Sons of Ironstorm - Book 3: New Alliance

Prologue - Broken Promise

"Preponderance heavy, and future Uncertain,

Master of nothing yet seeing beyond, to the End,

Visions plaguing mind and body, the Shadow grows great,

From the beast they were raised to walk on two legs,

He led a fledgling people into war against an ancient foe."

- from ancient druidic writings on Aecalyx, the First Man

Garth grimaced as he turned away from the doorway of his tent, his bluff face brooding. It hadn't been an easy lunar cycle for the troops under his command. Not in any war Talemon had engaged in had they seen such travail. He paused at the side of the fold away desk he used to study maps and scouting reports in the late Watches of the night and gazed down at the latest report that lay open there.

The report was brief: Tal Furan had fallen in flames. To whom, the report didn't say. What it did say however, was that neither Kaph nor Hernak were responsible for the destruction. Little comfort after learning well over five thousand men in the garrison there, five thousand Cliff Hammers were now dead.

The blocky general barely managed to stifle the impulse to crumple the parchment sheet on which the report had been scribed into an untidy ball. Add this new information to the reports of the Storm Keep under heavy siege, the failure of the eastern gates to the Pass of Horns, King's tolls and other posts being overrun and fragmentary information about how Kent's troops were doing in Tal Morun and other major Talemonese cities and it painted a grim picture for Talemon's military forces.

While Mern's coup attempt had failed to do more than just throw the country into disarray without seizing any real power, it had served to split the nation's military might into pieces, fighting disparate battles against unorganized Suntrooper detachments all across the Aramas. The fighting had also introduced an element that hadn't been a significant part of human vs. human warfare for hundreds of cycles: magic. The reports detailed in great extent, those that survived their trip out of the capital and across the Giant's Teeth, that is, the use of dark magic against troops holding out on Caer Aslan and the Dolman's Tor both.

If anything, it brought to mind Stylles' report over eleven cycles ago, of the use of dark magic against the garrison at Dragon's Claw after the big general had wrested it out of Urud's hands. Fey forces were at work here; forces that didn't hesitate to use magic outlawed since the fall of the Crimson Empire. And that bode ill for the people of Talemon.

A soft scratch at the canvas just outside his door brought Garth out of his reverie and he looked over his shoulder.

"Yes?" he rasped, voice heavy with fatigue.

"General, it's Colonel Hallas, with news from our ranger operatives."

"Come." Not that he really wanted to hear such news, all things considered but duty had its demands.

Hallas, a wiry Cliff Hammer Garth trained himself at the academy in Storm Keep, saluted as he stepped into the general's low peaked tent. Tanned and weathered from long turns under Ri'im's unforgiving gaze, he looked as exhausted as Garth felt. Still there was no mistaking the proud set to his shoulders as he came to attention just inside the door.

"General," he said with a salute.

"Colonel," Garth replied. "What does our good Major Adar have to say about conditions beyond the border?"

Hallas slipped a tightly rolled parchment from within his tunic and, after unfurling it, glanced down at the neat, compact script marching across its creamy face.