Raising a tin cup to his lips, Tol of Juramona took a sip. The water was warm and brackish, but it cut the thick coating of dust from his throat. He spat, noting it was tinged with red.

“Are you well, my lord?” asked his comrade, Darpo.

“Well enough.”

Tol had taken a hard knock from an enemy horseman. The blow had left his jaw black and blue and loosened a couple of teeth. The plainsman who landed the blow was with the gods now. Tol had separated his head from his shoulders.

During this brief lull in the battle, Tol and his men had ridden into a shallow draw to down bread and water. Wine would have been more welcome, but after ten years on campaign, wine was in short supply.

Tol removed his helmet. Beneath the heavy iron pot his long brown hair was soaked with sweat. He untied the thong at the back of his neck, letting the breeze blow through his hair. The wind off the bay was cool-too cool. Winter was coming, and life in the open on the Tarsan coast would soon be even more difficult.

Through the swirling dust, Tol spied a rider galloping toward them. His company drew swords and interposed themselves between their commander and the approaching stranger. When they saw he wore Ergothian trappings, the warriors relaxed.

“Dispatch coming,” Frez announced. A spearman of great repute, Frez was one of Tol’s companions from the early days in Juramona.

When Tol first came to that provincial town as a mere boy, twenty years before, Frez and his fellow foot soldiers had been in the pay of the Marshal of the Eastern Hundred. Since then, they’d all come far, in station and location. Tol, the farmer’s son, was now Lord Tolandruth, Champion of the Empire; Frez and Darpo were his chief lieutenants.

The young dispatch rider hauled his mount to a skidding stop. “Message from Lord Regobart!” he cried, voice cracking.