The small blue light then went racing back across the river, to rest in the small man’s eyes.

Stevedore Hark shouted and rushed into his inn to fetch his wife and guests before the whole building burst into a conflagration.

By the time he’d dragged his wife and guests from their beds, the roof of the inn was afire, orange flames writhing up in great sheets.

Stevedore Hark raced from the inn, gasping from smoke, and looked out across the river. The dark man stood watching, smiling broadly.

He waved toward Hark with a little flourish, then turned and headed along the road—downstream, toward Power’s Bridge, some thirty miles to the east. It would take Raj Ahten’s army far out of their way, but the Wolf Lord’s soldiers would circumvent Orden’s ambush.

Stevedore Hark found his heart pounding. It was a long way for a fat old innkeeper to ride to get to Longmot, and there were no force horses in town. He couldn’t warn Orden that his ambush would fail. He’d never make it riding through the woods at night.

Silently, he wished Orden well.

33

TREACHERY

King Mendellas Draken Orden toured the defenses of Longmot in the failing light, considering how best to defend the rock. It was an odd castle, with outer walls exceptionally tall, carved of granite from the hill Longmot squatted upon. The fortress had no secondary or tertiary walls, as one found in a larger castle, such as at Sylvarresta. It had no fine merchants’ quarter, held only two defensible manors for minor barons, along with the keeps for the Duke, his soldiers, and his Dedicates.

But the walls were solid, protected by earth runes of bonding.

The tallest building in the keep was the graaks’ aerie—a merely functional building on a rock pinnacle that could nest up to six of the large reptiles. One reached the aerie by means of narrow stone stairs that zigzagged along the east wall of the pinnacle. The aerie was not meant to be defended. It had no merlons archers could hide behind, no landings on the stairs where swordsmen had room to swing. It held only a wide landing field atop the pinnacle for graaks, then six circular openings in nests above the field.

The dukes of Longmot had not raised graaks here in generations. King Orden thought it a shame. A hundred and twenty years past, several harsh winters came, and here in the north the graaks had frozen from cold. During those same winters the frowth giants had traveled from the north over the snow. But when the winters warmed and the wild graaks flew up again from the south, the kings of Heredon hadn’t tamed them, as their forefathers had. When they sent messages, they trusted riders on force horses.

It seemed a shame to Orden. A rich tradition had been lost. In some small way, the nation became poorer for it.