In the end, everything worked out fine—almost.

All four of them safely reached the top of the wind-swept bluff before the rain became a real curse. They fell onto the puddle-laden tufts of grass, happy to be alive and on horizontal ground. Farilane’s thoughts quickly turned to hot tea and shedding her wet clothes, but then she looked across the plain, puzzled.

“Where’s the camp?”

Their four tents and a communal cooking tarp were gone. Only a few snapped ropes looped to stakes remained. The horses were gone, too.

Kolby picked up a tether and studied the strap.

“This is going to be one of those long nights, isn’t it?” Virgil asked, surveying the devastation. The old man clutched his cloak so tightly, his beard was trapped inside the folds.

“If you mean a night to remember,” Farilane said brightly, “the sort that reminds you that you’re alive and how wonderful such a thing is, then yes. I believe so.”

“Water might be nice,” the old man said.

“What need do we have for stale water?” Throwing her head back, she opened her mouth and caught raindrops.

“You’re not altogether sane, are you, dear?” Virgil asked.

She paused in her aerial imbibing to look at him with a mischievous grin. “Tell me it didn’t take this long to realize that.”

“The legion has a camp not far from here,” Kolby said.

Farilane nodded. “Blythium Castell, established by Estermon the First in seventeen-oh-one, as the eastern bulwark against a ghazel invasion. But personally, I think it was built as a means of establishing his claim on Alburnia as a true province. Can’t claim you own something if you can’t control it.”

Kolby stared at her with tortured patience.

“Did you know it was once an ancient elven fortress and that they built on the site of still-older ruins? Although, I suppose it was less built and more restored. No sense in throwing away old stone if it’s in the right place. But it raises the question: Who built it? Not the elves. Not their type of construction at all.”

Kolby continued to wait.

“So, yes, I know about it.”

“Right,” he said, then returned to his interrupted thought. “We can get supplies and horses there.”

Virgil made a sound halfway between a sigh and a whimper but managed a single nod. “I don’t understand how the wind could have caused so much destruction up here when it wasn’t nearly so bad down there.”

“The wind didn’t do it,” Farilane said, “did it, Kolby?”

“No, Your Highness.”

Virgil looked at both of them, then at Cedric. “I don’t understand.”

“Kolby, being the thorough fellow that he is, hobbled the horses so they couldn’t run off.”

Virgil took a moment to wipe his face clear of the rain and peered into the night. “And yet, I see no horses.”