“We could go to the isle,” Flyn said defiantly. “Rescue them! Take them away from there! Where is your courage?!”

Sir Corc approached the squire, leaning forward until they were almost touching, beak to beak.

“It has been tried,” Sir Corc told him. “And failed.”

Bantam Flyn did not flinch from the closeness of that stare. “Isle of Mad Women!” he scoffed in the knight’s face. “Where do they send their mad men?”

Sir Corc was quick to answer.

“They sit on the councils that judge the women.” With that, he turned and walked away.

N INE

NINE

Deglan thanked Earth and Stone for the great toad’s excellent vision. They crashed through the dark forest, the unseen leaves above jealously guarding all starlight, banishing the face of the moon. Deglan saw quite well in the dark, but at this speed he surely would have dashed his skull into a tree by now. Not so for Bulge Eye, who charged between the rushing trunks with the full might of his back legs. Deglan leaned forward in the saddle, his face near touching the back of the toad’s lumpy head. He did not need a low hanging branch knocking him from the saddle, nor a broken neck. He would breathe easier when they reached the plains of An Curragh, where no obstacle would stand between them and the fort.

He parted from the piskie not an hour ago, trusting she could find her own way back to the Wallow and raise the alarm. In truth, he had no doubt she would succeed, but whether the stubborn herdsmen would heed her was another matter. They had suffered the need to flee already. Twice in less than a moon’s turn was enough to turn their pride against them, force them to dig in and stand their ground. Without Kederic’s warriors they stood no chance and even with them, there was little hope. Hope turned to an elusive cinder caught on the wind when a Flame Binder was on the loose.

“Buggery and spit!”

The thought of one of those mad bastards running free was the most infuriating kind of jest. A jest Deglan had seen coming for centuries. And there were times when he hated himself for being right.

The Red Caps were on the move. They cheered and cackled, waving their weapons, their torches dragging harsh light through the forest. They were not difficult to follow.

Padric kept close to Faabar and out of sight as they shadowed the boisterous horde, using no light of their own, staying on higher ground, keeping the trees between them and the goblins as much as possible. They were regularly forced to halt and keep low when small groups of Red Caps broke off from the main body in twos and threes.

“Scouting parties,” Faabar whispered as they hunkered down in the underbrush, hoping they would not be stumbled upon and discovered.