Two brutish bucks stood at the foot of the ladder leading up into Lookout Point. Each glanced about idly, on guard but not expecting trouble. Having enjoyed cruel sport this day, minding a bound captive was not to their liking. Both would have been pleased to serve in the ranks of Akolan’s Longtreader Command, or First Warren’s Black Band, in the years to come.

Neither of them would ever get the chance.

A flying knife found the first. It stole his breath and his life, and any noises he might have made. The other, startled, never saw the sword. He joined his comrade on the ground.

Helmer, their executioner, retrieved his knife. Giving his sword a quick wipe, he sheathed it and clambered up the ladder. Still gripping the knife, he peered over the top. But the only rabbit inside the lookout was bound hand and foot to a post facing in the other direction.

Coming up beside the captive, Helmer recognized Wilfred Longtreader. If Wilfred recognized him, he didn’t show it. His streaming eyes were fixed in front of him. It didn’t take a genius to know he was looking out at the Crossing.

Slicing through Wilfred’s bonds, Helmer didn’t follow his gaze. He didn’t need to. Everything Wilfred had seen out there, he had seen as well. But he had also seen things Wilfred had not.

“Weeping will have to wait, soldier. Our foes will be looking for you, and for me too, before too long. There are a couple of dead guards at the bottom of the ladder. I suggest you put their weapons to better use.”

“I’m not supposed to carry arms,” Wilfred muttered in a daze. “I’m an ambassador.”

Gritting his teeth, Helmer spun Wilfred around to face him. “You were a soldier before, Captain Longtreader, and you still hold that commission the last I checked. In any event, the head of your ambassadors’ council was the architect of today’s atrocities. And if you think he and his new friends don’t have more planned, maybe I should leave you here to wait for them.”

“You don’t understand, Helmer,” Wilfred said, his eyes becoming wild. “My brother-“

“Made me watch as he and his bucks murdered my soldiers, Wilfred. Forced both of us to watch as he and Morbin took our king. Cruelty, or the fact that you’re his brother, are the only reasons you’re not among the victims. You know,” he said meaningfully, “what raptors and wolves do with the dead.”

Quietly, Wilfred followed Helmer to the floor hatch. Helmer descended quickly and moved away from the ladder. After establishing that there were no enemies nearby, he turned back to Wilfred. The other buck was leaning against the ladder, clearly fighting off the day’s shock and horror.

“Unbelievable…how could he do this?”

Fighting the urge to slap him, Helmer moved to the first guard he had killed. Drawing his sword, he found it a dirty bit of crude steel. Tossing it down in disgust, he glared at Wilfred. “Oh, you’re surprised? Perhaps I should have said something about how he’d been acting suspiciously for over a year now.

“But wait-I DID! Only for you to dismiss my concerns! Though apparently you thought them worth mentioning to Garten. Otherwise, why would he have arranged for the King’s Arm to be dispatched on a pointless exercise?”

As he had been speaking, Helmer had moved to the second corpse. Rolling the rabbit over, he partially drew the buck’s sword and found it to be a good blade. Relieving the lifeless rabbit of sword, belt, and scabbard, he walked up to Wilfred and thrust them into his hands. Wilfred looked down at them, and then over at their former owner.

“I never told Garten about that conversation, Helm. Your comments about him struck me as unsympathetic and paranoid. But that buck,” he said, pointing at the second guard, “has been courting my secretary. The same secretary who was in my outer office when you made your rather…voluble…opinion known.”

“Your secretary? Or Garten’s spy?”

“Either way, I think we know how the information reached him.” Wilfred buckled on the sword belt, finally seeming to shake his stupor. He then noticed the crude, bloody bandage around Helmer’s elbow. Instinctively, he opened his mouth to offer to look at it-and shut it again when Helmer turned and began striding away.

Once out of sight of Lookout Point, Helmer broke into a trot. Wilfred followed, his limbs cramped from the time he’d spent bound. They went on like that for a quarter of an hour or so. Finally, Helmer seemed satisfied that no enemies were in the vicinity. He turned to Wilfred, his expression hard.

“No time to waste, soldier. Morbin headed east when he left, back to the High Bleaks. But Garlackson and his wolves headed south, into the Great Wood. I can only assume that he’s heading for First Warren. I need to get there as fast as possible and warn Perkin…and tell him about the king.”

“What about me?”

“Rake’s with the main body of the army, and they’re on another mission ‘recommended’ by your brother. I don’t know what else that traitor has planned, but we need to act quickly to have any hope of countering it. You go for Rake and get him back to the city as quickly as possible.”

“Helmer, we both know you’re faster than me, and the way to reach Rake is longer. You go for Rake, and I’ll head for the warren.”

Though he would have liked to argue, Helmer knew that Wilfred was right. With a curt nod, he turned and headed in the direction where the swiftest route to the army lay. As he ran, he tried not to think about his sister Airen. He told himself that they would address this treason before she or her husband Snoden would ever come to harm.

As he reached the edge of a clearing and scanned the sky, Helmer’s inner voice silenced. There, flying towards First Warren from the northeast, was a veritable armada of Preylords. At their head flew three massive raptors. A great eagle was foremost, with a white falcon to his right and a hawk to his left.

Sinking to his knees, Helmer watched as the envoys of death swept by overhead. The hopes he had been nursing that the army could be brought back in time to counter Garten’s next actions were shattered. And with them, the anger and determination he had been using to drive himself since he escaped Garten’s chain sputtered and died. Now he knew that the deaths of his king and his bucks were merely the prelude to even greater horrors.

Forcing himself to his feet, he took off running again. But it was the run of a racer who knows he has already lost.

To be continued...