Exiles Tyrants Exodus

Prologue: Day of the Bleeding Sun .......................................................................................................................................................
Act I
Episode I: The Silent Stone ................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Episode II: Shadow Within the White Garden ............................................................................................................................ 31
Episode III: By the Gown of the Moon ............................................................................................................................................ 47
Episode IV: Contest of Glory................................................................................................................................................................. 71
Episode V: Temptation ........................................................................................................................................................................... 86
Episode VI: The Assembly of Heirs .................................................................................................................................................. 91
Episode VII: Refutation ....................................................................................................................................................................... 105
Episode VIII: The Head ........................................................................................................................................................................ 116
Episode IX: Audacity of Desire ........................................................................................................................................................ 130
Episode X: The Isle of the Holy ....................................................................................................................................................... 140
Act II
Episode XI: The Exiles .......................................................................................................................................................................... 153
Episode XII: Against the Red Doors ............................................................................................................................................... 158
Episode XIII: The Weary Host .......................................................................................................................................................... 181
Episode XIV: Mistress of the Underway ....................................................................................................................................... 190
Episode XV: Wandering the Halls of Giants ................................................................................................................................ 198
Episode XVI: The Vengeful ................................................................................................................................................................. 217
Episode XVII: Journey to the Kingdom of Death ...................................................................................................................... 222
Episode XVIII: Pass at Bállȧch ......................................................................................................................................................... 239
Episode XIX: Mountain and Sea ....................................................................................................................................................... 252
Epilogue: Scent of the Trail .................................................................................................................................................................... 260

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Prologue: Day of the Bleeding Sun
“Mother!” a wild, desperate cry burst the still air.

Fáemȧr stood at the drawn entrance of the tent, two armored men on either side of him.
Blood seeped from the broken chinks in his muddied mail. One of the young warrior‟s eyes was
wrapped in a red-stained sleeve that had been torn from the arm of an accompanying man. The
other was fixated on the woman for whom he had come searching.
The young warrior shook himself free from the men who guided his limping body.
Without them he fell violently, awkwardly inside. But there was still some strength left in him.
Some strength and a great deal of passionate hate. He caught himself on his hands and knees.
In the shade of that lavishly decorated tent, a barely visible wisp of steam traced the prince, his
armor and blood still hot from a day spent fighting beneath the sun. He was the sharp scent of
salt and warm metal reeking in a cloud of lavender-sweetened incense.
His smattered head bent below the wafting, pungent smoke, toward a floor richly
carpeted in furs. As he spoke, the savage irony in his voice was unmistakable.
“Lost…lost…lost,” through rigorous pain and disbelief, Fáemȧr repeated that biting,
burdening mantra of his failure. “I have lost,” his face contorted with each ragged breath, every
painfully true syllable.
“I know,” she said evenly. “I‟ve already sent your brother off.”
The casualness of the answer was curious. Fáemȧr lifted his battle-fogged, gore-sullied
head to look at her. The simple movement was more painful than anything he had ever known,
taking almost every bit of his withering strength. But his will was keen, the only sharp part of him
left. He raised his head enough to see her.
In a gown of violet silk, she sat with her back to him upon a pillowed bench before a
small bronze tray. While she watched, a perfumed slave in fine clothes poured tea from a kettle
into a small cup resting on the tray. Fáemȧr had not expected to find her so leisurely waiting on
tea.
“Why have you not left yet?” he grunted.
“I have no intention of leaving.” She took the cup delicately into her hands when the
slave finished pouring.
The sounds of tumult grew louder outside. The desperation of men and women, and the
terror of children shook in Fáemȧr‟s ear.
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“Father‟s army is coming,” he growled through clenched teeth.

“I know,” she said between sips.
Fáemȧr coughed then, in shuddering tremors of agony. When he recovered his gasping
breath he told her, “If we don‟t leave now, we will never have another chance against him.”
Thei looked slightly over her shoulder with one ravishing, bright gray eye to spy her son
bowed and fouling her fine rugs with his filthy wounds, so wretched with shame and anger. She
turned back to her tea and sipped.
“There is no fight left for us,” she announced with vague regard. “No one will follow a
half-blind prince to the throne. The rabble of helot sheep that followed us is a scattered flock. All
the true men I‟ve been given power over I have already dismissed. Only the two you entered
with remain.”
Fáemȧr had been denying the full truth of defeat from himself, deceived by his own
ravenous will to dominate his father‟s kingdom. But it was inescapably plain how she had
spoken it, and the truth of her words struck him a more bitter blow than any he had received that
ferocious day. One pain lent him another, and his griefs quickly changed.
“What of Cét? Has he returned from the field?” his excruciation did not mask the
desperate need of the question.
“An eye, a battle, and a throne. And now you‟ve lost your instructor as well? All in one
day, no less.” His mother paused to sip. “It‟s of no matter now. He is only one man lost among
many,” there was no note of malice in her words, but Fáemȧr was struck by the remorseless
meaning of them.
Fáemȧr‟s failing neck slumped so that his face fell toward the rug wrinkling beneath him.
He ground his sweaty, grimy fingers into the fur. A tear came, surprisingly quickly, rolling down
his dusty cheek and struck his cringing thumb. It came so sudden after a lifetime of guarded
sorrow that he thought he might have mistaken it from a bead of sweat. But he could feel his
other torn eye trying to cry behind its makeshift bandage. The salt seeped into his wound and
stung him bitterly.
Impotently he asked, “Do you propose then that we wait to be captured? Wait for
humiliation and torture?”
“I have suffered one already, but I shall not endure the other.”
Barely able to angle his vision at her with his flagging head, insufferable pain beginning
to roll his eyes back into his skull, Fáemȧr asked, “What do you intend to do then?”
“Enjoy one last pleasure.”

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Fáemȧr watched her take the final sips of the soothing beverage, savoring it until its
small cup was empty. Then he saw her hold the still-warm vessel to her breast, feeling the dying
heat in her hands like some cherished, failing dream.
“I‟m sorry,” Fáemȧr managed before his arms gave way.
He slumped to the ground, and rolled to his back.
He lay there breathing heavily, his eyes cast upon the roof of a tent that suddenly
seemed impossibly huge and ornate. As he gazed at them, the lights of the lantern-strung
ceiling wound further and further away from him like a vortex of stars, and he thought of all he
had forfeited vainly to fight a man more powerful than him. He realized, even as the delusion of
his exhaustion and injuries washed over him, why Cét had warned him against such prideful,
haughty ambition. Of all his terrible faults and flaws, which seemed so manifest in that odd
moment of clarity, Fáemȧr considered his worst to be the coercion of his warrior-mentor to such
a miserable end. Despite Cét‟s better wisdom, Fáemȧr had obligated the man by his unswerving
notions of loyalty and responsibility to a disaster of his own princely arrogance. Now a man
worthier than any throne was doubtless dead upon a slaughter-field of Fáemȧr‟s fashioning. If
Cét was living he would have found him by now. The prince felt dizzy and adrift without his
guidance. Now there was nothing left to do, but be collected by his father‟s army and to share in
the degradation and torment of failed rebellion with his mother, even if a strange denial told her
otherwise.
Fáemȧr heard her softly set down her cup and stand. Her movements were nearly
inaudible as she moved quickly across the floor. Only the slight shuffle of her gown betrayed her
silent, expedient grace. She had always been a delicate, vigorous woman, Fáemȧr found
himself marveling to realize so blithely just then.
Her gentle tread halted by his head. He no longer had the strength to turn and look at
her. Instead she sat down and placed his head into her lap. She looked down at him and her
face filled his vision with its slender, lofty features, those sparkling, bold gray eyes. There was
an expression in them he hardly recognized, for he had forgotten he had ever known it – a
gentle affection. She began to hum a tune, a lullaby from Fáemȧr‟s cradle days with rhymes he
could not recall.
The young prince gazed at her with one quizzical eye, an eye normally inherited of the
same vivid silver, now Dulled with pain and muted wonder. She had never shown him so much
tenderness. Not since he was a child. Not like he had seen her treat his younger brother. She

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had to be hard with him if he was ever to become a king of warriors, he knew that. But he
realized then with more revelation how jealously he had watched her love her other child.
She continued to hum, and caressed his cheek. And showed him a slight, reassuring
smile that made whatever would come next tolerable. Fáemȧr considered how remarkably
beautiful she seemed then. He was sorry for his failures for many reasons, but at just that
moment he was sorry to have disappointed her.
And at just that moment the blade she had been holding in her other hand drew quickly,
easily across his throat. Fáemȧr felt it almost as a dream. He stared at her intently, his
remaining eye one great question without any coherent thought. He gave up trying. Instead, he
lay there and savored that last pleasure of her beauty and the soft song meant for him, and he
tasted that final approval of her love until all pain and care bled from him, and he was empty.
For awhile she held the warm vessel of her son against her breast, feeling his fading warmth in
her hands as though he were a cherished, failing dream.
The close cries outside had dimmed, and new ones sounded in the approaching
distance. Without wiping the blood from her hands or setting her son aside she glanced at the
two bleary-eyed men who waited in disquieted silence at the door. They remained by loyal oath
for their queen‟s command, but there was a horror there too as they gaped at her, a woman
they had once thought more beautiful and worthy than any other, her sumptuous dress, her
slender wrists and delicate fingers stained irreparably in their chosen king‟s blood. It was a
terrible way for a man of Mìdȧ to die, by a woman‟s hand, but they would permit this concession
to a boy‟s mother.
“Before you run to find your families, you must do the same for me,” she commanded
holding the blade out to them. “But you must be quick. I will flinch.”
Though the summer sun sat high, nothing about it seemed bright. It bulged in the sky,
bloated and red, painting the day crimson to match the plain below. Despite the deadened light,
the day was warm and sticky, though whether it was the heavy hood of summer heat or the
thick vapor of sizzling blood was difficult to tell.
Piles of blistered bodies scorched the clouds gray with their smoke. Boys and young
men scrambled over the debris of the battlefield, stacking the dead in burning pyres, pausing in
their tasks only to pry some treasure from the wreckage – a bracelet or bangle gleaming in the
fires‟ burnished light.

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There was hardly anything of worth among the refuse, however. The men and women
that littered the plain had little to offer. Farmers, milkmaids, craftsmen and weavers comprised
the carnage with their unadorned bodies. None of them were garbed in fine garments, nor
bedecked with precious trinkets. Just unostentatious sackcloth and wool. Indeed, few of their
stiffened fists had any weapon worth prizing. Many were armed only with the tools of their
profession, no match for the armored spearmen they had fought – the mighty of
Mìdȧ.
Those few g el mb ch warriors that had fallen were already cleared from the field and
buried beside it in careful ceremony. They had been placed in the stained earth to the solemn
tune of the dirge, still wearing their iron breastplates, chain mail, and helmets. Rigored hands
clutched sword and pike with cold devotion. Any article of their panoply was worth more than a
score of the peasantry they had slain. Their collective grave was sheltered and marked by their
grooved shields – a cairn decorated with the purple and black insignias of the clans of Mìdȧ.
Only one clan‟s heraldry was relatively absent from the mass.
Stacked just as neatly in a nearby pile was what remained of those who had provided
the only real stroke of opposition. The wayward g el mb ch of Clan Dáedȧl ch had fought
uncompromisingly against the other clans of their former comrades. Dáedȧl ch was an honored
kinship of Mìdȧ‟s warrior caste. That was before most of their numbers were persuaded by their
queen into the service of rebellion, before they were convinced to act as bodyguard for the
queen‟s young son, before they stood with an army of helots whom they once oppressed,
before they met their peers and kinsmen in hard combat, before they were wrecked to the last
man. Despite audacity and bloody pride there was a respect between the two factions of Mìdȧ‟s
warriors – the loyalists and the defectors. Neither had wanted to contend with the other, but
differing perspectives of duty would not permit them to make peace except through the struggle
of arms. Even in death there was an honor accorded to the recalcitrant warriors of Dáedȧl ch by
those who had defeated them. Though a gruesome display, it was evident that great care had
been taken in the arrangement of their disembodied heads – a vast mound of vanquished faces.
No dirge had been sung over their stacked skulls. Traitors could not be mourned, though silence
conveyed its own profound brand of grief.
Those faithful of Dáedȧl ch who survived their kinsmen‟s treachery stood with the
g el mb ch of Mìdȧ‟s partisan clans, amassed on a heather-crested hill that sloped down to the
fuming plain. They were still armed for war, their faces masked by the iron nose guard of their

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plumed and feathered helmets. But their eyes were intent as they stood waiting, watching the
two figures that stood just a little from their midst.
One of them was a large, robust man. His jaws and chin were square and strong, and
the crease of his olive-toned cheeks made him more than a little attractive. His auburn eyes
flashed with the surrounding fires, reflecting the cunning behind them. From his head sprang a
shock of copper hair that hung down the back of his cuirass. His armor was like that of the
warriors gathered behind him, though far more extensive and ornate. Iron encased his limbs
down to every single finger and toe, and reliefs of stylized beasts patterned his armor. He
clutched his helmet with one arm. Purple-dyed raven‟s feathers cascaded from the crown as a
single layered plume. With the other hand he gripped his sword, still wet with blood – the
Songblade, Lá frét . The irony of its name had been demonstrated all morning as it cut
through swathes of farmers, distorting and magnifying their screams through some lost trick of
its forging. Those piteous and wallowed wails had further unnerved the enemy to flight. The
g el mb ch of Mìdȧ only took comfort in its familiar shrill.
The other man that stood beside him donned a much different ensemble. He wore a shirt
of extensive fabric. The sleeves, superfluous for his narrow frame, were bundled around
crossed arms. His baggy britches ended above bare feet, only midway down his calves. His skin
was a darker hue of brown-green, and his face seemed flat in comparison to his companion‟s
rugged features, textured slightly by a trim beard. The man‟s head was uncovered save for a
thick comb of black hair.
Still looking out over the battlefield he spoke to the armored man beside him, “I fear you
have upset The Tides, Tánȧ.” He gestured toward the sun.
Tánȧ cocked his thick neck skyward to peer at the sphere, so Dulled he could nearly
look at it without squinting.
The bearded man continued, “Killing your queen is foul enough, but killing your son on
the same day is far worse. It displeases the Old Powers. They do not approve the murder of
flesh and blood.” He closed his eyes and listened, “The earth is tainted, dressed in death. It
remembers the acrid tastes of the slain from former days, and it does not relish them.”
Tánȧ only scoffed, “I care little what the damned Powers think of me. No one who claims
me an enemy in my own halls or stirs rebellion behind my eyes deserves my mercy. Especially
my own son. Fáemȧr deserved the same fate as his mother.” Tánȧ paused to spit, “Besides, it
doesn‟t matter. It was not me who killed them,” he added regretfully.
For a moment, his eyes were lost in the fires‟ glare before he spoke again.

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“If only I‟d reached them before they ended themselves,” Tánȧ squeezed Lámfréth ‟s hilt
tighter in his mailed fist, “then, Ūvthȧch, your cherished Powers would have something to
trouble them.”
A scream pealed out from the base of the hill accompanied by the heavy thud of wood
on wood. Those rebel survivors unfortunate enough to be caught fleeing were being nailed to
trunk and bough. There were few trees upon the landscape of rounded hills surrounding the
battle-plain, so those handful around were festooned with dangling bodies. The screams had
only stopped long enough for more staves to be cut.
“Is that not enough retribution?” Ūvthȧch asked level-toned. “It seems sheer wrath, mere
vanity for this to continue. We cannot afford to lose more workers than necessary. Have you
forgotten we need their labor to feed our city and to forge our warriors‟ arms?”
“No, Ūvthȧch, I have not. But believe me,” Tánȧ pointed his sword out before them to the
grisly scene of torture and destruction, “this is not just simple vengeance. We‟ve a necessity for
brutality. I mustn‟t look weak, like I‟ve lost control of these peons. That‟s all the opportunity
Cáegid would need to muster his warriors, and to convince the rest of our enemies to attack.
We would have rebellion on our hands again as quick as you could spit, and Cáegid would
come down from the walls of Mūnmȯǐr to finish us himself.”
Tánȧ stopped and mused, “It‟s a good thing they‟re still recovering from our last
encounter, or else Cáegid and the g el mb ch of Mūnmȯǐr would be here by now. He must still
be mourning his son.” Tánȧ thought for a second before snorting, “I suppose, after all these
years we finally have something in common, Cáegid and I. Both our heirs perished against me,”
all the corrosive wit whithered from his words as he realized the truth of his statement. Tánȧ
recovered, but he no longer spoke with severity, “Though I suppose you‟re right, Ūvthȧch.
We‟ve been distracted with these helots while our attention is required elsewhere. We need to
react while these rebel towns are still cringing from our sting. But that should be no hard task.
The brave are dead at our feet. Only the cowards remain.”
Tánȧ turned to the g el mb ch behind him. Those at the forefront were the nobles of the
four clans of Mìdȧ, each one of them a clan captain of a troop of their own g el mb ch, all of
them proud warriors trained under the harsh martial traditions of Mìdȧ.
“Dūv ch, Fǎrȧr, take your warriors to G llȧch. After the uprising there, we‟ll need a new
garrison,” each captain nodded his understanding and turned around to muster his men. “Oh,
and nail the village elders to the gate if they haven‟t fled,” Tánȧ added casually. “Make it known

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what happens to those that murder Mìdȧ‟s clansmen. Be quick.” The clash of their armor rang
as they hustled away, their g el mb ch soldiers pursuing the call to advance.
In turn, Tánȧ named each of the towns in the area that had participated in the revolt and
the names of the g el mb ch commanders he wanted there.
“Mèil and Tócȧc, go to Frécmȯr,” he finished.
“But they have never been a protectorate of Mìda,” Ūvthȧch expressed his surprise while
he watched the g el mb ch march away.
“No, but the men of Frécmȯr were here today,” Tánȧ said, eyeing the drying blood upon
his sword. “They knew well the inevitability of their subjugation. Besides, we will need all the
northern towns beneath us if we mean to compete with Mūnmȯǐr.”
“Would the Hound not be better suited for such a task?” Ūvthȧch inquired.
“Perhaps, but I‟ve already given him one. He‟s hunting for Féinu.”
Ūvthȧch turned and looked at Tánȧ for the first time in their conversation, “You do not
intend to harm the boy? After all, it‟s natural that a child go with his mother. He could not have
seriously comprehended what your wife‟s…” Tánȧ grit his teeth and Ūvthȧch shrewdly corrected
himself, “…what Queen Théi‟s intentions were.” He paused before turning back away from his
irritated companion, letting his eyes bask in the light of the roaring pyres. “Two sons dead in one
day. That would not bode well for you.”
Tánȧ‟s snarl faded into a clever grin.
“Your concern is touching, Ūvthȧch,” the bite of sarcasm evident in his tone, “but do not
worry yourself. I don‟t mean to kill my remaining child. Only to reclaim him. Though, it‟s not from
fear of your divinations. But, who is a king without an heir?”
From among the bustling flames below, a small cluster of people moved towards the hill.
“Ah, here‟s the Hound with him now.”
A boy dressed in rich white fabric trotted beside an elderly woman in a brown dress. The
boy looked haggard, his sumptuous clothes stained by mud, ash, and blood. The soot on his
wearied face cascaded with dried tears. He clutched tight to a pleat in the old woman‟s skirt
while she loped forward, clutching a bundle of red cloth.
A pale-skinned, exotic-looking man strode behind them. His body was well-built and his
gait easy. The man‟s bright gray eyes were wide and alert. Every single one of his movements
seemed to be calculated and purposeful, each breath, every step. He wore nothing save for
loose-fitting trousers, a short black wool cloak, and a large iron collar. His head was bare like all

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shaved slaves, but the stylized scars that lined his cheeks in slender crescents and swirled
patterns distinguished him from the other slave-soldiers who cleared the field of bodies.
If the Hound‟s notoriety as Tánȧ‟s most loyal and lethal henchmen had not sufficiently
publicized his heritage, all those present would have easily been able to see that he was an
Ocsrae – an ancient people whose past in Árn preceded any of their own ancestors. Almost a
millennia ago, they had been driven out of the lowlands to dwell in the mountains that separated
the eastern and western halves of the island where they could not be dislodged, and proceeded
to maintain an unbreachable barrier between either side of the island continent of Árn . They
were an enigmatic and aloof people. Many Árnich went for a lifetime without seeing one, making
the Hound‟s presence all the more ominous.
While the peculiar party ascended the slope, Tánȧ called out to the man, “Hound, you
clever bastard! I send you for the calf and you fetch the cow.”
The hearty laughter of the armored g el mb ch jangled behind him.
In surprising contrast to his alien appearance, the Hound spoke with a deep, unaccented
voice; however, his speech was formed with peculiar preciseness and brevity, “Forgive me
master. I found them fleeing together. The boy would not be parted from her.”
Once more Ūvthȧch leaned over to Tánȧ, “This woman is one of the inane priestesses
whom Queen Théi liked to surround herself with.”
Tánȧ did not need Ūvthȧch to tell him. He recognized her as one of those belonging to
the entourage his wife kept at court. He never could understand why Théi kept such repulsive
company as this hag, impressive only for her ability to represent lunacy as a cryptic breed of
wisdom.
Tánȧ‟s lips curled as he looked the woman over. Her face was furrowed with age, and
her dark brown-green skin so tough it looked like worn leather. A large crooked nose protruded
from her brown cowl and hooked lowly, almost reaching her cracked lips. Greasy, gray hair
streaked with strands of black hung out of her hood and sat like burnt wax upon her shoulders.
Her austere brown robe and the bronze sigils hanging from her neck identified her as a
V uch priestess – a woman belonging to that stepped tradition of piety and cosmic divinity.
Much of the day‟s massacre had been born out of the V uch‟s resentment toward the Òmȯr.
The V uch were the elder order, one which Tánȧ‟s wife had staunchly supported, even after he
had fostered Ūvthȧch‟s sect. The Òmȯr sanctified power and the right to manipulate the
universal balance in order to achieve it, something in direct opposition to the tenets proposed by
the V uch. Above the glare and reek of it all, Tánȧ considered that bloodshed had been

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imminent and unavoidable over their vastly disparate principles. One of the incontrovertible
things he had learned in a lifetime disciplined by violence is that all matters of power were
settled viciously in the end.
Tánȧ‟s adoption of the Òmȯr caste had likely been the greatest source of animosity
between him and his wife. Her religious preservations were intolerant toward the Òmȯr faith.
Though he never found the comfort of unaDūlterated truth in either order, he recognized the
merit of the Òmȯr pursuit for power and the disadvantages of the restrictive V uch traditions in
his bid for control over West Árn . High Priest Ūvthȧch and his Òmȯr acolytes had proved
valuable allies, despite that they clung too rigidly to their beliefs in intangible forces for Tánȧ‟s
tastes, or even that they seemed as trustworthy as his dead wife and son.
Tánȧ considered Féinu for a moment. He looked down at the boy. A child of three years,
Féinu stood only a little higher than his knee. Even though Féinu was still very young Tánȧ
could tell the boy had the build of his mother‟s father. He was tall for his age, and the apparent
lack of baby-fat suggested Féinu would be lofty like his grandfather – a proud warrior firm in the
traditions of Mìdȧ. The old warrior‟s prowess and breeding were the reasons Tánȧ had chosen
his daughter as a queen. Her looks had only hastened the decision. Théi had been beautiful to
him then. That was before she learned to resent him and his conquests, before he knew how
bitter his passions could make him, before their attraction had devolved into the frustrated union
of separate desires. It was a good thing her father was dead. The old man died proud, not
knowing what sort of malice his daughter would become or the failure of a grandson she would
raise. Tánȧ decided he would not let Féinu become like his elder brother – a traitor to Mìdȧ,
killed by his own hand. He would have to undo all of Théi‟s coddling.
“Take Féinu to my tent,” Tánȧ‟s voice was grating and harsh, his stern eyes fixed on the
cowering child.
Without the slightest hesitation, the Hound brusquely whisked the boy away. Féinu‟s
sobs grew fainter as the man hastened down the backside of the hill.
Tánȧ turned his wrath upon the woman. He eyed the bundle in her arms and saw that
they were scraps of fabric, torn and bloodied. Her foul presence roused more of Tánȧ‟s
revulsion.
“What filth do you clutch, crone?”
Without speaking, the woman held the bundle away from her chest and up to the brawny
man. Her arms shook with raspy breaths, so that a corner of the bloody scraps fell away to
reveal a soft olive substance beneath. Tánȧ peered quizzically at the bundle, his disgust

12 |
replaced by curiosity. He took the rags from the old woman, and as delicately as he could
manage with his mailed fingers he uncovered the priestess‟ burden.
Before he could remove it completely, a small, chubby leg kicked the rest of the cloth
away. Tánȧ stood staring at a newborn, stretching while she slept, her tiny mouth arched in a
yawn.
“Found her,” the old woman croaked. “I Felt her. Heard her call out from the womb. She
asked for help. Demanded it. So, I turned with the boy, turned back from where we had come.
Followed her calls. Found her mother nailed to a tree – one of the Dáedȧl ich caught and
strung. Dead, gone, dead. But she,” the V uch priestess crooked a gnarled finger at the babe,
“she was alive. Kicking, breathing, fighting to survive. She knew, she knew, she knew she was
alive. So I helped her. Just a little. Only a bit. There‟s much to that one there.”
Ūvthȧch‟s expression lasted, stern and sober, as he took the naked babe in his arms,
“Give her to me, while she is still fresh-born.”
Holding her in one arm he retrieved a dagger from the folds of his draped sleeves. A wail
pealed out from the babe‟s mouth when she awoke to the deft prick of Ūvthȧch‟s knife. He
tucked the dagger back into the bountiful fabric wrapped around his arms, before he closed his
eyes and leaned forward. Ūvthȧch inhaled the warm scent of the droplet that swelled like a red
tear on the baby‟s arm. Then, with two fingers he rubbed the blood from her arm and spread it
across his eyelids.
A moment passed. The g el mb ch waited. Ūvthȧch opened his blood-stained eyes and
stared at nothing. He looked beyond those who gaped at him, anticipating his insights. He saw
through the veil of blood that mantled his graven visage.
“Here is a woman of unparalleled beauty. More beautiful than fair Péthi or Sǎer or any
queen of Árn . Lovlier even than what men praise of Ménth -v , what she must have seemed
as she played sweetly in flowered meadows the first time Tǎengȯch-vō beheld her from his
solar throne before the gods slew one another and forsook this world. Of form, no woman is
more perfect or finer figured.”
The eyes of the men listening glittered with the thought.
“But there is a cruel aspect to her beauty. At best, it is devastation. No man who sees
her does not ache with love for her, or queen with envy. Many a falsehood is spoken, many a
man wrecked. Sorrow dogs her heels like a tamed pup. Misery, strife, and death arise for the
men of Mìdȧ on her behalf. Her name is spelt in ruin.”

13 |
Ūvthȧch finished speaking. The vaunted portals of his eyes narrowed back into pupils
and once more he saw Tánȧ and the men around him. All of them stared back with horrified
fascination, hoping he had something else to add. The babe continued to cry.
Suddenly a shout erupted from the host of g el mb ch
“Kill her!”
“Nothing can come between the warriors of Mìdȧ!” another soldier proclaimed.
“Cast her on the pyres!”
Soon, the voices of the huddled g el mb ch grew thunderous, ringing out from their iron-
rimmed mouths. Vehemence and urgency gained momentum until they were a discordant
chorus of condemnations.
“Silence!” Tánȧ commanded.
Everyone grew quiet. All that could be heard was the distant roar of the pyres, and the
settling whimpers of the child.
“Have the proudest of Mìdȧ ceded their courage to a woman?” he grumbled.
Tánȧ took the girl from the Òmȯr priest and inspected her.
“I urge you do as they suggest,” Ūvthȧch spoke in earnest.
There was an unexpected sense of disquiet in the voice of the priest whom Tánȧ had
come to regard as positively impenetrable. Lacking the assurance of Ūvthȧch‟s predictable
impassiveness, Tánȧ was forced to share in the moment of the priest‟s unease.
Gurgled laughter turned their heads.
“Not her,” the priestess chortled again, “Not the girl to be feared. No, no, no. Just the
man beside.”
The semblance of anger tinged Ūvthȧch‟s solemn features. “Deceitful woman. You
would deliver this woe unto Mìdȧ?”
“Ca, ca, ca,” scoffed Tánȧ. “You prattle like two old crows over the same worm. We
won‟t murder a babe for fear of her. Let her beauty come, and I will savor it.” He faced the
congregation of warriors behind him, “I intend to foster her, and keep her for myself. We shall
see if such splendor ever blooms.”
Tánȧ parted the host of warriors and began walking away with the girl. He took a half-
step, then paused and without turning around said, “Nail this old gossiping cow‟s tongue to the
bark.”

14 |
Act I
Episode 1: The Silent Stone
“Sóethȧ!” G nbȧ paused before calling the name again “Sóethȧ!” The lithe woman
stopped to peer into the walled garden‟s entrance. “Where‟s that girl gone now?” G nbȧ asked
herself aloud.
“Sóethȧ!” G nbȧ called once more before grumbling to herself, “Up to her tricks...”
G nbȧ picked up her dress and scuttled further into the walled garden. She could see no
sign of the girl, the turns and twists of the vine-tangled walls obstructed her vision.
“Sóethȧ!” The frantic nursemaid rounded the lily-filled pond at the center of the maze.
G nbȧ was quickly tiring of a game to which she had never consented. She leaned over
and looked through some of the tall stalks of bloomshades – one of Sóethȧ‟s favorite hiding
places. Autumn was fast approaching. Their violet petals were wilted black and scattered by the
breeze, already a poorer place for concealment than it was a few days ago.
She‟d never hide here now, she chided herself.
“Sóethȧ!” G nbȧ called once more fruitlessly.
S ’s ttin tt r at t is.
Over the many years she had cared for Sóethȧ, G nbȧ had been forced into countless
games of hiding. Though emerging into womanhood, Sóethȧ‟s love of play showed no signs of
ceasing. G nbȧ supposed it was because the girl had been made to live in seclusion her whole
life that she continued to entertain herself with childish frivolity, despite the precociousness
which G nbȧ attributed to her young charge. All Sóethȧ had were games and her imagination to
keep her entertained. Other than G nbȧ, only her foster-father and brother ever visited.
Tánȧ never bothered hiring Sóethȧ a tutor, seeing no need for it, so G nbȧ had taken
matters upon herself. She taught Sóethȧ simple things of the outside world, beyond the barriers
of her existence. Geography, history, music, gossip. G nbȧ always told her ward what she
heard walking the streets of Mìdȧ on errands. The latest fights and love affairs were of particular
interest to Sóethȧ. The girl always listened to her accounts in earnest. G nbȧ marveled at the
way Sóethȧ spoke of people she had never met, as though she was the one delivering news.
Sóethȧ often corrected her on certain affairs, citing details of earlier stories that G nbȧ had told
her. Even more surprising was the girl‟s insights over such matters. It was never that the lives of
others outside her own served as mere diversions from Sóethȧ‟s own cloistered existence. The

15 |
girl always seemed to take a genuine concern in the interests of those people. It was not her
way to dole out advice, but she was keen to detect the follies and geniuses of other people.
Perhaps from her isolation from the rest of Mìdȧ‟s high society, she developed strange
sentiments of things. For one thing, she detested the wars that all the families of Mìdȧ saw great
purpose in, and she had little taste for the city‟s increasingly intensifying political atmosphere.
Instead, her concern was reserved for the daily successes and failures of Mìdȧ‟s denizens. She
also retained a fondness over the lives of helots and slaves, something most pure-blooded
Mìdȧich would have regarded as childish sensitivity. Normally such sentiments would have been
squelched at a younger age, but G nbȧ, a house-slave herself, had raised Sóethȧ exclusively
and never had need to demean herself or her servile kind to the girl.
If it was childishness that made Sóethȧ so affectionate she did not mind it. G nbȧ was in
no hurry for the girl to grow any older and realize that she no longer wanted to play games with
her aging nursemaid. G nbȧ had not been much older than Sóethȧ when she became her
caretaker. Only after Sóethȧ‟s first elderly nurse had died while Sóethȧ was still a toddler, had
she been charged with the task. Despite Sóethȧ‟s initial apprehension, which often manifested
itself in violent tantrums, the toddler had quickly been won over by G nbȧ‟s amiability and
persistence. Since then the two had been closer to one another, and though arguments
occurred, they were infrequent and rarely ended in fits.
Though she was limited to life in the White Garden, a stone enclosure at the top of
Mìdȧ‟s one great hill with only a modest garden, yard, and small house, Sóethȧ was quite
creative, and managed to find new ways to avoid her nursemaid.
“Sóethȧ!” She called again in frustration as she poked her head through a bush.
“We have no time for this! Sóethȧ?” She said, more pleading than demanding.
The name sounded odd coming from her. Though Sóethȧ was the girl‟s name, G nbȧ
rarely called her by it. When Sóethȧ was still the boisterous age of two, the contrariness of her
name, „Sóethȧ,‟ meaning „Breeze,‟ was compensated by a more fitting pet name. Thus Sóethȧ
became „Sūndȧ,‟ meaning „Windstorm,‟ a common name of G llȧch and G nbȧ‟s native city,
where seablown gales kept a familiar presence over the low hills. Sūndȧ was the name that
Sóethȧ was called by most of the time, unless G nbȧ was angry or they were in the presence of
her foster-father. „Sūndȧ‟ felt more comfortable to call than the name he had given her, a name
Tánȧ claimed to have chosen because it was only the breeze that answered him when he
declared his intent to keep her. Sóethȧ only ever saw three people, and Tánȧ, the only one who
insisted calling her Sóethȧ, visited only sporadically.

16 |
Tánȧ was supposed to be returning anytime today, and G nbȧ could not find Sóethȧ
anywhere to get ready. Surely she was procrastinating. Tánȧ had been away on campaign all
summer, raiding Mūnmȯǐr‟s subject towns and trying to pick a fight with its armies. Sóethȧ had
become too comfortable with not dressing up, or having to anticipate his visits, but G nbȧ was
at fault, having only catered to her whims of sleeping late and dressing down. It was only during
this limited period of each year that G nbȧ could witness Sóethȧ enjoy herself so much, without
the pressure of Tánȧ‟s unannounced visits. Now she only wanted to delay the inevitable.
“Sóethȧ!” G nbȧ bent over to look underneath another bush. The white hem of a dress
was barely discernable among its dark roots.
G nbȧ eased forward, then quickly leaned in and grabbed it, “Got you!”
“What are you looking for?” Another voice asked from behind.
G nbȧ spun around startled, clutching her chest in shock.
A girl with sandy blonde hair and big brown eyes stood smiling, wearing nothing but her
undergarments.
G nbȧ let out a big sigh of relief as she regained her breath, and her heart beat slowed
to normal. Then, she let out an even bigger laugh.
“Come here you!” Sóethȧ screamed and giggled, trying to get away before G nbȧ could
catch her.
The two of them ran through the paved garden, past the flowers, bushes, and growths
that twined the walls, out onto the grassy yard of the enclosure. Despite Sóethȧ‟s youthful
agility, the older woman was much taller and her stride easily outstripped the girl‟s. G nbȧ
grabbed her from the back and tackled Sóethȧ into the grass. Both of them rolled over, their
backs to the yard, looking up at the bright blue sky, laughing hysterically.
Their laughter subsided, and they were left to lie in the grass and watch the feathered
clouds pass overhead.
“You might be getting quicker, Sūndȧ,” the nursemaid panted, “but you‟ll never outrun
me.”
“You might be able to outrun me,” Sóethȧ smiled and scooted away slightly as if she
meant to make another dash, “but you can‟t outlast me.”
“No. We don‟t have time for this,” G nbȧ protested breathlessly. “Your father will be here
any moment.”
“Let him come,” Sóethȧ shrugged. She stood up and began prancing about on the grass.
G nbȧ propped herself up on her elbows and looked at the flippant girl.

17 |
“Oh, that‟d be good! Would you let him come while you‟re in nothing but your
underwear?” G nbȧ smirked.
“Of course,” Sóethȧ stated matter-of-factly before doing a cartwheel.
G nbȧ stifled a burst of laughter. “And tell me brave Sūndȧ, what would you tell the king
of Mìdȧ when he asked what you‟d done with your clothes and make-up?”
“I‟d tell him I was done with them.” Her tongue stuck out in concentration, she planted
her palms on the ground and swung her feet in the air so that she was balanced in a hand-
stand, then walked hand over hand to G nbȧ, who was flushing red trying to hold back a laugh.
“And if he liked them so much,” still upside down, Sóethȧ pressed her face close to her
nursemaid‟s, “he could wear them.”
A horn drowned their laughter with its stark shout. The eyes of the nursemaid and the
girl widened with alarm. Sóethȧ sprang to her feet, sprinting toward the small house and its
wardrobe, G nbȧ in close pursuit.
The army of Mìdȧ sprawled out in a trail of pike-points and plumes, kicking up dust from
the dirt road that issued from the standalone gate of Mìdȧ and dwindled beyond sight among the
surrounding hills. The city was constructed upon a gigantic hill, the largest among the rolling
countryside. The monumental mound was tiered by a single swirling street that wound the way
up leveled, rounded slopes. A palace complex crowned the plateaued top of the hill, its white
stone walls shined with the sun in the eager eyes of the returning soldiers.
A horn sounded from somewhere within Mìdȧ. The air grew tremulous with the proud
hurrahs of the oncoming army. The g el mb ch were coming home once more as victors, and
they had special reason to be thankful this year. It had been several years since Mūnmȯǐr and
Mìdȧ mustered their full forces to field in pitched battle against one another, and it had never
been that the g el mb ch of Mìdȧ earned such an impressive triumph over the g el mb ch of
Mūnmȯǐr. There would be much celebration when they entered the city.
Darlings, wives, and children were beginning to gather outside the gate to cheer them in,
while others ran alongside the column, searching eagerly for the faces of their fathers, sons,
and lovers. Merchants from other settlements who trafficked the road stood to the side to give
the army berth. Once the army entered the city they could begin bartering. Mìdȧ had come out
successfully on this summer‟s raiding campaign, and its warriors would provide lucrative trading
partners. As soon as they had learned of Mìdȧ‟s latest victory the merchants had travelled from

18 |
every town in the north to come turn a profit. They gazed expectantly at the hefty trophies of
grain, cattle, and wine that marched with the g el mb ch and their boy-attendants.
Five strode at the forefront of the army, leading the procession of stalwart soldiers in
relaxed formation. A small entourage of éin n ch, boys being sponsored for warriorhood,
trudged behind them lugging shield and spoil keen to eavesdrop on the conversation of their
g el mb ch patrons.
“Ah, it‟s good to hear that sound,” Tánȧ breathed hard. “The city welcomes us.”
“Three months away. I‟d hate to see how she fared without us,” a stout warrior said
chuckling in afterthought. “When we get through that gate,” he said pointing to the large square
entranceway that opened in the distance, “no maid of Mìdȧ will be safe.”
“Spare some. I can‟t have too many of your little bastards clogging my streets. If they all
have their father‟s appetite they would undoubtedly devour our entire summer‟s winnings,” Tánȧ
smirked in rare affable mood. “But enjoy yourself. You deserve a little amusement, Bórdȧ. All of
Fărȧr‟s sons do.”
Bórdȧ banged the tusked helmet he carried against his chest in thanks, and the two
g el mb ch that marched beside him nodded their gratitude.
“If it hadn‟t been for the actions of you and your g el mb ch it might be Cáegid and the
troops of Mūnmȯǐr entering through this gate today. Truly, the situation was starting to look dire
on our left flank where Ùth nmōr was hammering away at us. Not until you pushed through on
the right, and hedged in their left did I see any hope of salvaging the battle, or the entire
summer campaign for that matter. But now Mìdȧ will grow fit on food farmed for the granaries of
Mūnmȯǐr, and Cáegid‟s city is one step closer to crumbling.”
Bórdȧ and the two other men marching to Tánȧ‟s left nodded their appreciation once
more. One walked with his helmet off, his dark features and curly black hair left to feel the
breeze and summer sun. His dark gray eyes shined pleasantly in the sunlight. He was several
years younger than the two warriors beside of him. Though not as burly as the warrior to his
right, his slender frame was neatly dressed with pliant muscle. Unlike doughty Bórdȧ who
stomped beside him, he marched with a spry vigorousness.
The other man was even taller and thinner. His hair long, smooth and black. His head
was as high as any of the soaring plumage of g el mb ch helmets behind them. Though he still
wore his own helmet, enough of his mouth and chin was visible to show that he was older than
all of his companions after Tánȧ. A skull shaped helmet and two enormous vulture feathers,
which dangled from the trim of its jaw line, only accentuated his skeletal aspect and grim

19 |
demeanor. The mask of mourning had become a staple of the slender man‟s war ensemble. No
other g el mb ch wore one. Only him. Its donning was an archaic custom, an outdated
demonstration of bereavement not even the eldest traditionalists of Mìdȧ practiced.
During that lull in their conversation, the young, curly-haired warrior spoke up, “Our
gratitude, King Tánȧ, for allowing us the honor of marching first through hallowed Bǎerèr b ch.”
“Think nothing of it, Dūl.” Tánȧ replied. “Take joy and celebrate in this moment of our
city‟s triumph. You three have aided in its achievement.”
Dūl peered over to the man marching on Tánȧ‟s other side. Of the five man vanguard,
the warrior was only shorter than the ominous skull-faced g el mb ch beside him, but
resembled the far more powerfully built king.
“Not without Prince Féinu‟s contribution, of course,” Dūl added.
“Hmph, Féinu?” Tánȧ condescended, “he‟s only at the forefront by honor of your
request.”
Dūl winced, expecting the typical loud squabble to erupt between father and son, but
Féinu seemed not to notice his father‟s rebukes. He was distracted by something small in his
hand. When he was engaged Féinu could be as fiery and temperamental a companion as Tánȧ,
but he was more often a distant presence at the edge of conversation. Dūl wondered if Féinu
harbored any resentment toward him and his brothers for their intervention during the last battle
or if he had already forgotten. It seemed you only ever got one of the two when dealing with the
prince – either reckless hostility or total inattention.
In an effort to ease that possible tension, Dūl attempted to smooth Féinu into the
discussion.
“Surely Féinu deserves to be at the head of the army. It was him who pushed through
Mūnmȯǐr‟s left flank with us. Bórdȧ, Òrmȯlc, and I could not have done it ourselves.”
“I do not think so,” Tánȧ snapped. “And even if that were so, his petulance and temper
are becoming more hindrance than aid. He had no need to pursue the enemy so far, so far out
that you three had to rescue him. He was in way over his head with Ùth nmōr. He has yet to
learn that the wolf bites back once its tail is tugged.”
“Perhaps, a game of br gȧic dóun is in order once we‟re in the clanhouse,” Dūl
suggested in an attempt to change the subject.
“Excellent idea brother,” Bórdȧ commented. “Would you care to join us, King Tánȧ?”
“I have other business to attend to,” Tánȧ declined gruffly.

20 |
In his usual absent-minded cheer, Bórdȧ ignored Tánȧ‟s surly mood and pressed,
“Come, what could be time better spent than having a few drinks with the sons of Fărȧr?”
Before Tánȧ could bark back, in a voice both low and steady, Òrmȯlc reproached Bórdȧ,
“Remember to whom you speak brother.”
“I just mean that…” Bórdȧ was about to protest.
“I am sure that King Tánȧ has better things to do than watch you drink yourself into a
stupor,” Dūl interjected, in an attempt to ease the tension.
Bórdȧ chuckled heartily at his brother‟s statement before turning to Tánȧ‟s son, “Do you
care to join us Féinu? You would be a welcome guest in our clanhouse.”
No answer.
“Friend Féinu?”
Féinu heard Bórdȧ the second time. His hand snapped shut, and he looked up.
“Huh?”
Tánȧ grumbled.
“Come have my first drink and join us for a few games of br gȧic dóun,” Bórdȧ insisted.
“No,” Féinu answered abruptly, his gaze fixated on the summit of Mìdȧ‟s vast hill. “I‟ve
other matters at hand.”
For the remainder of the march to the city, none of the five talked to one another, though
the atmosphere was hardly silent. Growing droves of citizens and slaves were gathering around
the army, their celebratory noise increasing steadily with their numbers until they erupted into
full-blown festive uproar. Out of the leading g el mb ch, only Bórdȧ spoke, joking and playfully
teasing the crowd with as much enthusiasm as they cheered him. Women waved and the braver
boys and girls danced upon the road ahead of the army, pluckily guiding their warriors home.
The army entered into the rows of earthen, grassy huts spread out along the extremeties of the
city‟s base, greeted by the robust, peaty scents of hearth-cooked meals. Here dwelled those
hanger-ons and vagabonds that success had created for Mìdȧ, most numerous among them the
families of bonded servants and petty traders. Though they were not counted among the city‟s
citizenship, a right reserved only for the warrior class, a successful campaign meant profit to
these lowly people as rewards and cheap sales trickled down the levels of Mìdȧ‟s graduated
economy to them. More of them gathered outside their hovels to give their vocal appreciation of
the goods borne by laboring boy-soldiers, and the fortune arriving as sacks of grain, and sleds
of iron and gold.

21 |
Some of the more aggressive merchants began soliciting the warriors for trade even as
they marched. Flattery and sale promises chittered through the air like hordes of scavenging
locusts. Though they would never break code to barter loot before it was registered with the
clans, a few of the g el mb ch asked for the choicest deals among the competing merchants
who bargained from the side of the road.
Dūl observed the pantomime of exchanges between the traders and g el mb ch with
dissatisfaction. He had little regard for the foreign merchants and their obsequious babble. To
Dūl, they were only opportunists come to take willing advantage of spoils seized from the people
of their own lands.
Above the mingling fanfare that awaited the returning soldiers, the high white stone arch
of Bǎerèr b ch gleamed to welcome them. Carved from a gigantic upthrust pillar of br gȧiccōun
or bonestone, the solid mineral said to be yielded in death by the wargod‟s slain body which
formed the island of Árn , the Gate of Champions was a prop in the ritual return of the
g el mb ch from the city‟s annual summer campaign of raiding its neighbors. Once standing
upon the outer edge of the city as an entryway into home, it now existed as a strange and
steadfast symbol in a clearing of its own among the upshoots of a shanty town. Over the course
of the past few years‟ triumphs such hovels began collecting around the city‟s periphery. Their
squallored presence was perceived by the old men as an affront to the Bǎerèr b ch and the
purity of tradition that they took it to symbolize – a view Dūl knew his brother Òrmȯlc shared.
One of the many gripes against Tánȧ was the fact that he provided little attention to this
complaint, justifying the presence of these dealers and drudges as the consequences of Mìdȧ‟s
evolving prosperity. Toward some passing satisfaction Tánȧ declared it a law punishable by
death for any other than Mìdȧ‟s pure-blooded sons and daughters to touch the Bǎerèr b ch,
and more severely, anything done toward its slightest desecration or vandalism ended with the
extermination of the offender‟s entire household.
To appease those g el mb ch who had supported the ordinance, Tánȧ followed his
legislation with a series of quick public executions. Dūl recalled how suitable he had thought the
law until he had passed by the Bǎerèr b ch and seen in the clearing of the white gate the
display of twisted bodies crammed and slowly broken backwards through staked iron hoops,
ropes still bound to their folded waists showing how the oxen had hauled them halfway through
in a process derisively referred to as „entering the Gate of Inferiors.‟ To him, in that moment, the
Bǎerèr b ch became a monument to something other than the tradition law had attempted to
preserve – a colossal, polished contradiction. Still, its inviolability was intact and obvious.

22 |
The skipping vanguard of children parted and gave berth to the army, none of them
impudent enough to precede the king‟s party through the Bǎerèr b ch. A hush subdued the
crowd as they watched, anticipating that near-sacred return of their lord and his champions that
would only be attested when they passed beneath the ancient white archway.
In that calm, King Tánȧ and his companions came close to the threshold of the Gate of
Champions. Upon the trampled earth leading through its mouth, an emblematic offering of
wheat was sprinkled. The scattered grains represented that which Mìdȧ‟s army had collected
from its vassals and enemies and the expectation for a hale and hearty year.
Dūl felt every eye upon him. There was a confidence he took for granted upon the
battlefield that these bystanders unsettled by their intent gazes. He tried to ease his nerves,
reminding himself that it was not the first time he had returned with the army beneath
Bǎerèr b ch; though it had never been at the forefront of the army, he recalled just as quickly.
The Mark of Champions was not an honor lightly distributed by the king. It was the
highest distinction a warrior could receive and one he was unsure he was willing to own.
Nonetheless he was unable to refuse, knowing that doing so would only insult king and
kingdom, as well as shame both clan and family. A silent, gracious acceptance was the prudent
response, though Dūl felt much more like vanishing. As soon as he passed through the gate, his
name would pass like eager flame among the people, until he would not be able to escape it in
the streets.
The army came to a shuddering halt with Tánȧ who was leading it. All of the casualness
the king had displayed toward the sons of Fǎrȧr in their march together was quickly replaced by
the stately, commanding persona the rest of the kingdom was more familiar with. When he
spoke it was not to those who listened, at least not directly. Tánȧ did not even spare them a
glance. Instead, his gaze was fixed upon the Bǎerèr b ch, and his recitation addressed to the
gate itself.
“We are the men of Mìdȧ! We return by the path of harvests gleaned by our spears! We
remembered the way home, and have come thus mightily! We come with wheat in our arms and
victory in our veins! Yours is the last gate that leads home. Let us enter it and set our shields
upon the hearth.
“First of us who shall enter is I who am king. I lead my champions who are mightiest
among the mighty. I name them Òrmȯlc éin Fǎrȧir of the T en, Bórdȧ éin Fǎrȧir of the T en,
Dūl éin Fǎrȧir of the T en, Féinu éin Tán a of the Dáedȧl ch. These worthy men lead the host.”

23 |
His performance delivered, Tánȧ started forward again. Dūl took a deep breath, and
lurched toward the Bǎerèr b ch. He would have halted were it not for his companions
continuing through the doorless gateway. Tánȧ entered first, the sons of Fǎrȧr and his own son
followed without pause. Kernels of wheat cracked softly beneath their tread. As he marched
shoulder to shoulder with his brothers and Féinu, Dūl felt the cool, heavy shadow of stone
above him. He resisted the urge to glance up at the archway under which he passed, lest he
reveal some gesture of his reluctance.
The archway corridor was massively wide. Even at four abreast, there was room enough
for three more champions to enter. But the stone‟s passage was not deep. Abrupt sunlight broke
upon Dūl‟s face, and with it, the pridened shout of a kingdom. His name was among the uproar,
already being tossled about by a sea of insistent boys and admiring maidens. They called to
him, hoping to share in, if only for the brief moment of his glimpse, that which made him great.
But his name upon their countless tongues was something strange and unfamiliar, only
belonging to him by a rational force of sound. It was not the same word his father spoke so
proudly, nor with which, when paired with other less encouraging titles, his brothers teased him
in his gangly youth. It was not that same soft utterance offered by his mother in a moment of
reassurance that still comforted him despite its twined, brief measure of sorrow. In the instant of
their cheering he was given a different vision of Dūl, one he had never pursued but
manufactured. Perhaps he was being unreasonably reluctant. Afterall, „coward‟ was a word he
knew to fear. He tried on that name being shouted at him, attempted to bask in its triumphant
chorus, and immediately felt lost within himself. He saw Dūl swarmed by a name like a hapless
boat in squall-swung waves. Swiftly, he cast off that desperate, marred self-image. Instead, he
attempted to take refuge in the familiar glances of his brothers, but they were both distracted.
Rather than sharing in Dūl‟s own apprehensions, Bórdȧ took more than a fair amount of
pleasure in the recognition he was receiving from the multitudes of women and young girls.
Òrmȯlc‟s attention was diverted by something deeper.
More people gathered on the side of the road as the parade proceeded into the older
portion of town. Houses and shops lined the rough-trodden street, erected from and shingled
with the same variety of white stone from which the Gate of Champions was hewn. Many of the
buildings were first constructed half a millennia ago after Mìdȧ‟s initial settlers cleared the land
of its monstrous Urmurl inhabitants and took the one great hill for their own home. The city itself
was the hill – a gigantic upthrust of rock protruding from the undulating countryside.
Rudimentary dirt roads sketched a rough grid of residences, markets, and temples that spread

24 |
out from the base of the vast hill. Spiraling up the face of the hill itself, a narrowing street paved
in chunks of bonestone ran in surmounting circles, lined with buildings cut into the white rock of
Mìdȧ. Most of the buildings cut into the stony prominence were quite small but of great antiquity.
Though it used to be one could tell how old and well-to-do a family was by the altitude of
its home, that outdated notion of affluence was now only ever considered in jest; however, it
was still evident that only the warrior families that could be considered pure Mìdȧich and true
citizens ever took their home upon its winding road. Not even the richest merchants or the
priesthood were privileged to own a building along that honored stretch of bonestone pavement.
In intervals along the length of the coiled hillside road were the much larger clanhouses.
Each of Mìdȧ‟s kinships operated a clanhouse that acted as both a social venue and a
headquarters. Treasury, assembly, and monument, the clanhouse was a place dedicated to the
affirmation of clan loyalty, and the clans‟ functions within the larger monarchy of Mìdȧ. It was a
site where past and current warriors, all generations of living clansmen met to discuss the affairs
of their days and recount those passed. When the clan was called to war, its captains were
mustered first to the clanhouse, and when the soldiers returned from a stint away they
immediately went there to donate a portion of their plunder toward the clan‟s assets, and usually
stayed for a few drinks.
It was to one of these four clanhouses that the g el mb ch carried themselves, peeling
off from the course of the main army as they made their climbing ascent. In succession the
g el mb ch of Clan B phȯm and Clan Séthr left the army to stand outside their clanhouses,
respectively The Draught Horn and The Bloody Blue Raven. Soon, the small clan of Dáedȧl ch
had also reached its destination before the door of the house they affectionately called Wind
Hearth.
Dūl looked over to wish Féinu well on behalf of the sons of Fǎrȧr before they passed by
the prince‟s clan headquarters, but their aloof companion was already nowhere to be seen. His
mouth slightly open to speak farewell, Dūl shut it and thought that Féinu really had been in
some haste.
Soon, all that remained of the army on the mounting, tapering course were the warriors
of Clan Tàen, lead by their champions and king. The Summit House was Clan T en‟s hostel, so
named for its location near the top of Mìdȧ‟s great hill. For all of Dūl‟s apprehension since he
had returned to Mìdȧ, his spirit was eased as soon as he caught sight of the rocky edifice of his
clan. Even if he had to keep up this false sense of himself as champion once he was inside, it
was the thought of that person who would be waiting for him within that comforted Dūl.

25 |
Being at the forefront of the army, the three brothers and Tánȧ arrived at the clanhouse
first.
“So, I take it you still won‟t be joining us?” Bórdȧ asked Tánȧ incorrigibly.
Eager to be rid of the king‟s encompassing presence, Dūl suppressed a wry glance at
his brother‟s unrelenting charm. Òrmȯlc too stiffened visibly. But Tánȧ was not offended by
Bórdȧ‟s persistence, his previous annoyance having departed with his son Féinu. Indeed, he did
not even stop or give a parting glance as he left them.
“Farewell champions. Until I call on you next,” Tánȧ said without turning around, in a
half-hearted distracted way, much as Féinu had spoken when his eyes were in his hand.
Some undertone in the king‟s voice uncomforted Dūl once more. The young warrior was
further unnerved when the Hound emerged from the host behind him and whisked to the king‟s
side as Tánȧ made his way to the palace mounted upon the flattened pinnacle of Mìdȧ.
Something of Tánȧ made Dūl slightly untrusting, and the Hound was the most glaring symbol of
that mistrust – the unspoken agent of Tánȧ‟s darkest deeds. Still, Dūl was glad to watch them
leave.
Turning away from sight of the king as he rounded the next corner of hill, the brothers
took their place in line at the door of the clanhouse. The clan steward was waiting for them at
the door.
“Form up in four lines,” the old man barked officiously and without greeting over the
laughter rising from the g el mb ch for joy of being home. The steward was one of those elder
g el mb ch of Clan Tàen who, exempt from bearing spear and shield by age and progeny, took
elected service running and maintaining the properties of the clanhouse. Among his duties were
the collection and cataloging of assets acquired by Tàen‟s clansmen after the annual summer
campaign. Despite the man‟s name eluding him, Dūl was pacificed and comforted by the
unchanging surly presence of the steward – one man who undoubtedly would treat him no
differently no matter what distinction he held. Even recently claimed champion, Dūl would have
to wait in line to be barked at by the unimpressed old man just like everyone else. Guiding their
burdened attendants, the brothers took their places side by side in three adjacent lines.
Laughter and good cheer broke out in full among those returning boys and men filing
before the steward now that they had reached their last task before dismissal, but the steward‟s
chores were only beginning. A team of slave-servants was there to assist the steward in the
compilation of plunder. By his vigorous commands for order, one would think he was trying to
work definition upon raw chaos, but his immediate clients were soldiers. It was their nature to

26 |
conduct themselves tidily, and they were well familiar with the protocol for the homecoming
dispensation of campaign spoils. Even in a relaxed fashion of casual conversation, four lines
formed fluidly from the composition of warriors and their boy-attendants filtering up the road. Dūl
watched the steward‟s face fluster as each new arrival announced himself by name and the
heavy thud of dropped loot.
“Òrmȯlc éin Fǎrȧir,” Dūl heard the low rumble of his eldest brother‟s name.
Turning to the left, Dūl saw that Òrmȯlc was the first of his brothers to reach the front of
his line. Having reached this juncture of resolution for the year‟s campaign, Òrmȯlc removed his
skeletal helmet. There was a grave, graceful ceremony to his lengthy movements. In solemn
display, the towering warrior unsheathed a face of slender, chiseled bone, more doleful than the
mask of mourning that had previously covered it.
Though tall like his father, Òrmȯlc‟s aid and son, Cáenul, was still quite young, only
having completed his initial year of training with the close of the summer campaign. Òrmȯlc
carried most of their loot. He untied the sacks he had bound around his lengthy frame, and set
them down before the recording slave. In imitation of his father, but with much less care, Cáenul
let his bags fall to the ground. With a satisfied sigh the boy rubbed his shoulders, tender after
carrying a wearisome weight for the march of several days. Òrmȯlc‟s unchanging glance jerked
in Cáenul‟s direction, and the boy straightened into rigid pose.
The slave peered into the sacks offered to him and saw they all carried grain. “Anything
else?” he asked with a note of subtle condescension unbecoming of servants. He seemed to
regret his tone as soon as his looked back up into the soaring eyes of the grim warrior.
Without his knowing, the servant had struck a sore spot for the tall warrior. Tradition was
Òrmȯlc‟s obsession. Those customs of old Mìdȧ, no matter how remote or devoid of their
original significance, found practice through the austere champion; but rarely did he celebrate
the functions that connected him to the past, for memory was like a vessel to Òrmȯlc,
perpetually preserved to take him to the same lonely island.
In more recent years, as Tánȧ‟s aims became more about conquest than sustenance
and Mìdȧ‟s older conventions fell increasingly into dissolution, Òrmȯlc became harder, his
sorrow poorly hidden. He found much to articulate against. Among the privacy of family,
Òrmȯlc‟s grumbled disapproval had grown more derisive than even the eldest clansmen‟s.
Dispensation of loot was no exception to his griping. Until recent generations, the main objective
of Mìdȧ‟s forays was to gather food tribute from the crops and livestock of its neighbors. Inedible
wealth had increasingly become a viable contribution to supplement Mìdȧ‟s economy, but as

27 |
Mūnmȯǐr‟s and Mìdȧ‟s annual skirmishes escalated into seasonal war, Tánȧ had come to fuel
his war-making efforts by greatly encouraging and emphasizing such material forms of profit.
Eager to increase their prestige, many of the younger g el mb ch took great pride to lavish
compliments of precious metals and artisans‟ captured works as if the value of such loot
reflected their own worth. And on some level it did, for these men were awarded with finer things
when Tánȧ redistributed spoils and they were lent the invaluable favor of a king who
empowered himself through their prosperity. In fact, it became expectation that warriors should
supplement the donations of edible provisions with luxury articles. But Òrmȯlc refused to stoop
to their pandering, saying that it was custom, not greed that bid him. He always brought back
simple bags of grain as dictated by his ancestors, all that he and his boy could carry by their
own strong backs, never the trinkets being so abundantly offered around him.
In watching him, Dūl thought for a moment that his oldest brother was about to unleash
that pent frustration upon the slave cringing before him, but Òrmȯlc‟s unshakeable sense of duty
prohibited him and made him a cautious spectacle in public. “I give more than my due,” was all
he said.
Before he could see how the cornered servant would react, a terrific clanging uprooted
Dūl‟s attention to the line on his other side. Bórdȧ stood at the head, grinning over a sprawling
mixture of gold and fine furs dumped unceremoniously at a servant‟s feet. So much finery
spread out before them it was almost perplexing how Bórdȧ had found it all, let alone carried it.
It was well known that he was one of the stoutest g el mb ch Clan T en could boast, and that
with his éin n ch Bécȯg, a polite and uncomplicated young mute of similar sturdy dimensions,
they could carry a great deal of treasure. A more endearing quality, though less renowned
outside of family, was that despite Bórdȧ‟s obvious distractedness he was remarkably
resourceful. Things just seemed to fall into his lap. It was difficult to determine if it was an inborn
perception that Bórdȧ possessed which eluded others, or if Bórdȧ was simply and consistently
compelled by absent-minded, dumb luck. When asked, Bórdȧ always replied with a wink and a
quick answer. “Must‟ve charmed Fortune herself,” he was fond to repeat, something their father
always said when referring to his middle son.
With widened downcast eyes, the servant tallying Bórdȧ‟s plunder called the steward
over to help him value such an extensive contribution. Both men rifled through the trove offered
them. Eyes shifted in the lines, and impressed comments passed around. Bórdȧ seemed
unaffected by the fuss being made around him. Instead, his attention was completely engrossed
upon the portion of loot he decided to keep for himself. He pulled an apple from the last small

28 |
sack he kept on his belt. Bórdȧ‟s eyes passed eagerly over the smooth, golden-green skin of
the fruit he had procured sometime during the march home. With an adamant crunch, Bórdȧ bit
through the fresh-plucked, crispened flesh of the apple. Autumnal juices dressed his face in
sweet rivulets while it balanced an expression of sheer pleasure and the engrossing challenge
of chewing. Shamelessly, Bórdȧ savored the apple while steward and servant reckoned his
spoils.
Before all of Bórdȧ‟s plunder had been carted off the brawny champion reduced his
apple to a thin core. Bórdȧ handed the apple‟s gnawed remains to a passing servant, who,
despite his confusion, took it away all the same in his bustle.
After wiping his hands, Bórdȧ reached back into the bag on his belt and grabbed another
apple which he promptly tossed to Bécȯg.
“Here you are, my young friend. An apple rendered for your services.”
Bécȯg relished his prize with little less enthusiasm than his sponsor. His lips smacked
together with deeply satisfied bites.
“I say, lad!” Bórdȧ exclaimed after Bécȯg delivered a vigorous chomp and sprayed him
with its residual succulence. “Who says you‟ve got to keep food in your mouth to enjoy it?”
Bórdȧ commented dryly while wiping the spray off his arm. The brawny champion untied the
apple sack and tossed it to the boy, “It looks like you could use some more practice. Make sure
to give the younger boys some. There should be two for each of you,” Bórdȧ said with a wink.
“Go chew your tongues off.”
The younger boys Bórdȧ spoke of were undoubtedly Òrmȯlc‟s and Dūl‟s éin n ch. The
comment caused Dūl to look down at the pudgy child beside him, strapped with Dūl‟s huge
shield and straining to hold a sack of grain. Like Cáenul, Fěrm was in his first year of training as
an éin n ch, so Dūl had to do most of the hauling. Despite a general lack of athleticism, the boy
had proved to be a dutiful and willing hand. His eagerness to perform made him an admirable
and sometimes pitiable little fellow.
“You can set that down,” Dūl told the boy.
Fěrm wagged his coppery shock-top in a nod. For a second he hesitated awkwardly in
lowering the bag to the pavement, before accidentally letting it slip from his hands and crash
into the street. Stretched brimming with grain, some of the tensed strands snapped upon impact
sending some kernels hopping along the cobbled stone. Fěrm flashed Dūl a cringing, guilty look,
but Dūl assured him with a gentle expression.

29 |
Managed by the steward, the house servants operated succinctly together. One who
stood with vellum and ink at each of the eight lines quickly registered the names of a
g el mb ch, took account of what he brought, and registered a value of goods beside the
man‟s entry while other servants whisked his loot through a small, open side-door. These
servants too knew well the process of collection. Most had gone through the motions many
times, and like that loot which they so diligently collected, they or their forebears had been
seized by the Mìdȧich from other cities, for the great city of Mìdȧ succeeded by force of its
warrior-citizens and operated on an unrecognized population of slave laborers.
Dūl watched the servants with a fascination unshared by the rest of his jesting comrades
around him. Then an inexplicable curiosity made him notice that the servants did not seem
unhappy. House service was considered fortunate work for slaves. Often the poorer helots that
farmed the surrounding countryside would petition to have their children sent to work a job in
service to the warriors of Mìdȧ. It was a fact Dūl had understood of their existence long since
boyhood that the servants‟ best interests were in the fulfillment of service to those who were
stronger than them, those who would protect them. When he considered the word „protection‟
he heard a challenging snort, so short and bitter it surprised him that it had come from him. It
struck the newly-claimed champion as odd that he should question the dichotomy of the
relationship between Mìdȧch and servant just at that moment. But he saw one of the younger
slaves running plunder in through the sidedoor, a boy no older than the Mìdȧ-born one who
stood beside him attending to his equipment. Then, he became unavoidably aware of that which
lay tucked in a small bag at his belt.
First casually shifting his eyes to make sure no one was taking notice of him, Dūl slid the
drawstrings of the bag open slightly and peered down into its shadowed mouth. All he could see
were pressed yellowtail petals and bits of the dried roots of some shrub that when crushed up,
Òrmȯlc had informed him, relieved indigestion. Dūl risked loosening the sack end a little more
and poked a finger inside. While he prodded the debris of his pocket around, the thought that he
might have somehow lost it brought a dumb relief. But his nails scraped over a hard edge, and
the touch brought with it a sudden gravity and a smacking realization of his naivety. Still without
seeing it, Dūl rubbed the stone with the tip of his finger until he could discern the rough shape of
carved legs. Tracing his way up the length of the etched figure he found its torso, its two arms
holding spear and shield tight against small body. He stopped at the head. There his finger
pressed down, trying to feel the details of its face – its rigid, lipless chip-mouth; the shallow
insets of its eyes. He felt this toy warrior and saw the face of the boy to whom it belonged. The

30 |
boy he had found lying pierced through the lung outside his ransacked home. He could still see
the boy crumpled beside his father‟s spear, the stone soldier clutched tight to his breast, while
his farm burned behind him.
Was that what he wanted? Dūl wondered. To be a soldier?
Worse than anything, it seemed. So badly that Dull image was what he thumbed as his
last breaths failed him.
Is that how he imagined himself? Why he grabbed the outlawed bow his helot father kept
hidden instead of watching like most as a few fond goats were taken and grain stripped in
measure from the field he had tended? Did he not deserve more leniency for his impetuous age
than a single stroke and fire?
The boy‟s house was nearly ash when Dūl had found him, a sure sign there had been a
struggle. It was protocol for the homes of those who resisted Mìdȧ to be razed to the ground,
and all of their assets seized rather than a portion of them – a callous warning to those
likeminded.
Dūl recalled looking with wonder, gaping at a boy whose innocence he had never known
except that last, stark gesture that had made him for an instant revile his king. Tánȧ‟s greed was
growing as legendary as his success – crushing those that showed him the faintest hesitation in
submitting, encouraging wanton rapine from his youngest warriors to the extent that the poorest
of those who submitted to him were forced into destitution, so it became that the only option
helots had to pay their debts was servility falsely modeled on salvation. Never before had
Mìdȧ‟s king condoned or forgiven such aberrant violence as was allowed in Tánȧ‟s current
reign. Despite urgent shame, honor would not let Dūl confess the ingratitude he felt toward his
sworn lord. A guilt he did not think belonged to him sank into him all the same.
And Dūl remembered how fiercely the boy seemed to grasp the stone soldier, but how
feebly his corpse had given it up. He had taken it without knowing why. Even as he stood
among his kinsmen and comrades, wallowing self-satisfied in the triumph of their amassing
display of meal and metal, Dūl could not admit that he had taken it to remember that boy and
what confusion he had felt standing over his huddled, little carcass. For the moment, he could
not completely understand that he had collected the boy into pocket – a ponderous token of his
shame.
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Exiles Tyrants Exodus

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Prologue: Day of the Bleeding Sun .......................................................................................................................................................

Epilogue: Scent of the Trail .................................................................................................................................................................... 260

Prologue: Day of the Bleeding Sun

“Mother!” a wild, desperate cry burst the still air.

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“Father‟s army is coming,” he growled through clenched teeth.

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

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© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

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© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

© Copyright 2010 J.Y. Bradford www.worldofei.com

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