We are out of the forest and on to the final stretch as the rain pelts down over us, the skies finally clearing as we reach the outer borders of Trilion.
The city has shrunken dramatically in the weeks since the Tournament of Gold. Where before it sprawled outward, overflowing its boundaries to become a city ringed by tents, camps, and clusters of cart sellers hawking their wares to thetourists and fighting men of the tournament, now it has returned to its equally rollicking but more constrained size. A city of markets and inns, artisans and workers. Lord Rihad, the former lord protector of Trilion and all of the Protectorate, may have been a cunning traitor, but you’d never know it to look at the residents of his jeweled city.
As we wind our way down the cobblestoned streets, I’m struck anew by the vibrancy all around us—and wonder what the warriors from the Imperium think of the obvious displays of wealth and prosperity. Shops with carved wooden signs hang over the street, each advertising wares or services—a smithy with a hammer and anvil etched into its placard, an apothecary decorated with the outline of a mortar and pestle, and a glassblower’s shop where delicate works of glass sparkle in the window, catching the early afternoon light. Square-jawed cobblers, nimble-fingered tailors, and sharp-eyed jewelers tout their wares through windows flung open wide to the rain-freshened air, and a stout bakery, its walls of dark timber and stone, sends out the warm scent of spiced cakes and fresh loaves to greet us.
My stomach growls loud enough to be heard all the way to the Western Realms. I’d forgotten how hungry I was.
We pass by tall, well-kept buildings that I barely noticed when I passed through this town the first time, broken and grief-stricken on my way to the tournament. Back then, I wanted nothing but revenge for my brother’s death and a brace of fighting men to rebuild the Tenth House.
Now, I can study Trilion from a perspective that is worlds different. The stone guildhall, its doorway framed by thick wooden beams and an iron crest, marks the center of commerce, and even as we pass by, we can hear the shouts of those inside, arguing over…what? Contracts or prices? The flow of trade?
Have they any idea of the dangers that loom to the west? Or the apparent arrival of the Imperial armies from the east?
I set my jaw, my mind galloping ahead to Fortiss at the First House and all the problems that await us there. The people of Trilion have already forgotten the most pressing results of the tournament—that the defenders of the houses of the Protectorate have been cut in half, then in half again. A new cluster of warriors have risen from those ashes, but they are still new to their Divhs…too new.
They’ll have to serve, though.
Just ahead, the town’s courthouse rises above the other buildings, its steps polished smooth by generations of use and its columns capped with intricately carved stonework. Outside, a few townspeople linger, deep in discussion—merchants in thrown-back cloaks and rain-dampened hats, discussing grain shipments and seasonal fairs. There’s also the watchtower, not too far from the town square, its walls fortified and manned by guards in the black-and-gold livery of the First House, their short capes of deep black already a familiar sight to me.
Looking at it through a newcomer’s eye, other details tug at me. The townspeople walking the streets are prosperous-looking, I believe, though I’ve never been to the cities of the Imperium to compare. Still, Trilion has to stack up favorably, even if the wealth of my own house would not. Here the women wear linen skirts and fitted bodices dyed in rich hues—deep blues, greens, and scarlets—with well-spun cloaks pinned at their shoulders. Men stroll along in woolen tunics, each accented by belts of intricately tooled leather, with boots polished to a faint shine. Young apprentices in tidy tunics and breeches hurry between shops, carrying crates or bundles under their arms, eyes wide as they dodge horses and carts.
Other travelers, strangers to the town who somehow missed the tournament’s pull or deliberately avoided that crush ofpeople, pass by as well—weathered men and women from more rugged regions, dressed in cloaks of muted, earthen colors and boots caked in dust from the road. There are traders from the south, their clothing woven with bright stripes of yellow and tan, as well as travelers from the northern mountains—Fifth House traders, their bags bulging with unknown wares.
“What are they talking so secretively about, I wonder?”
The warrior’s words startle me, but once I focus on the faces of the townsfolk milling around, I see what he means. They pause here and there to greet neighbors, but their smiles are either overbright or tightly controlled beneath sidelong glances, their comments delivered beneath their breath. Some have heads huddled close in whispered exchanges, while others practically buzz with gossip I cannot quite hear.
“Well, the Tournament of Gold is only a few weeks past,” I say carefully. “It was a sight to behold. Have you heard much about it?”
The warrior snorts with more derision than I expect. “Not nearly enough as I should have, that’s clear.”
I nod as if his response makes perfect sense, but I don’t dare look at him directly—though I can’t say exactly why. There’s been an energy flowing off the warrior since we entered the town that strikes me wrong…it’s equal parts angry and exasperated, and that doesn’t quite tail with someone so new to the Protectorate. What stories has he been told?
It doesn’t take me long to find out.
His gaze slants over to me, sharp and pointed. “You fought in the tournament, yes? Was it as deadly as people say?”
I grimace, the worst of my fears realized. So the Imperium’s ambassadorsdoknow that Rihad slaughtered some of our finest warriors in a bid for power and control. I suppose I would be angry about that too, though the Imperator has not seen fit tooversee its western-most lands in generations. To my eyes, their outrage is a little suspect.
Not for the first time, I’m glad I don’t fight with words but only with the short and long sword. At least the art of war makes sense.
I choose to answer only part of his question. “It was a tournament that showcased the best warriors the Protectorate could assemble, and they came together in a battle that the bards will be spinning into gold for a hundred years on, I bet. But yes, it turned deadly at the end. Good men died, their Divhs gravely injured and lost to us—some, we fear, forever.”
“Lost,” he echoes, and though I yearn to defend, to explain, that’s not my place. Something else finally occurs to me, as we clear the center of town and turn our horses toward the looming castle of the First House, high atop its mountain aerie, across the open plains. But before I can ask my question, he gestures to the other monstrous structure that dominates the horizon, this one farther out, beyond the marshes, where the earth is still packed flat. “They fought there? That’s the coliseum for the Tournament of Gold?”
“It is.” I nod, chafing against the slowing pace of our mounts, when all I want is to get my charge to the First House and escape this interloper’s presence. But as we leave the official boundaries of the city and strike out across that path, my gaze is held fast to the coliseum, my vision clouded by the memories of the battles fought there—both inside the ancient structure and on the fields surrounding it. I can hear the screams still, the cries of both men and Divhs driven to take each other’s lives, drowning in an all-consuming rage for blood and misplaced honor.
As I gaze upon the structure, my heart aching, a roar rises up from the coliseum, a howling squawk that’s half screech, half trill, and all pure joy. Even as I stare, I see the tiniest speck shoot up from inside the open coliseum, like a pebble thrownup a mountain’s height. No sooner does the speck reach the top of its arc and come plummeting down, then a Divh nearly two-thirds the size of my own colossal monster leaps to the top of the coliseum just long enough to use it as a launching pad before it catapults into the air. I recognize this Divh immediately, and my heart stops as his enormous, clawed paw reaches out and swipes the tiny speck from the sky, cradling it into his massive chest. Stunted, flapping wings unfurl and I blink. I know this particular Divh has the head of a falcon, but have I ever seen himfly?
In any event, he doesn’t do it well. The wings seem to jut out from his heavy arms less for the art of flying than to help break the speed of the monster’s divine descent. He hits the ground with a resounding boom, only to turn sharply toward us, his galloping, ungainly run equal parts horrifying and awe inspiring. No more than six ground-eating strides later, the Divh Marsh is upon us.
Except for the steed of the warrior beside me, the soldiers’ horses nicker with fear and scramble back, scattering as the Divh plants his ungainly feet and leaps up again, just as he chucks his precious cargo to the ground with what even I can see is a practiced flick of his wrist. Then the monster winks out of existence with a bone rattling caw of joy.
Uttering his own howl of delight, the warrior Caleb tucks his body into a tight ball, rips through the sky, and crashes to the marshy plain. He rolls in several flopping somersaults before stopping barely a dozen strides away from us. No sooner does he rise to his feet than he draws the fingers of his right hand to his lips and utters a piercing whistle, so loud even Darkwing flinches. The warrior besides me grunts as he struggles to keep control of his own horse, who had staunchly endured the arrival of my ridiculous beloved friend and his ridiculous beloved Divh but wasn’t expecting this new affront.
A moment later, however, the pounding hooves of a mare I know well fills the space between us, and Caleb’s mount races to be reunited with her new master. The sight fills me with such unfettered joy that I don’t think about what must come next until it’s too late.
“Talia!” Caleb crows, as he deftly swings himself up in the saddle. He may only have one arm, but he’s more deft with it than most warriors are with their full complement of limbs. “Didn’t I tell you Marsh could leap straight out of the coliseum if he wanted to? Didn’t I?”
