2026-10-05 14:56:33
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017 Not Strong Enough
Kingsley led Gina into the weedy yard behind the manor with a heavy sack over his shoulder.Gina looked back toward the road in confusion."My lord, weren't we leaving for Scorpion Hill? Why are we in your backyard?""We'll leave soon," he replied, dropping the sack on the grass with a thunk."I sent Hal to the village women to get his shoulder stitched. But first I need to know you'll come back alive from the danger we're walking into."Gina waited for him to explain."Ansel says the scorpions on that hill can kill a man in seconds," Kingsley said. "At the north border we were nearly overrun, and that mist panther almost had you.""I'll never forgive myself if something happens to you. A few days ago you were a prisoner girl in a cell. I'm the one who put knives in your hands. You aren't even trained to be a mage in the baron's guard."Gina looked down at her boots."My magic failed you, my lord. I wasn't strong enough."Her voice dropped. "You pulled a damned girl out of a cell and
016 The Apothecary
The Appleby guards charged across the square with their swords swinging, heading straight at Halbert.They assumed they could overpower the giant with numbers. A freshly recruited village guard with no combat training would not last a minute.Halbert left his ax on his back and turned to Kingsley, waiting for his lord's order."Hal," Kingsley said. "The boy gave you a good name. I like it. I'll use it."Halbert grinned. "If you say so, my lord.""Don't kill them, Hal."Halbert nodded. He didn't wait for the swords to reach him. He swept one lazy arm across all three men, and they flew like rag dolls.One slammed into the side of the supply cart. The other two rolled through the dirt and lay there groaning. Their swords skidded away under the wheels.The other seven Appleby guards froze where they stood, too scared to draw their swords. Their opponent was too overpowered to be faced head-on.Kingsley stepped over a fallen sword and stood above Garth, who was still sitting in the dirt,
015 Rotten Grain
Women were screaming in Thornmere's village square.Kingsley had been leading Gina, Halbert and Ansel to the ruined apothecary. He turned toward the noise instead.Half the village crowded between the well and the grain bales. Women were weeping. A man stood with both fists in his hair, shouting at nobody.A woman spotted Kingsley and seized his sleeve with both hands. "My lord! They're taking our children!"The Baron pushed into the crowd, Halbert clearing the way for him. Gina and Ansel followed him through the gap.Ten guards with swords stood around two carts in the middle of the square.They were herding children into the first cart that looked like it was meant for goats and sheep. Kingsley counted twelve already boarded.The youngest looked about five. A guard lifted a girl by one arm and dropped her over the side like a sack of turnips.A barefoot boy had his face pressed to the front slats. Kingsley knew him. He was the first child who had taken candy from him at the well. Th
014 The Fool
Ansel's house leaned at the end of the last lane, with weeds grown against the door and half the shingles gone.Kingsley told Gina to wait outside. Whatever lived in there, it was a man's hovel.He knocked, and someone looked through the hole. Then a bored voice answered through the wood."Nobody's home, my lord. Go and eat your grain while you still have teeth to chew it."Halbert put his shoulder to the door, and it fell inward off one hinge.Three-quarters of the roof was open sky. Rain had rotted the floor black. In the one dry corner, a thin man in his twenties lay on a mattress between walls of stacked books, and he didn't get up for his baron."Ansel," Kingsley said. "Don't hide from your baron. You told the village Thornmere will be wiped out inside a week."Ansel pushed a curtain of white-streaked hair out of his eyes."Yes, I did. The sky has turned its face from the valley, my lord. The pressure is dropping. The heavens will fall, and the water will stand over us."He scrat
013 Farmland
On the way to Thornmere's only green field, Halbert struggled to keep up, breathing hard through his nose."The blast at the gate burned the Mist's curse out of me, my lord," he said.But you haven't healed yet, Kingsley thought. Because there is not one healing potion in the whole village. That has to change.A thick crowd of villagers stood around the field at a careful distance. Inside the ring, something spectacular was happening. The ground trembled, and dust rose and fell off the shaking soil.Frightened whispers ran low through the crowd."The damned girl died under the prison mine, didn't she? Maybe she has come back to punish us.""No, it's the gate. Closing the north border has woken something evil in our lands."Then the villagers saw their baron and his following. They parted to let the three of them through. Perhaps it was because they didn't want to be trampled by a giant man like Halbert.Kingsley stopped and surveyed the field. It was as he expected.Only he could see
012 The Other Side
The Mist closed over Kingsley's head, and the last light of Thornmere disappeared.He was on the other side, his hands and knees in black mud. The first breath of the Mist burned down his throat like smoke.He coughed, and blood splattered across his fingers.Get up. Get up.Kingsley's limbs wouldn't listen to him.The growling and snarling started, and it rose from everywhere at once.The beasts shouldered out of the grey fog and the thorn bushes from all directions.Wolves and foxes big as horses, black scales pushing up through their fur. Patches of hide had rotted off, and the meat under them steamed.Their eyes glowed a sick yellow. Black drool swung from their teeth, and where it hit the mud, it sizzled.Rats the size of hounds skittered forward, screeching.More beasts pressed in behind them, and their toxic muzzles and putrid breath closed around him like a tomb."Stay back," Kingsley croaked.He jerked aside just as a wolf's fangs snapped shut above his neck.A hound lunged fr
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