“If we ride with you into battle,” Kavos said, “I will need you to vow something to me: the weak King shall not reclaim his throne. If we win, you, and you alone, shall rule Escalon.”

Duncan grimaced, unsure how to respond. It was the last thing he wanted.

“I am no politician,” Duncan replied. “Just a soldier. That is all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Sometimes life demands of us more than what we want,” Kavos countered. “I want our country ruled by one of us—by a man I trust and respect. Vow to me—or my army stays here.”

Duncan sighed, long and hard, wishing it had not come to this. After a long silence, pondering his options, punctuated only by the wind, he knew he had no choice.

Finally, he turned to his friend and nodded.

They reached out and clasped arms, and in that clasp, Duncan felt the fate of Escalon—the new Escalon—being forged.

Kavos smiled wide.

“Long life is overrated,” he said. “I’ll take glory any day.”

“To Andros!” Kavos shouted out, joy spreading across his face as all of their men gathered around, raised their weapons, and shouted out, as one, behind them.

“TO ANDROS!”

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Ra, Supreme Leader of Pandesia, sat on his golden throne in the vast Hall of Thrones, in the center of the great capital of Pandisiana, and he gritted his teeth and looked out over the room, towering over his dozens of advisors, and was filled with fury at the scroll before him. A messenger knelt below him, trembling, knowing. His Glorious Ra did not welcome bad news, and it was at one’s own peril to deliver it.

Ra, seven feet tall, olive-skinned, with long, golden braids for hair tied tightly to his head and clear, translucent eyes, felt a great anger welling up as he pondered the scroll’s message. He clenched and unclenched his fists, his muscles rippling in the warm weather, visible for all to see as he wore but a golden chained vest and golden loincloth, bedecked with jewelry. Ra, supreme leader, had spies in every corner of the kingdoms, and he was never—ever—caught off guard. He was Ra, the All-Knowing, the All-Mighty, the Omniscient, the One Ruler Over All, the one that all of the empire prayed to in their morning prayers, the one deified in every statue in every town of the empire.

Yet this day was different. This message which wafted in, like a foul breeze, had caused him consternation, had disrupted his immaculately constructed peace.

Ra clenched his jaw, pierced with a golden and sapphire chain, wondering how he could have not anticipated this, wondering how any of his necromancers could not have foreseen this. The men of Escalon, those rebellious scum, had begun a revolution. His soldiers had been killed. Lord Governors had been killed. And the rebellion was spreading across Escalon like a cancer.