The gray banners of Longmot rose on pennants on the castle towers, and had been draped over the castle walls. But the banners were all ripped and torn. Some few dozen soldiers manned the outer walls.

Orden had expected to find the village as it had been when last he saw it. He wondered if some great battle had been fought here, unbeknownst to him.

Then he realized what had befallen this land. The soldiers of Longmot had burned the town to its foundations and had brought in all the herds, expecting a siege by Raj Ahten’s occupying forces on the morrow. By burning the city, they robbed the occupying forces of decent shelter. Here in these hills, with winter coming on, shelter would be a valuable commodity.

As Orden’s little army rode to the castle gates, he saw relief on the faces of the soldiers stationed on the walls. Someone sounded a war horn, a short riff played only when friendly reinforcements were spotted.

The drawbridge came down.

As King Orden rode through the gates, men cheered from the castle—but so few voices.

He was not prepared for the sight that befell him: all along the walls inside the keep lay dead bodies and wounded townsfolk sitting in the open. Many wore armor—shields and helms robbed from Raj Ahten’s defeated troops. Blood smeared the stonework along the outer wall-walks. Windows were broken. Axes, arrows, and spears sat stuck in the beams of buildings. A tower to a lordly manor had burned.

There, outside the Duke’s Keep, the Duke himself hung from a window by his own guts, just as Duchess Emmadine Ot Laren had described.

Everywhere was sign of battle, few signs of survivors.

Five thousand people had lived here. Five thousand men, women, and children who fought with tooth and dagger to dislodge Raj Ahten’s men.

They’d had no soldiers with heavy endowments and years of training. They’d had no great weapons. They had, perhaps, only an element of surprise, and their great hearts.

They’d won the day, barely. Then the families had fled, fearing retribution from Raj Ahten.

King Orden had anticipated that four or five thousand people would occupy this castle and town, people he could use to aid in his defense, people he could tap for endowments.

Chickens and geese roosted on rooftops inside the keep. Some swine rooted just inside the bailey.

Weak cheers greeted Orden, but they soon faded. One man called down from atop the Dedicates’ Keep.

“King Orden, what news have you of Sylvarresta?”

Orden looked up. The man was dressed in a captain’s smart attire. This would be Captain Cedrick Tempest, the Duchess’s aide-de-camp, in temporary charge of the castle’s defenses.

“Castle Sylvarresta has fallen, and Raj Ahten’s men hold it.”