He rode up next to the King, took the King’s jaw in his hand. “Can you ride? Can you stay on the horse? You have to ride! Hold on!”

Gaborn pushed the King’s hands firmly to the pommel of the saddle. “Hold! Like this!”

King Sylvarresta looked into Gaborn’s face, clutched the pommel.

“Do you have strength to ride?” Gaborn asked Iome.

She nodded grimly in the dark.

Gaborn let the horses canter lightly, kept a close watch on his charges. King Sylvarresta was gazing up at the stars as they rode, or watching the lights of a town as they passed.

Five miles later, they rounded a corner, and King Sylvarresta went flying off his horse. He landed on his hip, slid in the mud and grass at the side of the road. Then just lay, sobbing.

Gaborn went and whispered soft words to him, helped King Sylvarresta back on his horse; then Gaborn rode behind, cradling King Sylvarresta between strong arms.

36

THE SERPENT RING

Through the long night, King Orden waited impatiently for sign of his son. It was hard, this waiting, the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Orden’s men carried all two hundred thousand arrows from the armory to their perches along the castle’s battlements. On the wall-walk beneath the west tower, they set a great bonfire, a message of distress, in an effort to call aid from any who might see its light or smoke. Near that fire, his men set great cauldrons of oil to boil, so that the putrid scent of them filled the castle.

Orden commanded five men to go north three miles, to set a similar fire on the peak of Tor Loman, so everyone within twenty leagues might see it. Duke Groverman had not heeded Orden’s petitions. Perhaps sight of the battle pyres would shame him into it.

Just before dawn, two thousand knights arrived from Groverman, explaining their delay. Groverman had heard of the fall of Longmot, and thought to retake it, but had sent word to Sylvarresta. Apparently his messengers never made it to the King alive. After a day of waiting, he’d sent a hundred scouts on force horses to Sylvarresta and learned that the castle had fallen.

Orden wondered which road the scouts had taken, thought it odd that his men hadn’t spotted them. Which meant that the knights had taken trails through the forest.

Then the scouts had returned with the ill news of Sylvarresta’s defeat, and Groverman waited still for reinforcements from distant castles.

The knights Groverman sent were good men, solid warriors. But despite his best efforts, Orden did not feel prepared. He suspected this battle would bring trials he couldn’t prepare for.