RuneScape by Erin M. Evans

Author:Erin M. Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan

FOURTEEN

THE FIFTY-SIXTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF KING RADDALLIN OF ASGARNIA

THE ELEVENTH DAY OF THE MONTH OF PENTEMBER

FALADOR, ASGARNIA

What Ilme remembered most about the law altar on the island of Entrana was the view of the water, the Unquiet Ocean surprisingly still, the sun glittering on the waves. The tang of salt, and the bright freshness of spring had made it feel like everything was brimming over with potential. In all their journeys to find and repair the rune altars, it had been one of her favourites.

Regrettably, she’d told Gunnar as much.

“The law altar is gone,” Perior said grimly. “They say the entrance to the rune altar has been obliterated—they can’t even find all the pieces.”

King Raddallin, the council of Falador, the king’s advisors, and representatives of the four orders of wizardry had assembled to discuss that summer’s offensive against the Fremennik’s Ardougne outpost—hopefully the last of such meetings, since within Asgarnia a growing chorus of voices decried Raddallin’s slowness in quashing Gunnar’s forces.

But with Perior’s report, the map of Kandarin lay forgotten on the table.

“How did the Fremennik reach Entrana?” Lady Geniven, one of the councilmembers of Falador demanded. “We have them nearly surrounded at the Ardougne outpost.”

“We have some of them surrounded,” Valzin corrected from her seat beside Raddallin’s throne. “The rest, one assumes, put their longships to work. At which point anything coastal is easily taken.”

“Everyone knows they don’t attack in winter,” another member added. He was new, a man with a forked beard—Lord Keerdan? Ilme thought. She was having the worst time keeping the new councilmembers straight. “What are they doing?”

“Making us look foolish?” Valzin suggested. “The Great Jarl has made it very clear that relying on what we know to be true of the Fremennik in the past is hardly better than telling ourselves bedtime stories.”

Perior gave her a dark look. His armour was dulled, scuffed and dented from recent battle. His left arm, amputated at the elbow after the attack on Ardougne, now terminated in an iron replacement. “The High Marshal is correct. One presumes they sailed around the Western Sea. Longships are mentioned in the reports.”

“It’s an odd altar to target,” Zanmaron said. He sat between Ilme and Master Temrin, wearing the ornate robes of the Red Order Master. “The uses we’ve found for law runes are limited and largely rely on Master Endel’s cache of astral runes from the Lunar Isle.”

Ilme wanted to protest the Fremennik couldn’t know that—but what did Gunnar know? What had she said, telling him tales of their travels, their successes with rune magic?

“It is a holy site,” Lady Geniven said in clipped tones. Long, long ago, the Saradominists held, their god had first set foot on Gielinor on the island of Entrana. “Clearly,” she went on, “the Great Jarl seeks to spread his demon-worship as aggressively as possible. And clearly the orders have not found the true purpose of the runes most blessed by the Lord of Light—”

“Ilme,” King Raddallin asked, “when is Master Endel due to return? We need to know how to rebuild the law altar.

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