The Sorcerer's Ring: Book 05 - A Vow of Glory (9 page)

Erec
found a horse and remounted, and was soon up there along with the others. He
took stock of the situation: he had been joined by several dozen of the Duke’s
men, and together, they faced what remained of the lord’s army, about a hundred
men. He immediately searched for Alistair, and found her mounted on her Warkfin
on the edge of the battlefield, watching over everything. She was safe from the
battle, and Erec was relieved.

Erec
breathed hard, Brandt beside him breathing just as hard, also covered in blood.

"I
knew I would fight by your side again," Brandt said. "I just didn't
think it would be so soon.”

Erec
smiled.

"It
seems I owe you my life once again,” he said.

"No
you don't,” Brandt said. "Remember Artania, ten years ago? Now we’re
even.”

As they
all prepared to charge against the hundred remaining men, suddenly, another cry
arose from the rear of the group, and Erec turned in confusion, trying to process
what was happening. He narrowed his eyes and in the distance, he thought he saw
a battle occurring at the rear of the lines. He could not understand what was
happening. Were the lord’s men fighting each other?

"More
of your men?" Erec asked the Duke.

But
the Duke shook his head, puzzled, too.

"My
men are all with me. I do not know who attacks them.”

Erec
was baffled as the army facing them broke out into chaos, and as the men began
to turn and flee from the battlefield.

As the
turmoil neared, Erec finally saw what it was. He was breathless at the site.

The lord’s
army was being attacked from the rear by a huge group of creatures. They were
twice as tall as any man, twice as broad, their skin a glowing yellow, each
with two heads, and arms eight feet long. Erec recognized them at once. Covenies.
They were fabled creatures, known to bear a superhuman strength that could tear
a man in half with a single hand. They didn't carry any weapons—they didn't
need to.

Despite
himself, Erec’s heart flooded with fear.

"It's
not possible," Brandt said. "Covenies only live on the far side of
the Canyon. What are they doing here?”

"The
only way they could be here is if they found a breach in the Canyon," the
Duke said.

"Or
if the Shield is down," Erec said gravely.

As Erec
uttered the words he suddenly felt them to be true, and his heart flooded with
true fear. The shield down. The Ring open for attack. It was more than he could
process. He did not worry for himself, but for the fate of the Ring. If the
shield was down here, it could be down all over the entire Ring. They could be
overrun. And worse, the Empire could invade.

The army
before Erec disbanded, fleeing for their lives as more and more Covenies appeared,
attacking them from behind, picking them up with a single hand and biting off
their heads.

"Retreat
to Silesia!" the Duke commanded. "We must seal the gates at once!”

As one
they all turned and charged from the battlefield; Erec stopped only long enough
to ride up beside Alistair, mount Warkfin behind her, and take off with her. He
felt her soft hands clutching him tightly from behind, and feeling her hands on
him, knowing that they were together, that she was safe, made everything right
in the world.

"I
owe you my life," Erec said to her, as they rode with the others.

"And
I owe you mine," she answered.

Kendrick
stood before the rebuilt town wall, admiring his handiwork. He, along with a
small group of Silver, had been fortifying this wall for days, camped out in
this large town on the Eastern borderlands of the Ring, which had been badly
damaged by the McCloud raid. As the Legion had been dispatched to repair the smaller
villages to the south, Kendrick thought it fitting that the Silver fortify the
bigger cities to the east, in the more dangerous territory close to the McClouds.
It was the right thing to do, to lead by example.

Their
rebuilding efforts had been a success and their time here was almost up. He hadn’t
been home in weeks, hadn’t had any news from the world, and he sorely missed
King's Court, missed his sister, his close friend Atme, all of his brothers in
the Silver—he even missed his squire, Thor. He wanted to get back to King's Court
as soon as possible, to make sure his sister was safe, and to help her oust Gareth.
Having been imprisoned by him, Kendrick, more than most, had felt the touch of
his wrath, and he burned to make wrongs right and to put his sister on the
throne—for the sake of his dead father, for the sake of King's Court, and for
the sake of the Ring.

The
second sun sat long in the sky and it was nearing the end of another back-breaking
day of labor, Kendrick supervising a hundred townsfolk as they carried
oversized stones and plastered the ancient wall. Kendrick and his men advised
them on the best place to fortify and defend, where to build parapets and how
to build stone towers that served as lookout points. Before he’d arrived, the
openings to this town’s fortifications had all been too wide, there had been no
slits in the stone for firing arrows, and the walls were merely a few inches
thick. Now, the stone walls stood several feet thick, there was but one
entrance in or out of the city, and it was shaped and built in such a way that
it could be well-guarded from the inside, held with just a few men. New
parapets had been built from which the townsfolk could defend with a few
cauldrons of tar and a host of bows.

Kendrick
was satisfied. In this new place, but a few hundred well-trained men could fend
off a few thousand. These people had desperately needed the eye and labor of
professional soldiers and it was now vastly more secure.

As
Kendrick stood there, he felt satisfaction from a hard day’s work, from helping
his fellow citizens—yet there was something in the back of his mind which
troubled him. He wasn't quite sure what it was. Earlier this morning he could
have sworn he spotted Estopheles, circling up high, screeching in a way that
disturbed him. It felt like a warning. Worse, the night before he had been up
hours with troubled dreams of this town burning, of all his handiwork being toppled
to the ground. He had dreamt this dream not once, but three times, the third
time waking him for good, too vivid to allow him to return to sleep.

He did
not understand what it all meant. He hadn't had bad dreams since he was a
child, since the night before his grandfather died. He hoped it was not a
premonition of something evil.

"My
lord!" came an urgent voice.

Kendrick
turned to see a messenger come running up to him. It was the boy whom he had
appointed to the new position of lookout on the newly-built watchtower.

"Come
quick! I spot something on the horizon. I do not understand it.”

Kendrick
turned and ran off with the messenger, several of his men following. They cut through
the winding streets of this town which Kendrick had come to know by heart, and he
ran down the narrow path that twisted up a small elevation at the far end of
the city, taking him to the top of a hill upon which they had built the new
stone tower. It was the highest ground in the city, and the place at which
Kendrick had instructed they should keep a twenty four hour watch. This was the
first time the lookout had spotted anything, and Kendrick guessed that it was
just a false warning from a skittish boy.

Kendrick
reached the top and stood on the narrow, circular platform with the others, and
followed the scout's finger as he pointed at the horizon. It was a clear, blue
and yellow day, no clouds as far as the eye could see, with perfect visibility.
Kendrick could see for miles, and he looked east, towards the Highlands,
towards the McCloud border. As far away as they were, on this day, Kendrick
could see the faint outline of the Highlands, the mountain ranges spotting the
horizon, shrouded in mist.

As he
looked closer, Kendrick, to his surprise, spotted something, too.

"There,
my lord," the scout said, pointing to his right.

At
first Kendrick did not see exactly what the scout was talking about. But as he
scrutinized the horizon, he began to see it, too. There was a small, faint
cloud, in the very distant horizon, appearing a tiny bit thicker than the
others, and appearing slightly lower to the ground. As Kendrick watched, it seemed
to grow ever thicker, darker.

"It
looks like smoke,” the scout said. “It doesn't make any sense.”

Kendrick
nodded. He was right: it didn't make any sense. Why would there be a fire on
the McCloud side of the Ring? None of his people had launched a raid, as far as
he knew.

"Perhaps
it is a random fire that has broken out in one of their cities," one of Kendrick’s
men, beside him, volunteered.

Kendrick
nodded, thinking. While that was a possibility, he felt it was not the case. He
sensed that something was wrong, that something bigger was happening. Something
he did not understand.

Kendrick
stood there, wondering, debating what his next move should be. He had been
gearing up mentally to leave these borderlands, to return to King’s Court; to
lead an expedition now to go and investigate this would take he and his men
nearly a full day's ride in the opposite direction, closer to the Highlands. It
was not something he wanted to do unless there was good cause.

There
came a sudden commotion, and Kendrick turned to see a lone rider approaching the
town from the long road that led in the direction of King's Court. His heart
soared as he recognized the rider immediately: his horse and armor gave him
away. It was a man he had known and fought with since the time he could walk.
His close friend of the Silver, Atme.

It
warmed his heart to see him; but as Kendrick watched him gallop for the town
gate, he could tell by his urgency, by his posture, that something was wrong.
This was not a casual visit. Atme had urgent business, and Kendrick sensed it
was bad news.

He
braced himself as Atme charged through the town gate, spotted him, rode to him
and dismounted,
 
running up the stone
steps for Kendrick three at a time.

"The
last time I saw you run like that, you were running from your debts,"
Kendrick said with a smile as his old friend arrived, gasping for air, and they
embraced. An attendant rushed over and handed Atme a bucket of water, and he
took a long drink, then dumped the rest on his head.

"The
Empire, the Canyon," Atme breathed, gasping. "The shield is down.”

Kendrick's
heart stopped at his words. Coming from anyone else, at any other time, he
would have assumed it was a joke. But not coming from Atme, and not at this
time.

Kendrick
could hardly process the implications. The Shield was down. It was not possible.
Not with the Destiny Sword in King's Court.

"What
of the Destiny Sword?” Kendrick asked.

Atme
shook his head gravely.

"It
is no more," he said. “It’s gone. Stolen.”

Kendrick's
breath froze.

“Stolen,"
he gasped. "How could that be?”

“A
large group of men stole it in the night. They crossed the Canyon with it,
boarded a ship, and they've taken it to the Empire.”

It all
felt surreal. The Destiny Sword, the life-force of MacGil Kings for centuries,
stolen. In Empire hands. The Ring unprotected. Somehow, he sensed that Gareth was
behind it.

Kendrick
turned and surveyed the new town wall he had just built, and realized that it
had all had been for nothing. Without the shield, the entire Empire could
invade—and nothing, certainly not this town wall—could stop that.

Immediately,
Kendrick thought of his family, of Gwendolyn, Reece, Godfrey. He thought of
King’s Court, vulnerable to attack.

"King's
Court must be fortified at once,” Kendrick said.

Again,
Atme shook his head ominously.

“There
has been a rift. Your sister has left King’s Court and has taken half the
people, the ones we care about. They march now for Silesia. The MacGil kingdom
is fractured in two. King’s Court is Gareth's domain now. Gwendolyn sent me for
you.”

"We
must to my sister, then," Kendrick said. “To Silesia.”

Kendrick
surveyed the townsfolk below.

"Without
the shield, these folk will be defenseless,” he said. “These fortifications are
designed to hold against McCloud's troops—not against Andronicus’ million man army.
These people will never survive an Empire invasion.”

Kendrick
turned to Atme.

"Go
to my sister. Ride ahead of me. Tell her I am coming. I can't return without
these people.”

Atme’s
face flashed in concern.

"It
is noble of you,” he said, “but they will be slow-moving. If you wait to
accompany them, you may not reach Silesia in time.”

“That
is a chance I must take,” Kendrick said.

Atme
stared at his old friend, and nodded slowly.