Sons of Ironstorm: Book 5 - Griffon's War

The Hammer's Might

Morgan frowned as he looked up at a grey sky. It had been snowing for the greater part of a moon to this point and the sounds of the Gyren were muffled beneath a blanket of white. So deep was it that his great charger, a massive bay from the royal stables bred to be ridden by knights in plate armor, was having difficulty making his way through it. With chest and body protected by leather and plate armor barding, the charger didn't fear branch or root, instinctively picking his way forward along the path his rider was forging through the dense forest.

Yet the relentless weight of the snow, pushing back against his chest with nearly as much force as he exerted pushing forward, was enough to slow the charger down to nearly a crawl, the snow deep enough in some places to reach the bottom of his neck. So Morgan stared at the sky in the hopes that more snow wasn't forthcoming. Or the force he was leading southwest from Quillus, over 500 mounted knights and 7000 foot soldiers, would be forced to turn back before he could join the counterattack against Shadow forces the Talemonese general Garth was launching near the Gyren's frozen western flank.

If he would've thought he'd be leading reinforcements south for a counterattack a moon ago, Morgan Galus, war king of Galental, would've snorted in derision at what was obviously a fever fantasy. For only a mere moon in the past Quillus was still gripped by siege, pressed against his strongest border fortification by a Shadow army over 20,000 strong.

It was into the heart of that siege that the twin surviving members of Xanchalda's ruling House cut their way through the Shadow forces to dubious safety behind Quillus' walls. There, having ridden thousands of leagues south out of their ruined swamp kingdom and west through the northern stretches of the Gyren to reach that fortress where King Morgan himself was fighting in the defence, the young heir to the throne of Xanchalda pledged allegiance to Morgan and Galental, swearing a blood oath to stand with the powerful kingdom on the Hammer's northern shores against the Shadow.

Of course Zephram Eks had more than a little help from the elven clerics called Var Ethisdil. A small company of them, along with a company of their militant order, the Ben'havid, had joined the company of war cult warriors that accompanied Zephram and his twin sister two help escort the two surviving royals out of Xanxinar and all the way to Quillus. There, urging Zephram on, had been Taceborn, one of the Var Ethisdil's most powerful clerics in the Hammer Peninsula.

"Musing once again on the events leading to your march, your Majesty?" Almost as if thinking of him had summoned the fellow, Taceborn, a wiry male from the wood elf race called the Sylvasin, quietly asked after silently appearing at Morgan's left boot. Like the rest of the company, the elf was heavily cloaked against the cold, proving to be as mortal as any human with regards to feeling the effects of the weather.

"As always when I grow melancholic, Taceborn," Morgan replied with a half smile, looking down at the elf's upturned face, shadow-covered in the depths of his cloak's voluminous hood. Dyed to match the white around them, the Sylvasin Var Ethisdil was nearly invisible against the snow though he were but a pace from Morgan's own boot tip.

"Tell me you Var Ethisdil have some method to discern the weather so I may know if we've more snow to deal with. I don't think the horses could stand another handspan falling out of those skies or they'll stop moving all together."

The slender fellow smiled, having heard that request not a few times from not only Morgan, but a number of his officers as well.

"You could always leave the horses behind, your Majesty," Taceborn suggested, turning his head away to look down along their proposed path. Supposedly it was an old imperial road from the time of the Crimson Empire, cutting through the northern reaches of the Gyren with more speed than marching straight through the tangled forest would've allowed.