Another sound reached his ears. He recognized this one-though he heard it seldom-and knew it for an ominous portent. Bright and hard, it was the clash of metal on metal. He realized then the strange ebbing and flowing noise must mean a battle was raging nearby.

Tol took a step backward, uncertain. Should he run home and warn his family? He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of their homestead. It was five minutes’ walk away, but if his father returned and found him gone, his work not yet finished-Tol shook his head at the thought of Bakal’s certain wrath.

Last autumn there had been other battles. Swarms of mounted men, clad in bronze and iron, had fought to possess the Great Road that ran through the southern end of the province. Once, Tol had seen a small mob of warriors bearing green streamers. They rode helter-skelter north, pursued by a larger band of fighters under a scarlet banner. The green riders had burned six farms and killed the local healer, Old Kinzen, when he couldn’t save their leader from his wound. Tol’s father and his cronies sat around the fire all winter, drinking plum dew from a stone jug and talking in anxious voices about war. The emperor’s Great Horde was fighting itself, they muttered. Men of Ergoth were making war on each other.

Tol understood little of what was said. The affairs of men were not for women and children, and the ways of warriors were even more remote. All he knew was, where men went with horse and sword, blood and fire followed.

Suddenly a truly mighty shout went up, echoing off the intervening hills and penetrating Tol’s worried ruminations.

He heard a terrific crash, as if all the trees in the forest had fallen down at once. The plowed earth beneath his feet shivered. His fingers tightened nervously around the hoe handle.

The strange ground tremor did not subside, but grew stronger. An indeterminate rumble of combat gave way to the sounds of individual hoofbeats and shouting voices. It rose steadily in volume. The fight was coming his way!