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  Then he heard the groan.

  It had come from behind the massive chair that was Ildra’s throne.

  Guthrie jumped to the side of the chair and looked behind it in hope of finding something, anything to save him. There spread out on a blanket of wool was Captain Werner, the older man’s features pale and bruised, though otherwise he appeared relatively hail. The captain seemed unconscious, his eye lids fluttering.

  A shout from behind. The Dartague were coming.

  Guthrie spun about.

  A half dozen men had already entered the tent, their shields up and swords pointed at the Ursian as more and more barbarians piled in from behind.

  There was nowhere to go. And this was a fight Guthrie could not win.

  The sergeant gritted his teeth and prayed.

  Part III:

  Bared Blades

  1,913 years After Ashal (A.A.)

  Chapter 1

  A dozen howling barbarians charging through the tent flap, walls of stone reaching up hundreds of feet all around, there was nowhere for Sergeant Guthrie Hackett to escape. He stood alone, his only comrade the wounded Captain Werner unconscious on the tent’s floor behind him.

  At least the sergeant had a loaded crossbow in his hands.

  He tugged on the bar below the bow, the arrow barreling across the short distance to nail the first of the Dartague in the chest. The struck warrior continued to howl, but he dropped to the ground slowing his comrade’s forward momentum for a moment as the next barbarian in line paused before jumping over the downed man.

  Letting his crossbow fall to the dirt floor, Guthrie yanked out his iron-headed mace. For a moment his eyes flashed to the small fires he had started by smashing several of the tent’s hanging oil lamps, but already the tiny blazes were going dim, barely noticed by the barbarians. Guthrie wished then he had more fire, more flame, a wall that was a conflagration large enough to drive away his foes.

  It was but a fleeting thought.

  Then, as the closest Dartague screamed rage and lifted his sword for a swing that could not miss in the confines of the tent, a golden light appeared at the edges of the sergeant’s vision. Guthrie had but a moment to ponder this sight, the aura familiar to him as a sign of magic, then an unseen explosion in the air knocked the sergeant back and off his feet.

  For a moment Guthrie could not see anything, his eyes closed as he smashed against the Dartague throne made of tree limbs, crashing into the seat of power, his weight crunching into the twigs and nearly ruining the chair. When he opened his eyes, he found he was half seated on the throne, one arm stretched around a limb of the chair, his bottom barely in the seat and his legs splayed out in front of him. Where his mace had flown, he did not know.

  More miraculous was the sight before him. There was a golden, glowing wall of fire as tall and wide as a man rolling away from him, the flames eating away at the walls of the tent, charring black the long table and the chairs in the center of the room, and more importantly burning the flesh and leathers and furs of the Dartague warriors.

  The Dartague screamed and shouted as they rushed back the way they had come, sprawling over one another in a bid to escape out the tent’s open flap. Then the flap itself was enveloped, the whole front of the tent a wall of flame now. From outside the barbarians continued their screeching, the stompings of their boots telling Guthrie those men were fleeing.

  The only Dartague left behind was the man Guthrie had hit with the arrow. The barbarian was dead, the arrow sticking from the chest of the figure curled on the ground and burnt black and crisp. Even the dead man’s fur coat had been burned away, showing beneath flesh the color of coal and soot.

  Guthrie shuddered at the sight, then watched as the wall of fire changed direction, flowing out the tent’s opening now expanding as flame ate away at its edges. The wall continued to roll on into the night. Enough of the tent had fallen away that Guthrie could now see outside, and what he saw was the wall of fire chasing after the fleeing warriors. He almost laughed at such a scene.

  Then he remembered his dropped mace and the wounded captain behind the throne.

  Jumping to his feet, Guthrie shifted around behind the seat of tree branches. Werner lay unmoving where the sergeant had found him.

  Turning back to look along the length of the tent, Guthrie realized he did not have much time to act. The wall of flame itself had moved on, disappearing down the path that led to the valley below where the Dartague were encamped, but fire was still tearing away at the tent. Already nearly all the front wall was gone and the roof was taking an awful heating. Drops of flame were falling here and there, and Guthrie expected that to grow worse as the roof of animal hides continued to burn. He had to get himself and Werner out before the whole place burned down on top of them.

  Glancing around he spotted his mace near the table. Grabbing it and sliding it into the loop on his belt, he returned to the captain. Werner was an older man and not tall, but he did have muscle and was wearing armor. Guthrie groaned as he bent and lifted the Ursian militia officer, throwing him over a shoulder.

  Then it was time to run. Guthrie moved as swiftly as possible with the extra weight upon him. He rushed out the front of the tent and proceeded to the edge of the trail that led down to the valley. Looking back, he saw the tent was now engulfed in flames. He wondered what had caused the fire. Had he done it himself? The Dartague wyrd woman had told him he was some kind of wizard, her word being a ‘natural’ mage, but Guthrie had not believed her. Admittedly he had been gifted with a special sight to see magic in all its shapes and forms, but that had come from the ice witch and was not evidence he himself could perform magic. But if he had not brought about the wall of fire, who or what had? Before disappearing, Ildra had seemed quite insistent upon Guthrie’s death, so it was not likely she had saved him, especially at the expense of her own people.

  Guthrie shook his head. There was no time to ponder such thoughts. He had to move, to go, to get away from the Dartague, who were camped in the hundreds in the valley below the ridge where he carried the captain.

  But how to escape? There was only one path down from the ridge, the path he faced, and surely there would be a small army of the barbaric warriors waiting for him at the bottom. There were horses below, but getting to them was another story.

  He noticed then the screams coming from the valley. Because of the ridge’s height from the valley floor and the surrounding walls of rock, he could not spy into the valley itself, but it sounded as if terror had come to the Dartague, a hardy people not known for fear. Had the wall of flame continued on a course, tearing through the main camp?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Guthrie grunted again as he shifted the heavy weight of the captain and proceeded with caution down the trail to the valley. If he was attacked, he would have to drop the captain and draw weapons. Too bad Werner wasn’t awake, otherwise the man could be of a help in a fight.

  Guthrie soon found the added weight of the captain added to his momentum as he ascended the trail, and more than once he had to turn to one side to plant his boots against the ground to slow himself. Eventually he made it to the bottom.

  The scene was a nightmare.

  The Dartague encampment was to his left, and nearly all the tents nearest to him were now little more than flaming husks. Here and there were scattered dead, blackened warriors, beyond them more fire flickering through tents and up to the sky. The wall of fire had grown, now stretching all the way across the valley and twice the height of a man. Guthrie could see nothing beyond the roaring flames, but he could hear the screams and the cries. Some of those wailings came from women and children, and Guthrie could only hope it was fear and not pain and death causing such sounds; perhaps those who were not warriors would escape out the other end of the valley. At least Guthrie wished it so.

  The fires died.

  Guthrie blinked beneath his helmet. He couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. That wall of flame rolling acro
ss the camp and the valley, it had simply vanished. It was then the Ursian sergeant realized that yes, it was he who had controlled the flames. Ildra had been right about him being a natural mage. This was a secret Guthrie would have to keep to himself, which he believed would be no difficult matter since he did not even know how he had stirred up the magic. If any of his own countrymen found out, it would be death for him, the punishment suffered by all those who practiced sorcery in Ursia.

  But such concerns would have to come later. The fire had died, all but the lingering flickers amongst the remaining tents. It would take some few minutes, but the Dartague would regroup and they would be coming for him. It was time to flee.

  To Guthrie’s right were the horses, nearly two score of the beasts tethered to trees or poles struck into the ground. They were nervous animals now that the wall of fire had swept past, not touching the horses but well within their view. The sights and sounds of the conflagration must have stirred the beasts further, for more than a few had managed to pull free of their tethers and trotted away. Guthrie had counted more of the animals before, but there were still plenty for his picking.

  He approached a horse that appeared less frightened than the others, more at ease. The animal was still tied and presented no trepidation as Guthrie untied its reins from a dead tree and slung the unmoving captain across the creature’s back where a blanket lay. There was no saddle, but at least the reins were still available and there was the blanket.

  Shouts from the camp caused the sergeant to glance over his shoulder, but no one was approaching. The Dartague were likely more concerned with their wounded and their dead, at least for the moment, giving Guthrie time to escape. But where to go?

  Earlier he had seen a trail that appeared to wind toward the north, deeper into the mountains. He did not know where this trail led, but its opening was not far, just the other side of the trees behind the horses. It was either take that trail or try to ride his way through the Dartague.

  Guthrie opted to take the back trail.

  He pulled the horse along with him after a last look to make sure Werner was not going to slide off the animal’s back. Making his way through the other horses, Guthrie soon spied the entrance to the trail beneath some trees at the end of the valley. As he had remembered, the way was a narrow one with walls of rock on either side shooting up and up, only room for one horse at a time to ride forward. Fortunately for Guthrie, he was only taking the one horse, but he did not care for the tight environs ahead of him.

  Still, there was nothing to be done about it. He had to go. The Dartague would probably be hunting for him soon enough. He had no clue as to where this path would take him, but perhaps it would curve back around to the larger valley he had trekked through earlier in the night, or perhaps even to the flatlands of his own country.

  Chapter 2

  It did not take long before Guthrie’s legs became weary. He had been running for more than a week from one combat to the next or skulking and hiding and playing the assassin or spy. Other than a sleep of a few days, possibly a spell placed upon him by the ice witch, he had had little rest in some time. After the fight at the old creek bed, he had fallen unconscious, but he had not felt rested upon waking then. There had been little enough of proper sleep, or of food and drink for that matter. His body was weakening on him.

  He finally climbed aboard his lone steed, placing himself in the saddle with Captain Werner sprawled in front of him. Then it was steady riding for hours upon hours.

  At least the trail was somewhat flat, with smaller stones appearing every so often along the ravine’s floor but no boulders or, thankfully, landslides. The route was rarely straight for more than a few feet, usually crooked and circling. Guthrie could rarely tell what direction he was traveling, much of the sky hidden to him because of the rising walls upon either side. At least there was little snow here along his route.

  It occurred to him this path would be little use for a military of any size, but it could prove useful to a single man or a small band. He would have to remember it for the future.

  But then all thoughts fled from his mind and he slumbered in the saddle. The Dartague were notoriously loud, so he figured any noise of them following would wake him before he could be captured. If the Dartague did come, he was not sure what he could do other than perhaps use the horse to block the trail and to fight as best he could. He had left behind his crossbow at the burning tent, more than once wishing he had not done so. Those were his last thoughts as he slept.

  When he woke, he was surprised to find it morning, the sky a bright azure above. More surprising was the fact he was no longer in the saddle, but stretched out beneath a wool blanket, the very one that had been on the horse’s back. The sound of a crackling fire came to his ears, followed by the scent of cooking meat to his nose.

  Guthrie sat up. He was in the mouth of a shallow cave, staring out into a path of packed dirt that appeared to be the one he had been following the night before. A small cooking fire had been built in the small space between the cave and the trail. Werner squatted in front of the fire, the man holding Guthrie’s dagger in one hand, on the end of the blade some kind of small lizard. A snorting off to one side proved the horse was in evidence, though Guthrie could not see the beast from his seated position.

  The captain glanced up at his comrade’s awakening. Smiling, he held the blackened reptile out to the sergeant. “My apologies, but this was the best I could scrounge.”

  Guthrie grimaced. Lizard was not on his normal menu. But then he felt his stomach rumbling and realized he needed to eat something. Reaching out, he took his dagger. After a brief look of distaste at his meal, he munched on the thing’s tail. The flavor was unique, not bad, not good, reminding him somewhat of dried fish. It would do.

  Werner chuckled. “Had one myself not too long ago. I’ve had better, but at least it was something in my stomach.”

  Guthrie swallowed. “How long have you been awake?”

  “A few hours, right after dawn. You were out, so I decided to make camp, give you some rest.”

  “Any sign of the Dartague?”

  Werner shook his head. “Nothing. I’ve not even heard them trailing us. But to tell the truth, I remember little. Was their a Dartague camp? I seem to remember a tent and a woman.”

  “They hauled you off to their wyrd woman,” Guthrie said with a nod. “I was lucky to have found you.”

  “I’m surprised you’re alive,” Werner admitted. “I believed everyone dead after that fight in the snow.”

  Guthrie grinned. “Well, I’m here, and so are you. Another made it as well, a youth. He went by the name of Manif.”

  “He’s a good lad, Manif. Glad to hear he made it.” The captain frowned, his long mustache drooping beneath his nose. “I hate to think about losing Pindle and the others, though. Good men, all.”

  Guthrie nodded again. “They went down well, to a man. Before coming after you, I sent Manif off to Herkaig for a burial party. I made sure to tell him the party should be of size. The Dartague seem to have little fear venturing into our lands.”

  “I’ve wondered about that,” Werner said. “This wyrd woman, I remember little of her, more an impression of beauty than anything. Was she the same you ran into some while back?”

  “She was,” Guthrie said. “I had chance to speak with her briefly while trying to get away with you. It seems she has quite the hate for us Ursians. I don’t expect this war to end anytime soon.”

  Werner chuckled. “Sergeant, this war has only began. But you’ll have to tell me how you found me, and how you got away.”

  There was much Guthrie did not want to tell, especially about himself possibly being a wizard, but there was no way out of yielding some of the tale. He recognized it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible. “It was simple, really. Manif found me and told me you were alive after the battle. I followed the Dartague trail into the mountains, did some skulking around, and discovered the largest tent. I thought t
he wyrd woman would likely be within, so I sneaked around her guards and made my way inside. I found her, and was surprised to find you, though I’d had hopes you might be there.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “Luck more than anything. I broke several lamps and started a fire.” Here Guthrie chuckled. “That damn tent went up in flames. The wyrd woman and her warriors were too busy avoiding getting burned to deal with me, so I grabbed you and a horse and made my way down a mountain trail I had spotted.”

  “Luck, or the watchful gaze of Ashal,” Werner said. “Too bad the only weapons you managed to keep are your mace and knife. We could use a bow or sling for hunting. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to forage, and I’m not familiar with these northern climes. Food is going to be scarce until we can get back to camp.”

  “True,” Guthrie said, taking another bite of lizard, then swallowing with a grimace, “but I’m thankful we’re in one piece. Manif took a nasty blow to the head, but I’ve come through with only bruising so far. What of yourself? How are you faring?”

  The captain rubbed at his head. “I took a good strike back at the creek bed, but otherwise I’m relatively fine, maybe some bruising here and there. Ha! It probably helped that I was out of it most of the time I was with the Dartague. Otherwise they might have tortured me.”

  “I’m sure they would have gotten around to it,” Guthrie said, his voice grim as he finished his morning meal and wiped his knife clean on the horse blanket.

  Werner stood, wiping his hands on his pants legs and glancing along the trail they had followed into the mountains. “Have any clue where this will take us?”

  “None,” Guthrie said. “I’d hoped it would bring us out further west of here, maybe in the woods or prairie. So far it seems to just go deeper into the mountains.”

  Opening his mouth to speak again, Werner paused, his gaze darting back the way they had come.