Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Trials of a King

The thin human sorcerer that commanded the efforts to break the Galentalers at Quillus sighed with frustration of her own before leaning back from the crude table that served as her desk. Outside the harsh voices of tjor'riin mixed with nahkiwin hisses, and wendigo rumbles as they gathered their remaining forces for one last assault on the fortified town's battered walls.

The Galentalers had successfully resisted their siege for several moons now, pushing them back time and time again. And each time they were forced to retreat, the Shadow forces left more and more bodies on the ground behind them.

It wasn't the fact that they had so far failed to win past Quillus and move into Galental itself that frustrated the sorcerer. After all, their orders were to keep the human kingdoms off balance and in chaos, only conquering them if the opportunity presented itself as it had in Kaph, Hernak, Xanchalda, and Septus. And the siege of Quillus had kept the Galentalers focused on their attack and unable to send aide neither to the remaining human kingdoms of the Hammer, nor to those west of the Giant's Teeth. So in this place, they had done what they were commanded to do.

No, it was the report that sat on top of her crude desk that was filling the sorcerer with frustration. For in it, outlined by a few hurried scrawls in the bastardized form of Vanje, the elvish language tjor'riin spoke, were the details of the Shadow's defeat in the heart of the Gyren. Not at the hands of the Wielders, as they had feared, but by a filthy hybrid force of humans and elves that had appeared without warning to crush strongholds and breeding pits alike with ruthless efficiency.

Kaph and Hernak both had been liberated by this hybrid force and the shattered remains of the Shadow forces that had once held those two human kingdoms were frantically retreating. Not northeast to reinforce her army here, on the Galental border, which made the most sense to her, or south to territory still held by the Shadow. But straight north to the sea.

What did those fools think they would find there? The Sea of Storms was inhospitable at best, prone to sudden and ferocious squalls that overmatched even the most veteran of sailors. Even as a child in the Hernakese port city of Namus she had heard stories of nothing beyond the storm-tossed froth but unending winter and snow-covered ice dragons. Nothing except ...

"Caliphra!" she breathed in sudden realization.

Any further consideration was forestalled by the belling of brassy war horns coming from the direction of Quillus. She was about to stand and step out of her ragged tent to demand her officers tell her what was happening when one of them stuck his head in through the tattered flaps warding the entrance.

"Mistress!" the tjor'riin officer said in heavily-accented Taren. "The Galental king marches with his army from the gates of the town!"

Morgan carefully studied the churned-up ground between the walls behind him and the forest in front of him through the slits in his visor for sight as he let his massive war charger step across the storm-tossed sod, chunked into uneven tumbles by thousands of booted feet and the spiked wheels of roughly-built war machines. Beside him rode General Nadien, the veteran warrior comfortable yet wary in the saddle, a gauntleted hand on the heavy-headed lance that rested butt-down in his right stirrup.

"I think we caught the bastards by surprise, your Majesty," the general dryly noted as he looked over at the powerfully-built war king.

"Good," Morgan rumbled in reply. "It's high time we returned the favor."

"We will have our revenge on these beasts for the slaughter they have made," Zephram Eks said fervently from the other side, the Xanchaldan prince having to urge his smaller mount to greater speed to keep up with the much larger Galentaler war chargers. "And I will do my part in wresting that revenge from them. You've my ..."