Two hours later, Castle Crownguard stood empty. Once mighty and impregnable, it was now just another smoldering ruin on the Solamnic countryside. The knights left behind what they could not carry on horseback, including the bodies of the scout, Edwin’s five knights, and Sir Pax Garett.
Derek had found the old veteran dead on the floor of his chambers. Some of the knights whispered that, unable to face his flight before the dragon, Pax had taken his life according to the old custom. Derek soon put a stop to that rumor. Pax had been an old man, and the dragon’s otherworldly fear had simply finished what age had begun. His heart had burst, that was all.
The ride west was slow and perilous. Aran rode ahead, on point guard, an arrow always nocked on his bowstring as he watched for signs of hobgoblin ambush. Sir Winfrid brought up the rear, his gaze flicking back toward the castle long after the wooded hills blocked it from view. All the knights eyed the skies nervously, watching for screaming blue death to descend upon them, but the sky remained clear as a summer’s day, though the autumn chill in the wind seemed to have come to stay.
Lord Derek hardly spoke a word, and the men let him be. He had, after all, lost brother, home and holdings in one stroke. Whatever black mood he was nursing, he had earned it. Still, one young Knight of the Crown who caught a glimpse of his lord’s eyes during the ride remarked to his fellows that Derek’s mien was not that of a man beset by rage or grief.
“He looks,” the knight observed, “more like a man at a khas table, thinking about his opponent’s last move.” The knight did not speak of what else he had seen, though: it wasn’t right to speculate that the gleam in your lord’s eyes might be that of nascent madness.
As it happened, there was no hobgoblin ambush. The knights rode two days and nights along the Solanthus Road without seeing anything more threatening than a squirrel. Then, on the third day, Aran rode back to join the main party. The knights reached warily for swords and maces, but Aran waved them off. He pulled up before Derek as Sir Winfrid rode forward to join them.
“What news?” Derek asked in a voice raspy from disuse.
“A company of knights on the road ahead,” Aran replied. “Brian Donner rides at the fore.”
“Our reinforcements,” muttered Winfrid bitterly.
Derek nodded, his lips tightening. “Ride on.”
*****
Soon after, the knights of Castle Crownguard met the company of Sir Brian Donner, Knight of the Sword. The reinforcements numbered no more than twenty, and Derek raved in impotent fury at the sight of how few men his call for aid had mustered.
Not that it much mattered, he told himself, when he calmed down. They were too late to be of any use, anyway. Then he glanced at them again, and thought twice. Perhaps, he told himself, measuring up the khas table once more, they will be more useful than a whole regiment. He turned the thought over and over in his mind, and every time he considered it, his foul mood brightened just a bit. By the time Brian Donner hailed them and spurred his gray stallion ahead of his company to greet them, Derek Crownguard was feeling almost civil.
“My friends!” called Sir Brian, his silver-shot, blond moustaches curling above a warm smile. “‘Tis meet that we three should be together again.”
Aran rode up to Brian, and the pair clasped arms. Long ago, before Lord Kerwin Crownguard’s death, Derek, Brian and Aran had quested together. They had seen more exploits than any could remember, until Derek had left to assume the mantle of lordship over his family’s fief. The reunion robbed Aran of speech. Derek came forward next, and gripped Sir Brian’s gauntleted hand. He might have even smiled, had Brian not frowned toward the men of Castle Crownguard and cleared his throat roughly.
“But, why have you not awaited our arrival at your keep, my lord?” he asked.
Aran looked away, his brow darkening. Derek announced proudly. “There is no need,” he said. “We broke the siege, and I am now sending my men north to Vingaard Keep, to aid her defenders. I ask you to do the same.”