“Are they allied with Cyric?” Darius asked, coming up beside her.
“If they are, then we are already defeated,” she said. “Our tower is broken, and we have no walls. Against such a force we have no hope.”
Darius touched the hilt of his sword, and despite his obvious exhaustion, there was no defeat in his eyes.
“We’ll see about that,” he said, leaving to join Daniel. Absently she followed, her mind still on the approaching army. There was a presence with them she recognized, though distantly. It was different from the others, once painful yet now somehow…comforting. It made no sense.
Daniel Coldmine was surrounded by his men, and he shook his head as he listened to them.
“No,” he said at last. “They outnumber us, they’re better trained and better armed. I’ll ride out to hear their terms, but so long as they’ll let the common folk live, I have every intention of surrendering.”
A few protested, but they were not many. They’d run themselves ragged fleeing from Cyric, and now a new enemy came from the west. There was nowhere left to go.
“Come with me,” Valessa said, touching Darius’s shoulder. “Something bothers me, and I want you to see.”
“If you wish,” Darius said. “But we might need to flee, and soon. The peasants might get away unscathed, but I doubt any army of Karak will be happy to let us slip through their fingers.”
About five hundred yards from the camp the army halted. The people gathered in groups, fearfully watching for the slightest sign of violence. Daniel waited with his most trusted men, and from somewhere amid the rubble they managed to find a flag of Mordan they might wave. With it high above their heads they went to meet Karak’s delegation. Against the twenty red, black, and gold banners of the lion, it looked meek. Just to the side of the crowd Valessa stood, and when the delegation marched out from Karak’s army, she pointed, unable to hide her excitement.
“There,” she said. “That is who I sense. Do you know him, Darius? Is he who I think he is?”
The group walked closer, and there was no disguising the red hair, the silvery armor, and the giant shield strapped to his back. Darius’s grin spread wide, and for the first time that morning both dared hope.
“That crazy whoreson,” Darius said. “What in blazes is he doing with them?”
“A captive, perhaps?”
“A captive who keeps his weapons and armor?”
Darius suddenly ran to join Daniel, and Valessa hurried after. She kept herself in the guise of a commoner, not wanting to upset a precarious situation because of her former allegiances as a gray sister. Daniel gave them a glare, and she could sense his worry about what them joining him meant. But then they heard Jerico cry out in surprise.
“Darius?”
Beside Jerico was a priest, who clearly led the army, and when Daniel bowed low to him he bowed in return.
“I am Luther of Mordeina,” he said, “loyal priest of Karak.”
“And I’m Daniel Coldmine, and I control what’s left of the wall of towers. Please tell me you’ve come to help, not kill.”
Before he could answer Jerico and Darius embraced, and they both laughed with joy to see each other again. Valessa watched with her eyes downcast, feeling like an outsider. She stepped back so she might stand behind Daniel, and her presence go unnoticed.
“I’ve come to kill,” Luther said, glancing at the paladins. “But it is not you, so you may stand down your men. Tell me truthfully, Sir Daniel, do you run from the one known as Cyric?”
“We do,” said Daniel. “That bloody priest has hounded us all the way from Willshire. Why, is he a friend of yours?”
“No friend,” Jerico said, stepping back and smacking Darius across the shoulder. “We’re here to kill him.”
“Consider us come to your rescue,” Luther said, and his smile was ice to Valessa’s nonexistent veins.
Redclaw could smell them from miles away. They’d left a trail of fear on their passage south. As he led his pack through the forest that grew alongside the river, he felt his excitement rise. At last they could give in to their every instinct. Leaving the surrendered alive, and being given only a tenth, had worn on even his most loyal. But this was his promise, his land of feasts and blood. A thousand of them ran, in a pack of such strength he’d never seen in his life. Only the rising sun tempered his excitement. What he’d have given to arrive while the moon was still high in the sky, shining down upon them.
They were near now, having run all night. At last they approached the forest’s edge. Past that were the humans and their tents, their wagons, and their broken fortress. His pack took up his cry, and with the echoes of a thousand howls they burst from the forest and out into the hills beyond.