Alliances

Breetan laughed, a sharp, mocking sound. “The pattern is plain,” she said, planting hands on hips. Unlike the commandant, she was at ease in her three-quarter plate, enameled in sable, as befitted a Dark Knight. “We’ll find them with their throats cut, just like the others.”

For the past three months, someone or something had been whittling down his troops. One here, three there, soldiers went missing only to be found with their throats cut. Freemantle’s reports to the Knights’ citadel in Gilthanost had resulted in the arrival of Breetan Everride. Her task was to put a stop to the slaughter.

For six armed men to disappear together was unusual, however. No group of that size had gone missing before. The patrol had been on its way to reinforce the sentinel post at the Shattered Rock crossroads. Twice in the previous three months, the sentries’ relief had arrived to find the two men slain or, more disturbing, simply gone.

“I’ll ride out with a company and see what we find,” she told Freemantle.

“Don’t go far. There’s little daylight left.”

She almost laughed at him again. The commandant was afraid to go out after dark? What were things coming to out here?

Sergeant Jeralund and twenty men were waiting for her at the gate. Breetan’s horse had been brought from the stable. She mounted and rested the butt of a cocked and loaded crossbow on her thigh.

“Sergeant, we have ground to cover. At the double, if you please.”

Jeralund drew his sword and thrust it in the air. “All right, you donkeys! Time to be war-horses! At the double!” he roared.

This late in the day, only a few travelers remained on the road. They dived for the ditches when Breetan’s column approached. In ragged order the mercenaries lifted their booted feet and jogged behind their elegantly mounted leader.

Breetan was a member of a select organization within the larger Knights of Neraka. According to reports compiled by its headquarters, the Black Hall, the only elves remaining in the province were slaves. Breetan believed the reports were wrong. Who but rebellious, forest-bred elves could be at the bottom of all the trouble?

All seemed normal in the forest. Alert for ambush, Breetan saw only squirrels scampering from branch to branch, heard only birds singing in the treetops. Her dark red mantle hung limply from her shoulders. No breath of breeze stirred the air. Beneath her helmet, her sunbrowned face was flushed from the heat.

Dusk had fallen by the time the column reached Shattered Rock. The soldiers tensed as they neared the crossroads.

Shattered Rock had earned its name from a great boulder on the southwest side of the intersection. The sharp-edged block of gray granite, roughly cube shaped, resembled none of the native rock in the vicinity. Local lore held that it had been dropped by a giant in centuries past.

Opposite the boulder was the sentinel post, a thick-walled, flat-roofed stone hut. The windows were covered by stout planks, with loopholes for archers. Out front, an iron tripod perched atop the ashes of a cold campfire. At Breetan’s command, the company broke ranks and surrounded the hut.

No one answered Jeralund’s calls. The brass-strapped door was bolted. Both windows were shuttered and likewise fastened from the inside, It required two men with war axes many minutes to hack through the heavy door. While they labored, Breetan ordered a large fire laid where the roads met. By the time the battered panels yielded, darkness was almost complete and the bonfire’s light was welcome indeed.

Jeralund brought a brand from the fire to light the way, and Breetan entered, crossbow at the ready.

The missing men were not inside. The single room was a shambles. Everything in it, from the two cots to the bowls that held the sentries’ provisions, had been smashed. The soldiers’ bedding had been trampled into the muck on the floor.

The ladder to the roof trapdoor had been torn down. The trapdoor itself, like every other opening, was secured from the inside. Jeralund had himself boosted up. He threw the thick bolt, pushed the panel upward, and levered himself onto the roof. It was bare but for a scattering of leaves. The hut’s walls continued up past the roof, creating a two-foot parapet. Jeralund turned to survey the crossroads and the woods beyond. He exclaimed hoarsely.

“What?” demanded Breetan from below. “What do you see?”

Jeralund’s face appeared in the trapdoor opening. “Bodies. In the trees!”

From his vantage point, with the light of the bonfire to aid him, Jeralund had seen what no one on the ground had been able to: corpses hanging from high tree branches. The dead were lowered to the ground and identified as the members of the overdue patrol, plus the two guards assigned to the sentinel post.