The Prince of Ravens

by Hal Emerson

  Chapter Twenty: The Pass of Cartuom

  The first part of the ruse worked – as night fell, it became clear that the Prince of Oxen had veered from his original course and was moving after the small decoy.

  “It looks like you were right,” Captain Autmaran said, who turned out to be the man in the red cape, when he checked in with the Prince the hour of sunset. “That tracking spell is leading him right to you.”

  “A good plan so far,” Tomaz rumbled in agreement. The Captain spurred his horse forward once more to join the leading Ashandel and Eshendai at the head of the column.

  “Oh, a great plan,” the Prince responded with quiet sarcasm, “let’s just stay together and lure the Prince of Oxen, only the most ruthless, terrifying, and unmerciful of my brothers and sisters straight toward us. Great plan. Superb.”

  There was a slight movement from ahead of him, and even though he couldn’t see more than her silhouette in the falling darkness, the Prince was quite certain Leah had just rolled her eyes at him.

  “How far until the ambush site?” asked Lorna.

  “A few more miles,” Leah and Davydd responded together.

  “So soon?” Lorna and Tomaz responded.

  “Yes,” said Davydd and Leah.

  “Good,” said Lorna and Tomaz.

  “Stop that,” said the Prince.

  “What?” asked all four together.

  The Prince threw his hands up in the air in exasperation, his nerves making him easily perturbed. After a few moments of silence, he asked the question that had been burning in his mind since Vale.

  “What exactly is Aemon’s Stand?”

  The four exchanged glances and the Prince saw Leah’s shoulders tighten.

  “I’m on your side now, remember?” the Prince said. “It might help me to know the big secret, since we’re supposed to meet there anyway if we survive this stupid, stupid ambush plan.”

  The plan, which had seemed good in concept when Elder Crane sent them off in the capital room of Vale, now seemed terribly foolhardy. With only some fifteen hundred troops, they planned to divert and hold off the Prince of Oxen? He had told them all how foolish such a thought was, but none of them had believed him.

  “Stop saying the plan is stupid,“ Leah said, calmly composed. “The plan will work, all we are supposed to do is buy the others time, and we’ve already bought them at least a few more hours by leading the army away from Vale. If we’re lucky, the ambush will force the Prince of Oxen to slow down and it will take him days to track us to the Stand, and by then we’ll have gathered –”

  “Ramael won’t be slowed by an ambush!” exclaimed the Prince with a healthy note of disdain in his voice. All of them looked at him, surprised by the outburst.

  “Ramael is the Prince of Oxen! He doesn’t care about the lives of his men, he doesn’t care about morale, he doesn’t care! He’s a man completely concerned with domination, control, and single-minded annihilation. You need to understand this! No matter how effective this ambush is, it will stall him only as long as it takes him to force his army back into motion. He will not slow down. He will not pause. By now he’s past the illusions, so he can use his scouts to track us. We can buy the main army a day at most, unless we try to lead him back toward the mountains, and even in that case he is smart enough to figure out we’re only a decoy force. He’ll turn around and burn the countryside until you march out to face him. He’s past the Pass, he’s past the enchantments, he knows he’s in the right place, and with a huge army! From what it feels like, he must have at least a hundred thousand, if not more, following him – that’s the entire army of Roarke. You need to be ready for that!”

  A brief silence followed this outburst.

  “Well, that brightened up my day,” Tomaz rumbled.

  “This plan is still out best chance,” Leah insisted. “And the Stand has never been conquered.”

  “So it’s a fortress?” the Prince asked.

  “Yes,” Davydd said at the same time Leah said “no.”

  “It’s a fortress built around a city that contains all of the history of the Kindred,” Lorna said in compromise.

  “History of the Kindred?”

  “All of the original accounts of the Founders,” Tomaz said, “including Aemon himself. It has documents dating back to the early years of our nation, when we fought against the Empire in earnest. It has information about the first Spellblades and about the time when the enchantments were placed around the nation to make it impregnable to outsiders.”

  “And the time when the Empress herself led an army to the Stand and was defeated,” Leah said. The others nodded in seeming reverence.

  “You said that before,” the Prince broke in, “what do you mean? I have never heard of the Empress leading any attack, and certainly never of her being defeated.”

  “It was the greatest battle the Kindred have ever seen,” said Tomaz. “It was decades after Aemon had fled from the Empire and come here to establish a new nation, not one that imitated the old ways of the land across the sea. The Empress came, leading an army. The sky was blackened by her very presence, just like the sky is around Lucien today. But the Kindred stood strong in the newly raised castle, and around Aemon the newly crowned Prince of the Veil.”

  A shock went through the Prince.

  “Prince of the Veil?” he asked, forcing his voice to come out even.

  “Yes,” Leah said, “when a crisis occurs, the Council of Elders are called to elect a single Prince of the Veil that will remain in power until the crisis is over. Aemon was the first.”

  The Prince felt like he’d just been hit with a mace upside the head. It couldn’t be. The Prince of the Veil? But that was …

  “The Empress attacked,” Davydd picked up, eyes gleaming even in the gathering dark, “and broke through the defenses of the castle. But Aemon, carrying the first Valerium sword, met the Tyrant in open battle, and drove her from the field. Her forces were crushed – well, they fell back, but I like the way ‘crushed’ sounds – and as she turned to tuck tail and run, she lifted a hand to the black clouds in the sky above her, cried out a single word, and a bolt of lightning sliced through the sky and pierced straight through Aemon’s heart. Shadow-cursed, cowardly bitch.”

  “In their outrage,” Tomaz said, gently overriding Davydd’s somewhat overly enthused retelling, “the Kindred followed the Empress’ army for days, pushing them back to the Pass of Roarke, but eventually they could pursue them no more and they were forced to set guards at the Pass and wait in defense. Aemon was buried where he had been struck down, and a temple was raised over him. His sword, fallen from his hand, could not be touched. Those who tried were hurtled backward by an unseen force. But the castle had stood, and so had the Kindred. It was renamed Aemon’s Stand.”

  Silence fell over them as Tomaz finished the story and the Prince was swept up in his own musings as to what this meant about the history of the Empire. Could there be other histories that had been tampered with? Prophecies even? The Prince of the Veil …

  Not too much later they reached the ambush sight, just as the sun had well and truly set, leaving them in a brief twilight. A mist had descended along with the darkness, covering everything with a fine layer of dew and drastically reducing visibility. When they saw the ambush sight, it seemed to leap out at them from the fog bank.

  It was a mountain, almost sheer, with a single path leading up to the top that twisted to the right, and then twisted back to the left in a broad but precipitous swath before reaching the top. The side facing them had been completely cleared of trees, and it was relatively easy to see to the top, upon which was located what looked like a castle.

  “Reinforcements?” the Prince asked in shock. The castle had torchlight situated on the battlements and looked to be heavily manned.

  “It’s an illusion,” Davydd drawled at him. “Meant to make little princelings like you wet themselves at the idea of a fully armed castle on top of an impregnable hill.”


  “Long ago deserted,” Leah explained, “which makes it perfect for us. From this side it looks almost new, but the rest of it is a ruin and has been for some time. But the Army of Roarke will think that it’s an actual castle and have to bring most of their force to bear before attacking, which gives us the perfect opportunity to hit them hard and fast in the night when they make camp.”

  “It’s not going to be that simple,” the Prince tried to explain, but he was cut off.

  “The same strategy has worked many times before,” Davydd said.

  “I don’t doubt it, which is why Ramael will probably come up with something – ”

  “The Prince of Oxen isn’t the smartest sheep in the pen,” Lorna said.

  “Yes,” the Prince responded testily, “but I know him, and I don’t think he’ll fall for it!”

  He said this louder than he had intended, and a few soldiers riding nearby looked at him askance. The Prince cleared his throat and continued, cheeks a little hot.

  “What I’m saying is he will know we’re at the top because of the tracking spell, and anyone with half of the military training I have would know this is the perfect spot for an ambush. Ramael isn’t known for his intelligence, but he is one of the Children. He’s had over a hundred years of battlefield experience, with all the resources of the Guardians and their vast knowledge of war.”

  Davydd rolled his eyes as if to say, “what would you know?” and rode on ahead of them. Lorna followed.

  “It’s a good plan, princeling,” Tomaz rumbled as quietly as was possible for him. “Even a Blade Master would be cautious here. You know the Training as well as I do: you bring the full force to bear before advancing on a possibly fortified position, and you never do it at night. And with a force this large, ambush is highly unlikely. They will be caught unawares.”

  The Prince’s gut told him it wouldn’t be that simple, but he had to admit it seemed like a good plan. Simple, and it played on the enemy’s strategy, which was a safe bet considering the standardization of the Empire’s forces. He put his doubts aside for the time being.

  After a few muted orders from Captain Autmaran, passed along down the column of riders, the force of Kindred arranged themselves along the mountain pass, in positions in the trees. The Prince was amazed at how well and quickly they managed it; one minute they were there, the next the narrow path seemed to be nothing more than a forested ravine.

  And just in time, the Prince thought to himself. The Prince of Oxen and his army were no more than a mile away, and already he could feel the earth rumbling underfoot.

  “I suppose I don’t need to ask how close he is,” Leah said breathlessly to the Prince as they made their trek up the road to the castle situated on the hill; a grunt of amusement from her other side told him that Tomaz agreed.

  The illusion was certainly a good one: even when they were no more than fifty feet away from the castle’s large exterior wall, the Prince thought it looked real. True, fallen into disrepair, but certainly whole. But once the five of them crossed under the wall’s large gate the Prince could clearly see what the Exile girl had been talking about: this wall, the one that faced the road and the sheer mountainside, was the only one standing. The other walls and, indeed, most of the interior structure of the castle, was scattered and strewn about the ground, looking like so many children’s building blocks toppled and thrown about in a tantrum.

  The wall had a second, smaller gate that was hidden from view. The five of them made their way in that direction, Davydd telling them Autmaran had asked them to take position on the outer side of the wall so they could have a view of the battle below them and be in position for a counter-offensive should the need arise to cover a retreat. They crossed through the door single file, having dismounted and tied their horses in the Kindred’s makeshift stable inside the decrepit castle’s walls. Soon were all located at the top of the hill, looking over the lip of a crumbling wall at the horizon, which was now almost fully cloaked in shadow. The clouds were out and the moon was completely concealed. The Kindred soldiers had all been told to extinguish their torches once they were in place, and now the only light was just visible coming through the hills, snaking toward them.

  The Prince felt shivers go up his back.

  “I don’t like knowing I’m a sitting target,” he growled to Leah, trying to mask his anxiety with anger.

  “Like it or not, we’re the bait, princeling,” she snapped back, obviously trying the same tactic. “We’re still their only lead in uncharted territory, and if we don’t stay up here then they’ll know, or at least suspect, the castle is just an illusion.”

  “I don’t know what you two are complaining about,” Davydd the red-eyed Eshendai broke in, “any day I have an excuse to kill Imperials is a good day to me.”

  “Each and every one of those men have lives,” the Prince started hotly, the memories of the men he’d killed floating up in the back of his mind as they always seemed to do before he was about to commit violence.

  “Be quiet,” said the authoritative voice of Captain Autmaran before the Prince could continue.

  The captain, who had appeared behind them in a swirl of a red cloak that blended in surprisingly well with the dark shadows of the night, knelt next to them, looking out over the ambush set before them.

  “Yes, sir,” all of the Exiles responded. The Prince rolled his eyes. Now they respected authority.

  “He should stop for the night when he sees the pass is guarded,” the captain said, looking at the Prince. “Don’t worry. I have fought against the Ox Lord in various skirmishes – he is predictable. He will stop for the night.”

  The Captain rose to his feet, his bald head shining even in the darkness.

  “I will bet you the Diamond Throne I know him better than you do,” the Prince muttered under his breath. To his surprise Davydd let out an appreciative chuckle.

  The Prince wasn’t sure how long they waited in the deepening black of night, the ground shaking underneath them as the enormous host advanced. He wasn’t sure about the others, but to him it felt like lifetimes. Barely able to keep still, his heart pumping more pure, unadulterated emotions into his blood with every second, common sense screaming at him like an animal sensing a predator – run! Run now! – it was all he could do to keep still and silent. A cold sweat had broken out on his forehead, and his tunic and undershirt were suddenly stiflingly hot under his leather jerkin and breastplate.

  “Breathe, princeling,” said Leah’s voice from next to him. He could barely make her out in the pitch-blackness of the night.

  “We should be running,” he told her in a harsh whisper through clenched teeth. “This is not a good idea!”

  “Look, they come,” said Lorna softly, voice like the quiet murmur of far-off thunder.

  They all shifted and peeked their heads the barest fraction over the barrier, just enough to see the advancing force. It was true – the first column of men, the light infantry clad in the white-and-red of Roarke, had rounded the corner. A number of scout cavalry had accompanied them, and pulled up short when the light from their torches caught a glimpse of the mountains around them rising up through a gathering nighttime fog. A man with a long red plume in his helmet motioned to one of the mounted scouts, scribbled a message, and sent the man running back through the pass. They continued to march, but the pace slowed as they waited for orders.

  “We are committed,” rumbled Tomaz. “There is no other course of action.”

  “We can still run,” the Prince reminded them.

  “In times like this, there’s only one thing you need to remember,” said the voice of Davydd. His red eyes seemed to gather the light from the torches down below, turning him into a devilish creature of the night. “A brave man is no more courageous than a normal man.”

  “He is simply brave five minutes longer,” Leah finished. Her green eyes had the same gleam as Davydd’s, making them shine in the night with anticipation and excitement, hot and demonic. />
  “You’re all insane,” the Prince said. “Have I made that abundantly clear?”

  Leah smiled at him.

  “They’re resting for the night,” Tomaz broke in. They all looked over the wall at the men, who were indeed stopping. The mounted messenger had returned, and the red-plumed captain was holding a scroll and motioning for a full-company halt. There was a ripple in the crowd and more riders came forward.

  “The Bloodmages,” Lorna said suddenly.

  They all lifted their heads the slightest bit more, craning their necks just far enough that they could make out in the distant torch light four men in hooded black cloaks so voluminous that they covered the entire body of the rider and a large portion of the horse as well. One of them was talking to the captain and motioning to the top of the hill, while the others were staring blankly forward – straight toward where the five of them sat in hiding. The Prince knew they were too far away to be seen and too well covered, but he shivered nonetheless, feeling as though a long icy finger had just been run down his spine. The five of them ducked back down behind the wall.

  “Are you certain you’re the Prince of Ravens?” Davydd whispered, half exasperated, half mocking. “You’re acting like the Prince of Mice.”

  “Not my fault,” the Prince said, shifting from foot to foot, his hands wringing each other over and over again. He had a slight headache and he felt as though he had drunk too much soufa. “The power of the Bloodmages is connected to the Talismans. When there is a group of them gathered together, particularly when they’re using an enchantment like this light-forsaken tracking spell, the Children get this way unless Mother is near. She dampens the effect somehow. But the central part of the Bloodmage’s power is based off, in essence, the Raven Talisman. That’s why we have the same black marks. The process to make the Bloodmages … it’s messy, and the Raven Talisman picks up on the aftermath; it’s like putting a lodestone next to a compass.”

  The Exiles exchanged glances, but even Davydd remained silent. Perhaps they weren’t too keen to go into exactly how the Prince was connected to the Bloodmages.

  “What is he saying?” Leah wondered in a curious voice.

  “What?” the Prince asked.

  “Look,” she said, motioning with her head. She had peeked back over the wall. Slowly, they all did the same.

  It appeared that the captain of the infantry column was arguing with the messenger and the Bloodmage. He kept making references to the mountain and then to the ground, and the Prince got the distinct impression he was saying he didn’t want to ascend the mountain in the dark and foggy night, but wanted to camp.

  The messenger, who the Prince suddenly noticed had a tunic embroidered with the sign of the Ox, was motioning vehemently toward the mountain pass. He was joined by the Bloodmage. The message was clear: they were to keep going, not to make camp.

  “Oh, shadows and light,” the Prince said.

  The captain, face red and set with anger, motioned to his lieutenant, and the column began to move forward again.

  “I hate to sound smug, but I told you this was a bad idea!”

  The Prince moved back far enough from the wall that he could stand without chance of being seen.

  “No!” hissed Leah, “we’re not supposed to move yet – that’s not the plan!”

  “Plan’s changed!” the Prince snapped back. He turned to Davydd and Lorna, speaking quickly. “The Bloodmage only wants to come now because he knows we’re all up here, together, and he has an exact lock on us. We need to spread out – the tracking spell grows weaker the farther we are from each other. You and Lorna move down the south side – Leah, Tomaz and I are going to go to the north. It will at least slow them down, and give us some time to get out of here without losing any men. Once we’re far enough apart, the spell will be more confusing than helpful – they’ll know we’re here but have no idea where.”

  “I don’t take orders from you,” Davydd snarled viciously.

  “But you do take orders from me,” said a voice. It was Captain Autmaran, having materialized out of the darkness behind them with the commanding Eshendai and Ashandel, a pair of silver-haired women who looked like twins, and apparently having overheard the Prince’s plan.

  “Do as he says. The only thing different is that once you’re on the other side and they’re confused, I’ll give the order to attack.”

  The Prince looked up sharply. He opened his mouth to object, but the captain held up a hand and continued to talk as the Ashandel standing at his shoulder gave the Prince a look that very clearly warned against interrupting.

  “The ambush was meant to buy time. The main force is counting on us, even if it’s only for a few more hours – and if the army gains this ground we lose all advantage. The ambush needs to happen now; if the first column is here, it means the rest of the army has entered the ravine and is coming – if we stop and confuse them now, they may turn and go back around entirely. That’s an extra day at least, maybe two, for our forces to get to the Stand. Wait for the bowmen to fire three volleys, and then charge with the other Rogues and Rangers. All the Scout infantry will cover you with bow and arrow. I’d offer to send them in too, but we’d only get in your way. Pass the word. Go!”

  Davydd’s demeanor didn’t change, but the barest note of deference crept into his voice as he responded with a curt “sir,” and spun away to the south. The captain turned to make his way back to his post, and Leah grabbed the Prince by the arm and pulled him along after her.

  They made their way around the side of the wall, careful to keep their heads down and out of sight, and soon found themselves in the thickening forest, Leah in front with the Prince and Tomaz spread out to either side. Leah and Tomaz stopped briefly at each nearly invisible Kindred force as they went, relaying the Captain’s orders. The Prince was once again amazed - they were hiding behind the smallest of rocks, in the barest hint of a fold in the ground, behind saplings the size of a child. They were halfway down the slope, approaching the army, when they passed a place where a gap in the trees gave them a view of the path below, and as the Prince caught sight of the Bloodmages, he saw them suddenly falter, as if they had been hit over the head and their vision had doubled.

  “This is it!” the Prince whispered. Leah and Tomaz ran down to join him as they dashed the last few yards to just within the tree line that kept them concealed. They were now no farther than twenty yards from the troops marching by below them. The first column was nearly halfway past them, headed up the road to the ruined castle, arranged in siege formation.

  “Where do we go when we’re done?” the Prince whispered suddenly. He was shaking almost uncontrollably now, the Bloodmages’ presence making it very hard to stand still, he had so much extra energy.

  “There’s other passes through the mountain,” Leah breathed back to him almost inaudibly, “they won’t be able to follow us.”

  “Won’t they just go over the mountain?”

  “They’ll try,” Tomaz whispered, sounding for all the word like an enormous bumblebee as he did his best to remain quiet, “but Captain Autmaran will think of something.”

  “But what -?”

  Leah’s hand was suddenly over his mouth, and he looked at her in surprise. She motioned to the column, and the Prince saw that the Bloodmages were speaking frantically to the captain, almost in an air of panic.

  “They know it’s an ambush,” she breathed.

  At that instant, the column slowed the barest fraction, waiting for the captain’s orders to be relayed, and a shrill whistle sounded out from high up the mountain.

  The next second, the Prince thought wildly that the whistle had been taken up by the Kindred hiding the mountains, but then arrows began to sprout in the chinks of the infantrymen’s armor before him, and he knew the attack had begun. Men fell to the ground dead, others cried out as they were wounded, and the Prince realized he was about to join open battle against the Empire.

  “One,” Leah whispered.


  There was a moment of shock, as the Imperial soldiers absorbed the fact that they were under attack, and then they bolted in every direction looking for cover, chased by a second racing wind of arrows that did deadly damage, each and every one seeming to count for ten in the dark night, the fear of the men feeding on itself and giving way to panic.

  “Two.”

  The infantry in this column were light, but their shields were still metal-reinforced wood and well made. Some of them had the presence of mind to kneel and place those shields over their heads, but a large majority of the men had forgotten and were now rushing toward the surrounding woods, looking for cover, and falling in droves. The first line of these men was barely ten feet downhill from where the Prince, Leah, and Tomaz stood, when the final volley ripped into them.

  “Three!”

  The Prince, fire pumping through his brain and turning his vision red, shot out of the trees flanked by Leah and Tomaz, the valley suddenly full of shouts and cries that had an entirely different timbre from the screams of pain and panic resounding from the Imperial army below.

  The Prince just had time to shoot one look behind him and see the entire forest burst open to reveal the Kindred, dressed in green, gold and silver, and then he was in the middle of the fray, hacking and slashing with his heavy Valerium sword.

  One man ran toward him, trying to run past the Prince into the relative safety of the woods as arrows continued to fall with brutal accuracy from the higher slopes of the mountains. The Prince’s sword lanced out and hamstrung the man, tripping him and two others who had tried to follow. A Kindred soldier came up behind the Prince and finished the job; the Prince moved on, and caught a shadow moving toward him with lightning speed out of the corner of his eye. He threw himself to the ground, and was just in time to avoid being decapitated by Tomaz’s greatsword, which had swung wildly backwards after cutting down two men.

  The light infantryman in front of the Prince, seeing Tomaz, seemed to forget that he had a sword of his own; he turned and ran, but the Prince caught him and cut him down. That life was added to the Prince’s, and he quickly forced the memories to the back of his mind, using the strength and speed to dodge another sword thrust at him from his left.

  Time seemed to blur together as the world became a simple fight to stay alive. The Prince was able to avoid killing any more men, the general panic of the Imperials keeping most of them from being too much of a threat. His Valerium sword cut indiscriminately through armor and flesh, and it was an easy thing for the Prince to use his training to locate tendons and muscles that, once severed, left the soldiers incapacitated, but very much alive. At one point the Imperials seemed to rally, but then arrows flashed out of the night again and cut down the men holding the torches, plunging the world into darkness and the Imperials back into a blind panic.

  Leah was fighting next to him, and even in the midst of the bloodshed she was breathtaking. The Prince had known she was good, and if he hadn’t then the sparring match back in Vale had proved it, but this was different. She had a deadly, graceful beauty to her that was chilling to watch. The sparse torchlight seemed to gather in her green eyes and her body flowed from one move to the next so seamlessly it seemed she was dancing. Her lithe body twisted and turned with a dexterity and finesse that made even the most skilled swordsman look like a hapless lumberjack.

  Tomaz fought next to her, and if Leah was the embodiment of grace and finesse, he was power and brute force. There was not a single man who could stand in front of Tomaz and not quake at the sight – arrows bounced off of his heavy armor, swords were swept aside like tree branches by his gauntleted fists, and men fell beneath the enormous sword Malachi as if they were nothing more than stalks of wheat at harvest. At one point, caught up in the fight as he was, the giant threw back his head and bellowed out a wordless challenge to all who could hear him. It gave the Kindred heart and their blows rained down on an Imperial army suddenly terrified out of their minds.

  “Fall back!” cried the voice of Captain Autmaran, “fall back!”

  The cry was taken up and horns sounded. The Exiled Kindred began to disengage and retreat, leaving hundreds of the enemy dead behind littering the ground and hundreds more fleeing back up the ravine. In the confusion, the Prince was jostled around and forced to kill two more or else be killed himself. His body, weary and exhausted, was suddenly strong once more, allowing him to race ahead of the soldiers and catch up with Leah and Tomaz. A cry came from the Imperial force, as the men realized what was happening and regained enough presence of mind to give chase, but arrows from the waiting Kindred soldiers stationed high on the mountainside brought them down in droves with terrible accuracy, forcing them to take cover.

  “Let’s go!” roared Tomaz ahead of the Prince, Imperial arrows and broken blades sticking out from his armor in so many places he looked like a monstrous porcupine. Leah almost shot past him as well, but the Prince reached out and grabbed the Exile girl’s arm. The other Rogues and Rangers continued on without a backward glance, covered by volley after volley of deadly rain from Captain Autmaran’s Scouts.

  “The tracking spell is still in place!” the Prince roared in her ear. He saw her eyes light up with understanding: if they retreated now they’d be followed straight to the Stand.

  “How do you break the spell?” she asked.

  “Normally,” the Prince began, “you’d need to use a –”

  She drew her daggers.

  “I can work with that!” he said.

  They turned and ran back down the hill, the Prince unsheathing the Valerium sword once more, the strength of the three soldiers making it light enough even for his exhausted limbs to wield with dexterity. They passed fleeing Kindred soldiers, who all looked at them as if they were insane, but they didn’t notice; they were searching with all of their might for the blood-drop insignia of the Bloodmages.

  “There!” the Prince gasped, pointing off to their right. It was a single banner, not very large, but located on the fringe of one of the groups still in disarray. They doubled their speed, dodging through a thickening crowd of soldiers, mostly Kin fighting to extricate themselves from the fray and retreat to the escape passes in the heights of the mountains. They were the only ones running toward the enemy troops.

  “We’re going to die!” the Prince said.

  “No we aren’t!” Leah roared back over her shoulder.

  Three men seemed to spring up from the ground directly in front of them. Before Leah and the Prince could even react, arrows flashed out of the mountains, and all three crumpled in heaps – leaving the path to the Bloodmages completely open.

  They crossed the final twenty yards, and were suddenly in the midst of three men in hooded black robes, all of who were completely surprised to see two Exiles running at them, weapons drawn. One of them wore a Soul Catcher that was shining with a bright, gold-and-blue light, very different from the usual blood-red.

  The essence of lightning! He was in control of the Daemon!

  “That one!” the Prince shouted, pointing.

  They both shot toward the Bloodmage in the center, but the hooded men had recovered quickly, and they all drew long, straight daggers, tips blackened with poison, chanting words under their breath that cracked and hissed.

  The Prince was confronted on the left, but his enhanced strength and the Valerium sword made quick work of the dagger, and the hand holding it as well. With a cry of pain, the man fell to his knees, blood blossoming on his robes. The Prince turned to the Bloodmage with the blue Soul Catcher. Leah had been engaged off to the right by the third Bloodmage and two other Imperial soldiers who had come to his aid. The Prince saw her throw one of her daggers; it impaled itself in the first soldier, flew back into her hand – and then the Prince lost sight of her as he engaged the head Bloodmage.

  The hooded man attacked, feinting to the left and then stabbing at the Prince’s right. It was child’s play: the Prince, with the speed of three men, dodged the blow, wrapped an arm around
the man’s elbows, and with a snap broke them both.

  There was a wordless shriek of pain from within the hood, and the Prince knew that the Bloodmage’s mouth was pulled back in a snarling rictus of agony. The Valerium sword flashed up, and slashed the Soul Catcher cleanly in two, breaking the spell, and destroying the force that bound the mage to life.

  The air around them seemed to compress, and then it exploded outward with the sound of thunder. Lightning shot up into the sky, throwing the Prince backwards into a tree, forcing the breath out of his lungs. The Bloodmage let out a shriek of disbelief and despair, and then fell to the ground, dead.

  A shape shot past the Prince’s blurred vision, pulling him along with it as it hurled up the mountain as fast as it could.

  “Time to go, time to go, time to go!”

  Breath still not flowing into his lungs quite properly, the Prince just managed to keep up with the girl as he shot a glance over his shoulder. What he saw made him lose any last hint of inhibition and run like a madman.

  The second rank of the army had rounded the corner of the ravine, and had been altered to the presence of the Prince and Leah by the destruction of the Bloodmage’s medallion. It consisted of five columns of archers, and what looked like nearly a thousand bows were trained on the Prince and Leah as they ran up the mountainside.

  The Prince looked up and saw the Kindred firing arrow after arrow from the ledge above them, but it was nowhere near enough.

  A loud command and a sharp twang! came from behind them, followed by the sound of a thousand pointed needles of death whistling through the air, and then the arrows were falling among them as they ran, slashing through their cloaks, thudding into trees, ravaging bushes.

  “RUN!” a voice roared at them. It was Tomaz, standing at the opening to the lowest of the escape passes through the mountain. He was barely fifty yards away, but that distance seemed as far as the bottom of the ocean.

  Not knowing where they found the speed, Leah and the Prince shot for the pass, arrows still falling around them as the men reloaded, falling around them like a deadly rain … and then they were through.

  They collapsed against the side of the rock wall just long enough for Tomaz to bodily hoist them both in his arms and begin to run, sprinting as fast as he could.

  “NOW!” he roared in a voice so loud it left the Prince’s ears ringing.

  Boulders crashed down from the sky above them, and the Prince thought for a brief moment that the world was ending. But the rocks landed behind them, and the rumbling soon stopped as the big man slowed and set them down on a small patch of dirt.

  “What was that?” the Prince asked, lifting his head.

  To his amazement, the pass they had just escaped through was now completely blocked by the remnants of a landslide. He raised his eyes and saw that two groups of Kindred soldiers had scaled the rock walls, waited until the big man had brought them safely through the pass, and then brought a mountain of rubble down to seal it behind them.

  There was a loud series of echoing crashes off to their right, followed by a final booming roar, loud enough to sound like thunder, which rippled through the very earth beneath their feet.

  “What – what was that?” the Prince gasped. It was very difficult to breath; he must be more winded then he’d first thought.

  “The other passes,” Leah managed to say, “they’re all being blocked.”

  “And if I’m not mistaken,” Tomaz added, “that last one was the castle itself.”

  There were whoops and cheers from the Kindred soldiers standing on the mountainside, and they looked up and saw them motioning down over the sheer cliff side to the army trapped in the ravine below.

  “They’re retreating! They’re turning back! Hah-hah!”

  Leah and Tomaz let out responding whoops of joy.

  “Well done, Ashandel,” Leah said as she was pulled to her feet.

  “Are you well?” He asked, looking her over with a critical eye.

  “Yes, amazingly,” she responded.

  “Good – because now I’m going to kill you for being a stupid, foolhardy slip of a girl!” he growled ominously. She just beamed back at him. Slowly the grimace on the big face slid off and he let out a resigned sigh.

  “You are far too much like your brother.”

  She laughed, and then turned to the Prince and smiled tauntingly.

  “What, princeling, are you going to sit there resting all day? A little exercise too much for you?”

  He tried to respond, but all that came out was a choking gasp that surprised him as much as it did her. Together, they both looked down and saw a thick wooden shaft sticking out of the left side of his torso, under the armpit. He coughed and felt something salty and metallic in his mouth; he spat it out and realized, dumbfounded, that it was blood. The last thing he saw was Leah’s look of horror, as the world caved in around him and swirled into blackness.