Dragon Heartstone > Chapter 38–Complications

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Nikolas stood in the stirrups as the gates of Keihl slowly opened, and a crowd of men, women, and children filed out in a long-ragged column onto the road heading south. They trudged along, looking east and west toward the fluttering banners of the surrounding Drachnor army. Swinging his spyglass around, Nikolas could see Drachnor horsemen on their mounts, mirroring the movement of the column.

“What madness is this?” he said aloud. He briefly considered the causes and consequences, then slapped the spyglass shut. He shouted for an aide. “Tell the Queen we have commoners from the city heading south towards the river.” The aide departed, leaving a cloud of dust behind him. Raising the spyglass once more, he surveyed the scene. Why had the Governor of Keihl put his citizens at risk like this? They were safer in the city than trying to transit south to Landros. Then again, the Governor was a royal appointee, and such creatures seldom had the best interests or the competence to serve their constituents well. If something goes wrong, this situation could get very ugly.

* * *

Katun read the message and handed it to Britta. “I’m not sure what motivated Governor Thrallic to do this, but now we must protect the refugees from Keihl.”

Britta’s face reddened. “Governor Thrallic is a fool. No doubt Faline parlayed with him to do this, so we have no choice but to respond. Gather all available horsemen and have them escort the commoners to our lines. Then we will have to see them back to the crown city.”

Katun scratched out the order and gave it to a messenger. Britta rubbed her eyes, trying to understand it all. There must be more to this than the added necessity of protecting commoners. She had seen and experienced what Faline could do firsthand, from cold-hearted manipulation to murder. The thought kept repeating, “a means to an end, a means to an end.” But what did that imply?

* * *

As Nikolas watched, the column finished disgorging from the gates. The heavy iron-bound wooden portal swung shut. He scanned the crowd of refugees carefully from head to tail, confirming that it contained nothing but old men, women, and children—some carried by their mothers. His instincts warned him that this was wrong in the worst way. A rider appeared at his elbow.

“We’ve made contact with the wings of their army, and they appear to be thinly held, just as the center is.”

Nikolas shook his head. This did not make sense; their main strength had to be somewhere, but where? He pulled a fragment of the map out of his pocket and looked it over. The Drachnor army stretched across the plain in front of Keihl. Their western lines stopped short of the swamplands where the Fox River joined the Tenoachian River. In the east, the other flank stretched almost to the foothills of the Black Shadow Mountains. He was missing something, which made him uneasy.

He turned and pointed at two of his aides. “Take some men and turn the extreme east and west flanks of the Drachnor position and report back to me immediately.” They darted away as he again studied the column. With the pace that the mob was moving at and the distance they needed to cover, it would take most of the day for them to reach safety if they were lucky. But would their luck hold till then?