The Witches of the Dailes

      The king, encased in armor that he had not worn since a young prince, mounted his horse with the aid of his servants, looking – if not exactly like the figures in the tapestry in his mighty all, then nearly so, at least in his own mind. “Too long have a sat in the darkness of my castle halls,” he thought, feeling the tingle of excitement he had not felt in many years, the anticipation of a battle still to be waged many, many leagues to the east. “I go to share glory with my son.” Around him, throughout the court yard his captains sat on their steeds, too, streamers and flags of each house flapping in their brisk wind. Winter was coming, the feel of it creeping over the landscape as it always did, the first serious frost already evident in mountains north, slowing making its way down from the peaks and into the valleys. Farmers worked hard to get the last of their harvest done, a battle of a different kind, the king thought, and done without flags or bann...

        It hurt to breathe, and yet he could not stop breathing, the heat of the day and the deep wound telling him he would not soon survive. As captain of Ajax’s counter attack, he should have anticipated something like this, the trap within eh trap, the attack from behind and two sides as he led his troops against the glare of the sun into what turned out to be an empty village. The savages swarmed over his men in a wave of rage, screaming beasts striking his men down even fore they could turn to face the assault, men dead even before they hit the earth, each whimpering with mortal wounds like children, their armor of no use against the lances and arrows with which the natives expertly struck. Who knew they could be so clever? Mere savages! As brilliant a move as any the Captain had ever seen, on either side of this perpetual war. He had thought his kind were so superior, and that the natives could never out think his kind, but they had, striking once,...

    Ajax lifted himself higher on the back of his horse to get a better view of the valley below. Dawn just broke over the sea beyond, casting beams down onto the scattered tents of the horse people – several tribes he had never seen before, mingling with those with whom he was more familiar, a gathering that had already left its bloody mark across his people’s settlements, and promised to bring war into Amlor itself, more warriors with more horses than any Ajax had seen or perhaps any other of the defenders of Land Gate for generations. From the right, the captain of his legion rode towards him, armor glinting in the harsh sun, the sweat obvious his face, as it had been on the others taking the long hard ride from Land Gate to reach here. The captain was breathless when he arrived, as if he had run, not ridden. “Everything is in place, Lord,” the captain said. “Few of these savages will escape.” Fire showed in the captain’s eyes, a rage stirred up by visions of slaugh...

  The captain sat on his heavy horse at the top of the hill looking down on what had been a village as he soldiers made their way around the ruins. Smoke still rose from what had been many fires overnight but now cinders. The scent of scalding flesh filled the air as the east wind brought dust out of the plains. Dawn had brought peace to the village as the warriors fled ahead of the captain’s armored troop. “Killing unarmed villagers is easy, but not so much when people can fight back,” he thought, knowing, however, the matter was not as simple as that. They embraced night and took away their dead before dawn could steal their souls. Warriors had died here, as the overmatched villagers fought back. None of their bodies remained for the steel devils of the north to steal. The captain did not need a body to identify the attackers, a particularly savage tribe coming from the northeastern plains. Why they came puzzled him. His lieutenant rode up the hill from the ruins of...

      Blyord pulled Kristle aside into a small alcove near the top of the stairs that led down into the castle below. This far from the hearth in Ely’s chambers, the hall had a deeper chill only cold stone could keep. Kristle shivered, but not from the cold. “What is it, Sire?” Kristle asked, wondering fi the wizard could read minds the way some claimed he could, and if he had read Kristle’s terrible thoughts from only a few moments earlier, thoughts about killing a prince he had since recanted. “I know you are one of Ajax’s men,” the wizard said, furthering Kristle’s dread. Would the wizard curse him or as bad, drag him down before the king to be beheaded? “I am a member of the kings guard,” Kristle said, struggling to keep the fear from sounding in his voice. “As are all those who serve in the King’s castle,” Blyord snapped. “I have not time for petty politics. I know your primary allegiance is to Ajax. It is the reason I need your service.” “What serv...

    Near a small campfire, the two soldiers kept watch, a fire too small, providing too little heat. These days in this place too large a fire would draw the wrong kind of attention. Everything was unsettled here, and no matter how wary they were, it was never wary enough this side of Land Gate where trouble always started. “We should not have left that ride through,” one solider said, pushing his gloved hand as close to the flames as he dared without singeing them. “We had to,” the other guard said, standing further back from the fire, nervous about what the light might attract. “He had a message for the prince.” “For the wrong prince,” the other soldier said, stooping even closer to the flames, “not our prince.” “They are both our princes,” the other soldier said. “One we see, one we don’t,” the stooping solider said. “We should have held the rider back until we sent word to our prince.” “The rider said it was urgent.” “A foreigner telling us what’s urgen...

    He just sleeps, as if nothing matters, Kristle thought, staring through the door at the young prince on the cot, the chill air filling the hall from the room’s open window, fall quickly giving way to the first signs of winter. I could kill him now as he sleeps, and no one will be the wiser. A blade between the ribs, or into the heart, or across his throat. None of the other guards would know until it already happened, and then death would strike him, too. His fingers closed tightly around the barrel of his spear, palms sweating, despite the cold, fingers nearly numb for clutching it. To kill a prince, even a prince he despised grated inside him, going against everything he ever believed, love for Amlor above all else, even love of another prince. How could he do this evil thing and feel love for anything? Even thinking of it made him feel empty inside, hollow, scared. Scared like no soldier should feel, especially a soldier in the king’s guard, scared down ...

      Ely woke with a jolt. Frigid air swept through the open window, swirling around him, hard with the first hints of coming autumn. After so much time in a warmer climate, this felt already like winter. He felt the flecks of rain against his skin, even though the battlement kept the worst of it from him, the hard, bitter rain his people had come to expect from this time of year, having already concluded their harvest and wrapped themselves up to survive the onslaught of real cold that would soon arrive. He rolled himself off the cot, sword – still at his side – rattling against the wood of the bed and the stone of the floor, as he dragged himself to the opening out for a deeper breath of air, the scent of sea strong in the chilly climes, he thought, dragging him back more thoroughly than his sail here or even his meeting with the king. The gray sky greeted him, pregnant with rain, leaving a mist across the tops of the more distant mountain and floating over...