Twisted trees stretched their skeletal fingers overhead, their leafless boughs offering no protection from the fat raindrops that rapped on Tarir-dal's helmet in a maddening percussion. He pulled the helmet off and hung it from his saddle. The wig was heavy with water, and he ripped that off too and tossed it into the mud.

  His horse stumbled in the hoof-sucking mud and Tarir-dal stroked its neck. He had named the stallion Yroh. A proud beast with a blood line that stretched back to the sealing of the Echo. He could run twice the distance of any other horse alive and Tarir-dal loved him as he had never loved anything else. Yroh’s rightful place was leading victorious charges in battle, and it wounded Tarir-dal to see him trekking like a peasant's donkey.

  Tarir-dal wiped his face, the fine power smearing on his hand. “Water falling from the sky was a dream for us, did we ever know it could be so wretched?” he said.

  His lieutenant frowned at the miserable landscape. “To think that we spent a thousand years trying to get back to this. So much water it starts to corrupt that on which it falls. With each breath I smell only rot and decay. Perhaps the Cetic Monks are correct, the Echo is our sanctuary, and this is the very hell we escaped from.”

  Tarir-del repressed a shudder. He was at least ten years older than his lieutenant and had been alive long before the breaking. His faction was confined to the high places, where the shrieking winds of madness still roamed. “No, this is our salvation, we must master it and ourselves.”

  And he would master it by destroying Myam-tal and taking his place at Bimil-pal’s side, bringing glory to his house. The suffering of this journey was worth such a prize.

  “Rider!” came the call from the rear.

  Tarir-del raised a gloved hand to call the halt and a rider pulled up hard next to him. “My Lord, two groups came to the village.”

  Tarir-del gripped the reins so hard that his knuckles cracked. They were behind them! Had they watched them enter the village? “Describe them.”

  “The first were the Leybound abominations that we encountered on the road; they number twenty-two and were led by a tall man in a blue uniform.”

  “And the second?”

  “Mounted and numbering twenty. They wear green and white tabards. Their leader–”

  “Is a tall arcanist with fair hair,” Tarir-del concluded, and the rider nodded.

  “Come, we must ride hard. Do not spare the whip, I would kill every horse in this cursed land to reach them!”

  “My Lord!” the rider cried. “They are gone. They stayed only moments and went east into the hills.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Damn this accused arcanist! Tarir-dal had only caught a glimpse of him before that abomination of a woman appeared from nowhere and attacked them, but the man seemed soft, a gentleman of leisure. And now he had joined forces and fled to the hills with these leybound abominations.

  A fat raindrop fell into his collar and ran down his back. “Bring me the prisoner.”

  The Leybound groaned as he was dragged forward. He had walked behind Drone-del's horse all day, and he swayed on the spot, the brand on his chest angry and blackened.

  “Water.” His voice was broken. His eyes were down, and he took a shuddering breath.

  “Tell me about these Leybound,” Tarir-del asked.

  “Please.”

  “Give him water,” Tarir-del snapped. He had clearly miscalculated the Leybound’s constitution. If he died, Bimil-pal would demand restitution.

  The Leybound suckled at a flask and Tarir-del resisted the urge to turn away from the pathetic display. Instead, he allowed himself a moment of savage satisfaction knowing that he had broken this man's will, a victory which made even the rank surroundings slightly more bearable.

  “You have an opportunity to be useful, Leybound. Do not waste it.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the man replied, his head bent in supplication.

  “The Leybound are led by a tall man in a blue uniform. What do you know of him?”

  “He is called Riot, he’s the one that activated the hedron. He must be the agent sent by the wikkan.”

  “Riot,” Tarir-dal whispered. He had only managed a fractured sleep since the hedron, his dreams tortured by an arcane storm that sought to eviscerate him. “Tell me about him.”

  “He is a simple soldier who’ll follow orders. It’s all he knows.”

  “Take him away,” Tarir-del said.

  The Leybound resisted. “My Lord. Let me go through the hills. I can hunt Riot and push him through to you on the road. Give me my vengeance, and I will serve.”

  He looked like he would barely make it a few miles, but there was a spark of anger when he spoke about Riot. Perhaps Tarir-del could use that to make him loyal? Loyal to him and a weapon to use against Myam-tal.

  The problem was that his own officers were pampered and weak—too weak to be trusted to endure through the hills. And he wasn’t ready to unchain this leybound dog just yet.

  “My Lord, I can push them right into your forces,” the Leybound said.

  “I said take him away!” Tarir-del snapped. “Take him away and muzzle him.”

  Drone-del wrapped a huge arm around the Leybound’s face and dragged him back down the road, punishing him with blows of his fist.

  Tarir-del pulled out the map, and the fat raindrops splashed on it. The road that they were on was barely marked, little more than a washed-out wagon track that curved around to the citadel of Morbian on the coast.

  “You will continue east on this road,” Tarir-del instructed his lieutenant as he traced the thin line of the road all the way around the base of the hills. “You have two days to reach Morbian and I don’t care if you kill every horse and arrive on foot.”

  “Where will you be, my Lord?” his Lieutenant asked.

  “I will take the leybound abomination and a small force and pursue them through the hills. You will watch the road, and when they emerge, we shall trap them between us.”

  The map showed nothing at all in the hills to the south and east. The blank space could harbour death, starvation, certainly hardship.

  But in there somewhere lay the road to becoming Bimil-pals second in command, glory for him and his house, and ruin for Myam-tal.