A letter containing the dismal news of the fate of Talonwood lay at the feet of Rengle Fallaner. He held it in his hands from the time he got, through the period in which he explained to Katelyn Ryd, the Bryns, Argus, Osby, and Jergan what happened, and he continued to hold until he returned to his chambers sat down in his chair and let it drop to the floor. In the hour since that moment passed, neither had moved. Rengle was a statue, and had an expression as unmoving and unreadable as the rest of his body.
Even Argus could not read him. He had seen him at his lowest, trapped inside those damned walls of that little keep outside Brother's Crossing. He had been there when Rengle was at his highest as well, like the day Jergan was born. It was one of the few times Rengle threw off the weight of the world and allowed himself to be happy.
"Rengle? Are you alright?" addressing him as the man and not the baron.
He shifted in his seat. The first sign of movement he made all morning.
"We need orders, my Lord. The Morcars could be heading south as we speak. They might overtake us? What shall we do."
Rengle continued to sit silently, as if he did not know what to do after a failure.
"My Lord, we lost at Talonwood, but we must look..."
"Lost at Talonwood," Rengle interrupted him, "funny choice of words. I left my post, Argus. I left my post and now hundreds of men are gone, including Lady Eliza.
"They wouldn't kill her! She would be much more useful to them alive."
"Maybe, but before they put her to use they'll throw her to their brutes. By the time they're done with her there will hardly be an Eliza Elenor left to bargain with."
"Eliza is a capable warrior, for a young woman. She'll endure."
"Because of me. I should've left her at Rainguard. I should've sent her back to Noor. This is no place for a woman like her to die."
"We don't know that she's dead!"
"You know what the Morcars do."
"Rengle! Those are just children's tales. Now I'm going to ask once again, what are your orders? Do we withdraw from the town or do we remain?"
"Send out scouts. See if they are coming."
"Very well. Good day, my Lord," Argus stormed out. He could not believe that Rengle Fallaner would allow himself to indulge in childish fantasies. Outside Rengle's chambers, was his son, Lady Bryn and Osby.
"What does he say?"
"He says to evacuate the town. We are to head south and join up with Jon Malken."
"Leave Stoney Creek? That's madness!" exclaimed Lady Bryn, "Never in our history have we fled!"
"Well, you're fleeing now."
"Absolutely not! i will not abandon my home to those barbarians!"
"Lady Melinda, that is Baron Rengle's orders."
"Orders? Orders?" the veins on her neck began to bulge and Melinda reviled the temper she had that few ever saw, "The nerve of that man to assume that he can give orders to Melinda Bryn in her very own house! You, sir knight walk back in there and remind him that this is my Hall and that he is a guest here!"
"My lady..."
"She's right!" Dayve Bryn stepped forward, "If we leave this town, half of the villagers and soldiers will starve before we reach more shelter."
"Dayve, be reasonable. All of you please be reasonable," Argus pleaded. He, unfortunately was not the best man for diplomacy.
"No! I am the Lord of Stoney Creek and Grapevine Hall and I will be damned if I flee my home within a month of receiving my Lordship."
Argus turned to his fellow Ruskamen for help. Westlanders haven't a shred of reason in their brains he said to himself.
"Let me speak to father," Jergan spoke up.
"Oh yes, and you young man!" Melinda called Jergan out, "I suggest you cease your flirtatious activities with my granddaughter."
A few chuckles rose from the crowd as Jergan became red in the face from embarrassment.
"Flirtatious? I didn't touch her!" he cried before Argus took him by the shoulder and encouraged him to focus on the important issue.
Jergan entered the room, still steaming that Lady Bryn would say something so embarrassing. And in front of people who would become Jergan's subjects.
"Can you believe what she did?" Jergan immediately complained to his father, whom did not seem to acknowledge his presence.
"Oh, um father? are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Jergan," he spoke seemingly without moving a muscle in his body.
"Lady melinda said she is not going anywhere. She and her kin are refusing to abandon Stoney Creek."
"Are they?" he sounded unsurprised, "That is unfortunate."
"Sir Argus wants you to talk to them and get them to leave the town."
"Not much point to that. You know Westlanders and how they are about home. Jon Malken would not shut the hell up about Sarabath from Ruska to Anton," his tone of voice was strange and rather nonchalant. Talonwood's capture seemed to have the effect of a minor annoyance. Jergan would often see his father turn to stone whenever anything bad happened, but never had he seemed so unaffected.
"Father, are you alright?" Jergan asked nervously.
"I'm perfectly fine, my son. The war, however, is not going as we planned."
"But what are we to do about the Bryns?"
"What are Melinda's reasons for staying?"
"She says that if we march, we'll be buried in snow before we reach shelter. The men will freeze and starve and we'll lose a strategic position."
"Well, those are fair reasons. Send word to them. For now we will stay here until a thaw occurs. At which time we will march south to join Jon Malken."
"I'll tell her so," Jergan said, but Rengle stopped him.
"No, I'll tell her, son," he stood up from his chair and strode towards the door, "I've been moping in this room long enough. It's time to lead."
They both exited the chamber and Rengle seemed quite surprised at the number of people standing outside his door. Everyone in the army and Stoney Creek seemed to be there.
"My Lords. My Ladies," Rengle greeted them.
"Lord Rengle I speak for all of Grapevine Hall and Stoney Creek when I say that we will not set one foot outside our town," Dayve Bryn declared.
"Yes, Jergan has told me of your grievances. But I ask you, if a thousand Morcars attacked us, could we beat them back?"
"Of course we can!"
"What about two thousand?"
"They would not even set one foot in the town before being cut to pieces."
"Very well. How about five thousand? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand?" Rengle pressed.
Dayve hesitated for a moment and then swallowed his pride, "No. If twenty thousand Morcars attacked, we would fall."
"Right now there are seventy thousand Morcars just north of here. If they wanted to, they could easily spare a couple thousand men and wipe us out. However, we have one saving grace."
"What's that?" Dayve asked.
"Their general, Haldo Morcar I believe will need as many men as possible to attack Raingaurd. As long as Prince Tauron occupies the castle, Stoney Creek and everything else will be but an afterthought."
"Won't he just lay siege to the castle and starve Prince Tauron out?"
"He could, but with the snow falling, Haldo's supply lines will halt, his men will freeze and there is no shortage of raiders in the Westland. If he's going to take Raingaurd, he'll need to take it by force. And he will need every man he can spare."
"So what will we do in the meantime?" Lady Abigail asked.
"If you, my lady and your lords would accompany back into my chamber, we shall go over how to fortify Stoney Creek," Rengle, his son and all the commanders of the town and the army went inside to prepare.
Rengle's plan involved rebuilding the stockade that surrounded the town. Stoney Creek never invested in a permanent wall, but rather a primitive wooden stockade that would only go up in times of war. That last time such a thing was constructed was forty years ago during the Ranchester Rebellion. Since then, there has been nothing protecting Stoney Creek from the woods. With the snow subsiding briefly, workers were immediately sent out to gather wood and any abandoned houses in the town itself were stripped and redone.
Rengle also wanted to be completely up to date on the situation at Raingaurd. Riders were immediately dispatched and he hoped to receive news in a few days. Another mission of the riders were to find any bands of Westland or Syanian soldiers hiding out in the woods and have them come to Stoney Creek.
With a long winter ahead, Rengle and the others also made plans for rations. Meals would be small and unfulfilling, but they would keep the army alive. He believed the Morcars would be the same way, and have no desire to fight. he hoped they would at least.
In one of the hollow buildings where the Userian sellswords made their camp, a group was meeting. A meeting called by Aqorro Norsier. Only those that he was certain were loyal to him first than Nakbar Nazeen were invited. While the Syanian men worked on Rengle Fallaner's plans, they took this time to talk about some things. There were many in Nakbar's company who believed that they were never going to leave the Westland. They were trapped by the Morcars and the snow, both strange and foreign to them. Chief among them was Norsier and no amount of gold that Prince Tauron or Rengle Fallaner promised could ever have convinced him otherwise.
He saw only one way out of this frozen wasteland.
"You want to join the Morcars?" one of the captains asked him.
His bright eyes gleaming, Aqorro nodded. He heard the captain's exchange words in at least three different languages, but he only understood one of them. Northern Xaro was the tongue of his father and mother, and he learned to speak the language of the men of Liticea. It was expected of a young man born into his position.
"How can we be sure their arms will be open to us?"
"The Litici barely tolerate us at all. These men of the far west have never seen a Userian n their life!"
"Our dark skin may make us look like demons to them," one of them quirked. It earned a few laughs.
"I don't give a damn what they think of us," Aqorro spoke, "What I do care about is that Nakbar, Rengle, and the Prince are running us into the ground. We are fodder for them, and we will be tossed aside like ragged old boots as soon as we're of no use to them."
"But Aqorro, why would the Morcars accept us? They have legions that blanket the earth. What use will they have will a hundred Userian sellswords?"
"I don't know. But what I do know is that they will win this war and we will be the first to pay as long as we are on the losing side."
One of the younger conspirators stepped forth, "But if we don't honor our allegiance to our employers we will be caste as treacherous liars!"
Aqorro laughed, "Oh, young Josiah. You sound just like Nakbar."
"He has led us through a lot, maybe he can lead us through this?"
"Nakbar is old, Josiah," said one of the others, "old and withered. He will not survive this winter. He has never even seen winter. None of us have."
"And with the Litici shoving us into shacks like this I doubt any of us will," Aqorro added.
"And what if the Morcars shove us into even colder shacks?" Josiah asked.
"They won't," Aqorro stated with confidence.
"And how can you be sure of that?"
"We will bring them gifts."
"Gifts? We haven't enough gold between all of us to buy a horse."
"We will give them neither horses nor gold. We will give them their enemies. We will give them Rengle Fallaner."
As more and more of the captains agreed to the plan, Josiah felt fear rise within him. This will lead to them all being condemned to death o the harsh winter. He stayed long enough to hear the whole plan and was even given an assignment himself. He will make sure the path to the woods is clear with his bow and arrow. They would act late that night and be gone by morning. Josiah would have to wait anxious hours. It was like the eve of battle.
The walls of Grapevine Hall could not keep a chill from creeping into Katherine Bryn's bedroom. Winter's touch took some time to get used to, even for one who has endured fifteen. Of all the winters, this one was the coldest, the harshest and the most frightening. Outside the walls and lurking in the woods were men who were hunting her people like wolves, pulling them out of their homes and setting fire to them. There was no kindness, no helping hands. Only the war and its fires that leave everything in their wake cold.
It was late in the night and in her gown she pulled the blankets over herself and the man sharing her bed. Whatever the walls and the pillows and the sheets could not keep out, the touch Jergan's warmth kept out a little more. She asked him to spend the night with her again, as he had done the previous night. Their time together was intimate, but not entirely physical. They did not remove their clothes and make love, and neither of them displayed any desire to. They simply sat in the dark together until they drifted off to sleep.
They did not talk much the last night, but on this night the silence broke, "Are you afraid, Jergan?"
Jergan had his arm around Katherine with her head resting on his shoulder. He glanced at her, surprised at the question. At the School of Chivalry, he was taught that knights were not supposed to feel fear, for they were the shield of the helpless against the cruel, predatory forces of the world.
"You don't have to hide from he," she sensed his hesitation, "Nothing will leave this room."
"More confused, than scared," he admitted.
"Confused about what?"
"At the school we were trained to not feel fear. We were trained to seek the glory of battle and to earn scars and damage with honor. But as I lay here, I cannot help thinking that this night will be my last. I have come to dread when Morcars will storm this town like a swarm of locusts. I'm confused because I trained and trained to get passed that, but I feel like a helpless child. I've been feeling that way ever since Bart died."
"You have nothing to be ashamed of. We all are scared. Even your father."
"But my father is Rengle Ironwall! He stood in the face of fifty thousand Corasians and spat in it! How could he feel fear after that!"
"Maybe it's not fear for his own life," she took his shin in her hand and turned it so that their eyes met, "But for yours. For your fellow Ruskamen and for what will happen to the rest of the country should we lost this war. Any man who claims that he is without fear is lying. If he were truly without fear he would be dead."
Jergan had always feared his father and admired him. He was never cruel, but when he wa disappointed or angry, you felt the world turn grey. He never required much from Jergan outside of upholding the family name, but even that task is arduous when a thousand Morcars stand in front of him and every instinct tells him to run. Only his knightly code keeps him in place.
"Perhaps then the training was not to make us have no fear, but not to run when we feel it."
Katherine turned to him and smiled, "That's what my father would say."
"Your father was a brave man," behind the smile, he saw the sadness of the loss of her father in her eyes.
"You would've like him," she said as she pulled him closer for warmth.
"I'm sure I would."
For another hour they lay in silence, both on the edge of sleep, but both of their heads were swimming with thoughts of the other beside them. At the hour's pass, Jergan turned to her and she to him and slowly their lips came together, his hands feeling the curves of her body. Whatever thoughts he had of Jackie Red and the last night in Ruska were gone.
A loud bang then shook them out of this embrace as the door was forced open. Jergan. The hall was not well-lit, but he could make out three figures and they were carrying weapons.
"Get up. Both of you!" said a foreign accent. Jergan knew that these were some of the Userian sellswords.
"What do you want?" Katherine screamed at the defiantly.
"Come with us now," he repeated drawing his weapon. Jergan left his at the other end of the room. He and Katherine were helpless.
"Get out of here!"
"Come now!" he yelled grabbing her arm as his friend grabbed Jergan. Both of them fought furiously and Jergan even managed to kick his assailant away.
"Don't make us kill you, knight!" the Userian warned, but his friend lowered his spear and menaced towards Jergan. There were no prisoners to be taken by this man. In a panic, Jergan stretched out his hands and shut his eyes. From his fingers roared a raging red fire that enveloped the intruders.
The scream that filled the halls could not be described as human. The Userian coming towards Jergan with a spear was now engulfed in yellow flame. The leader threw Katherine aside and shouted a word the young knight did not know and came after him.
Pulling from his body the power he had repressed all his life, Jergan threw another wave of fire like he was throwing a rock and a second Userian fell to his magic. Katherine sat on the floor staring at him in disbelief. The third Userian tried to run, but he fell over after guards in the hall put arrows in his chest.
The guards were accompanied by Rengle Fallaner himself and the look he was giving his son, was of shock and anger. Jergan looked at all the faces staring at him, with a sense of relief that the powers he has hidden for more than a decade he no longer had to hide.