I heard frightened voices, a chorus of them, some shrill. Questioning, like a flock of chickens woken in the dark of night. The luriks.

“Run now. We must run now!”

“What are they doing to her?”

“Vindeliar! He must help us.”

Behind us in the night, I heard Dwalia’s voice rise in a desperate choked cry. “This must not happen! This must not happen! Make it stop, Vindeliar! It is your only chance to return to the rightful path. Forget what Ellik told you! It wasn’t true! Forget Ellik!” Then, in a desperately hoarse voice, “Vindeliar, save me! Make them stop!”

Then a different kind of scream cut the night. It wasn’t a sound. It hurt me to feel it; it made me sick. Fear flowed through the air and drenched me. I was so terrified I could not move. Shun froze. I tried to speak, to tell her we had to get farther away, but I could not make my voice work. My legs would not hold me up. I sagged down in the snow with Shun falling on top of me. In the wake of that wave, a deadly silence filled the forest. No night bird spoke, no living thing gave voice. It was so still I could hear the crackling of the fires.

Then a single shrill, clear cry. “Run! Flee!”

And then the hoarse shouting of men. “Catch them! Don’t let them steal the horses!”

“Kill him! Kill them all! Traitors!”

“Stop them. Don’t let them get to the village!”

“Bastards! Traitorous bastards!”

And then the night was full of sound. Screams, cries. Men roaring and shouting. Orders barked. Screeched pleas.

Shun was the one to rise and drag me to my feet. “Run,” she whimpered, and I tried. My legs were jelly. They would not take my weight.

Shun dragged me through the snow. I staggered to my feet.

We fled from the rising screams into darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Red Snow

I but recount the rumors and gossip as they come to me. The tales I am hearing seem too wild to be true, but as you have ordered me, I do. This is what news reached me. The Duke of Chalced is no more. A horde of dragons bearing armored riders came out of the wilderness and attacked the city of Chalced. They spat fire or something just as destructive. They ringed the city with circles of destruction. Finally they targeted the palace of the duke himself, destroying it with their spew and the battering of their wings and the lashing of their tails. It is said that his towering stronghold crumpled to a quarter of its height and is no longer inhabitable.

The elderly and ailing duke, it is said, came out of his palace to stand before his troops. A tower fell, crushing him and much of his soldiery. Chancellor Ellik, long the duke’s most trusted advisor and a sword companion from the time of their youth, survived. The Chalcedean forces were reduced to a retreat that became a rout.

By the next morning, the daughter of the Duke of Chalced had emerged as allied with the dragons and their tenders and now claims to be “rightfully” the Duchess of Chalced. Ellik has proclaimed that he was the duke’s chosen successor and accused the so-called duchess of witchcraft. One Redhands Roctor, formerly a minor nobleman in the west of Chalced near Heastgate, has challenged both of them. His military forces were untouched in the attack and in my opinion are most likely to prevail. Chalcedeans are unlikely to accept the rule of a woman, even one with the goodwill of dragons. Duke Ellik’s forces were greatly diminished in the dragon rout of Chalced city. It would take divine intervention for him to return to power and influence, especially since he failed to protect the city. The “Duchess” of Chalced has offered a reward for his severed head, and the people of the city of Chalced call him a coward who abandoned them to the dragons.

—Unsigned report to Lord Chade Fallstar

Fleeter and I made good time. The moon silvered the snow and I had the stars to keep my bearings. The cart trail soon joined a wider way as we neared the Maiden’s Waist, though the wide passage through the rolling hills scarce merited the title pass. Fleeter was glad to be on trodden snow again. The roan employed her long-legged stride as we climbed the last stretch, and then we loped through an evergreen forest, and down a narrow trail that wound through bare-limbed oaks and alders. The slow winter dawn gradually came to light our way. Fleeter dropped our pace to a walk and breathed. The trail widened and I passed several small homesteads. Smoke rose from their chimneys, and candlelight told of farmers waking early. I saw no one outside.

Dawn grew stronger and I pushed Fleeter to a canter. The trail became a road as the morning passed. I rode through a small village without pause and on, past smallholdings and grain fields that dreamed of furrows beneath gently mounded snow. We trotted, we cantered, we trotted. Then more forest. Over a bridge we went, and now passed occasional travelers: a tinker with his painted wagon full of knives and scissors, a farmer and her sons riding mules and leading pack animals laden with earthy-smelling sacks of potatoes, and a young woman who scowled at me when I bid her “Good afternoon.”