Page 306 of Of Empires and Dust

Dahlen pushed the man aside and removed the drawbar, Nimara, Conal, and three of the Belduarans helping him push the gate open just in time for the two horses to come galloping through.

“Please!” a young man shouted as he slid from the first horse. “My sister needs a healer.” He gestured to the second horse, where a man held a young woman close to his chest, blood flowing freely from a wound in her side.

“Take her to the bloodhouse,” Dahlen said to two of the guards. “And make sure she is brought to Anya. She doesn’t havetime.” He turned back to the two men. One had not seen his twentieth summer, the other perhaps forty. “Speak.”

“We’re from a village east of Pirn, below the Cupped Mountains,” the older man said. “We’ve been travelling for weeks. Uraks and brigands are everywhere. We’d heard from a ship captain of a safe place along the western coast, heard that Salme had become a fortress. Someone attacked us in the woods just east of here. They wrecked our wagons, left five of us dead. We rode here to get help.”

“How far? And how many still live?”

“A few miles, no more. There are six families. Almost thirty of us… at least, there were. We’re fur traders and farmers, not warriors. Please, there are many injured.”

Others entered the yard: Erdhardt, Tharn Pimm, Lanan Halfhand, Yarik Tumber, and more.

“Tell me more,” Dahlen said. “How were you attacked?”

“Archers at first, then they came in with spears. Broke the wagons, stole our furs, killed anyone who tried to stop them.” The man held Dahlen’s gaze as he spoke, ignoring the others. “My brother and his wife are there. That’s their daughter you just took in. Please. What if the Uraks cross them?”

“So whoever attacked you brought your horses down, thinned your numbers, and then just left you there.” Erdhardt’s words were not a question.

Dahlen turned to Nimara. “Fetch Yoring and Almer.” He looked at Ulrich. “Go. Find Thannon and Camwyn, along with five others. We leave now.”

“This is clearly a trap,” Erdhardt said. “I’ll eat my shoe if there aren’t fifty brigands waiting for us in the woods.”

“So you’re not coming then?”

“Oh, I’m coming,” Erdhardt said with a smile. “I just thought I’d make sure we were all clear on what we were walking into.”

“You can’t go,” Yarik Tumber said, stepping up beside Erdhardt.

“Can’t?” Dahlen asked. “Are you going to stop me?”

Yarik flicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in frustration. “Salme is our priority. You and your Belduarans are our best fighters. It would be idiocy to lose you by walking into a trap we already know is set.”

“It’s a good thing, Yarik, that it is not your courage that keeps these walls from falling.” Dahlen looked to Conal, who still held his shield. “What do we do when people need us, Conal?”

“We do what we must, Lord Captain.”

“And why do we do it?”

“We do it because we have to,” Conal answered. “We do it because of what would happen if we didn’t.”

“Good lad. Good lad.” Dahlen smiled at Yarik. “If I lived by your logic, Elder Tumber, I would not be in Salme. I would be with my brother and my father, and an Urak blade would likely have separated your head from your neck.” Dahlen turned to the others. “Spread the word. I need fifty able bodies willing to ride. We leave at once.”

Light filteredthrough the canopy above as Dahlen, Nimara, Thannon, Ulrich, and ten men and women of Salme rode along the dirt path that had been beaten into the ground through the forest.

The man who had asked for their aid, Owen Tah, rode on Dahlen’s left.

“There,” Owen whispered, pointing to a group in the distance huddled around wagons, pitchforks and scythes in their fists. At least six were propped against wagons, wounded, and more bodies lay about them.

Dahlen raised a hand, and the group stopped.

“Sixteen,” Thannon whispered. “Four horses dead by the looks of it. Not Urak arrows, too small. We’d see those monstrous shafts even from here.”

The group were all huddled about the central wagon, makeshift weapons pointed outwards.

Dahlen moved his horse closer to Owen’s. “I didn’t want to say this earlier and give that prick Yarik any sense of being right, but Owen, this is most certainly a trap. And if it is you who has laid it, you have made a grave error. I will kill you, make no mistake about it. In the defence of my people, I will not hesitate.”

The man swallowed hard. “It’s not of my making. I swear it by the gods.”

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