~ PROLOGUE ~
"Hurry. No telling how close they are now." The last of the snows had usually been a fortnight ago, but the Gods had seen it appropriate to scatter a fierce fit of additional cold weather across the region. Hallen's rouncey was up to it's knee joint in snow and snorted with uneasy displeasure at every step.
He squinted back in the direction they had come, fruitlessly. The thick snowflakes, some the size of large nuts, tumbled from the grey sky in a gentle torrent. The sharp wind stirred and flicked it as the snow settled creating a swirling white fog. It must have been six hours ago they first heard the distant bleating of the horn. Hallen had left three men back at a shallow crossing on the river, to watch for any persuers. There had only been silence since.
His number was limited enough as it was. When he originally left Hawkers' Grip in the deep hours of the night there were eighteen with him, all were men he could trust. Some he hand-picked, others volunteered for the reckless – and unsanctioned – expedition. Out of the eighteen that followed, now only eleven remained; Henry succumbed to wounds sustained in a previous fight at Hawkers Grip; John, Arthur and Tomas died in an attack whilst traversing the frozen ravine; the two Bens and Gavin were the trio left at the crossing.
May the chained God take them to rest. Hallen prayed silently.
"Captain!" A voice drowned in the snow. "Captain!" Closer now. Hallen turned to face the direction they headed in, a mounted figure emerged from the snowfall, wrapped in thick woolen cloth all over except for a slit from which peered walnut-brown eyes.
"The child can not ride any longer Captain." The words were still muffled, even this close, thanks to both the weather and the wool through which he spoke.
"We cannot stop, Reynald." Hallen responded, shaking his head dejectedly.
"Then the boy is like to die from exhaustion, then this was all for naught –" Reynald stopped abruptly as he interrupted himself, "Gods... Arthur, Tomas... Tall John..." Hallen did not have a response, those brave men had died under his command. Their faces materialised every time he shut his eyes, wearing pained expressions, but still in their own skin. Unlikely to be the case for their actual corpses, Hallen knew.
A second man manifested from out of the white fog. The younger man's light-brown tightly cropped goattee was coated in frost, his eyebrows no different, so the stubble adorning his cheeks looked out of place not flecked with white. "Why do we stop? Are they here?" He said as he reached for the bow slung over his back.
"The boy. He is practically unconcious in his saddle. He can ride no further." Spoke Reynald, his eyes locked on Hallen. One of the horses snorted as if in agreement.
"We cannot stop. I will have him ride with me, that way he can get some rest." Captain Hallen answered. The other two men exchanged a doubtful glance, but it was the younger who spoke up.
"Captain, your mount hasn't rested in a full day, nor eaten properly in nearly two. She will not survive long with the two of you atop her. Saddle the boy with me, my steed is the strongest of the group."
Rob was right, Hallen knew. He had won that destrier in an archery competition back in Hawkers' Grip two summers past. Hallen had competed also, but his skill with a bow left much to be desired. Rob Foster had cored the apple atop the scarecrow's head, and then emasculated the poor straw fellow with a second boastful shot to the carrot he had no doubt put there himself, much to the amusement of the other guardsmen – and the delight of the fawning girls.
"Very well. Reynald, help the boy onto Rob's lap. Make certain he is secure, tie him there if you must." The two guardsmen nodded in acknowledgement and ploughed their horses back to the front of the group where the child rode. The captain pulled the grey wool scarf back up over his bald head. He couldn't recall the last time he was warm, they were barely a days ride outside of Hawkers' Grip when the severe weather kicked in. And he had not allowed his men to light fires lest those demons find them quicker, and fall upon them out of the darkness. He shuddered at the thought, pressing his lids shut to shake the thought from his head, which was instead filled with their faces again; John, Arthur, Tomas. And now Ben, Ben and Gavin. May the chained god take them to rest.
As his horse struggled onward through the swelling snow drifts Hallen's thoughts returned to Hawkers' Grip. Arthur would be at home with his newborn, Ben with his sickly father, Tomas with his wife. Had I not led them on this doomed folly. His subconcious tortured him, but he knew this was not the truth of it. Had they not stolen away with the boy that night all of them would still be manning the makeshift barricades of Hawkers' Grip, defending their homes and Lord in the small town as the ravenous demons fell upon them tirelessly time and time again. He had plotted the evacuation of the child, the heir of House Dayce, waiting for an opportunity to arise. It had that night, five days ago, the largest attack yet. He and his men repelled it successfully, and knowing they had won a respite from the monsters he launched his plan. Thirteen of his guardsmen, namely the ones he did not have the total loyalty of or trust completely, remained at Hawkers Grip, along with the household guard of the province's castellan, Lord Dacery. He was unsure what punishment awaited him upon his return to Hawkers' Grip, or even if there would be one to go back to. But Hallen had sworn on oath to Lord Dayce before he marched south ten years ago, to protect his unborn child should any harm come to him.
Even if Hawkers' Grip should fall, young Dayce will survive. I am no oathbreaker.
Hours passed as they pressed on, how many Hallen could not be sure for time had no bearing in the icy blizzard. The same bleak white and greys everywhere he looked, on occasion he would catch a glimpse of one of his men. Sometimes the silhouette of his second in command, Reynald, wrapped in all his wool. Sometimes it was the shadow of young Rob Foster's black destrier; with his valuable extra passenger the large steed's pace had slowed noticably, but even still it had more strength and endurance than the other guardsmen's mounts. Sometimes even, when the fog subsided or thinned, Hallen could see the imposing outline of the sundered peak; their destination. The gateway out of the Cold Ridge. Due to the mountain's size, it appeared closer infact than it was.
'Still a long way to go.' Hallen reminded himself. There was the rest of the valley to go, then the ponderous ascent of the crumbled stoneroad. It wasn't until the abandoned old tower, Copperwatch, that the climb steepened, only flattening out as the path leads between the two halfs of the shattered peak, it's rocky spires blackened and reaching up into the sky with splintered fingers. Another day of riding and the party should be at the tower, there they could rest, feed and water the horses before continuing at next light to the peak and safety on the other side.
'And help.' It was not enough to just get young Lord Dayce out of the province.
"As perilous as our escape has been, you still intend to retread this path and return?" It was as if Reynald had read Hallen's mind, leading closer his white and spotted-black horse – the one that young Foster had dubbed 'Cow', much to the chuckles of the other men, and the aggravation of Hallen's second-in-command.
"I have spent all my life in the Stonewynds. I can't abandon my home, nor can I abandon the people left in Hawker's Grip."
"I don't know how well that will sit with the rest of the men, Hallen." Reynald said in a hushed tone, as if someone else was close enough to hear.
"I won't command it. It will be their choice of course. If they decide to leave for elsewhere once we are on the other side of the Sundered Peak I would not think less of them."
"What about of me?"
"The same goes, of course. You've served your Lord and I well Reynald, I couldn't have done this without you. I would be sorry we had to part ways if you choose as such."
"I am with you, Hallen. I have a wife and child in Hawker's Grip I will not leave behind. To remain there after feels like suicide though, I'll do all I can to get them out of danger."
"I'm sorry I could not permit you to bring them with us now -"
"No need. I see now, they would have slowed us down. The boy is sickly, too... this journey would have been too hard on them."
'And it would've made it harder to keep our escape from Hawker's Grip quiet.' Hallen kept the thought to himself.
"I don't like our chances though, just the two of us. Our party of nineteen has not been enough to be safe in this wilderness, were it just the two of us we'd have died three times over already by now."
"Two can move quieter and quicker than nineteen. We will have a better time of avoiding them."
"You think we brought too many?"
"No. I could not risk the boy with too few if we become cornered."
There was no right answer to the question, a handful were likely doomed if they ran into any trouble, but on the other hand a larger group was easy to track.
"You don't think any of the others will want to return to their homes once this deed is done?"
"Perhaps. Mostly the ones who have left their families at Hawker's Grip. What does that make? Six?"
"Aye" Hallen knew his men.
"Glenn might too. He loves a fight, always volunteered to hold the barricades, once he did three straight watches."
"Foster would return." Hallen said
"Pah! As soon as Foster gets a taste of the whores on the other side of that mountain he'll forget all about it. Handy with a bow, sure, when his face isn't buried in some wench's bosom. Brash, arrogant and unreliable, he might be the worst town guard we have, Hallen."
"Well, half a dozen then, at a guess."
"That's if we get up the mountain unmolested. Still a ways to go yet."
"There'll be more."
"Oh?"
"It's Autumn. The tournament at Crescentholm, always attracts countless numbers of landless knights, blades-for-hire and rogues eager for a payday, greedy lords and nobles eager for glory and influence. I mean to gather all I can to the banner of our Lord, the boy."
If Reynald doubted the chances of raising an army with no means of paying the soldiers, or bestirring the nobles of the other nearby provinces to care about what they deemed the backwater Stonewynds, he did not show it. Hallen himself had grown increasingly doubtful that any help was ever coming, he and the head steward of Hawker's Grip had sent countless messages to the nearest city Crescentholm, urging the lords there for aid, both by courier and bird. No response had ever come, spurring Hallen to take the action he was in the midst of.
"If we don't bring more we're only returning to die on the barricades." Reynald finally offered, lingering a few moments more before spurring his horse to the head of the column, out of sight again thanks to the return of the mist. Hallen merely nodded in solemn agreement, white puffs of cold air flushing from his nostrils as he breathed.
"Who goes there!" The shout cut through the snowstorm.
"Identify yourselves!" Hallen spurred his rounsey, urging it to muster all it's strength, drawing his sword and subconciously holding his breath as his horse clambered to the commotion. Foster had already drawn his bow, four of the other guardsmen had fallen in around him to protect the child who shared his saddle, their weapons in hand as they stared silently ahead in anticipation. As Hallen approached he could make out the raucous was not due to the foe he feared. Reynald and five other guardsmen; Pete, Glenn, Rickard, Alister and Dennis, pointed their blades at a dozen red-faced men atop two empty wains.
"Stand aside!" One of the men said. "We act on behalf of Lord Glover." His hand was on his sword hilt.
Hallen could hear the whispers of the guardsmen at his back, "By the gods, reinforcements!", "Glover finally acted on the letters the Cap'n sent," "These boys' ain't no proper soldiers." Reynald sheathed his weapon, the other men followed suit.
The wind had hushed. Everything stilled.
Hallen's horse whimpered.
Out of the milky fog silently sauntered a pink ghostly figure, hunched in the shoulders and loose in the flesh.
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