Restraining a sigh, Derry shrugged his shoulders to ease the itch and slung the helmet over his left arm by the chin strap. As he started back toward the clearing where he had left his horse tethered, he moved stealthily, treading as soundlessly as possible in the new spring grass. He had chosen this meadow return with care, for the footing among the trees was treacherous with the threat of snapping twigs and branches left from the long winter. To be captured now could mean a painful and lingering death at the hands of those who camped on the plain below.

Derry reviewed what he had learned as he worked his way in the direction of the thicket. Off to the east, the Rheljan Mountain Range reared its jagged peaks more than a mile above the plain, sheltering the walled city of Cardosa in the cut of the Cardosa Pass. Wencit of Torenth was there, or so men said. But to the west, Derry’s right, the Llyndruth Plain stretched on for miles and miles. And just over the ridge behind him lay the massed armies of Bran Coris, the traitorous Earl of Marley, now the ally of that same Wencit of Torenth whose presence at Cardosa threatened the very existence of Gwynedd.

The picture taking shape in Derry’s mind was not a pleasant one; nor could he expect it to improve in the near future. After leaving Morgan and Duncan two days earlier, Derry had headed northeast through the greening, boulder-strewn hills of northern Corwyn, making his way toward Rengarth and the supposed campsite of Duke Jared McLain and his army.

But there was no ducal army at Rengarth; only a handful of peasants who told him the army had gone north five days before. He rode on, and the gently rolling green of Corwyn slowly gave way to the bare, silent plains of Eastmarch. Instead of the expected army, he found only the aftermath of a terrible battle: terrified villagers huddled in the ruins of sacked and burned-out towns; the hacked bodies of men and horses lying unburied, rotting in the sun, the McLain tartan on their saddles dark with blood and gore; broken standards of red, blue, and silver trampled in the dusty, blood-drenched fields.

He questioned those of the villagers he could lure out of hiding. Yes, the duke’s army had come this way. They had joined with another army that had seemed friendly at first. The two leaders had clasped arms across their saddles as the two armies met.

But then the carnage had begun. One man thought he had seen the green and yellow banner of Lord Macanter, a northern border lord who had often ridden with Ian Howell, late the Lord of Eastmarch. Another told of a preponderance of royal blue and white among the standards: the Earl of Marley’s colors.

But whoever led the opposing army, the blue-and-whites fell upon the duke’s men without mercy, cutting down the ducal army almost to the man, and taking captive those they did not slay. When the battle was over, some remembered black-and-white banners among the riders of the rear guard, and the leaping hart badge of the House of Furstán. Treachery was definitely afoot.