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leave you here?”
    Ellerick shook his soaking head like a dog just come out of a lake and spurred his courser toward the road that led south. He waited there till the others pushed off ahead of him, Jerreb in the lead, setting a course for Rivencrest.

    Rivencrest lay in ruins. The land was named for its strategic location atop a lush hillcrest surrounded by twin rivers that fed the great Kilgud Lake, which sat half a mile to the south. The beauty of the region was such that it had attracted from various lands philosophers and poets and master potters, whose vases depicted images of the Ancients painted in relief, where subtle variations in polychrome coloring was coupled with delicate light and shade effects to showcase their brilliance. The women of Rivencrest were young and fair, many of them muses to the poets who sat at the river’s edge bleeding out the thoughts of their hearts on parchment.
    As the four men walked their horses through the center of the village, they gazed at the destruction about them—nearly every dwelling razed to the ground, gardens trampled underfoot by an army of horses, smoke still billowing over distant fields that had been set aflame, and not long ago. The bodies of men were strewn everywhere—fathers, husbands, sons—many of their faces badly bludgeoned. Jerreb moved through the scene like a lost boy through a fog, his glazed eyes taking in the devastation.
    â€œNot a woman or girl among the dead,” Ghendris said, breaking the pall of silence that had fallen over them as he searched the ground.
    Jerreb dug his heels into the flanks of his mount and sped toward his home, the others galloping behind. Jerreb’s cottage, a two-story fieldstone and timber affair, had been destroyed. The thatch roof had been burned, and the front wall had collapsed, exposing the loft where his wife slept as well as the stone floor below it, where a brazier stood intact. His wife was nowhere to be seen.
    â€œThe women have been taken,” Ghendris said. “It’s the way of the plainsmen.”
    Jerreb arched his head skyward as he let out a bloodcurdling scream that did little to quell his rage. The others looked on with grim expressions, waiting for their leader’s madness to subside. As Jerreb fell silent, they heard the sounds of a horse and wagon in the distance. The knights unsheathed their swords, and Ghendris reached for his mace. When they looked in the direction of the hoofbeats, they saw what looked to be a spice trader’s wagon drawn by two gray carthorses.
    â€œStand down, men, it’s a woman driving it,” Ellerick said.
    When the horses drew up, a woman climbed down from the seat of the wagon and walked around to the back. The four men walked their horses to the rear of the wagon to see what she was about, and they marveled when they saw her strapping a young cripple to her torso. The whiteness of the boy’s eyes marked him as blind.
    â€œWhat business do you have here, woman?” Jerreb asked.
    â€œIt’s not safe to be in these parts, mum,” Sendin added.
    The woman looked up at the hard faces of the men that surrounded her. “My business here is to give you lot a message.”
    That was unexpected, and the expressions on the four men’s faces betrayed their surprise.
    Jerreb narrowed his eyes at the woman. “Who are you?”
    â€œI be Seyalinn Grun, from Pembrick Hollow, near the heart of the Prybbian Realm.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “This here’s Quarvik. He’s mi lad. We’ve traveled many miles, pursued by a torrent of rain all the week to bring you your message.”
    â€œThe woman’s daft,” Ellerick whispered.
    â€œWatch your tongue, Ellerick,” the woman said, and the young knight started so violently he nearly unhorsed himself. Then she spoke the names of the others in turn as her eyes moved from one face to the next.
    â€œHow do you know us,