By midday, tents and pavilions were seen in the low grounds in the Morglade, stretching over a thousand yards from the great hill. Scattered banners were flying somberly over the raised camp, all emblazoned with a black moon encircled in golden flames like a crown. The sigil, itself—the black moon—where the moon veiled the sun, and the day turned into night, was suggested by the queen’s arch-mage, who wished an ominous symbol for the legion to provoke fear in the minds of men.

  Towards the camp’s center towered a grand pavilion of silver and blue, sitting high on a mound of rock and dirt. Three high spear points thrust upward, heaving its canvas towards the sky and gleaming in the sunlight. At the shadowy entrance, stood a pair of banners on either side. On the left, hung the legion’s own woeful banner, and on the right, hung the banner of the silver knights with its sigil of a silver moon encircled in white flames in a dark blue field.

  Under the flapping of the silver moon banner, sat a giant Vinndash man on a roped crate with a massive pelt of umber-brown hair grown from his face and resting on his lap. A coiled whip hung casually from his belt. His limbs were like timbers and his face like an ogre. For the moment, the giant was enthralled with a colorful Morglade beetle creeping on his large burly hand. His eyes, one blue and one discolored, gazed with wonder, watching it crawl between his fingers. Otis, as he was named, was the legion’s headsmen. Never in all his travels, had Otis ever seen such a creature. Its bluish-green shell, with thorns down its back, shined like polished steel, and its Leathery wings shaded a ghoulish yellow. When Otis heard someone approaching, he suddenly closed his fist, crushing it and causing black fluid to ooze through his fingers, before flicking the remains away.

  A soldier came marching up the mound towards the lord master’s pavilion with a determined pace. He had a scalp lock on his head, and a flop of autumn-brown hair flowing in the wind as a horse’s mane would while riding. He was called Cass the Sojourner, or simply sojourner, and he carried the same curved sword as all Lysaneea men in the legion.

  Otis took a guarded pose in front of the entrance. Being two heads over the Lysaneea man, Otis stared down sternly at the Lysaneean.

  “Make way, Otis,” announced Cass. “I’m here for the lord master.”

  Otis sniffed and said with a gruff voice, “he is not to be bothered. Tell me why you are here, sojourner, and I may tell him.”

  “I will tell him, myself.”

  Otis’s face hardened as his hand tightened the grip on the whip on his belt.

  Cass steeled himself, stared up at the morbid eyes of the legion’s headsmen, and said to the Vinndash’s face, “It’s for the lord master’s ears only…” He then stressed to the giant, “commanded by Joanne.”

  Otis bore down on Cass with leather-smelling breath and his mismatched eyes. “I do not obey the witch, horseman. Only the lord master.” He placed his hand, the size of a mountain bear’s, against Cass’s chest. “Tell me… or be gone.”

  Cass glanced down at the giant hand on his chest. He was slighted by it, but he knew better, and so backed down. Taking a step back, he raised his voice high and called out, “There’s children!”

  Otis was stunned and dropped his hand. A voice of iron boomed from within the pavilion, “What children?”

  Cass angled himself and attempted to slip around the giant Vinndash. But before he could make it through the flaps, Otis had regained himself and clinched onto the Lysaneean’s shoulder, digging in and squeezing bone.

  “Let him go, Otis,” said the voice from inside.

  Otis grumbled and released him.

  Walking in, Cass beheld animal skins, shields, and other various arms, hanging from the tent’s inner frames. A solitary armchair sat vacant with a single sun ray striking it from a small hole in the tent’s roof. Hanging from hooks over the chair, was an axe, black steel, with a long wooden shaft. Cass remembered when the lord master took it as a trophy from the leader of the river bandits after killing the man in single combat in a shallow river. The bandit leader had called out the lord master and demanded a duel, accusing him of being a coward. The lord master accepted and slew him in three strokes. The bandit leader was once a headsman before turning outlaw and he called his axe, Mercy. In a mockery of justice, when executing his victims, the bandit would say, “I grant you, mercy.” The lord master kept the black axe’s name.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Standing in front of a water bowl on a pedestal, Elliot Lampeer was shirtless, hair wet and smoothed back. He had a hardy and lean form; one you see on laborers whose meals were rationed. Down from his right shoulder were dark scars spread like sinister tree roots down his backside. A boy in a wide-brimmed hat, Cass had never seen before, was attending to him and holding a woolen towel as Elliot washed.

  “Lord master,” Cass declared, “Joanne has discovered eight children hiding in a tunnel. The oldest no older than eleven, I say, and youngest barely three, it looks.”

  “Whose?” Elliott asked without facing Cass.

  “The children wouldn’t speak to us, lord master, but Joanne believes the children were the outlaws’. She’s certain she said.”

  He sighed heavily and turned to Cass. Then with a weary tone, he said, “Show me.”

  “Aye, lord master. They’re kept near the Lysaneea camp.”

  After Elliot pulled a shirt over his scarred body, he seemed like a peasant wearing his grey trousers and old faded leather boots from a day's work. But when the lord master found his satin cape with silvery trim and flung it over his shoulders, he seemed to transform from the apparent commoner. Elliot fashioned the fine cape over his left shoulder with a silver brooch, one shaped in the white sigil of the knights of the silver moon, the order he belonged to.

  As Elliot followed Cass out, he commanded Otis, “Call my captains. Have them meet in my tent after nightfall.” The giant nodded.

  Later, at the Lysaneea camp, Elliot, Cass, and Derrek found the children huddled together near the dusk land horses. A rope had been wound around their bellies, tying them to a post. They were ragged and dirty, staring with lost eyes.

  After Elliot inspected the children, he spoke to them, “See those banners? The ones with the black moon? Do you know whose they belong?”

  The children said nothing.

  Elliot continued, “Those banners are of the black moon legion—the queen’s legion. And it means you are now under my protection as the lord master.”

  The children still said nothing.

  “Can you speak? Any of you?”

  None answered.

  “Very well.” Elliot turned to Derrek and Cass. “Have them brought food and water. Let no one speak to them without my say.”

  “Aye, lord master,” said Cass.

  Elliot shoved his finger into Derrek’s chest and said, “Squire, you stay. And make sure my orders are followed until guards are picked.”

  Lord Master Elliot marched away.

  Derrek felt the eyes of Cass on him, and he turned to the Lysaneea horseman and said, “Sir?”

  “You’re the new squire,” Cass said.

  “I am.”

  Cass made a curious face. “Has anyone yet mentioned what happened to the last one?”

  “Those sisters told me. He died in battle, arrow to the throat.”

  “Ah…” He gazed down and scratched the back of his neck. “Mel told you that.” When he looked up again, he said, “I believe she’s got the right of it. He bravely died in battle, arrow to the throat, as a squire should.”

  “I pray if I must,” Derrek said, “I die bravely as well.”

  Cass gave a soft smile. “And I pray you don’t die at all—and neither me. Not until we are old men. There’s a world to see. Dying young seems the worst fate of all.”

  Derrek straightened his posture. “I aim not to, Lysaneean.” He felt on saying that, it would be true.

  Cass nodded. “Let’s get back to our duties, squire.” But Cass halted suddenly as he began to leave and pointed to the distance. “See there… at that wonder.”

  Across the hills of the Morglade, Derrek searched until he saw a pack of dogs running. He said, “I see dogs.”

  “Aye. Mutts and wild. Easy to envy.”

  “Envy the dogs?”

  “See how they run. No cages, no collars, no masters. Free. Roaming the world as they desired. They could run to the ends of the earth if it pleased them.”

  “And without purpose,” said Derrek, bluntly.

  Cass looked the squire down. “I see you wish for a higher purpose. When I rode with the sojourners, each man came as he was, and each man was equal. We only owned what we carried on our horses. We had no shared blood but fought as brothers—not for some lord’s pleasure. Our purpose was ourselves. To this day, I still dream of riding with them across the world and seeing sights few men see. I once rode far west to the borders of the midnight lands. I saw the endless gloom across the sky. You should see it too, squire, before you die.”

  Derrek said, “If you wish so much to be free, Lysaneean, then why do you serve the legion? Your kinsmen worn’t conscripted.”

  “Hah. I do not serve the legion, young squire. I serve only lady Joanne.” His face smiled as if he was gladdened speaking her name.

  Derrek asked, “How has one such as Captain Ballessteer become so loved by Lysaneea horsemen? She is not of your kind.”

  “If you knew her, you’d know.” Cass began easing away from the boy. “I have duties so I will take my leave, but if you should ever dare to come riding with me someday, squire, I’ll show you how to be a free man. Then you’ll envy wild dogs too.” He turned and strolled away. But within a few paces, he spoke again, more serious in tone, “Don’t wait too long, squire. One never knows their fate in the legion.” The horseman continued on, disappearing into the camp.

  Derrek turned back to the orphans and stared into their weary eyes. Watching them, he began to wonder what fate may be in store for them—and not only them.