The Sword to Unite by Peter J. Hopkins & Digital Fiction

Author:Peter J. Hopkins & Digital Fiction [Hopkins, Peter J. & Fiction, Digital]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Digital Fantasy Fiction, an imprint of Digital Fiction Publishing Corp.
Published: 2017-12-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Reavers and Knights

The group wandered through the Ithon for many days, passing through uncharted lands, unknown to both man and the folk of the forest. As they made their way north, the lush and green tree fields grew into expansive hills that poked from the tree line, rolling and waving through miles of terrain. To the east, the Hirdland Mountains, covered in blankets of icy white snow, with bases of gray stone that appeared to travel upwards for miles.

“House Sodeer will be a great help in the war,” Alfnod assured the group as they rode. “I have met some of their rangers on occasion, the best fighters this side of the Tyr if you ask me.”

Cedric joined in the praise. “Aye, Azrael will have a difficult time once the rangers on harassing him, moving like shadows through the tree line, he won’t be able to march his army one step without an arrow flying at him.”

On their way, Eadwine strummed and sung of his people, chiefly of Dothriel, the Prince of Geladhithil, who wandered for years through the Suthon as ranger and sentinel. He sang in his traditional tongue, taught and passed down his father, and his father before him. His language was known only by Alfnod, and little by Cedric, from the time in Orford where Eadwine taught Cedric the legends of the Lusani folk. These tales of crafty woodland creatures and ancient palaces rang throughout the whole of the Ithon.

The expansive hillsides of the Ithon Forest soon faded, and the trees diminished in number and size. The group had made it to the edge of Sodeer country, where the noble house has long stood watch as the wardens of the forest, ensuring that no Awaerian force could surprise Midland. The party grew cautious, for they passed many hamlets and huts, but saw no view of peasantry on their way. Missing too, were the rangers of Sodeer, draped in grim cloaks with the brooch of Godric’s silver horn. These men were a common sight to any traveler in these lands, though now they caught sight of none.

“Hark! What is that on the horizon?” Eadwine cried from atop his horse, pointing towards a billowing pillar of black smoke, which appeared like a dark tower in the blue and sunny sky. They pressed their steads forward and hurried to the edge of the forest, where they found a burning town.

It was Mileast, an important trading stop for any traveling merchant in Midland, often seen as the journey’s middle ground between Lorine and Belfas to the north, and more importantly, the capital of House Sodeer. The great mercantile houses, hewn of smoothed stone and redwood, along with glimmering glass windows, had been burned and left to smolder. The stone walls were in ruin, and the spiky pillars of logs had corpses of guardsmen thrown about them.

Cedric and the others dismounted their horses at the gatehouse, which had been completely smashed in, the gilded steel doors, composed of silver and gold were dented and strewn about on the muddy and bloodied ground.

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