The Darkness Undivided (The Blessed Land: Book I)

By Jesse Jones

Evil has slept for six hundred years and the world languishes in an era of unprecedented peace. But now, on the edge of civilization, the ebon machinery of betrayal threatens to unleash long-vanquished shadows onto nations unprepared for strife. Amidst deceit, calamity, and death, Thabien Feyn must find the strength to stand tall, for he and his friends may be the world's only hope, the only shield between the Blessed Land and a future beneath the black hand of...The Darkness Undivided.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jesse Jones
• Release date: May 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301777792

Jesse Jones

A Texas native, Jesse was born in Corpus Christi and lived there until moving to Denton in 1999 to attend the University of North Texas. Thirteen years and four degrees later, he's still in Denton and writing science fiction and fantasy. Though a perennial bachelor, he lives with his five roommates: a programmer, a voice actress, an engineer, a costume designer, and a Japanese teacher. Needless to say, life is never dull.

Book preview

The Darkness Undivided

The Blessed Land: Book I

by Jesse Jack Jones

Copyright 2013 Jesse Jack Jones

Smashwords Edition

Discover other titles by Jesse Jack Jones at Smashwords.com or visit the author's website at jessejackjones.com

Cover art by Ishutani

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for you, then please consider purchasing your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Tables of Contents

Chapter 01—A Pall of Mist

Chapter 02—The Stead on the Hill

Chapter 03—The Honor of the Three Hills

Chapter 04—Knight-Commander

Chapter 05—Festival of Blades

Chapter 06—Truth and Seeming

Chapter 07—To the Horizon

Chapter 08—Beyond the Sight of Dragons

Chapter 09—The Fang of Darkness

Chapter 10—The Road Glorious at Dawn

Chapter 11—Battle in the Kiarmasa Vael

Chapter 12—A Laying of Ways

Chapter 13—Conversations in Camp

Chapter 14—Childhood's End

Chapter 15—Beginnings Come Only from Endings

Chapter 16—Trouble in Kindrith Well

Chapter 17—Battle Scars

Chapter 18—Auriflamme

Chapter 19—Alchemy

Chapter 20—Black-Blooded

Chapter 21—A Pleasant Lunch

Chapter 22—Delving

Chapter 23—In the House of Darra

Chapter 24—An Afternoon with Seria

Chapter 25—Day In and Day Out

Chapter 26—The Edge of Dreams

Chapter 27—Cats and Dogs

Chapter 28—Parting

Appendix A—Weights and Measures

Appendix B—Clock and Calendar

Appendix C—Currency

Glossary

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Limitless thanks to all my editors, in alphabetical order: DJ, Jeremy, Jessica, Rachael, Raymond, Samara, and Sarah.

Chapter 01—A Pall of Mist

Location: Stead on the Hill, Estredt

Date: 5 Verdure Descending, 2837 Aria

The mist came on like a wall with a will, like something out of the old stories no one quite believed anymore. Thabien stood tense atop a short wall of uncut stones, squinting, pulling in what details he could as the onrushing fog threatened to eclipse the midday sun. A storm crawling across the ground, the froth's leading edge was shaped like the head of a spear, a thrusting column of cloud from which swept back murky wings that ate a wide slice of the northwestern horizon. The flat green plains that defined his world were swallowed by its passage, the grass bowing before its heralding wind; already Thabien's hair was pushed back from his face in the unnaturally steady blow.

Wrath and ruin take it, He whispered, hand twitching to his empty belt. With youth's agility, he leapt down and dashed across a rutted dirt path, not pausing as he vaulted the rock wall's twin on the other side. Thabien was running now, ignoring the wide rows of tender, bright-green seedlings he trod over with a carelessness his father would have thumped him for. It was a short dash across the fields and into the yard proper, marked with a few small trellises wrapped in thorny blackberry vines just now going to green.

Gravel crunching underfoot, a shallow leap carried Thabien up three adobe steps onto the raised porch of hardened clay bricks. He skidded to a halt at a vacant window frame from which issued wisps of steam and the nutty smell of lunch simmering on the open hearth.

Mother? He called, ducking to poke his head through the opening. Mother!

Thabien? A voice answered and, after a few moments and the sound of footsteps, the figure of his mother moved into the small kitchen from an adjoining room. She was tall, only half a hand's span shorter than her son, and though they lacked any similarity of face, both had thick hair the black-brown of rich soil. A clay bowl was nestled between her hip and one hand, filled with chopped greens from the small garden alongside the house.

Something's wrong with the weather, Thabien began, faltering at the exasperated look that settled on his mother's face. I'm serious.

I'm sure you are, She said, "But I'm busy. And you're supposed to be weeding the northern ploughgate and checking for nits. Just yesterday, Aliana Saldan was saying Deld had to burn half-a-dozen roods of cotton because they found whitelice in them and you know we can't afford that kind of trouble with your father putting in his month on drive right now. Besides, it'll be a sun-span yet before the barley's soft enough to eat and you promised you'd help me with the mulching this afternoon. I want to get that second pit done before week's end."

Thabien opened his mouth several times to try and interrupt, but his mother overrode him like a cavalry charge. No one could willfully ignore a man as thoroughly as Henna Feyn.

As he was about to try another interjection, the wind gusted so hard that Thabien staggered up against the house, his hair tousled about by the force of it—even the shoulder-length braid thick as his thumb that dangled from his right temple—as the leafy contents blew out of the bowl Henna held, scattering across the kitchen's packed earth floor.

Oh, not a storm right now, She groused, slamming the half-emptied bowl down on a nearby adobe countertop as she moved towards the window.

It's not- Thabien tried again, but his mother planted a hand on his forehead and shoved him out before jerking the heavy leather curtain shut and tying it off. A second gust caused it to snap and billow like a sail, but it was there to keep out wind and rain from even the strongest of the storms that ripped across the thousand miles of vast, uninterrupted plains. Unnatural as it was, the wind blowing before the mist didn't have the roof-ripping strength of a real Greenswath gale.

He stood there for a moment, considering several impotent rebuttals and shifting from foot to foot. Half past his seventeenth yearing, all the elements and efforts of a rural life had tried their hand at shaping Thabien Feyn, but had failed utterly at sharpening his tongue enough to duel his mother.

With a final noise of frustration, he turned and dashed along the porch, then through the heavily curtained doorway that led through the front of the house. He fought through the layers of green-dyed cotton dancing to the wind's lead and scampered down a few steps to an open courtyard bounded in a rough ‘C’ by three high adobe walls against which were arranged the individual rooms of the Feyn ranch.

A deep, grunting greeting issued from a pen on the far side of the courtyard when Mezlin smelled Thabien, but the young man had no spare attention for the aged ganter, which returned to sulkily pushing at the bare earth of its pen. The wide-horned beast of burden was always fed well, but that never stopped it from trying to find spare bits of grass. Chickens clucked lazily in their stacked coops, not seeming to have noticed the unusual weather; another sign that worried Thabien. Livestock were usually the first to detect anything wrong. Still, it would be a mixed blessing; his father was one of the half-dozen men driving the village's herd to new grazing that month. If the excitable chickens were okay, the dull-witted sterich would probably not even notice the mist.

At the same time relieved and even more confused by the weather, Thabien rushed towards a small shed abutting the nail room at the end of the house's southern leg. Though it was built of adobe bricks like the house and most everything else on the ranch, the door was of actual wood: part of the family's last cart before they'd made enough three seasons prior to buy their full four-wheeled wagon. Thabien hit the shed door with his shoulder, forcing it open; the entrance was just a little too small for the piece of cart and it had a tendency to stick. On a shelf next to a bundle of finished nails and some coiled rope was the iron sword he'd received on his Name Day two years before, when he'd reached the age of lesser majority at fifteen. His father had said it was only for weapons practice there in the yard or during militia training, but something told Thabien it wouldn't hurt to have the curved blade with him right now. He paused for a moment, then stepped in a little deeper, reaching past a few cords of dried flooring thatch to pull out a bent wooden stave and a capped leather tube. With quick efficiency born of practice, Thabien fastened the sword's sheath to his left hip and the quiver to the right, cinching his belt tighter to keep it from sagging under the added weight. Then he grounded the stave and leaned it against his thigh, flexing the wood against its natural curve and drawing a loop of sinew up and over before relaxing and hefting the strung recurve bow now a little shorter than his height to the waist. With a flick of his wrist, he slipped the leather cap off the top of the quiver, revealing the dozen expertly fletched arrows within; all he had left of the score that Durnst had given him on his last yearing.

He turned and stepped out of the shed, grabbing the door's leather strap handle and pulling it shut securely. While he'd been inside, the fog had rushed through and now the world was still and dark. A perpetual gloaming that seemed to eat sound. Though the mist's front had been a roiling cloud, it was motionless now; 'hunting still,' Durnst would have called it, like the moment between blowing out your breath and releasing an arrow. It felt even more unnerving than Thabien had thought it would, which was saying something.

Until the muscles in his right arm started aching, he didn't even realize he'd drawn an arrow, let alone nocked it and pulled the bow taut. A deep breath and Thabien forced himself to relax, letting the bow go half-drawn. Quick enough to pull and shoot, but not enough to loose an arrow on accident, which proved fortuitous when Mezlin called out again—weirdly resonant in the stillness of the fog—and Thabien found himself turned around with the bowstring pulled back far enough to kiss before his mind registered him doing anything.

Calm down, He whispered to himself, shaking his head.

Thabien? Came his mother's voice and as he whirled about, Thabien just managed to keep from firing his bow. His ribs were not going to withstand his heart's attempts to break through them for much longer.

Yes? Thabien called back, voice cracking slightly.

What in creation is this mess? Henna asked, her tone for all the world implying that she thought it was his fault.

"Jus-SKII-II-IIRK!" Thabien's response cut off by a drawn-out cry like nothing he had ever heard a living thing make. It sounded almost like a plow head scraping on stone, except the rock would have to be a pole long for the noise to last so. Chicken cries and Mezlin stomping around his pen lowing filled the thick air with their oddly distorted sounds, further confusing the moment. The unmistakable feel of something moving, unseen, in the thick mist flashed through Thabien and he released an arrow without even considering the danger of firing blind with his mother in the courtyard. The chunk of it sinking into adobe was reassuring.

Ruination, Thabien spat even as he slid a new arrow out and nocked it with a practiced ease Durnst would have been proud of. Then he almost dropped the arrow completely, his hands were shaking so much.

What was that? Henna called over the noise of panicking chickens, voice tight but more controlled than Thabien felt.

Where's your spear?

In my hand, fool boy, As if that was the only possible answer.

Something's out here.

That, I had figured out for myself. Now get back here before you end up doing one of us an injury in this fog.

An annoyingly sensible idea, Thabien thought as he made sure the new arrow was seated properly and began to back towards where he hoped his mother's voice was coming from. Sounds were so queer in the fog; even his own footfalls seemed to come from a distance. Unable to see further than a few feet with any clarity, his bow felt like precious little in the way of protection and the sword at his hip was a feather-light source of little comfort. In that moment, he gave serious thought to his mother's choice to do her militia training with the reassuring heft of a spear instead of the sword. Swords were a much more dramatic choice, naturally, but now the idea of a few extra feet of weapon between him and whatever made that noise felt like a gods-given inspiration. Whatever it had been that shrieked like that, Thabien knew it wasn't a wolf or leopard...not even a lion with frothing sickness would make such unnatural cries.

The sun was a yellow cataract in the sky, dim and clouded, but enough light was starting to pierce through that Thabien could just make out the indistinct black bulk of the house’s three walls. Less solid, the chicken coops and Mezlin's pen that filled the open space where a fourth wall would have been were detectable only by the racket raised there, so the dark cup of the foggy world seemed to open up on the silvered mist there and it drew Thabien's eyes irresistibly. That made it easy to miss the low-slung shadow that crested the southern wall to his right, scuttling like some immense bug over the roof and half-way down the side of the storage room, clinging in a manner clearly impossible for something of its bulk. So the story of Thabien Feyn might have ended, in a single flicker of surprised realization, but the creature instead cried out with another grating shriek from where it clung, as if trying to pry open its victims' heads by way of their ears.

Thabien whipped around, drawing and loosing in a single fluid motion...too fluid, in fact, as he released the string barely half-way through his turn, the arrow biting into the adobe most of a pole to the left of the creature. Fumbling for the next arrow, he tangled several with fingers that suddenly felt as responsive as rockwood logs and ended up simply spilling them out of his quiver. Still, he had one gripped and planted it firmly on the string, albeit with the fletching turned the wrong way.

As if sensing his fear or frustration— or perhaps simply because he was the closer of the two—the thing kicked off the wall towards Thabien, cracking the adobe as it sent itself soaring through the air. Thabien suddenly had no time. No time to correct how he was holding the arrow, no time to aim, no time to even scream. He loosed the ill-seated shaft, a third of its fletching stripping itself off on the stave, and he knew it was off the mark even as he threw himself back and down, jerking the bow up like a shield between him and the indistinct form in the mist. The wildly gyrating arrow skidded off the monster in a brief shower of sparks that did nothing to illuminate his attacker.

When he'd been eleven, Thabien had tried to help his father with rounding up some of the six-legged sterich that had gotten away from the village herd. His father hadn't known, of course, and excitable little Thabien hadn't been mounted, so he was really just an annoyance to the great, lumbering brutes. When the actual ranchers had gotten the group moving, however, he hadn't even been an annoyance anymore, just another obstacle to trundle over. Until this moment, that had been the most intense feeling of being something small in the path of something large Thabien had ever experienced.

Now, with his attacker slamming into him with implacable force, he could look back fondly on being trampled. At least it was his bow that snapped this time, instead of one of his legs. Hot breath washed over him, thick and moist, the smell enough to leave him gagging and glad to be attacked before lunch. Now that it was less than a foot away, Thabien was shaken to realize the thing perched atop him, crushing the breath out of his lungs, was a lion...or at least leonine in some respects. It had the great, square-jawed muzzle of a young male, its mane a shaggy black necklace, but the similarities dwindled swiftly after that, for along the top of its head and stretching back to its mist-shrouded shoulders, the lion had a reddish-brown carapace like a crayfish straight out of the Tallgrass. Its shaggy legs ended not in paws, but in hands of almost human proportion, with long, thick-jointed fingers tipped with tiny black nails, one flat on his chest and the other in the dirt beside his head. Judging by the feel of it through his twilled cotton breeches, the thing's underbelly was covered in carapace similar to its top, pinning his legs effortlessly to the ground by dint of sheer mass.

Thabien realized, at that moment, that he was going to die. He couldn't reach his sword, twisted under his leg beneath the thing's bulk, and there was no way for his mother to kill something this monstrous by herself, especially not in time enough to keep it from ripping his head off. He had the distinct impression that the beast would not require more than a casual swipe of one of those impossible hands to do so.

Seeming to fill his world, the thing's triangular nose—the size of his clenched fist—lowered to Thabien's face and inhaled once with a sound like a blacksmith's bellows. It was about to eat his head and that struck Thabien as horrendously unfair, but it didn't seem to even notice his attempt to knee it in the belly. Probably because his leg couldn't actually move, despite his straining.

Suddenly, in a motion no lion could hope to emulate, it reared up on its hind legs, arms thrown wide and head held high, releasing a roaring scream that seemed to go on forever as Thabien stared in mute incomprehension. Its underside was, indeed, armored all the way down to the knees of its horse-like hind legs, each of which ended in the three-pronged claws of a giant bird's foot instead of hooves or paws.

Ringing silence, then, as the roar stopped and the monster began to drop back onto all fours, the motion snapping Thabien out of his shock. He twisted hard, throwing himself to the left and just managing to jerk his legs up towards his chest as its weight crashed back to the earth. Ungraceful, but better than getting pinned by the feet.

Thabien! Cried a voice—his mother, he realized—and he whipped around, seeing through the thinning mist that they now stood with the thing between them. She was little more than a hazy shadow at that distance, but he immediately noted that the black line of her spear was several feet shorter than usual...which meant it was probably lodged in or more likely lying near their attacker. It might even have been the cause of the great cry that had freed him.

Back away, Thabien called as he scrambled to his feet and drew another arrow before his fear-saturated brain had time to remind him that his bow was kindling beneath the thing's bulk. Just as well, since his fall and all the rolling had been hard on the quiver and he was left holding a splinter-tipped foot of wood and some crushed fletching. The thing was already turning to face him again, completely ignoring his mother. It was clearer now, the sun's light slowly growing stronger as the mist faded, and Thabien could see greater detail about the creature, a sort of lobster-lion-horse the likes of which no excursion into the plains or child's fanciful tale had prepared him to meet. This was not the familiar fear of brutal nature or the wild legends of the Black-Blooded, but something alien robed in familiar flesh. He would have no choice but to face it and no way to overcome it, he realized even as his hand clamped over his sword's rounded hilt. Militia drills were entirely inadequate for the task at hand, designed instead to chase off bandits looking to rustle sterich.

Even his extra training with Circe and with Master Darra had only taught him a bit about one-on-one fencing in proper High Royal style. Deft wristwork and snaking disarms hardly seemed appropriate for dispatching a quarter-ton of armored nightmare.

This way! A voice cried out of the mist, deep and masculine. For a single, thrilling second Thabien thought it was his father, impossibly returned a week early from the drive. But no, it was not Osric Feyn speaking, the voice not quite so deep and not as roughened by age and the elements as his father's was.

I heard the damnable thing shrieking, The voice continued. Gods aloft, it's in the house! Shrill fright with the last, the speaker doubtless realizing the havoc such a beast as this could wreak in even a short time, if a family of any size were at home.

For its part, however, the creature seemed uninterested in any more attacks, turning its head left and right in powerfully lazy motions, sniffing deeply at the air as it had when perched atop Thabien. It could have torn him in half and probably his mother as well in the time it took for the new figures to burst from the thinning mist, but the young man was just as happy it chose to linger in apparent confusion rather than bloodshed.

Out of the way, a man shouted, rushing past Henna even as he drew back his arms. Henna's spear had been well cared for, but the haft had been brittle rockwood, tipped with an ancient head of pitted iron. What the man thrust towards the monster glittered as only oiled steel could, mounted on nine feet of metal-banded ashwood that bent like a bow stave with the force of his running weight. The creature was pushed up onto two legs, all of its lethargy disappearing when, with a sound like stone splitting, the armored hide gave way, lines of fracture shooting across it as the spear dug a third of its length into the beast's innards. From either side, two more spear heads glistening in the dim sunlight shot forward, propelled by a pair of similarly sprinting men. One caught the beast in the joint of its armor between hip and thigh, dropping it like a boulder even as it elicited a piercing shriek of pain. That, itself, was silenced a moment later, when the last spear nailed the beast's lower jaw to the roof of its mouth, blood darker and redder than a man's fountaining between teeth and out of nostrils.

With a last whimper, the monster seemed almost to deflate, life taking some indefinable aspect of vitality with it when it fled the body. Thabien realized he hadn't drawn breath for several long moments and an attempt to step back aborted itself as he dropped down to sit numbly on the ground. He was alive. Sore, breathless, but alive...and he hadn't even remembered to draw his sword.

Chapter 02—The Stead on the Hill

Location: Stead on the Hill, Estredt

Date: 5 Verdure Descending, 2837 Aria

From where he sat in a rather ungracious pile, Thabien studied his saviors with the part of his brain he could salvage from excited incoherence. The three men were cast from the same mold: a finger or two taller than Thabien, their wide chests plated in steel that glinted through a coat of dust that spoke of long roads. Most distinctive though—enough to make Thabien's panting breath catch in his throat—were the helms shaped like half-teardrops, the bulbous ends sporting hinged visors and the pointed backs articulated aventails to protect the neck. In all of Estredt, only one group was allowed to wear the sallet helms originally made famous by the Knight-Lords of old: the Royal Army.

You okay, boy? One of the men asked, the first of them to have charged the monster by his grip on the spear that had punched through its carapace. He tugged a few times on the weapon, but it seemed too well-lodged to surrender to anything short of an unsightly degree of manhandling. Releasing it, he came over, sliding the visor up on his helm and smiling down at Thabien, brown eyes twinkling with a disconcerting mirth.

Fine, Thabien mumbled, then accepted the man's offered hand to help him up to his feet. Glancing past the soldier, he saw his mother staring at him with pensive eyes, but when his gaze met hers, she turned away and pretended to busy herself with investigating her broken spear with hands that only shook a little. Her face would have been corpse-white even without the last shreds of mist to hide the color.

Krüpt, One of the other men called, toeing the monster carefully, as if worried it might spring back to life at any moment. We need to get going. The Captain wanted us back at the village proper as soon as we got the ranchers, and he'll definitely want to know we got one of the brutes.

True, The man—Krüpt, apparently—said slowly, his mind working furiously if his eyes were any indication. He focused his attention squarely on Thabien, which put some iron back into his spine. You two the only ones here?

Yes, sir, Thabien responded immediately, the words jumping past his brain to his mouth. His hand twitched as he fought down the urge to salute in militia fashion, right fist to left shoulder.

You don't 'sir' me, boy, Krüpt said with a laugh. You'll have to face a lot more than one paltry monster before you get to join the army. His smile took any sting out of the rebuke as he gestured over his shoulder with a thumb. Anyway, we need to get you and your mum here to the village. They've got a wall there and though we don't think there's more than a half-dozen of these things around, we don't want to take any chances.

A half... Thabien mumbled, voice trailing off as he looked over at the corpse. The mist had cleared up completely while they had been talking, giving him his first clear view at the monster that had nearly killed him. Its carapace armor was mottled in places and fur grew out of the joints and even sprouted limply from the crack in the armor Krüpt's spear had made, wet with the thing's too-red blood. The hairless flesh of its hind legs around the knees, meanwhile, looked as if its own armor had been rubbing it raw, with sores and cuts visible. At the back of it was a thin, whip-like tail like a lizard's or rat's, though misshapen lumps of horn seemed stuck on haphazardly, as if by an artist that couldn't decide when his creation was complete and so had cluttered it unnecessarily. The whole thing had an air of being unnatural or unfinished, of shoddy construction.

What was it, though? He finally managed to ask.

Wither-wrought, One of the other men answered, then turned and spat. His companion punched him in the armored shoulder and the first man opened his mouth to growl something before turning red and facing Thabien's mother. Sorry, ma'am, He said, quickly kicking dirt over his gob of saliva.

She was too shocked by the information to notice, though.

Wither-wrought? She asked, voice choked in a way Thabien had never heard. But that would mean...

Aye, Krüpt said, face settling into a frowning mask. Dark tidings.

#

They traveled in silence, the soldiers constantly scanning the land around them as questions gnawed away at Thabien's tongue. Several times he opened his mouth to release one or another of the queries rattling between his jaws, but each time a stern look from his mother sewed his lips shut. The road between their ranch and the bulk of the village was a ribbon of flattened earth with cart-ruts down the middle that wended in shallow curves between the waist-high stone walls bordering the fields of a half-dozen other families. With the Verdure months coming to a close, the land was already golden with the previous Harvest's barley planting while the cotton was growing rapidly.

Unable to ask the questions burning inside him, Thabien had found a small stone lying on the side of the path and was kicking it in front of him. He became so absorbed in the mindless task that when his mother finally breathed Almost there, he jerked his head up in surprise, missing the stone and almost turning his ankle when he stepped on it instead. Glancing around, he could clearly see the high adobe wall and the open bailey gate of woven reeds stretched over a frame of fire-hardened wooden struts.

The circular bailey wall ran a pole high—fifteen feet if it was a finger—and the ends of thick logs could be seen jutting from the top of the adobe. They had been brought all the way from the forests in Ostlunt at great expense by the first Village Master so long ago that they had been old when Thabien's grandparents moved to the village. The wall only encompassed a few buildings, but Stead on the Hill was not really meant to be a fortified village; most of its population was in the ranches whose fields and grazing plots divided the land for leagues in every direction. The village proper within the fort consisted primarily of a half-dozen squat adobe structures in a ring around the open, gravel-filled courtyard that served no practical purpose beyond the weekly militia training sessions. The buildings were a drab pinkish-brown that Thabien found rather depressing on those few occasions when he actively considered them, though every year or so Durgan Trevel tried to stucco the walls of one of the buildings. It never ended well and the bailey's little warehouse was currently covered in a bubbly, off-grey mess that look as if the entire building was ill. It would stay that way until one of the local children got into enough trouble to be tasked with scraping it all off for their punishment. Thabien was the current record holder, having scraped clean five different buildings over the course of his youth.

Sod layered the flat roofs, planted with herbs and berry bushes or capped with simple carpets of grass. Single-story and worn by time, the buildings were still kept in good repair, dark spots visible where breaks in the dried mud had been patched only recently. Among them was the town hall, the largest structure in the village after the Stead itself and the only one that came close to rising to a second story. Its unique slanting roof of fired-clay shingles was too valuable to have anyone atop it when the militia practiced wall battles, having been bought from a potter in Roan Wood who claimed to have learned the technique in Ryell, beyond the eastern mountains and a million miles away as far as Thabien was concerned.

Durgan Trevel's general store ran right up against the hall, though it was only half as wide and lacked most of a barrel's height next to the larger building. Trevel grew the best raspberries in Stead on the Hill on his roof, because the hall's slanted surface poured all of its rainwater onto the tangled vines beneath. Midwife Trackant was always eager to get her hands on the leaves from his plants come mid-Sere.

At the back of the wall, opposite the entrance and dominating everything inside, was the Hill, rising over a full chain, perhaps even as high as seventy feet, so steeply that few men could walk its flanks without shortly finding themselves in an ungraceful pile at its foot. The wall had to bulge out of its circular profile to capture all of the Hill's base, and a second wall ringed the flattened peak of the Hill, on which sat the village's namesake: the Stead. Two stories of wood and stone, it was the largest building Thabien had ever seen. The lower story alone was bigger than the space enclosed by a normal ranch wall and the story sitting atop that was actually larger, resting on wooden beams where it projected out past the lower level. Glass filled every window and shingles of cedar covered a roof that slanted even more steeply than the Town Hall's. A zigzagging path of stone cobbles led up the front of the Hill, ending in a short, straight walk flanked by a quartet of apple trees that directed visitors to the Village Master's doorstep.

But it was at the house-smithy of Hurnt Vetin, several chains further along the bailey's inner circumference, where a crowd was gathered. Thabien could already hear Vetin's booming voice rolling across the open yard before any other sounds reached his ears. He quickened his feet at the sight of the knot of people, including a glimpse of midwife Trackant's black-streaked grey bun.

Now I tole e'erone to calm down, the blacksmith drawled explosively, speaking as if his tongue was too large for his mouth. We's 'ad pro'lems afore an' Mas'er Darra's al'ays seen to us, and wi'out us mindin' wot's not ers. Stories ran rampant about the wiry, red-faced blacksmith's slurred speech, some saying it was earned drinking a dozen men under the table—and a few adding that he still had the hangover to this day—while others claimed it had been in a fight in Roan Wood, where he bit the blade off a man's sword and dueled three caravan guards at once, with a table leg in either hand and the broken half-sword in his teeth, only stopping when a fourth man broke a table over his head. The smith had been something of a storm chaser in his youth, though age and fatherhood had smoothed his roughness considerably.

You say that, Vetin, but this mist weren't normal, Came another voice and Thabien had to swallow an imprecation. Of course she'd be here. It bodes ill, I say. And with Ewaldt and Ressik both gone, no less. It was Lena Virtz, come from her family ranch most of a league east of the Hill; one of the largest in the village. Lena nodded once, decisively, and the crowd of women called agreement with her, never mind that smith Vetin was worth more in a pinch than three of Ressik Trinitt. The women of Stead on the Hill would have called their agreement that the sun was blue and coming to the Dragon Day celebration, if it had been Lena Virtz who claimed it.

Wrath and ruin take it, Thabien muttered as he looked over a crowd large enough to be half the village. Then something collided with the back of his head.

I'll not stand for that sort of language, His mother remonstrated as she massaged the hand she had just smacked him with. Especially not in front of our guests.

Sorry, Thabien said unconvincingly as the soldiers strained to keep from laughing aloud.

Henna! Lena crowed as soon as the group came within earshot, stumping forward with her hands on her hips. I've been worried sick!

Lena, Thabien's mother said, taking a step forward and then sagging suddenly, collapsing against the other woman like dropped straw and clinging to her.

Mother! Thabien gasped, rushing forward and reaching a hand out, stopping short of putting it on her arm. Henna was breathing in short, hard gasps, as if trying to keep herself from bursting into tears or fainting, and the larger Virtz matron immediately guided her towards Hurnt's battered stool outside the smithy. The crowd split before Lena's glare, the smith scrambling off his seat so quickly he almost went rolling.

Thabien moved to follow, but a hand on his shoulder brought him up short. He looked over at Krüpt, who leaned forward and whispered.

Shock, but she'll be fine with some rest. She did well holding it in until we got here. Be strong for her and try not to panic any of the other villagers. I'll leave my men by the gate, but I have to speak with your Village Master. Doesn't look like the Commander is here yet, so I have to let him know what I can about what's going on.

Before Thabien could say anything, the soldier flashed a few hand signals to the pair of men with him. They turned back and marched to the gate they'd just entered, taking up positions on either side of it, eyes scanning the land beyond. Krüpt gave Thabien a last pat on the shoulder before he jogged off towards the back of the bailey and the stone switchback path.

What's going on? A voice behind Thabien asked and he turned to stare into the wide, worried pale brown eyes of Chasce Trinitt, a girl his age with a habit of skipping out on as many militia practices as she could manage. She claimed too much sun was bad for the body; indeed, she was the palest person in the village, though compared to Thabien even the most weathered Three Hills ranch hand could be called pallid. The Feyn bloodline had brought the heritage of distant lands and darker flesh when came to Stead on the Hill three generations before and though local stock had lightened it since, Thabien was still noticeably more copper in color than anyone for leagues around save his father.

Chasce was outside today, though, and seemed to be leading a small gaggle of children who had yet to pass their first Name Day.

I'm not sure, Thabien admitted, eyes raking the crowd. He couldn't see Durnst, which worried him. Both Circe and Rena were gone as well; odd, since the last was Lena's daughter and usually ended up dragged around like a recalcitrant sack of flour whenever her mother ventured to the village proper. Where's everyone else?

I don't know, Chasce admitted, biting her lower lip and leaning forward before continuing in a hushed voice. Most of us were brought in by little groups of soldiers and told to stay here. Ma'am Virtz is worried sick about her family, but she and smith Vetin have been trying to keep everyone calm.

Sounded more like they were arguing, Thabien mumbled back.

"Well, those two arguing is normal. When was the last time the pair of them weren't at each other's throats?"

True.

The matron and the blacksmith were not arguing now, however, as both doted on Thabien's mother, Lena having set Cara Niktz to fanning her while Hurnt brought a clay cup sloshing over with water. She took a few hesitant sips and seemed to have calmed down, much to Thabien's relief. He kicked himself mentally for not noticing whatever had been wrong. She wasn't injured, he knew, so it must have been a fit of nerves as Krüpt had said.

I need to know what happened, Lena's voice suddenly boomed beside him and Thabien realized he hadn't seen the woman hovering around his mother for a few moments. He had to stop himself from leaping away as he looked over at her.

Nothing, really, he responded out of defensive habit. It sounded weak even to him and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

Nothing?

Well, we had a sick lion near the house, but the soldiers sorted it out before bringing us here, He confessed, hiding his bending of the truth under a surly exterior, as if he had been caught in a lie.

Goodness! Chasce gasped and several others in the crowd nodded.

Serious business, Ostard Werin said, stroking his overly-manicured beard. Especially with Osric out on the drive. And it was: besides a historically bad storm or the exceedingly rare threat of bandits, lions were just about the most dangerous thing it was possible to face on the plains. Or should have been, at any rate.

Yes, Thabien said, warming to the story with the speed and skill of experience. It got into the courtyard just before lunch, probably spooked off the plains by that weird storm.

Wuld'na call tha' no st'rm, Hurnt drawled, having drawn closer, leaving Henna in the care of Lena's cronies.

More like a dragon-damned curse, Chival Ritter piped up.

Chival! Chasce gasped, swatting the boy in the back of the head for his language. Less than a month past his fourteenth yearing, he looked ostentatiously apologetic and very obviously pleased with himself for having sworn in front of everyone.

Well, whatever it was, I had my bow out for it but couldn't get an arrow in the thing, Thabien admitted, which drew some raised eyebrows. Not up to the skill of his friend Durnst or Durnst's father Ewaldt, the village's best hunter, Thabien was nevertheless a fair hand with a saddle bow.

Mother tried to spear the thing, He continued, But it didn't seem to care. I'd never seen one that sick; its mind was just gone. People were staring at him with wide eyes now and he basked in the attention, feeling it warm him from the inside out. He'd begun pacing and gesturing wildly. It gave this gods-awful roar, but was too close for me to pull my sword. I jumped left, He mimed jumping, and then right! and he leapt several feet sideways, drawing gasps of delighted fear from the children around Chasce. But it kept following me with those huge, yellow eyes. He leaned in, hands cupped around either eye. I might have been scared, but I couldn't let it turn on mother! Still, nothing I tried seemed to be working so I did the only thing I could think of: drew back my fist and thumped it in the nose, as he pumped his clenched hand out.

Punching lions now, are we? A voice behind him asked, cool and amused.

Durnst! Thabien cried, whirling in a half-circle towards the bailey entrance to face his best friend in the world.

Arms akimbo and feet planted wide was a young man of an age with Thabien, though a few finger-widths shorter in height and a few wider across the shoulders. He was attired much as Thabien, including sword and quiver at either hip, though his was stuffed with handmade arrows and the bow unstrung across his back was a better tool than Thabien's had ever been. Durnst was an archer first and foremost, the best hunter in Stead on the Hill after his father. Thabien had once seen him feather a puma's neck through heavy brambles at two hundred paces, which almost made up for the time several months before that, when he had failed to kill one of the plains cats and the pair had nearly burst their lungs running for it.

Where have you been! Thabien cried, closing half the distance between them before noticing the others. Most the rest of the village was there, except—his brain did some quick figuring—for the six out on drive at the moment and the furthest two families in Stead on the Hill: the Virtzes and the Caerins. Lena would be beside herself with worry, now. Admittedly, Thabien couldn't shake the feeling of concern himself.

Being rounded up and herded, Durnst said as he nodded over his shoulder.

Pouring through the bailey gate in a glittering mass after the Steadfolk were more soldiers of the Royal Army. Dozens of them, in serried ranks, until it looked to Thabien like half a sword of men stood there, a hundred breastplates and sallet helms shimmering in the sunlight while a hundred spears stood almost as tall as the buildings around them. Everyone in the bailey had stopped talking and, like Thabien, could do little more than stare.

Oh my, Thabien mumbled. Yours are much more impressive than mine. It was a weak joke, but brought a small smile to Durnst's face regardless.

Make rest, A voice snapped and, like a breeze through barley, relaxation washed over the formation. The men broke into small groups, stacking spears in cones of ten weapons, helms removed and round shields unslung from backs, both placed around the circle of spear butts. Light conversation and even the occasional ripple of laughter rose as some of the men began to fish out bits of jerky to gnaw on or pull out canteens to drink or just splash water over their universally short-cropped hair. They all looked so confident, moving with the sort of strong, easy grace Thabien was used to seeing in Master Darra or Circe. He couldn't help but stare, feeling acutely insufficient of a sudden.

Intensifying his bout of inadequacy, the source of the order came marching into sight a moment later. His armor shone like a star at midnight, the breastplate chiseled with a relief of the sigil of the Knight-Lord the man doubtless served: three swords with their points touching, a flame rising from where they overlapped. The wrapping of his curved sword's hilt alternated red and gray, a streamer of crimson silk flowing like water from a metal ring set on either pauldron. Two red feathers and a longer feather of white were arrayed in a ridge running down the sallet he had tucked under one arm.

Behind him was the tallest man Thabien had ever seen; the giant had be to at least a head and shoulders taller than his own near-six feet, with a face that looked as if it had been etched, line by line, in red iron. His exposed arms were taut as corded rope, his shoulders wide and hips narrow. Neither mail nor plate, he wore armor unlike any Thabien could identify: a long-skirted jack of individual, palm-sized metal rectangles laced together, fingerless leather gauntlets backed with more of the rounded scales. The hilt of a queerly straight-bladed sword projected over one shoulder, easily long enough to accommodate two hands in a wide-spaced grip.

Oh my, Thabien repeated weakly.

Oh my, Chasce added, voice breathy.

See to the men, Adese, the brilliantly attired soldier cast over his shoulder to the behemoth. Rubenach should have finished his explanation and I need to pay the Village Master my courtesies regardless. The other man simply grunted, a sound like a boulder shifting.

Without need for more explanation, he set off towards the Hill with his crimson streamers flowing out behind him. Immediately, the giant turned towards where Lena and Hurnt stood near one another, just staring with the rest of the Steadfolk. As if somehow able to tell who the group's nominal leaders were, he moved towards them, a mountain forcing everyone out of his way by means of sheer, determined mass.

"You have got to tell me what happened," Thabien whispered sideways to Durnst.

His friend nodded, glancing left and right; everyone's attention was on the giant. With a surreptitious motion towards the hideous little grey warehouse currently being used to store the public militia supplies between practices, he lead them both away from prying ears.

Okay, Thain, He said when the door closed behind them. But first, I want to know what really happened to you.

Chapter 03—The Honor of the Three Hills

Location: Stead on the Hill, Estredt

Date: 6 Verdure Descending, 2837 Aria

Thabien Feyn lay on his back, cradled by the emerald wealth that had earned the Greenswath its name. Marked by a marching line of overgrown weeds, the Tallgrass River a half-hundred strides away tossed up the soft gurgling of water over polished stones, adding to grass song and the low susurration of morning insects. Basking in the light of a freshly risen sun, cat-lazy and introspective, he tried to imagine what awaited the river in its travels, as it raced eternally away from its birth in the far Distadarians, what its banks and bends would see in their long wandering as it joined the Green and Leol, as it finally became a part of the mighty Old River and joined again with the great Southern River and all that water rushed out to the Sinahd's Sea and from there to the oceans beyond.

Durnst had told him about what he knew of its path, much of it gleaned from the small books Circe regularly lent him, with their blurry print and sewn bindings. Books said those waters would flow across the width of Estredt, what Thabien knew as a gentle flow becoming a mighty torrent by the end. The Tallgrass was but a small spur, an orphan headwater in the great web of tributaries that spread across the plains. But had any length of that river ever seen a Wither-wrought monster?

In the end, he had told only Durnst the truth and the pair of them had agreed that it was best to keep that between themselves for now. Master Darra and the Royal Army would decide what was best for the villagers to know, when the time came. But Thabien couldn't stop thinking about it; about the world he had never expected outside the confines of Stead on the Hill. A world with Wither-wrought and great walls of mist; what other things waited, then, that he had always been assured resided only in stories? The village's truth was so limited. Thabien found himself wondering how anyone else around him could endure it. How did they not go mad from the smallness of it all?

Thabien chewed thoughtfully on the last of a small sprig of mint he had filched from midwife Trackant's garden the day before, after Master Darra had emerged from the Stead and announced to everyone that the 'issue' had been resolved and they were able to return to their homes. When he and his mother had arrived back at the ranch, they discovered only a few dark red stains where the Wither-wrought had been. The whole incident felt like a dream, except for the fact that Thabien no longer had a bow.

As the sun warmed his blood and his eyes began to drift open and shut, his mind ran through the last of its musings on the day before. It had been a surprise when his father Osric came tromping in after sunset, shaking dust off his sedge hat and kicking off his dirt-layered riding boots. Apparently, the villagers who had been out on drive had been escorted back by a group of soldiers with nary an explanation. When Thabien told the lion story again, his mother didn't make any moves to correct him.

Thain, A voice drifted out from the distance, so deep that it had to be male, and too young to be his father. Only four people in the Stead called Thabien by that name, so he knew right away that it had to be Durnst.

Over here, He called as he sat up and waved, tucking his leather-bound forelock up behind his ear.

Ho...Thain, Durnst gasped as he came to a stop and nearly doubled over, his hands on his knees and breath heavy with exertion. What are you...doing...all the way...out here? You were...no easy track, with your...bare feet, He managed with some difficulty, though his voice gained strength as he spoke.

Enjoying myself. I'm the village's lion puncher now, so mother let me out of my chores for the day. Since he's back, she's having father help her rearrange the kitchen apparently, He shrugged, some of his confusion leaking out into his expression. We survive fighting a monster out of legend and she's making him organize pots and jugs. And she near-enough tossed me out on my side when I told her I'd help.

Durnst gave him an uncomfortably familiar look that told Thabien he had missed something obvious, but his friend was not about to explain it. It didn't help that Durnst's eyes were the same strong brown as Thabien's mother's, inherited from a great-great-grandfather the two shared somewhere back in the pages of history.

I have lunch, Thabien added, hoisting his small pouch. It's a bit early, but I packed too much if you care for some. Thabien always packed too much food when he went out. After all, you never knew when the chance to do something interesting might strike, and it did not always wait for you to go back home and pack an extra cheese wedge to bring along.

No time, Durnst waved the bag away, his breath having finally caught up with him. I figured something like this might happen, so I decided to look for you.

What do you mean? Is something going on? Thabien affected nonchalance quite poorly, his intrigue obvious as he began pulling his a pair of folded shortboots out of his bag.

Before dawn, they sent out some of the soldiers; they're going around to all the ranches on horseback. Thabien's eyes tried to crawl out of his skull. I think they're calling a village meeting, an emergency one, Durnst continued in unabated flow. "I'm not sure why they're calling it now; it would have been a lot easier to just have everyone stay the night at the bailey if that were the case, so I think it