King Orden had anticipated that four or five thousand people would occupy this castle and town, people he could use to aid in his defense, people he could tap for endowments.

Chickens and geese roosted on rooftops inside the keep. Some swine rooted just inside the bailey.

Weak cheers greeted Orden, but they soon faded. One man called down from atop the Dedicates' Keep.

"King Orden, what news have you of Sylvarresta?"

Orden looked up. The man was dressed in a captain's smart attire. This would be Captain Cedrick Tempest, the Duchess's aide-de-camp, in temporary charge of the castle's defenses.

"Castle Sylvarresta has fallen, and Raj Ahten's men hold it."

Cold horror showed in Captain Tempest's face. Obviously the man hoped for better news. He could not have had more than a hundred men. He could not really defend this castle, merely hold down the fort in hope that Sylvarresta would send aid.

"Take heart, men of Sylvarresta," Orden called, his Voice making his words ring from the walls. "Sylvarresta has a kingdom still, and we shall win it back for him!"

The guards on the walls cheered, "Orden! Orden! Orden!"

Orden turned to the man riding next to him, Captain Stroecker, and whispered, "Captain, go alone, south to the Bredsfor Manor, and check the turnip garden. Look for sign of fresh digging. You should find some forcibles buried there. If you do, bring me twenty forcibles with the runes of metabolism, then cover the rest. Hide them well."

King Orden smiled and waved to the ragged defenders of Longmont. It would not do to bring all the forcibles back here in the castle--not when Raj Ahten might attack, tear the castle apart in his search for them.

To the best of his knowledge, only three people alive knew where those forcibles lay hidden--himself, Borenson, and now Captain Stroecker.

King Orden wanted to make certain it stayed that way.

Chapter 25.

WHISPERS.

Iome had been in the Dunnwood for only an hour when she first heard the war dogs bay, a haunting sound that floated up like mist from the valley floor behind them.

Wet splashes of rain had just begun to fall, and distant thunder shook the mountains. Contrary winds, blowing every which way, made it so that one moment the baying of the dogs came clear, then softened, then blew back to them.

Here, on a rocky, barren ridge, the sound seemed far away, miles distant. Yet Iome knew the distance was deceiving. War dogs with endowments of brawn and metabolism could run miles in a matter of moments. The horses were already growing tired.99 "Do you hear them?" Iome shouted to Gaborn. "They're not far behind!"

Gaborn glanced back as his mount leapt through some tall heather and plunged now into the deep woods. Gaborn's face was pale; he frowned in concentration. "I hear," he said. "Hurry."

Hurry they did. Gaborn gripped his horseman's hammer, and instead of weaving among trees, he urged his mount forward and struck down branches so that Iome and her father did not have to dodge them.

Iome feared this was a fool's race. Her father didn't know where he was, didn't know he stood in danger. He simply stared up, watching rain drop toward him. Oblivious.

Her father didn't recall how to sit a horse, yet the men chasing them would be master horsemen.

Gaborn responded to the danger by pushing them faster. When they cleared the large stand of pine, he raced his mount down a saddleback ridge, into deeper woods, heading west.

The sound of hooves pounding, the straining lungs of the horses' breathing, was all swallowed by great dark trees, trees taller than any Iome recalled ever seeing in the Dunnwood.

Here, the force horses ran with renewed speed. Gaborn gave them their heads, so that the beasts nearly flew down the canyon, into deepening gloom. Overhead, the skies boomed with the sound of thunder. The upper boughs of the pine trees swayed in the wind, and the trees creaked down to their roots, but no rain pounded in these woods. To be sure, fat droplets sometimes wove through the pine boughs, but not many.

Because the horses raced so fast through these woods, Iome did not mind that Gaborn followed the canyon, deeper and deeper, so that they twisted around the roots of a mountain and found themselves heading northwest, circling back, somewhat, toward Castle Sylvarresta.

But no, she decided after a bit--not toward the castle, deeper to the west, toward the Westwood. Toward the Seven Standing Stones in the heart of the wood.

The thought unsettled her. No one ever went to the Seven Stones and lived--at least no one had seen them in the past several generations. Her father had told Iome that she need not fear the spirits that haunted the woods there among the stones. "Erden Geboren gave us these woods while he yet lived, and made us rulers of this land," he said. "He was a friend to the duskins, and so we are their friends."

But even her father avoided the stones. Some said that the line of Sylvarresta had grown weak over generations. Others said the spirits of the duskins no longer remembered their oaths, and would not protect those who sought the stones.

Iome considered these things for an hour as Gaborn raced west, through woods growing more dark and hoary by the minute, until at last they reached a certain level hilltop, and under the dark oaks she could see small holes all around, down in the forest floor, and from the holes she could hear distant cries and armor clanking, the whinny of horses, and the sounds of ancient battles.

She knew this place: the Killing Field of Alnor. The holes were places where wights hid from the daylight. She shouted, "Gaborn, Gaborn: Turn south!"

He looked back at her; his eyes were unfocused, like one lost in a dream. She pointed south, shouted, "That way!"

To her relief, Gaborn turned south, spurred his horse up a long hill. In five minutes they reached the top of a mountain, came back out into a low wood of birch and oak, where the sun shone brightly. But with these trees, the limbs often came low to the ground, and gorse grew thick beneath them, so the horses slowed.

Suddenly they leapt over a small ridge, into a wallow where a sounder of great boars lay resting beneath the shade of oaks.

The ground here looked as if it were plowed, the pigs had rooted for acorns and worms so much.

The boars squealed in rage to find the horses among them. A huge boar, its back coming even with the shoulder of Iome's mount, stood and grunted, swinging its great curved tusks menacingly.

One moment her horse charged the boar, then the horse turned nimbly, almost throwing Iome from her saddle as she raced past the swine, headed downhill.

Iome turned to see if the boar would give chase.

But the force horses ran so swiftly, the pigs only grunted in surprise, then watched Iome depart from dark, beady eyes.

Gaborn rode down a ridge through the birches, to a small river, perhaps forty feet wide. The river had a shallow, gravelly bottom.

On seeing this river, Iome knew she was totally lost. She'd often ridden in the Dunnwood, but had kept to the eastern edge of the woods. She'd never seen this river. Was it the headwaters of the River Wye, or Fro Creek? If it was Fro Creek, it should have been dry this time of year. If it was the Wye, then they had wandered farther west over the past hour than even she'd imagined.

Gaborn urged the mounts into the water, let them stand for a moment to drink. The horses sweated furiously, wheezing. The runes branded on their necks showed that each mount had four endowments of metabolism, and others of brawn and stamina.

Iome did some quick mental calculations. She guessed they had been running the horses for nearly two hours without food or water, but that was the equivalent of running a common horse for eight. A common horse would have died three times over at such a furious pace. From the way these mounts gasped and sweated, she wasn't sure they'd live through the ordeal.

"We have to rest the horses," Iome whispered to Gaborn.

"Will our pursuers stop, do you think?" Gaborn asked.

Iome knew they wouldn't. "But our horses will die."

"They're strong mounts," Gaborn said, stating the obvious. "Those who hunt us will find that their horses will die first."

"Can you be so sure?"

Gaborn shook his head, uncertainly. "I only hope. I'm wearing light chain, the armor of my father's cavalry. But Raj Ahten's Invincibles have iron breastplates--with heavier gauntlets and greaves, and ring mail underneath. Each of their horses must carry a hundred pounds more than the most heavily laden of our beasts. Their mounts are fine animals for the desert, with wide hooves--but narrow shoes."

"So you think they will go lame?"100 "I've chosen the rockiest ridges to jump our horses over. I can't imagine their mounts will stay shod long. Your horse has already lost a shoe. If I'm any judge, half their animals are lame already."

Iome stared at Gaborn in fascination. She hadn't noticed that her mount had lost a shoe, but now stared down into the water, saw that her mount favored its left front hoof.

"You have a devious mind, even for an Orden," she told Gaborn. She meant it as a compliment, but feared it came out sounding like an insult.

He seemed to take no offense. "Battles such as ours are seldom won with arms," he said. "They're won on a broken hoof or a rider's fall." He looked down at his warhammer, resting across the pommel of his saddle like a rider's crop. Then added huskily, "If our pursuers catch us, I'll turn to fight, try to let you escape. But I tell you, I don't have either the weapons or the endowments to beat Raj Ahten's men."

She understood. She desperately wanted to change the subject. "Where are you heading?"

"Heading?" he asked. "To Boar's Ford, then to Longmont."

She studied his eyes, half-hidden beneath his overlarge helm, to see if he lied or was merely mad. "Boar's Ford is southeast.

You've been heading northwest most of the past two hours."

"I have?" he asked, startled.

"You have," she said. "I thought perhaps you were trying to deceive even Borenson. Are you afraid to take us to Longmont?

Are you trying to protect me from your father?"

Iome felt frightened. She was suspicious of Borenson, had not trusted the way he looked at her. He'd wanted to kill her, felt it was his duty. She feared he would attack her Dedicates, though Gaborn did not seem to worry about it. And when Borenson had said that he needed to watch Raj Ahten's troops, Iome had felt obligated to accept his explanation. Still, a worm of doubt burrowed in her skull.

"Protect you from my father?" Gaborn asked, sounding only half-surprised at the accusation. "No."

Iome did not know how to phrase her next question, but she spoke softly. "He will want us dead. He will see it as a necessity. He'll kill my father, and if he can't kill the woman that serves as my vector to Raj Ahten, he will want to kill me. Is that why you turn away from the path south?"

She wondered if he so feared that road south, that without thought, without even knowing, he turned from it. Certainly, if King Orden felt it necessary to kill Sylvarresta, Gaborn would not dissuade him. The Prince would not be able to save her.

"No," he said quite honestly, frowning, perplexed. Then he sat up straight, said, "Do you hear that?"

Iome listened, held her breath. She expected to hear the baying of war dogs, or cries of pursuit, but she could hear nothing.

Only wind on the ridge above them, suddenly gusting through yellow birch leaves.

"I hear nothing," Iome admitted. "Your ears must be stronger than mine."

"No--listen, up there in the trees! Can you hear it?" He pointed to the ridge above them, to the north and west.

The wind suddenly stilled, the leaves quit twisting. Iome strained to hear something--the snap of a twig, the sound of stealthy steps. But she discerned nothing.

Gaborn suddenly stood up in his stirrups, taller in the saddle, gazing into the trees.

"What did you hear?" Iome whispered.

"A voice, in the trees," Gaborn said. "It whispered."

"What?" Iome urged her horse forward, studying the copse he spoke of, trying to see it from a different angle. But she could see nothing--only the white bark of trees, the green and golden leaves fluttering, and the shadows deeper within the grove.

"What did it say?"

"I've heard it three times today. At first I thought it called my name, but this time I heard it clearly. It called 'Erden, Erden Geboren.' "

A chill ran down Iome's back.

"We're too far west," she hissed. "There are wights here. They're speaking to you. We should go south, now, before it gets dark." Darkness would not come for another three hours, but they had come too close to the Westwood.

"No!" Gaborn said, and he turned to Iome. He had a faraway look in his eyes, as one half-asleep. "If it is a spirit, it wishes us no harm!"

"Perhaps not," Iome whispered fiercely, "but it is not worth the risk!" She feared the wights, her father's assurances aside.

Gaborn gazed back at Iome, as if for a moment he'd forgotten she stood there. On the hill, the birch leaves shivered again.

Iome looked toward the grove. The skies were drizzling, a slight gray rain that fell evenly, making it hard to see deeply into the grove.

"There, it comes again!" Gaborn shouted. "Do you not hear it?"

"I hear nothing," Iome admitted.

Gaborn's eyes suddenly blazed. "I see it! I see now!" he whispered urgently. " 'Erden Geboren'--that is the old tongue for 'Earthborn.' The woods are angry with Raj Ahten. He has abused them. But I am Earthborn. They wish to protect me."

"How do you know?" Iome asked. By claiming to be Earthborn, Gaborn was perhaps saying more than he knew. Erden Geboren was the last great king of Rofehavan when it had all been one nation. He had gifted these woods to his warden, Heredon Sylvarresta, after his brilliant service in the great wars against the reavers and the wizards of Toth. In time Iome's own forefathers had become called kings--and they were kings in their own right, but lesser kings than those who came from the loins of Geboren. Over the sixteen centuries since those days, Geboren's blood had spread widely among the nobility of Rofehavan, until it would be difficult to say who was most closely linked to the last great king.

But with the union of the houses of Val and Orden, Gaborn could certainly contend for that honor--if he dared. By calling himself "Earth-born," was Gaborn suddenly claiming these woods, this kingdom, as his own?

"I am certain," Gaborn answered. "These spirits--if spirits they be--wish us no harm."

"No, that's not what I want to know," Iome said. "How can you be certain you are Earthborn?"

"Binnesman named me that," Gaborn said easily, "in his garden. Earth asked me to swear an oath to protect it, and then101 Binnesman sprinkled me with soil and pronounced me Earthborn."

Iome's jaw dropped. She'd known Binnesman all her life. The old herbalist had once told her that the Earth Wardens used to grant blessings upon new kings, anointing them with the dust of the earth they were sworn to protect. But this ceremony had not been performed for hundreds of years. According to Binnesman, Earth had "withdrawn such blessing" from current rulers.

She recalled now Binnesman's words in her father's keep, as Raj Ahten questioned the old wizard. "The new King of the Earth is coming." She'd thought Binnesman spoke of King Orden, for he'd been the one to enter her father's realm on the day the stones spoke. Now she saw that it was not the old king whom Earth proclaimed: it was Gaborn, who would become king...

Yet Raj Ahten believed Mendellas Orden was the king his pyromancers envisioned in the flames. Mendellas Orden was the king he feared, the one he rode to Longmont to destroy.

Suddenly Iome felt so faint that she needed to dismount before she fell from her horse, for she had a premonition, a fear Mendellas Orden would meet Raj Ahten at Longmont, and that no power on earth could save King Orden in that battle.

She slid from her saddle, stood a moment in the stream, letting cold water wash her ankles. She tried to think. She feared going to Longmont, for she knew that King Orden would want her dead. Yet she feared not going, for if Binnesman was right, then the only way Orden might be saved was if Gaborn was there to save him.

By going to Longmont, she might well trade her life, and her father's, for King Orden's--a man whom she'd always disliked.