

She turned and ran out of the room.

5

The wedding took place in the great hall of the Imperial Cairn, with the entire court in attendance. The floors had all been swept clean, white bunting hung from all the galleries, jasmine incense added to the coals burning in the braziers. The emperor himself officiated. Aedan looked strikingly handsome in his family colors, with black hose, a black tunic, and a vertically divided black and white tabard emblazoned with the Dosiere crest. Ariel looked stunning in a pure white gown and matching satin slippers with a girdle made of fine gold chain around her waist and a garland of white and yellow wildflowers in her long blonde hair. But had anyone looked very closely, they would have seen a trace of sadness on her face, about the eyes.

Women of the court whispered to one another about what a beautiful couple they made, and the men all nodded in approval of the lord high chamberlain’s making a good match. A marriage between the daughter of the minister of exchequer and the lord high chamberlain would only serve to strengthen the internal unity of the emperor’s council, and in a time of war, that was only to the good.

Gylvain and Sylvanna had both been invited to the wedding, and those few who’d heard the rumors circulating watched Sylvanna carefully, but saw no sign of anything except happiness for her comrade-in-arms as she stood next to her wizard brother. The married couple seemed very happy, and those few who mentioned it at all whispered that the rumors must have been nothing more than spurious, malicious gossip that deserved no credence.

Only Princess Laera seemed a little out of sorts. A number of the wedding guests commented upon her stiff posture, the lines of tension at the mouth, and what seemed like an uncommonly resentful look in her eyes, though she took pains to hide whatever it was that seemed to be troubling her. The theory was advanced and generally accepted that undoubtedly the wedding of the lord high chamberlain and Lady Ariel reminded her too painfully of her own thwarted wedding plans. She had, after all, once been betrothed to Arwyn of Boeruine, and that was a marriage that could obviously never take place now. And what with the war and the awkwardness of her situation, there had been no other suitors. None that would have been acceptable to a woman of her rank, in any case. Clearly, it was impossible for her to attend the wedding without being reminded of her own plans gone awry, and that was surely the reason for her seeming discomfort.

If the wedding seemed a trifle hasty, without an adequate period of betrothal, no one thought the worse of it. There was a war on, after all, and the young couple could not afford to waste any time. It went unspoken, though clearly understood, that circumstances could easily result in Lady Ariel’s soon being a widow, and if the lord high chamberlain should fall in battle, it was important that he leave behind an heir to carry on his name and be raised to assume his duties for the future emperor. Aside from that, the word went around that Lady Ariel and Lord Aedan’s parents had often spoken of a match between their children, but it had never been officially arranged because the war, and later Lord Tieran’s death, had intervened.

The circumstances of a court wedding at a time of war also occasioned considerable talk about when the emperor would marry. It was dangerous for the empire to go without an heir when the emperor himself led his troops into battle. There was a great deal of discussion on this topic, and many young noblewomen’s names were advanced as possible candidates, in many cases by their fathers, who knew an opportunity to maneuver for political advancement when they saw one.

When the wedding was concluded, the happy couple kissed, then turned and were cheered by the assemblage, after which they invited all their guests to sup with them at the banquet tables in the hall. The servants carried out platter after platter of roast venison and pheasant and baked fish of varying sorts, candied hummingbirds’ wings and jellied lamb and roast boar and barrels of wine and mead. Dancers and acrobats entertained the guests, and through it all, through the laughter and smiles, no one would have guessed the true feelings of the bride and groom.

From time to time, Aedan’s gaze would meet Sylvanna’s across the room, and he wished it could have been her seated by his side, while at the same time he felt sorrow for Ariel, his wife, who had married him knowing that he loved another. Though she smiled on the outside, inside, Ariel’s heart was breaking: she had dreamed of this day since she was a child, hoping against hope it would come to pass, but never like this. She had done it out of love for Aedan and a desire to save him, but she could not stop thinking her new husband must have felt he was trapped, and if she had not set the snare, she had at least come to collect the game.

She had not spoken with Sylvanna since the night she told her she and Aedan would marry, and why. It had been a difficult and painful conversation, all the more so because Sylvanna had tried to make it easy on her. Ariel had not known what to expect. She did not know Sylvanna very well. The elf did not associate with the ladies of the court, preferring the company of soldiers, and the few times they had spoken had been nothing more than a formal exchange of pleasantries. Outwardly, she had displayed no emotion when Ariel gave her the news and explained the reasons for it. There had been only a barely perceptible flicker in her eyes, but for Ariel, it had been enough. Sylvanna had listened silently while Ariel spoke, and when she was done, she had said, “You love him, too.”

Ariel could only nod.

“So,” Sylvanna had said, with no hint of emotion in her voice, “it is well. You will make him a good wife.”

Ariel had felt a lump in her throat as she replied, “He wanted you to know that he loves you.”

Sylvanna stared at her. “He asked you tell me that?”

“No,” said Ariel softly, looking down at the floor. “He could never have asked me such a thing. I offered of my own accord.”

“I see,” Sylvanna said. “It would have been unconscionable for him to ask you. But it was very gracious and noble of you to tell me. Thank you, Lady Ariel.”

“I… I hope we can be friends,” said Ariel.

“I shall always admire and respect you,” Sylvanna said. “But you do not want me for a friend. That would be too difficult for all concerned. I will stay until after the wedding. And then it would be best if I went back home to Tuarhievel. I have been away too long. But please do not tell Aedan. I do not wish to say good-bye. Good night, my lady.”

As she watched Sylvanna from across the room, Ariel wondered how soon after the banquet she would leave. She glanced at Aedan, sitting next to her and speaking with her father. He will hate me, she thought. I love him with all my heart, and he will hate me. And then she saw Laera, sitting by the emperor and staring at them both with eyes like anthracite.

Suddenly, the doors to the banquet hall were opened, and the herald entered with a man beside him, a captain in the army. The captain nodded to him grimly, and the herald blew a blast on his horn, cutting through the noise of merriment. All eyes turned toward the captain, who went down to one knee and bowed his head.

“Sire, it grieves me to intrude upon this happy occasion, but I bring important news.”

“What is it, Captain?” Michael asked.

“Lord Arwyn is on the march, Sire. He has gathered all his forces and advanced across the border into Avanil. There has been a battle. Our garrisons have fallen. He is but a day’s march distant.”

A dead silence fell upon the hall.

The emperor stood. “My lords and ladies,” he said, “I crave your pardon for disrupting the festivities. All officers to your commands. Sound the call for the troops to assemble. We march within the hour. Those of you who do not bear arms with our forces, please stay and finish your dinner.”

“Forgive me,” Aedan said to Ariel as he got up, “but duty calls.”

“Of course,” she said, thinking, was there relief in his voice? As people started to rush out of the hall, Ariel quickly made her way to Sylvanna’s side. “You will not leave now, surely?” she said.

“No, not now,” Sylvanna said. “My departure shall have to be postponed.”

“Please watch out for him,” said Ariel.

Sylvanna simply looked at her. “I always have.”

* * * * *

The army gathered on the parade ground as the temple bells throughout the town tolled the alarm. As Aedan stepped out of the boat, his squire was already dressed for battle and had brought his mount and arms and standard. He swung into the saddle and rode together with the emperor to assemble the troops. Only a few days had passed since their last disastrous campaign, and yet they all came, as he had known they would. This time, there would be no battles with ogres, gnolls, goblins, undead. This time, they would face the Army of Boeruine. And this time, Aedan knew, it would finally be settled, one way or the other.

For Arwyn to attack in force now was too much of a coincidence. It would have taken him several days to gather his troops and march to Brosengae to make a push from there, supported by the troops manning his border garrisons. He must have started to organize his march as soon as the battered Army of Anuire returned from their ill-fated expedition. Somehow, he must have known they had fought several engagements and were weakened and demoralized. The timing was too close to be coincidence. His spies had done their work.

Well, weakened they were, perhaps, thought Aedan, as he gazed out at the assembled troops, but demoralized? There was firm resolve in every face he saw. They would be fighting to defend their city, and they knew that this, at last, would be the final battle. There would be no retreat. And if Arwyn tried to pull back behind his garrisons, they would pursue and attack with everything they had. They were all weary of the war. Now was the time to end it.

Michael rode up to his troops as their officers formed them up and called them to attention. As he started to address them, Aedan thought back to that day on the coastal plains by Seaharrow, when a younger Michael had stood before his “troops” of children, exhorting them to victory over the evil forces of Azrai. This time, however, there was a real sword in his hand, not a wooden toy. And this time, his voice was not high-pitched and squeaky, but it rang out clear and true. And this time, Ariel would not take part in the combat, but would remain behind, wondering if her new husband would return home safely. He glanced at Sylvanna riding up to join them with Gylvain and the other elves. There were fewer of them than had started the campaign, eight long and weary years ago. Their number had been reduced by half. Elves fighting and dying in a human conflict, he thought. Shades of Deismaar, indeed.

“Warriors of the Empire of Anuire!” shouted Michael, his voice carrying across the parade ground as he sat mounted before his troops. “Once more we march to battle! Many times we have assembled here over the past eight years. I see many familiar faces. And there are those, sadly, that I do not see. Our comrades-in-arms who have fallen in past campaigns. They all fought valiantly and gave their lives for the cause we defend. Today, they stand with us in spirit, and if they could speak, they would surely ask of us to ensure that they did not die in vain.

“For too long, this war has raged. The Army of Boeruine has struck out time and again, but never has there been a decisive engagement. They have plundered our lands. They have burned our fields and villages, slaughtered our livestock, trampled our crops, and murdered our fellow citizens. And for what cause? So that one man’s ambition can be fulfilled! A man whose lust for power knows no bounds. Arwyn of Boeruine would sit upon the Iron Throne and call himself your emperor. He denies my birthright and calls me a pretender to the throne.”

At this, a loud chorus of angry dissent rang out. Michael raised his arms for silence.

“Hear me!” he shouted. “If I were to lead you into battle merely to secure my place, I would indeed be that pretender he accuses me of being. If my palace, throne, and crown were all I cared about, I would be unworthy to lead you into battle. And if I truly believed Arwyn of Boeruine would make a better emperor than I, that the people of the empire would thrive and prosper under his rule, I tell you here and now I would step down from the throne and give it to him.”

Almost as one, they shouted, “No!”

“We have faced much hardship together,” Michael went on when they had settled down. “We have suffered the extremes of weather. We have gone hungry, tired, and sleepless on the march. We have faced the dangers of the Shadow World together, and we have grieved over our fallen comrades. Never before in the history of the empire has there been such a conflict. And never before in the history of the empire has there been such a true and valiant army! You honor me, but even more than that, you honor yourselves!”

The troops raised a cheer.

“If the gods meant for us to fail, we would have failed long since,” said Michael. “If the gods meant for me to fall, I would have long since fallen. But this I promise you: I shall not fall!”

They cheered once more.

“There shall be no more expeditions through the Shadow World! There shall be no more retreat! There shall be no more burning of our fields or looting of our towns! And after this, there shall be no more Army of Boeruine!”

They all shouted themselves hoarse and raised their weapons, stamped their feet, and struck their shields with their swords. Words, thought Aedan. Simple words. And yet, he gives them so much meaning. It was because every sentiment that he expressed he truly felt.

“I was once told by a man much wiser in these things than I that there is no meaning in fighting for a palace, or a throne, or crown, that those are merely things, and things are not worth fighting for or dying for. We do not fight for the Cairn, or for the crown, or for the Iron Throne. We fight for an idea. The idea that in unity, there is strength that cannot be defeated. The idea that in law, there is order, so that men may live in peace and prosper. The idea that in courage, there is honor, so we may hold our heads high. And the idea that in resolve, there is purpose, so that we cannot be deterred.

“The empire has no true borders, because borders cannot encompass an idea. The empire is more than just our land, for land cannot an empire make. The Empire of Anuire is in the hands of the man who plows his field, of the woman who gives birth, of the child who dreams about the future. The empire is in all our hearts! And so long as there is breath within my body, I shall not allow those hearts to break! The war ends here and now! It ends today! It ends before we even see the enemy, for we shall win it with our courage, with our resolve, and with our purpose!” He raised his sword high over his head. “For the empire! And for victory!”

The troops raised a roar that could be heard throughout the city, crying out, “Roele! Roele!” as Michael rode the length of their ranks, standing in his stirrups and waving his sword over his head.

He used my very words, thought Aedan, shaking his head in admiration. Only he said them far better than I ever could.

“A wiser man than I?” said Aedan, when the emperor returned to his side. The troops continued cheering.

“Indisputably,” said Michael with a perfectly straight face. “But because I’m such a self-indulgent bastard, I cannot for the life of me remember who he was.”

* * * * *

It was almost sunrise when the two armies came within sight of one another on the plains halfway between the cities of Anuire and the castle of Dalton, visible in the distance. Each army had marched all night in an attempt to outpace the other. Michael had known he needed to maintain as much distance as possible between Lord Arwyn’s forces and the capital. Arwyn had force-marched after rolling over the border garrisons in an attempt to gain the high ground on the hills around Anuire. It was a draw, and both met in the middle. Still, the first advantage had gone to the Army of Anuire. They had denied Arwyn the superior ground.

He did not expect us to mobilize so quickly, Aedan thought. Arwyn had counted on facing an army that would be tired, weakened, disorganized, unable to assemble in time to halt his advance upon the city. But he had not counted on the captain who had ridden like a man possessed to warn of his advance across the border. He had not counted on the indomitable spirit and resolve of the Anuirean troops. And he had not counted on Michael’s ability to inspire them. In calling Michael the “Pretender,” Arwyn had devalued him, and in devaluing him, he had underestimated him, as well.

Both armies took up position and settled down to wait for dawn. The soldiers took their rest upon the ground, with their weapons by their side, ready to form for battle on a moment’s notice, but Michael did not rest. With Aedan by his side, carrying his standard, he rode among the troops, talking to them, asking about their families, calling many of them by name—it was amazing to Aedan how many of those names the emperor could remember—and Aedan watched their faces light up as Michael rode among them, encouraging them and speaking to them like a fellow soldier, not a monarch.

To one group: “So, a brisk evening walk, a short rest beneath the stars, and we’re ready for the morning’s work, eh, boys? We’ll show them what we’re made of, won’t we?”

To another: “Well, are you boys ready to give Arwyn a sound thrashing? Shall we push him all the way to Thurazor and let the goblins have his liver for breakfast?”

And to some troops from Elinie: “What do you say, boys, shall we get this nonsense over with so you can all go back to Elinie and fish the Saemil? I hear the trout there grow this big—” holding his hands three feet apart—“and jump right out of the river and straight into your frying pans! I think maybe I’ll go with you after we’ve taught these louts a lesson. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone fishing.”

He has the gift, thought Aedan. Seeing him now, relaxed and confident, bantering with them in a friendly manner, they would never have suspected that only a few days ago, he had been locked within his chambers, plunged into deep depression and drinking himself into a stupor. He was just as vulnerable to weakness as the rest of them, but he never for a moment let that show. His confidence gave them confidence. His refusal to feel fatigue gave them energy. And even Aedan started to believe. He felt his spirits rising and suddenly, defeat did not seem possible.

When dawn came, Arwyn’s troops attacked. By then, Michael had Korven pass the word to all the officers. “We shall let Arwyn come to us,” he said. “We shall let them make the charge, and see us standing here, implacable, immobile, like a wall on which his attack shall break. Let each man stand in silence. I want no battle cries. Let them see our faces—fearless, still, and resolute as death.”

As the Army of Boeruine made their charge, the Anuireans stood firm, silent and motionless as statues. Aedan saw Michael anxiously scanning the charging ranks for Arwyn’s standard. Yes, there it was, slightly to the left and in the forefront, as could be expected. Arwyn was a warlord in every sense of the word. He would not remain behind in safety, watching from a rise as his troops attacked. He would ride in the vanguard, with his standard-bearer by his side, so that his troops could see him leading them.

As Aedan watched them come, he thought, by Haelyn, he has brought them all. He has pulled back all his troops from the forest borders of Alamie and the Five Peaks, the forces from Talinie and Taeghas, and the garrisons in Brosengae. And there were goblin fighters with them, wolfrider detachments from the Prince of Thurazor. He must have left no one behind to guard the rear, thought Aedan. This time, it was all or nothing.

As the front ranks met, trumpet calls were sounded in the rear of Michael’s army, and on cue, they quickly started advancing, moving to the left and right, reforming into wings to envelop the flanks of Arwyn’s charging troops. Michael spurred his mount, and with sword raised, charged into them like a scythe cutting through wheat. Immediately, his staff set spurs as well, trying to form a protective circle around him, but trying to protect Michael was like trying to catch the wind. He had set his sights on Arwyn’s standard, and his gaze had never left it. Now, he tried to cut his way through to his enemy, the man who’d take his throne.

The clanging of steel against steel filled the air, as did the shouts of men and the neighing of horses. In almost no time at all, the ground was churned up by many feet and hooves, the grass torn and trampled, and the choking dust rising. Holding aloft the standard in one hand and his sword in the other and controlling his plunging mount with his knees, Aedan had no benefit of shield, but Sylvanna stayed on his left flank, protecting it while he struck out on his right, trying to stay near the emperor.

The battle was a wild melee now, and in the tumult and the confusion and the dust, the fighters could know each other only by their colors and devices. Arwyn’s flanks were being battered, but he had the advantage of superior numbers, and his center remained strong. Here and there, fighters penetrated deep into the body of the opposing army, on both sides, while in other places, the ranks held on for longer until there were men on both sides hemmed in by their opponents and forced to turn in all directions as they fought.

The noise was deafening. Men fell and were trampled by the surging bodies all around them. Spears were all but useless in such close quarters, except to those who held them up, seeking to unhorse a knight. Out of the corner of his eye, Aedan saw young Ghieste fall as a spear got past his guard and pushed him from his mount. Unbalanced, he went down into the milling bodies, and Aedan did not see him rise again. A moment later, the same thing almost happened to him. He saw a pike thrusting up at him, deflected it with his blade, then slashed down at his attacker, splitting his helm. The man had no time to scream.

None of the mounted fighters could maneuver very quickly now, hemmed in by the fighting foot soldiers all around them, and Aedan saw the emperor, perhaps ten yards away, hacking away like mad as he tried to reach Lord Arwyn. Arwyn, in turn, seemed intent on the same thing. The two were separated by no more than twenty yards, and yet neither could reach the other. Aedan tried to fight his way closer. His breathing was becoming labored, and he felt the soreness in his sword arm as he swung away at his attackers. The standard was an impediment, but he could not let it fall. As Michael engaged a foot soldier who sought to slash his leg, Aedan saw a mounted knight coming up on his rear.

“Michael!” he called out. “Behind you!”

The emperor struck down the foot soldier and quickly turned his horse, barely in time to parry the sword stroke aimed at his head. For a moment, the two of them engaged in a flurry of blows, and then Michael’s sword caught the knight a blow upon his neck, and he went down.

Gylvain fought as well, dressed not in his robes, but for battle. Magic was of little use in a melee, but Aedan noticed that no blade could reach him. As his attackers struck at him, their blades seemed to slide off the air around him, but Gylvain’s blows struck home. Then there was no time to notice Gylvain as a mounted knight bore down on Aedan. They exchanged several blows before two Anuirean foot soldiers leapt up and dragged him from his saddle.

On and on the battle went, furious and bloody, with neither side giving way. Aedan fought more from instinct than will, only dimly aware of the dampness of the sweat trickling down inside his armor, the taste of dust in his mouth, and the smell of bodies surging all around him. From time to time, he caught a glimpse of Michael, and did his utmost to stay close to him, but it was all that he could do to fight for his own survival.

And then it happened. A momentary respite from the blades striking out at him, a brief island of calm within the storm, and Aedan saw Michael battling Arwyn, perhaps twenty yards away, their horses side to side as they engaged. In the area immediately around them, men actually stopped fighting so they could watch. Aedan urged his mount forward, trying to get closer.

The old warlord against the young emperor. Both had unleashed their divine rage, and everyone around them watched, mesmerized, as the two combatants smashed away furiously at each other. They seemed evenly matched, and they were battering each other with such force that both their shields had buckled.

Then Arwyn struck a blow that sent Michael’s shield flying, and Aedan gasped as Michael seemed to lose his balance from the impact. He swayed in his saddle, and Arwyn raised his sword to finish him. But in that moment, Michael suddenly leaned forward as he swayed and lunged sharply, driving his blade point first through Arwyn’s throat.

The momentum of his lunge carried Michael right out of the saddle, and as Arwyn fell back, Michael went with him, over his horse and to the ground. At once, Aedan and Sylvanna moved in to protect him, and then Gylvain was there, as well, and a group of foot soldiers who formed a ring around him. Michael got up. Arwyn never would.

Michael raised his sword with both hands and brought it down like an axe, severing the dead archduke’s head from his body. Then he raised it high and cried out, “Arwyn is dead! Lay down your arms!”

Immediately, the cry was taken up by all the troops.

It happened like a spreading ripple in a pool, moving out from where they were to the fringes of the battle. As the cry of “Arwyn’s dead!” was echoed over and over, slowly, the fighting stopped. The noise gradually died down, and the clash of blades diminished until everything was still. Men simply stopped fighting and stood where they were, dazed and exhausted, staring at one another, scarcely able to believe it was over.

As the dust began to settle and the only sounds upon the battlefield were the piteous moans and cries of the wounded and the dying, several mounted knights of the Army of Boeruine made their way toward where the emperor stood. Their horses came at a walk, and they held their swords by their sides. One knight rode forward and gazed down for a long time at Arwyn’s decapitated body. Then he threw down his sword and reached up to remove his helm. Eight long, hard years had passed since Aedan saw him last, but he immediately recognized Derwyn, Arwyn’s son, and Michael’s childhood playmate.

His face was a mask of misery. For a moment, his glance met Aedan’s, and he nodded. Aedan returned the gesture, and then Derwyn turned to Michael. For several moments, the two of them simply stared at one another as their men gathered around them. No one spoke. Derwyn held his head up high. Not in defiance, but in proud defeat.

“Derwyn …” Michael said, heavily. He could not go on.

Derwyn swallowed hard, then raised his arm and cried out in a loud and steady voice, “Long live Emperor Roele!”

There was a moment’s hesitation and then the cry was taken up by the troops of both sides. “Long live Emperor Roele! Roele! Roele! Roele!”

“Thank the gods,” said Aedan, wearily. “It is over at last. It is finished, Sylvanna.”

But as he turned toward her, she wasn’t there. He glanced all around him, frantically, but he could see no sign of her nor Gylvain. Nor of any of the other elves. It was as if they had melted away into …

“The air,” he murmured, as the wind blew north across the plain.