“I am sorry. There was no easy way, Songmaster.” Aoide’s voice echoed strangely in the hollow of a grove full of half-crystal, half-organic trees.

  “I expected none. Yet, you think here we may mark the road.” Siegyrd seemed hesitant, almost sad.

  Aoide hummed her auditory blush and shuffled her feet.

  “Something worries you?” Siegyrd narrowed his gaze on the crystalline lady and she looked away.

  “It is already in motion, Songmaster. It will not be pleasant.” Aoide looked up, concern written in her otherwise stony gaze.

  Siegyrd sighed heavily and nodded before laughing to himself, “I should have expected. When will they arrive?”

  Aoide shifted again and looked up at a shifting movement of blazing light that was sun but not sun dancing across a split-colored skyline.

  “Go.” Siegyrd said firmly, though not unkindly.

  The rose-quartz woman looked up as if pained, but Siegyrd repeated, more softly.

  “Go, Lady Aoide. It would not do to tarry for the danger. Please, take my thanks to your sisters.” With that, Siegyrd turned away and set his senses to attend more closely to his surroundings.

  Aoide took a half-step closer to him, and he put a hand out to pause her.

  “Please…” Her voice cut off.

  Siegyrd sensed the shift in power long before he saw or heard anything. His tone grew urgent, “Go, now.”

  He glanced, blinked, and the rose-quartz woman was gone. Make it good. He thought to himself as he drew his songblades and took a fighting stance. Not too good.

  Siegyrd counted his breaths as he settled his muscles into preparation. The enemy did not give him long. Three figures emerged from split portals around him, shimmering like mirages against the strange grove. Each two wore white featureless masks. The third’s mask was a silver that bent the rays of light around it. Siegyrd clenched his jaw and narrowed his gaze on that one, tightening his grip on his blades.

  The tallest stood nearly twice Siegyrd’s height, the next two seemed almost twins in height and build save for that one wore white, the other silver. They carried thick chains which echoed strangely in the air.

  Siegyrd shot forward with a savage slice that passed through the silver-masked man like water, and there was another flicker followed by an audible popping noise. He wheeled to make another strike, and the silver-masked man grunted as he raised a thick chain taut between his hands to stop Siegyrd. The clash echoed through the crystalline portion of the forest and was muted by the rest. The giant man shouted in a language Siegyrd could not quite make out, though it seemed foul to his ears. Two large chains swung at Siegyrd, and he rolled backward away from the silver-mask just ducking between the chains and then rolling again to the side as he raised his left blade to parry another movement of the chains.

  Siegyrd growled with almost feral rage, his eyes darting between the three, before whistling a song of speed and then rapidly careening between attacks and dodges through the mad mass of almost living chains toward the silver mask. Siegyrd’s songblades howled mournful and savage with each swing, and the grinding of steel on steel and resonance of retreat poured through the grove dodging from tree to tree, around trees, grasping and spinning.

  The three men worked their chain weapons with brutal coordination, seeming to sense Siegyrd’s target. So he shifted, loathfully, to the giant man, cutting sideways and severing the man’s tendon at the heel before spinning away from another rippling movement of the silver man’s chains. The giant man screeched and dropped to a knee, and Siegyrd took the opportunity of his distraction to grab the silver’ man’s chain and pull it tight before breathing permafrost in a quick blast which charged down its whole length before Siegyrd yanked and smashed the links into icy dust.

  The silver masked man was pulled off balance, and his smaller friend tried to aid him, but Siegyrd was already there, songblade humming an elegy as it severed the man’s head which rolled outward and bumped against a nearby tree before coming to its silent rest. The giant roared and leaped up through his pain, dropping his chains and grasping Siegyrd in a giant hug, crushing the much smaller man into a tackle as his leg gave way again. By sheer weight and wrestling strength, and the aid of the second chainmaster, Siegyrd was bound - his songblades stripped from him. His face was crushed into the dirt sideways, but he could see the blank silver mask of the one he’d killed, and despite himself smiled. A small justice.

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  The uninjured man tried to heave Siegyrd up but could not bear his weight, instead commanding him, “Up!” His voice was guttural and inhuman.

  The giant roared something else in a tongue Siegyrd did not know, and then slapped a hand to his heel, a dark green flame forming around it, and then limped to his feet.

  Siegyrd stood as best he could. His arms were shackled to each other almost to his shoulders behind his back and his knees and upper thighs were wrapped together as well. As Siegyrd stumbled awkwardly to his feet, hopping and wrenching in pain, the larger figure walked over and took the head of his companion, mask and all, and tucked it under his arm while muttering under his breath. Finally he walked back to Siegyrd and lifted his eyes before speaking in a deep rage, “Death for death. Death for life. Fight for death. Only release.” Here he removed his white mask revealing a broad, strong-jawed face that seemed carved from an obelisk of marble. He smiled and his teeth were rowed and sharp and large fangs overlapped his bottom and top lips. His eyes were like starlight assaulted by darkness.

  The large man threw aside his white mask and pulled the silver one off the other man. He tried to place it on his own face, but his jaw hung beneath it. His companion spoke in hushed whispers and was silenced by a harsh grunt before he stepped away and began an incantation which Siegyrd was careful to remember - every movement and intonation, down to the pinch of strange powder pulled from the man’s tunic before a black sack was thrown over his head from the back followed by a concussive blow. Siegyrd slumped his head intentionally and went limp, forcing the giant to exert all his strength just to keep Siegyrd upright and let himself smile broadly, so that’s the way.

  #

  The fire crackled hard in battle against the deepening dark-cold of night, sparking bits of wood as it dried them from within. Lord Elder tossed another log and Prince Kierran gazed into it with hypnotic musings.

  Reinhold the younger sat on his pack next to the prince sucking on a field ration of salted pork while he sharpened his knife.

  Lord Elder gave him a sharp glare, and the younger man set his weapon in its sheathe and bit off and chewed the ration instead.

  Beyond the fire’s light Mareth walked with Rickhart laying wards of warning.

  “It’s right cold.” Rickhart’s voice shook with chill.

  “Aye,” was Mareth’s only reply as he focused on the casting of the most recent ward, drawing a series of glyphs in the powder with the edge of his clubstaff.

  “Lord Elder still wants a watch kept, Wizard.” Rickhart stretched his neck and pulled his heavy cloak tighter around him against tugging winds in the valley.

  Mareth shrugged, finishing the ward and stepping toward the next.

  “Do you really think there’s a dragon?” Rickhart was filled with a mix of wonder and fear.

  Mareth turned back and caught the man’s eyes and smiled, “I hope not.”

  “But a dragon, Mareth. You’re the only one of us that’s hunted one. The glory of it.”

  “Or the brutal death. Do not take dragons so lightly. They are not like the stories.”

  Mareth turned away and stepped toward the next point he wished to place a ward, a little depression at the base of a nearby hill.

  “What are they like then? Come on, Mareth. You’re a storyteller and teacher. Normally can’t get you to stop. Why so tight-lipped on dragons?”

  Mareth looked back and started to speak then shook his head.

  “Wizard, please. If there is a dragon, we’ll need to know...” Rickhart scanned the dark horizon and glanced back toward the light of the fire easily seen even from a distance. He sniffed the air and tensed. “Is someone cooking?”

  Mareth finished the ward and turned, “run back and have them stop. Not safe where we are now.”

  “What if it’s the prince?” Rickhart said

  “It almost certainly is. Command him to stop. Run now. I’ll finish up.” Mareth said.

  “I can’t order the Prince.” Rickhart complained.

  “You must. It is not service to obey folly, now go.”

  Rickhart grit his teeth and ran haltingly through the deepening snows.

  #

  “This one fight hard, strong.” The giant man spoke to no one who Siegyrd could see behind his head covering.

  The voice that replied was reptilian, slithering and sibilant, “isss he wooorthy of the great battlesss?

  “Fight very hard, wound me, kill Salazar.”

  A vicious hiss filled the room where they stood. Siegyrd felt stone floors beneath his feet as he worked his shoulders slowly against the chains.

  “The phoenixss hasss not fought in many cyclesss. Could he ssstand?”

  A large grunt from the giant was followed by a pounding noise like fist on chest, “Fight good, real good. Strong.”

  “Yesss, you may go. Leave him to me.”

  Siegyrd felt his chains loosen to nothing and suddenly he was unbound and the bag was pulled up from his head. Flickering redwhite light filled a ruddy stone room with bars opening to a sand filled underground arena on his left and an ironbanded wooden door on his right. In front of him a man like figure with the head of a snake leaned forward with his fingers tented over a large stone desk that looked like an ancient altar. It flickered its tongue in his direction and blinked sideways.

  Siegyrd rubbed his arms and stretched his shoulders as he breathed deeply and stared at the creature saying nothing.

  The man-reptile narrowed its eyes on Siegyrd who simply stared back. The silence stretched long and cold between them until the reptilian figure began to fidget and flick its tongue the more before finally looking away.

  “Will you fight?” The reptilian voice asked.

  Siegyrd stretched his neck sideways and paused before he spoke, “Only if they are strong.”

  “Interesssting…” The creature pulled a stack of vellum papers from beneath his desk and slammed it down and began flipping furiously between the pages.

  “And I will require my weapons.” Siegyrd’s voice was not a request.

  “You will be given weaponsss of…” the creature looked up and caught Siegyrd’s eyes again and shivered, retreating back, and then continued, “of courssse. What name?”

  “Knight Tumult.”

  “Legendsss gather crowdsss. Do not dissssappoint.” He drew a quill from the air and scrawled a series of sigils on a page halfway down the stack with a final flourish before looking back up. “You have one hour. Prepare yourssself, Knight Tumult.”