Cold horror showed in Captain Tempest’s face. Obviously the man hoped for better news. He could not have had more than a hundred men. He could not really defend this castle, merely hold down the fort in hope that Sylvarresta would send aid.

“Take heart, men of Sylvarresta,” Orden called, his Voice making his words ring from the walls. “Sylvarresta has a kingdom still, and we shall win it back for him!”

The guards on the walls cheered, “Orden! Orden! Orden!”

Orden turned to the man riding next to him, Captain Stroecker, and whispered, “Captain, go alone, south to the Bredsfor Manor, and check the turnip garden. Look for sign of fresh digging. You should find some forcibles buried there. If you do, bring me twenty forcibles with the runes of metabolism, then cover the rest. Hide them well.”

King Orden smiled and waved to the ragged defenders of Longmot. It would not do to bring all the forcibles back here in the castle—not when Raj Ahten might attack, tear the castle apart in his search for them.

To the best of his knowledge, only three people alive knew where those forcibles lay hidden—himself, Borenson, and now Captain Stroecker.

King Orden wanted to make certain it stayed that way.

25

WHISPERS

Iome had been in the Dunnwood for only an hour when she first heard the war dogs bay, a haunting sound that floated up like mist from the valley floor behind them.

Wet splashes of rain had just begun to fall, and distant thunder shook the mountains. Contrary winds, blowing every which way, made it so that one moment the baying of the dogs came clear, then softened, then blew back to them.

Here, on a rocky, barren ridge, the sound seemed far away, miles distant. Yet Iome knew the distance was deceiving. War dogs with endowments of brawn and metabolism could run miles in a matter of moments. The horses were already growing tired.

“Do you hear them?” Iome shouted to Gaborn. “They’re not far behind!”

Gaborn glanced back as his mount leapt through some tall heather and plunged now into the deep woods. Gaborn’s face was pale; he frowned in concentration. “I hear,” he said. “Hurry.”

Hurry they did. Gaborn gripped his horseman’s hammer, and instead of weaving among trees, he urged his mount forward and struck down branches so that Iome and her father did not have to dodge them.

Iome feared this was a fool’s race. Her father didn’t know where he was, didn’t know he stood in danger. He simply stared up, watching rain drop toward him. Oblivious.

Her father didn’t recall how to sit a horse, yet the men chasing them would be master horsemen.

Gaborn responded to the danger by pushing them faster. When they cleared the large stand of pine, he raced his mount down a saddleback ridge, into deeper woods, heading west.