The road to Longmot turned muddy in the late morning as storms rolled across the sky. King Orden raced south all the way to the village of Hayworth, a distance of ninety-eight miles. It was a peaceful town spread along the banks of the River Dwindell, a village with a small mill. Green hills rolled as far south as one could see, each hill covered in broad oaks.

People here led a quiet life. Most were coopers who made barrels for wine and grain. In the spring, when the river swelled in flood, one could often see men on rafts made from hundreds of barrels all tied together, floating their goods down to market.

It displeased Mendellas Orden to have to burn the bridge. He’d stopped here often in his journeys, savoring the fine ale brewed in the Dwindell Inn, which sat beside the bridge on a promontory, overlooking the river.

But by the time Orden reached town, rain had soaked the bridge. Great rolling drops pelted his troops, dripped between the cracks of the four-inch planks. His men tried to light a fire where berry vines grew thick beneath the north end of the bridge. But the banks of the river were steep and the road sloped so that water draining down the street became a veritable creek.

Orden had supposed a couple of well-oiled torches would do the job, but even they proved to be of little use.

Orden was cursing his fortune when a couple of local boys pulled the innkeeper, old Stevedore Hark, out of the inn. Orden had been blessed by this man’s hospitality many times.

“Here, here, Your Highness, what are you and your men about?” the innkeeper said in a belligerent tone, waddling down the street. Orden’s fifteen hundred troops seemed not to alarm the innkeeper in the least. He was a heavy man in baggy pants, an apron over his broad belly. His fat face showed red beneath his graying beard, and rain streamed over his cheeks.

“I fear we must burn your bridge,” Orden answered. “Raj Ahten will come down the highway tonight. I can’t have him on my tail. I’ll gladly reimburse the town for the inconvenience.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll burn that bridge any time soon,” the innkeeper laughed. “Perhaps you’d better come in and have a drink. I can get you and some of your captains a nice stew, if you don’t mind a thin broth.”

“Why won’t it burn?” King Orden asked.

“Magic,” the innkeeper said. “Lightning struck it fifteen years back, burned it to the ground. So when we built it back again, we had a water wizard put a spell on it. Fire won’t hold to that wood.”