Pandemonium reigned throughout the campsite of Team Barouk. Word spread quickly about the deaths of the black-cloaks and the deaths of fifty horses. General Kolling had immediately ordered all regiments to form up in formation and a head count was taken of the troops. No one was unaccounted for, but the orders to break camp were still forthcoming. The troops, rather than wait idly for the generals to issue orders, had taken it upon themselves to patrol the perimeter of the camp. While the soldiers all feared the black-cloaks, the deaths of the mages were taken as a bad omen. Inside the large command tent, the generals discussed the situation.
“I know that the horses were poor stock,” scowled General Kolling, “but horses just don’t up and die overnight like that. Our camp was infiltrated last night.”
“Perhaps it is bad water,” suggested General Gertz. “There was no sign of a struggle in the mages’ tent, no sign of forced entry.”
“And only the mages were effected?” balked General Kolling. “That is preposterous.”
“And the fifty horses,” General Gertz offered meekly. “Or maybe some of the horses were diseased, and somehow it spread to the mages. The sentries reported nothing unusual during the night. These Alceans are not ghosts who can come and go as they please.”
“So you say,” snapped General Kolling. “I am not a superstitious man. I do not believe in ghosts, or coincidences, but I recognize an attack when I see one. Someone or something killed those mages last night.”
The tent flap opened and Colonel Ednor stepped into the tent. General Kolling looked up with annoyance.
“What is it, Colonel?”
“The mages were poisoned,” the colonel reported. “So were the horses.”
General Kolling’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Have the remaining horses been checked?”
“I am having that done as we speak. I am not sure of the extent of the poisoning, but more horses will surely die today. Some of the other horses checked are already showing signs of distress.”
“What can be done for them?” asked General Kolling.
“Not much, sir. The best thing we can do is get them some more feed and water. I would not trust what is left here. I suggest we start moving to our next cache immediately.”
General Kolling sighed and nodded. “See to it, Colonel.”
Colonel Ednor saluted and left the tent.
“Poisoned?” frowned General Gertz. “Why sneak into camp and poison just the horses and the mages? Why not poison all of the men, too?”
“Perhaps because the poisoner did not sneak into the camp,” posed General Kolling. “If the scoundrel is one of our own men, he would not want to poison his own food. The mages always ate separately from their own supply, but the rest of the food was distributed as the quartermaster deemed necessary. An individual soldier could never be sure what portion of the cache he might end up with.”
“So you think the poisonings were done by one of our own men?” asked General Gertz.
“I am not sure what to think,” sighed General Kolling. “I know that there is little love for the Federation within any of our armies. Kyrga was always more concerned with the number of troops we had than the quality of troops. As a result, we have ended up with many malcontents among our ranks. Still, I fail to see why any malcontent would choose this particular time to strike. To take away our mages means that our wounded on the battlefield will have no healers.”
“Unless they are hoping to avoid battle entirely,” posed General Gertz. “We should watch for desertions.”
“It would be foolish to desert in a country that you know will be conquered,” replied General Kolling. “Sooner or later the perpetrators would have to come under our control again, and deserters would be handled ruthlessly. None of it makes any sense.”
“Unless it actually was Alceans.”
“I will not speculate,” General Kolling said with an air of finality. “Let’s get these armies on the road. We cannot afford to fall behind schedule.”
* * * *
Bin-lu woke with the sun shining in his face. It was already well into the sky. He sat up and stretched as he looked around. There were very few elves left, but he saw Elandros sitting and talking to Rut-ki. He walked over to them and sat down.
“You let me sleep a long time,” greeted Bin-lu. “Where are the others?”
“You needed the sleep,” smiled Elandros. “The others are keeping watch on the enemy’s progress and the road behind them in case they think of returning to Barouk to get replacement horses.”
“That is not necessary,” said Bin-lu. “I have ordered the Barouk city guard to keep a watch for any returning Federation soldiers. They will be killed before they can report the absence of the Doors.”
“A wise move,” Elandros responded while signaling one of the remaining elves to carry Bin-lu’s words to the elves watching the enemy’s rear. “That will free up some of my men and make the task less arduous. You caused quite a commotion last night. The Federation is not happy.”
Bin-lu smiled with satisfaction. “How are they doing now?”
“They are well behind schedule,” the elf reported, “and the generals are in foul moods. The column is constantly halting as horses drop dead in the road, and soldiers have to detour around the carcasses. They have lost half of their horses already. The other half will probably die before high sun.”
“Any foraging yet?”
“Not yet,” answered Elandros. “The generals opted not to send riders forward to check out the next cache. I think they were afraid of making the horses move any faster than a walk. They will be surprised to find the rest of their caches empty.”
“Surprised and more than a little bit concerned,” interjected Rut-ki. “Those men have a long walk to Ongchi, and after tonight, they will know that the enemy is constantly watching them.”
“Then our work here is done, Rut-ki,” stated Bin-lu. “We need to prepare for the other two teams coming to Lanoir.”
“We can leave after we make our report to King Arik,” replied Rut-ki. “Elandros and I were just instructing Speck as to the message we want delivered, but I wanted to ask you about last night before the fairy left. You mentioned something about the protection of fear before you fell asleep. What did you mean?”
“I was afraid to enter the mages’ tent,” frowned Bin-lu as he woke up Shrimp. “I have never felt such fear before. I froze. I was afraid to enter the tent, and I was afraid to flee. Had it not been for Shrimp, I might still be standing there. Did you not feel it, Shrimp?”
“Fairies are fearless,” boasted the tiny green man.
Bin-lu turned his head and stared at the fairy. “We both know that that is not true, Shrimp. Did you feel fearful last night?”
“No,” the fairy conceded softly. He knew that Bin-lu was talking about their first mission, but he hoped that the Knight of Alcea would not talk about it in front of others. “I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Interesting,” mused Bin-lu. “I wondered why there were not sentries outside the mages’ tent. I originally thought the tent might be protected by a magical spell, and I was afraid to touch it. Indeed, it was protected by a spell, but not in the sense I had anticipated. There was a black-cloak standing inside the tent, and he was creating an aura of fear around the tent. That was their protection, and it also explained the lack of sentries. The sentries would be exposed to the spell and be incapacitated by the fear, so they would be useless.”
“How do you know it was a spell of fear?” asked Elandros.
“Shrimp drove me into action,” explained the Knight of Alcea. “I was still petrified, but his lack of fear encouraged me enough to proceed with the mission. I entered the tent and immediately killed the black-cloak who was awake. The feeling of fear instantly evaporated. I knew then that the fear was induced by magic. I wonder why the fairies are not affected?”
“That is a question that only a mage can answer,” stated Rut-ki. “Speck, you will ask that question in Tagaret when you make your report. If all of the black-cloaks are using this spell, it will have a great effect on other Knights. We might need a magical way to counteract it.”
* * * *
Wylan dismounted Wesik in front of the Rider’s Rest Inn in Caldar. The Knight of Alcea noticed that Sheri’s unicorn was already standing outside the inn, so he did not bother to tether his own unicorn. He gently ran his hand over Wesik and sighed. He stretched briefly and then mounted the stairs to the inn, still using his staff as a cane, although there was no one around to notice his act. He entered the common room and found it empty except for his wife.
“You finished before me,” smiled Wylan. “Did you find anyone left in the city?”
“Not a single person,” answered Sheri. “You?”
“I did find a couple of old people who refused to leave, but they are gone now. I explained to them that it was not just their own lives that mattered, but the lives of countless others. They grudgingly agreed to leave the city.”
Sheri filled a mug with ale and set it on a table for Wylan. She set her own mug of ale down next to his and sat down. Wylan promptly joined her at the table.
“It is a strange feeling sitting here calmly in an empty city knowing that tomorrow the streets will be filled with enemy soldiers. This is the inn that they will be coming through, isn’t it?”
Sheri nodded. “That is why I chose it for our rendezvous. I wanted to get a good look at it before we left the city. This is the day we have dreaded for so long. It is hard to believe that it has finally arrived.”
Wylan frowned and nodded. “We could have stayed in Zara. I am sure that Alex would have found something for me to do, and I bet Zack would have liked to have Lady Zachary around for a while longer.”
“Lady Zachary has played her part,” Sheri replied. “She will never be seen again. There is no reason for her to continue to exist. As far as anyone is concerned, she has returned to Vinafor to ready her darling daughter for the upcoming marriage. My part there was over. Besides, I really missed Sinora. I hadn’t realized how close I had grown to that unicorn, but after you, she is the closest living thing to my heart. She is a part of me now.”
“I understand,” Wylan agreed. “It was like a grand reunion when I met with Wesik again. We weren’t gone that long, yet it felt as if I had been gone for ages. I am sure that Wesik felt the same. I could see it in his eyes.”
“They are amazing creatures,” remarked Sheri.
Wylan merely nodded, and the two Knights of Alcea sat quietly for a while sipping their ale. Eventually, Wylan sighed anxiously.
“Tomorrow is the long-awaited day,” he said. “I suppose we should prepare to leave the city.”
The sound of creaking wood from the stairs alerted the Knights of Alcea. Wylan griped his staff and calmly rose to his feet. Sheri also rose, her hand moving towards the hilt of her sword, but she kept the bulk of Wylan between her and the stairs to avoid being seen. A man walked down the stairs and stared at them.
“And what is so important about tomorrow?” the stranger asked, his posture rigid as if in anticipation of a fight. “It must be something terrible to force you from the city.”
Sheri immediately moved her hand away from her hilt and slid around her husband. Her lips spread in a warm, welcoming smile.
“I didn’t think anyone was left in the rooms,” Sheri said in a friendly manner. “I apologize for that. The city fathers are holding a giant festival to the north of the city. The whole city is already there. Even visitors are welcome. Would you like to join Wylan and me? We were just getting ready to go.”
“A festival?” frowned the stranger. “What for?”
“Springtime,” Sheri said cheerily. “We always hold a springtime festival, but it is usually held within the city. This year is different. Last fall, many of the citizens were hired for projects elsewhere in Alcea, and they are returning with much gold in their pockets. This year’s festival will be so large that there was no place within the city to hold all of the people. It will be a grand affair never forgotten. Everyone will be there. Say you will come.”
The stranger appeared to relax. He shook his head, declining the invitation. “I have no time for festivals. I think I will just walk around the city a bit and then I must get some sleep. I have an early day of travel tomorrow.”
“That’s a pity,” sighed Sheri, “but I understand. Wylan and I will not be here when you get back, so just help yourself to whatever is in the kitchen.”
The man nodded and strode out the door. Wylan sighed slowly, letting the pent-up anxiety flow out of him.
“That was too close,” he said softly. “Was that who I think it was?”
“Undoubtedly,” answered Sheri. “I checked every room before you arrived. Someone must have demanded a last minute check be preformed before the invasion. It is time for us to move on.”
The Knights of Alcea left their ale on the table and walked out the door. The stranger was still visible several blocks away. He appeared to be strolling aimlessly, and the Knights mounted their unicorns.
“I thought all of the Doors were guarded by fairies?” asked Wylan. “Why didn’t they warn us of his arrival?”
“And how would they know that we were there?” asked Sheri. “They are monitoring the Doors, not the common room. No doubt one of them is carrying word to Tagaret as we speak. Where is Twerp?”
“I sent him to Tagaret earlier today,” answered Wylan. “Although there was not anything to report, I wanted him to see if there was any news from the other Knights. He will be back soon. I will have him direct the Door fairies to report any usage directly to us.”
Sheri nodded and turned her unicorn towards the northern gates. “We had better use the northern exit from the city just in case the stranger sees us.”
Before they had gone a single block, Twerp glided down out of the sky and landed on Wylan’s shoulder.
“What is the news?” asked Wylan.
“Not much,” answered the fairy. “There was a late winter storm in Cordonia, and that is making it hard to get the Cordonian army into Targa, but there is not much else to report.”
“Nothing from Lanoir?” frowned Sheri. “Was Bin-lu able to neutralize the black-cloaks down there?”
“They haven’t heard yet. They had expected a report last night or this morning, but it had not arrived by the time I left Tagaret.”
“Bin-lu is capable,” stated Wylan. “He will succeed. Twerp, we are going for a ride north of the city to allow the enemy to enter the city. I want you to tell the fairies watching the Doors to report directly to Sheri and me before going on to Tagaret. We just had a Federation soldier walk through unexpectedly.”
“As you command,” saluted the tiny green man.
* * * *
The six Federation soldiers moved quietly through the woods of Lanoir. They were confident about bagging some game as they were excellent archers, and they moved with a stealth that most soldiers would envy. The well-coordinated group used hand signals to communicate, although they did not communicate much as the light of day was fading. A sudden rustling of the leaves caught their attention, and the leader of the group signaled for silence. Each man immediately halted and pivoted towards the distant sound, arrow nocked and ready for a deer to come bounding through the trees. What happened next was totally unexpected.
Bowstrings sang out from every direction, and four of the soldiers crumbled to the ground. The two remaining soldiers immediately dropped to the ground, their survival instincts demanding that they seek cover. For a moment, silence claimed the forest. Not a creature stirred. No birds chirped. Nothing made a sound. When the final bowstring snapped, the sound was like a clap of thunder on a clear night. The death gurgle of one of the two remaining soldiers sounded abnormally loud and lengthy. The sixth and final member of the team shivered with fear. He wanted to rise and flee the woods, but he could not move, his fear paralyzing him in place. He tried to remain invisible in the night, breathing shallowly even though his lungs ached for a gulp of air. Time slowed, seemingly stopping all together, as he waited for something to happen. Eventually sounds began to return to the forest. Night birds sang once again, and squirrels scurried up and down the trees. Whatever wraiths had inhabited the forest and shot arrows into his friends, they were gone.
The soldier gulped air greedily and slowly rose to his knees. The forest was darker than when they had entered it. He could not see the bodies of the first four men struck down, but he could see the last, and the arrow sticking out of his forehead. A tremor of revulsion rippled through the soldier and he turned and ran towards the camp.
* * * *
General Kolling was irritable. His legs were tired from walking, and he felt filthy. Road dust and sweat had turned his hair into a dense, tangled mat, and had made his uniform unbearable. He gritted his teeth as he felt the grime under his uniform clogging his pores and irritating his skin. He longed for a bath and headed straight towards the large tent that he could see in the distance. So he was more than a little upset when Colonel Ednor stepped in between him and the tent.
“We have problems, General,” stated the colonel.
“Tell me something I don’t already know, Colonel,” snapped the general. “I am already four hours late arriving in camp because there is not a single horse left alive in this entire army. I want a bath drawn immediately, and I want a meal served while I soak off this grime.” The colonel’s mouth opened to speak, but the general was not done. “And tell me why I did not have to pass any fortifications on my way into camp. This is only our second day in this country and already I am seeing laxness that I absolutely will not stand for.”
“There is no food,” the colonel blurted out.
The general stood staring at the colonel with a confused look. It took a few moments for the words to sink in.
“No food? What are you talking about?”
“The cache was empty,” stated the general. “There was not a lick of food left. It is all gone.”
“How is that possible? The first day’s cache was as it was supposed to be.”
“I do not know how it happened,” admitted the colonel, “but it was discovered when the first regiment arrived.”
“Send out foragers immediately,” ordered the general. “I will not have my army starve to death.”
“That is exactly what I did,” the colonel responded. “That is why the fortifications were ignored. I felt that obtaining food was a higher priority.”
“You do not send an entire regiment out to forage,” berated the general. “While I agree with your priorities, you have enough men to do both.”
“If it was simply foraging, I would agree,” frowned the colonel. “The foragers are being killed.”
“Killed? Who is killing my men?”
“We do not know,” the colonel said softly as some soldiers walked by. “I started by sending out teams of six men, figuring that the rest of the men could start on the fortifications. It didn’t take long to realize that we had a major problem. Each team of six men was attacked by unseen foes. In each and every case, one man returned alive, not a scratch on him. All of the survivors speak of an eerie attack, arrows flying from invisible archers. Not a single man will admit to having seen the enemy.”
“Preposterous,” scowled the general. “How can experienced hunters go into the woods and be killed without even a scent of the enemy. I don’t believe it.”
“I do not have an answer to that question, General,” conceded the colonel, “but I improvised as best I could. I started sending out whole squads. The men were not attacked, but neither did they come back with any game. Twenty men marching through the woods is not the way to hunt if you are depending on quickly caught game.”
General Kolling stood staring at the trees for a long time. Colonel Ednor remained silent, knowing that the general was formulating a response. Eventually the general sighed wearily and spoke with exasperation in his voice.
“Order my bath drawn, Colonel, and tell General Gertz to join me as soon as he arrives in camp. Pull all of the men out of the forest and put them to work on the fortifications. I want a double guard this evening, and no one is allowed to leave the encampment without express permission from me.”
“If I pull the hunting parties,” frowned the colonel, “the men will have nothing to eat tonight.”
“The men will go hungry this night,” declared the general, “but I will not risk being attacked without our fortifications built. In the daylight tomorrow, men will be assigned to forage as we march towards Ongchi. Then we shall see exactly who our enemy is. Once we have determined that, we will annihilate them.”
The colonel saluted and retreated. General Kolling walked to his tent and sank into a chair. He pulled his boots off as men brought buckets of water for his bath. A few moments later, General Gertz entered the tents and slumped into another chair.
“This is a ghastly land,” complained General Gertz. “I think we need to find a village or a farm and commandeer some horses. I cannot walk all the way to Ongchi.”
“Walking to Ongchi is the least of our problems,” stated General Kolling. “The Alceans know that we are here.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am positive. At first I suspected some of our own men for the poisonings last night, but I no longer think that way. They struck at the mages because they needed the mages dead more than us. They fear our magic, but now they do not have to worry about it.”
“And the horses?” questioned General Gertz.
“To slow us down,” answered General Kolling. “I am pretty sure that we have seen the last cache of food that we are going to see for this journey, and the enemy is sniping at our foragers.”
“Merely sniping at our foragers means that they are not strong enough to fight us directly,” General Gertz pointed out. “Do you think they are slowing us down until they can raise a force large enough to confront us?”
“I think that is exactly what they are doing.”
“But they will be decimated from behind when the other two prongs arrive at Ongchi,” frowned General Gertz. “By drawing all of their armies together to confront us, they are actually making our task easier.”
“You are correct in the grand scheme of things, but that does little to alleviate the pain our armies will have to endure. We need to keep our armies on schedule and not let the snipers slow us down. The closer we are to Ongchi when the thirteen days expire, the better our survival rate is likely to be.”
“Then we will push on,” stated General Gertz. “These Alceans will soon learn that the Federation cannot be defeated. I predict that they will break and run when we finally do confront them.” General Kolling did not respond and General Gertz looked at him questioningly. “What is it that you are not saying?” he finally asked.
“It bothers me that the enemy discovered us on the first day,” frowned General Kolling. “In fact, the poisoning of our horses and the assassination of our mages leads me to believe that they were waiting for us to arrive. How could the Alceans possibly know that any Federation army would be arriving in the city of Barouk?”
“We only learned of our destination a few months ago,” agreed General Gertz. “That would barely leave enough time for a ship to cover such a large distance.”
“There has not been enough time for a ship to arrive here,” corrected General Kolling. “Either the Alceans have infiltrated General Tauman’s army, or the Alceans have capabilities that we are unaware of. Neither possibility bodes well for the other teams coming to Alcea.”
“General Tauman needs to be made aware of this,” General Gertz said in alarm. “We must send someone back to the portals.”