It was the magic that put me in the hands of the man whose dead wife I had apparently despoiled. It had ended predictably. The tired, frustrated men he led had rapidly degenerated into a mob. They had killed me in the streets, his soldiers holding me for him while he beat me to death. Justice and vengeance were sated on that dusty street in the small hours of the morning. Then, slaked with violence, they had dispersed to their homes and beds. They did not speak to one another of what they had done.

And in the hour before dawn broke over Gettys, a dead man fled the town.

CHAPTER TWO

FLIGHT

The huge hooves of my big horse made a steady drumming as we fled. As we passed the last outlying farms of the scattered town that surrounded the King’s fort at Gettys, I glanced back over my shoulder. The town was silent and still. The flames on the burning walls of the prison had subsided, but a dark smear of smoke still smudged the graying sky. The men who had fought Epiny’s sabotage all night would be trudging home to their beds now. I kept my gaze fixed on the road before me and rode grimly on. Gettys had never been my home, but it was hard to leave it.

Ahead of me, light began to spill over the mountaintops. The sun would soon be up. I had to reach the shelter of the forest before men began to stir. There would be some early risers today, people anxious to secure good vantage points to watch my flogging and execution. My mouth twisted, imagining their disappointment when they heard of my death.

The King’s Road, that ambitious undertaking of King Troven of Gernia, unfurled before me, dusty, rutted, potholed, but arrow straight. I followed it. It led east, ever east. In the King’s vision, it threaded through and over the Barrier Mountains and on, until it reached the far sea. In my king’s dreams, the road would be a lifeline of trade for landlocked Gernia.



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