Knight's Valor by Ronald Coleborn Page A

the region. He is packing now to stay ahead of the rain. His horses will take us.
    And of this you’re sure? You have to be sure, Quarvik .
    It will require one thing of you , Mother .
    So long as it don’t involve me whoring miself.
    It will involve something much more complicated, but less demeaning. But I doubt you’ll enjoy it any the more.
    Out with it, Seyalinn demanded, as she blew out the lamp that hung near the front door. She opened the door and stepped through.
    You’ll have to steal his wagon.
    Seyalinn arched her head skyward and saw the storm clouds scudding across a dark night sky. She took in a deep breath. Point the way, boy. We’ve no time to stand here and enjoy the night air.

S ix knights rode their tired horses out of the Bokrh Forest and into the Eastern Plain of Glyssia. They had driven the horses hard for two days and were relieved to finally be out of the dense and treacherous woods and away from its towering breerwood trees before night descended. The darkening sky signified the hour of full twilight, and storm clouds in the distance threatened rain. It would take another half-day’s journey to reach their destination, but they were glad to be away from Prybbia and treading once again on Glyssian ground.
    Though spent and ravenous, the men rode on with a certain urgency. They were all that remained of the renowned Outer Guard, the feared first line of defense against enemies of the Glyssian Realm. The recent Battle of Aklon had reduced that famed host from nearly three thousand to these six tired and hungry knights.
    The six now made haste for their homeland. They had survived the horrors of battle and the subsequent travails of a punishing two-week flight that had taken them across the empty desert stretches of the Barrens of Darmutt, up and down the perilous slopes of Mount Krune, and through the savage Freelands, whose men still followed the primeval custom of skinning and gutting wanderers for sport, and, some would say, sustenance. They had gone three days without food, and the last they had eaten was no more than three or four morsels apiece and a few swallows of what remained of the old wine one of the knights held in his possession.
    As they entered the vast plain that bordered the Village of Heth, one of them decided to break the long silence. He was a late member of the Outer Guard, newly sworn to the king and ranked at the lowest level. With some effort he delivered a breathless sentence that was peppered with the dialect of the Usigii, one of many peoples who inhabited the Tooth, the southernmost province of Glyssia and also its poorest.
    â€œHorses be needing to quench their thirst afore long. I say we make for the stream, to the west, before we be traveling to Heth.”
    The others, men of higher rank unaccustomed to granting the requests of underlings, ignored him. They rode on, gliding across the dry yellow shortgrass toward the fogs of Heth Village. Before long, the lowly knight spoke up again.
    â€œI’m be starved!” he protested, pitching his voice almost to a shout. “There are grains be grown on fields at the edges of this very plain. Please! We must stop.”
    After silence greeted him again, the young knight slowed his horse to a trot. The five knights ahead of him slowed as well, the chiefest among them rounding his steed with such force that the animal reared up and whinnied in protest. The man, the Outer Guard’s Knight at the Head, made his way to his disgruntled subordinate, whose horse now stood motionless.
    The lowly knight spoke first. “Sir Jerreb, I meant not to annoy you. I’m just famished is all. And the horses’ll do us no good dead of thirst, as soon they’ll be.”
    Jerreb of Rivencrest sat composed, his watchful eyes gazing beyond his young knight to scan the forest they had recently left behind. A mild breeze stirred, fluttering the ends of his raven tresses. He shifted his eyes from the forest