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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: Time has passed, but the war is not over. Now its battles must be fought by the next generation--but the shadow of Cyrhision hangs above them all. Thoren, the new King, must challenge a new foe armed with old evil. Benworth and Vennar try to fill their fathers' shoes, afraid to be found wanting, yet desperate to prove themselves. But it is Bell the gentle, the musician, who must finally accept her heritage, and the pain that goes with it. Rillodan watches over them all; now he too must make a choice, between his own people and the woman who loves him.

eBook Publisher: Writers Exchange E-Publishing, Published: 2008
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2008

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [793 KB], eReader (PDB) [279 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [274 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [241 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [237 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [279 KB], hiebook (KML) [589 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [325 KB], iSilo (PDB) [225 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [283 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [326 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [370 KB]
Words: 82392
Reading time: 235-329 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 9781921314636

Morning dawned fresh with full sun, and after breakfast, as the Sentinels were preparing for the day's march, Bell asked Giloran if she might go a short distance downstream, to make her toilet. Giloran agreed, since all seemed safe, as long as Riard and Ben went with her to stand look-out. So they set off, Bell carrying a bundle of linen wrapped in her cloak, Ben and Riard their bows. Along the stream it was pleasant, and they went some distance; for to say truth none of them had any inkling of danger, their escort having found no sign of foes in all their journey. The stream ran more or less parallel to the road, though not in sight of it, and soon they also lost sight of their camp behind the undulations of the ground. After a while Bell found a good place where the bank ran flat to the water, sheltered by several buckthorns, their glossy leaves threaded with the pale tracery of their tiny flowers. Here they halted, Ben seating himself on a boulder facing upstream, Riard moving a few paces down.

Bell had pulled off her thick habit, laying it with her bundle on the bank. She bent forward, about to dip her hands in the water, when she caught a movement on the further bank. As she looked, the creature exposed itself further: a misshapen boggan, gross and hairy. Ben and Riard both came running at her scream, to find her clutching her cloak about her, gazing wild-eyed across the stream. In seizing it she had upset her bundle, which with her habit had toppled into the water.

"What is it?" Riard demanded. "What's the matter?"

"Over there," Bell said, her voice still unsteady with shock. "A creature with--with fangs and pointed ears. It was watching me, grinning."

Even as she spoke, a strange noise sounded beside them. In dismay they saw it was a crow-feathered crossbow bolt, vibrating in the ground two inches from Riard's foot.

"Gangrels!" he exclaimed. "Leave trying to get that linen, Ben; it's certainly not worth getting shot for." Hastily he shepherded them away, but as they rounded the bushes another shaft snicked into the ground in front of them.

"That came from this side," Riard muttered grimly, drawing back. "Let's see what we have to deal with. Slip through yonder, Ben, and spy what you can."

A minute later Ben returned. "Three are just crossing the stream down there," he reported, tense-faced. "Shall we run for it?"

"That's what they want," Riard told him. "Then they'd shoot us. No, only Bell must run. No matter you left your mail in camp, Bell; faster without it. Kilt up your shift, lass, and go like the wind. Oh, they won't harm her," he reassured Ben. "Their kind think a woman's wasted if she can't struggle." He nodded bleakly as revolted comprehension dawned on the younger Shean's face. "She'll draw them out, lad, and we'll pick them off. Ready?"

Bell acquiesced, tying the strings of her cloak firmly, and hitching up the light smock she wore beneath. Riard motioned Ben to take up his position behind a boulder, and moved himself with Bell to the end of the bushes.

"Good luck, lass," he said. "Just a moment; take this with you." He reached within his coat, and drew out the black box he had taken from the safe at Shippen Hatch. Bell took it, too preoccupied for curiosity, and at his signal sprang out and raced up the slope toward the camp.

At once two bogles and a boggan leapt in pursuit. She had a good start, since they gave a wide berth to the place where they guessed Ben and Riard to be. As soon as the Shean started shooting, several bolts came at them from the bushes. Riard called to Ben to keep the gangrel bowmen pinned down, and concentrated his fire on Bell's pursuers. One had fallen, but the other two still came on, leaping and dodging, increasing the range, and all his shafts missed.

Bell glanced over her shoulder, to see the two ungainly forms loping toward her, tongues lolling from panting, leering lips. Terror clutched her, lending wings to her heels. But her very speed was careless, so that just as she breasted the rise she tripped on a stone and fell headlong. A moment she lay, all breath knocked out of her, then struggled, gasping, to rise. By the time she regained her feet the boggan was barely twenty feet away, his talons already reaching out to seize her.

Bell stood transfixed, for the moment unable to move. Her left hand went instinctively to her side, where Aurelinn hung at her girdle; her right still grasped the black box Riard had given her. Suddenly the boggan before her threw up his hands to shield his eyes, and fell on his face, while the bogle behind him stopped dead in his tracks; as if they saw, not a frightened girl, but some immortal, white-clad figure, gleaming with the power of ancient weapons it clasped in either hand.