Elphons returned his attention to the trail. He was almost at the foot of the slope. Shading his eyes he stared ahead at the wooded lake a quarter of a mile ahead. There was no one swimming. How curious, he thought. They must have pushed on. Hardy men, these wagoners. And yet they had women and children with them. One would have thought they would have appreciated a cooling swim. Perhaps they realized the Duke was close behind and were nervous about stopping. He hoped this was not the reason.
Lares moved alongside him and waved the troop of twenty soldiers forward. They cantered past the Duke and rode ahead to scout the woods.
Sadly such precautions were necessary. There had been three attempts on the Duke’s life in the last two years. Such was the Angostin way. A man held power only as long as his strength and his guile held out. And his luck, thought Elphons. The four major Houses of Kydor were involved in an uneasy truce, but disputes broke out often, and battles were fought. Only last year Lord Panagyn of House Rishell had waged a short and bloody war against Lord Ruall of House Loras, and Lord Aric of House Kilraith. There were three battles, all indecisive, but Panagyn had lost an eye in the third, while RualPs two brothers were both killed in the second. Lord Shastar, of the smaller House Bakard, had now broken his treaty with Panagyn and allied himself with Aric and Ruall, which suggested a new war was looming. This was why, Elphons believed, Panagyn had sent assassins against him. Angostin law stated that the Duke’s forces could not be used in disputes between Houses. However, if the Duke was dead, his three thousand soldiers would likely join Panagyn. The man, though a brute, was a fighting soldier, and highly regarded by the troops. With them he could win a civil war and make himself Duke.
Sooner or later I will have to kill Panagyn, he thought, for if he ever slays me he will see my son murdered on the same day. Elphons found the fear of such an outcome weighed heavily upon him. Niallad was not ready to rule. Perhaps he never would be. The thought made him shiver.
He looked up at the sky. ‘Just give me five more years,’ he prayed to the Source. In that time Niallad might change.
The Duke drew rein as his cavalrymen fanned out and entered the wood. Within moments they were galloping their mounts away from the trees and back to the convoy. The captain, a young man named Korsa, dragged his mount to a halt before him. There has been a massacre, my lord,’ he said, forgetting to salute.
Elphons stared hard into the young man’s ashen face. ‘Massacre? What are you talking about?’
‘They are all dead, sire. Butchered!’
Elphons heeled the charger into a run, his forty lancers swinging their mounts and following him.
The wagons were all drawn up within the trees some fifty feet from the water’s edge, but there were no horses. Blood was everywhere, splashed against tree-trunks, pooling on the earth. Elphons drew his longsword and gazed around the scene. Lares and Korsa dismounted, while the other cavalrymen, weapons in their hands, sat nervously awaiting a command.
A cold winter wind blew across the lake. Elphons shivered. Then he climbed down from his mount and walked to the water’s edge. Amazingly there was ice upon the water. It was melting fast. He scooped some into his hand. The mud beneath his feet crunched as he moved. Sheathing his sword he walked back to where Lares and Korsa were examining the traces of an overturned wagon. Blood was smeared upon the smashed wood, and a blood trail, like the crimson slime of a giant worm, could be seen leading away from the wagons and deeper into the trees. Several bushes had been uprooted.
Elphons turned to one of the soldiers. ‘Ride out and keep the wagons back from here,’ he said. Gratefully the man swung his horse and rode away.
Melting ice was everywhere. The Duke scanned the ground. It was badly churned, but he found a clear imprint just beyond the wagon. It was like the mark of a bear, only longer and thinner: four-toed and taloned.