Sons of Ironstorm - Book 1: Griffon's Rise

A Desperate Search

With a long, tired sigh of dismay and frustration, the Ge'e Darian captain sat on the crumbled remains of a wall, somewhere in the broken maze that was once Drell's Gap. So far five turns of the glass majora worth of searching had been fruitless, the captain having gone through both the village and amongst the survivors in his efforts. Thankfully a quick examination of the bodies of the dead children the hellspawn had worked over, a grisly task that, had yielded the Ironstorm children not among them so hope still fitfully flickered. But, with both acolytes and hellspawn continuing their own methodical search of the village and the surrounding territory for survivors, time was now his enemy. The longer it took to find the children, the less likely it was that he'd find them alive.

A second long sigh pushing free of his nostrils, the captain stood and roughly shouldered aside his frustration to take up again the task his commander had given him. Perhaps a second sweep of the caravan's broken wreck would yield a clue or two. Straightening his shoulders, he plunged back into the smoke-tainted fog.

It didn't take long to find the wreck, a mass of overturned wagons and slaughtered animals, with heaps of bodies strewn wildly about, most dying where they fell. The captain was swift to note with a grim sort of satisfaction that the majority were rebel Regulars. They had been no match for the handful of Queen's Own amongst the wagons, nor the well-trained soldiers of the King's Horse, commanded as they were by four Talemonese knights. Even Ge'e Darian would've been hard pressed in battle against the Queen's Own, or the knights.

Unfortunately he didn't have the luxury of time to consider the battle, which he had watched from the dubious position of rearguard along with his comrades. He was under orders and he best be about them before his erstwhile allies took note. Tugging a pair of heavy gloves from his belt, where he had tucked them, he pulled them on and began his careful search of the bodies and wreckage.

It didn't take long to find the strangely curled body of a Queen's Own officer, something he had missed in his first search of the wreck, a captain by the rank on his sleeve. The body was lying beside the remains of what was a finely wrought carriage. Slipping past the broken bodies of a team of fine Aramas stallions, the Black knelt beside the body, frowning at the odd way it lay on the ground, almost in a fetal position. And, in doing so, he missed a small knot of tattered-looking villagers slip out from behind a tangle mass of wagons, their wooden bones stained with the blood of men and women. Silently the villagers, casting furtive glances at the engrossed rebel officer, led two small children, a third wrapped tightly in blankets of blue carried in grimy hands, out of the wreck and into the smoke and gloom.

Focused on his task, the captain remained unaware of the villagers and their precious company. By the time he paused to take a look around him in swift appraisal, they were already gone. Seeing only smoke, fog and rain, he returned to the dead officer, running his eyes down the length of his unmoving body, looking for anything amiss. There, he was killed by arrow, shot in the back. The Black frowned at that but resolutely went on. And, in doing so, caught sight of something in the shadow of the curled body.

Tugging his glove tight to his hand, he reached out and carefully turned the dead body over. And, in doing so, revealed a hollow in the ground beneath the corpse a full five hand spans deep and an arm length long and wide. As the body settled onto its back, coming to a rest against the protruding shaft of the arrow, the rebel captain saw resting in the bottom of the hollow a small, blanket-covered shape. A blanket in the deep blue of the royal house of Talemon, its edges marked with the silver griffon. 'Protecting a dead child?' The Black silently wondered.

Meaning to find an answer to his unspoken question, he reached out to pull the blanket aside. And had to snatch his hand back when the blanket shifted slightly before his hand could touch it. Leaning closer, he heard muffled breathing from beneath of somebody trying hard to remain silent.