Sons of Ironstorm - Book 1: Griffon's Rise

Chapter 3: A Hidden Hand Revealed

                                   "By a Hidden Hand shall They Work

                                    And Mystery and Shadow will be Their Cloak

                                    For Their Purpose, Ancient and Worthy,

                                    Shall have Strength in Secrecy,

                                    And Puissance in Anonymity."

                                                - creed of the Var Ethisdil

One of Jerald's Generals that wouldn't be answering his summons to the meeting room in the heart of the palace, was none other than Avriam Stylles, the great general of Talemon's Western Army.  It was he that led the small company of Rangers eastward, pursued by rebel soldiers and sorcerous acolytes.  Sorcery, like the one that had summoned the storm currently hammering them with an almost constant deluge, soaking the beleaguered company for almost two days now without relent.

Stylles sighed as he watched the rain spatter against his already soaked arm, each drop emitting a brief flash of red light as it struck him, telling of the dark magic behind its genesis.  The big general had no doubt that this be-spelled precipitation also carried plague with it, along with a host of other diseases, magically borne to infect any creature it struck to slowly sap the strength and vitality from it.  But, with his own talismans and druidic blessings protecting him, it became merely a cold and damp annoyance, one that he wished to be soon rid of.  The rangers all around him, only visible by the red auras they too had surrounding them, were similarly protected.

Without warning one of those dark shapes with its red aura was moving closer and Stylles was forced to turn his face into the rain to address it.  With cold water running down his face and into his clothing, he had to shout to be heard over the rain's heavy hiss.

"What did you find before us, captain?  The Dawn Way, I hope."

The cloaked head just visible through the gray curtain surrounding them even though it was only two spans away, slowly shook in the negative before the ranger replied, also shouting to be heard.

"The ancient highway of the Last Alliance was nowhere to be found, sir," he reported, barely audible through the roar of the downpour all around them.  "But we've come much further east and south than we first reckoned this morning.  For only a half league before us runs the Hadron River, swollen with this accursed rain and rushing hard."

"The Hadron?"  Stylles frowned.  "Are you sure?"

"Aye."  The ranger nodded confidently.  "I know these lands well, and am well acquainted with the Hadron.  It is she, all right.  Though in no shape to be forded, even at the Clathalil.  We'll have to go north until we reach the bridge at Tal Abeal."

But Stylles was unheeding of the ranger's words as he pondered thoughts of his own.  The Hadron!  If it was truly that rushing river, broad and powerful as it made its way from its headwaters in the Yatual south to the marshes of Fein Vanindar, in the Chalis, then they were within striking distance of the Star.

Unfortunately what one of the rangers had said about the Aramas being turned into a bog by the rain had proved true.  The vast prairie had indeed become a quagmire in the last two days enough to make overland travel next to impossible.  It seemed that every step their horses made sank deep into the heavy mud that had formed from the clay-heavy soil.  And the animals were forced to even greater effort to extricate themselves once their hooves were planted.  It exhausted the horses and made for tediously slow going.  He doubted that they had covered even twenty leagues in the two days' hard slogging they had made to this point.