The Sword of Sighs (The Age of the Flame: Book One) by Greg James Page B

are secrets in the Grassland Plains. This is a place of bandits, thieves, and old ruins. We must try to be secrets ourselves as we cross it. We must become ghosts in the night.”
    Did he know? Had he been awake when the shadow had come? No, she thought, he couldn’t have been. I heard him snoring.
    They rode on at a steady pace for five days, camping at night, using the warm bodies of their steeds as shelter against the winds of the plains. They encountered nothing and no-one in this time. For almost a week, there was nothing to see but the steadily undulating grassy plains and sparse brush, marked only by animal tracks and the ruts left behind by passing trader wagons. To not be under cover or in enclosed space for so long, made Sarah feel strangely exposed. She found herself looking over her shoulder, peering into the distance, hoping for a break in the monotony—as much as she feared the trouble it might bring down on their heads.
    “Has it always been this way, Ossen?”
    “No, Sarah. No. These plains are where the Three Kingdoms used to stand before their people were driven over the Northway Mountains by war. It was the Three Kingdoms, as they were of old, who drove the Molloi and their Iron Gods back into the Mountains of Mourning. They were great then, the Kingdoms; now, they are so small and petty and riven by bitter politicking. They argue even over whether the Fallen One should be fought. Fools!” Ossen grumbled in his throat, muttering, and then went on. “We will come to the town of Trepolpen by evening. We will rest there tonight and gather supplies tomorrow. We must set out for the Mountains of Mourning thereafter.”
    Sarah felt a chill at the name, and she saw the Sworn stiffen.
    “If there were another path to the Fellhorn, I would take it, believe me, but there is none. We go on to the mountains.”
    There was a slight tremor in his voice that made Sarah feel no easier about what lay ahead.

Chapter Fifteen
    A saying was carved into the blonde ash arch over Trepolpen’s fortified gate.
     
    By Trepolpen shall ye know us,
    By water, land and homestead free,
    And by us shall thee know the Pathway onwards,
    And thus shall we know thee.
     
    The town stood on a hill, overlooking the broad expanse of the Sybylyn Lake. The town was a simple place, as with many of the homesteads, outposts, and villages that dotted the trade routes, cracked highways, and mud paths of the Grassland Plains. It had been standing for more than a generation or two now, and some said that if it stayed in place longer then the Grassland Plains could start to become something more than an expansive crossroads for the fiefdoms of the world. But this was only speculation and gossip, the idle kind. For now, it was enough that Trepolpen stood there upon the shores of the Sybylyn, and that Sarah, Ossen, and the Sworn would find shelter there.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    The air over Trepolpen tore open as they approached. Whooshes, bangs and thunder-cracks shattered the silence. Colours and light. Furious sound and blinding brilliance. Sarah’s moment of fright melted into a smile—the first she’d had in some time.
    Fireworks!
    Fountains sprayed out scatterings of rainbow. Screaming darts of gold, silver and bronze. Flashes flickering, dancing, and dying away. For a short time, deepest night became brightest day, and Sarah was as happy as could be.
    “They’re beautiful,” she said.
    “Yes,” agreed Ossen. “I had forgotten it was the Eve of D’nai. Come along, there are festivities ahead, and we should join them while we can.”
    “What’s the Eve of D’nai, Ossen?”
    “A night when true love is meant to show its face to those who seek for it. A few hours of warmth, light and laughter before the first day of winter comes to pass.”
    Sarah followed at his steed’s heels with the Sworn’s horse behind. Despite the glory and beauty of the lights overhead, Sarah noticed the Sworn’s head continually turned back as they rode up the