Perched atop Graymire, I could easily see over the heads of everyone else in the column of riders. Since they’d plopped me at the head of the column, that didn’t provide a lot of an advantage. I suppose it made it easy for the column to see me. Ritterblume was littered with granite spires and outcrops. Hardy plants clung to the ground in between and to any decently level surface on the jutting rocks. A plow might scratch the surface, but in many places the bedrock was not far below. Not all of the stones had been placed there naturally. Here, a towering trilithon marked the entrance to a field of broken cobbles whose purpose was lost to time. There, a string of carved menhirs stood in a line pointed gods knew where.

It wasn’t that the area was devoid of trees. They were just small, and clustered in groves where they’d cracked the bedrock deep enough to take root. The most common was a squat, resinous conifer that produced a distinctive aroma when burned. Most of the peasantry made their living herding some form of animal, usually sheep and goats. Their stone-walled huts were rooved in bark shingles and stood in small clusters. It wouldn’t take a lot to turn one of these clusters into a fortified redoubt in an emergency. Each manor was supposed to provide protection for the tenants, but the sprawling pastures made it hard to get to the main walls in any reasonable amount of time. It didn’t surprise me to see that several of these homesteads had barricaded the gaps between the buildings. Word of raiding goblins had undoubtedly spread.

Each manor we stopped at looked more like upscaled versions of the peasant hut complexes than the Castor Estate. Still, stout walls of stone were an effective deterrent to most marauding bands. The colorful banner of any given pledged household always hung high and snapped in the breeze. Not all of them had members who qualified to join our rambling cohort. Indeed, old enough to be allowed to fight but not yet officially knighted was not a wide span. So even as we looped around the northern domain, our cohort hadn’t passed a score of riders in number. But, we were also spreading official word that Graf Ritterblume had called the muster. In the long run, that was the more useful task set to us. In theory I should have had something in common with those behind me. Their boasts and banter, jibes and retorts, all reminded me of how distant I was from them.

I was jolted from my morose introspection when Graymire stopped. His ears twitched from position to position, trying to pick up on something I hadn’t noticed. Looking back over my shoulder, the other horses looked equally jittery. There was a look of confusion on the faces of the rest of the riders.

“Why did you-?” Lenz started to ask, stopping as I drew my sword. It was still the gaudy, decorative blade the Castors had given me, but it was the only weapon I had. The shock on the others’ faces vanished as a skittering sound filled the air. They soon drew their own weapons. We were on one of the ancient roads – paved spans cutting through otherwise difficult terrain to traverse. In this instance, it was a field of stone spires, each standing twelve to fifteen feet tall. The ground between was littered with boulders and smaller stones.

The gray granite matched fairly closely the hides of the Basilisk Skinks and the paint their riders were smeared with. Basilisk Skinks had bodies as long as a man, and their eight legs let them scramble over irregular ground at close to their top speed. The shortness of their legs and wide gait made them slower than horses. In the field of pillars, where the only real open ground was the road, they had a distinct advantage. The screeching warcry of their riders reverberated through the pillars. It was my first time seeing goblins in the flesh. Smeared with camouflage paint and waving cleaver-topped polearms, I didn’t get that good a look at them. All I saw was the gangly build; long, flopping ears; and sharp, triangular teeth.

I snapped out of my surprise in time to strike out with my sword. The strike was reflexive, clearing his glaive, and striking at his ribcage. With an actual edge on this blade, it bit deep with a crunch and a gout of green ichor. The goblin tumbled off his mount and the Basilisk Skink scrambled under Graymire. It didn’t get far before a massive hoof caved in its shovel-shaped skull. I wrenched the blade free as the goblin behind surged forward. My blade came up almost in slow motion as the glaive lunged towards me. Skittering off the serrated teeth of the Basilisk skink, my sword bit into the back of its jaw and opened an artery in a spray of red. I twisted my body and leaned back as the glaive sparked against my breastplate. My sword stroke continued up, the edge slicing into the meat of the goblin’s forearm. With momentum carrying the goblin and his dying mount forward, and my blade still rising, the cut severed the limb. Green and red mixed on my sword blade as the forearm tumbled away, dropping his glaive into my lap.

Lenz finished off the stricken creature I’d disarmed. For a moment I dared to think we were doing well, then the screams of dying horses drew my attention down the column. With the riders’ first instincts being to protect themselves, the goblins had savaged their mounts, hacking into horses’ throats, flanks, legs and bellies. The cries they were making wrenched my innards almost as surely as if a glaive had found its mark. The carnage tugged at my gorge.

Fighting to keep down my breakfast, I realized no one was taking charge. Lenz was too distant, disconnected, gaze darting about for the next goblin. I scooped up the glaive in my lap and began gesturing with it. “Unhorsed – fall in along the flanks, protect the-” I was cut off by the shadow from a Basilisk skink bounding off one of the columns and leaping for me. I brought the tip of the glaive towards the eight sets of talons hurtling my direction. With a crash, Skink and rider slammed into me, knocking me from Graymire’s saddle.

The shield still slung over my shoulders spread the impact of the boulder we landed on across my entire back. Instead of a broken spine, I merely had all of the wind knocked from me. The raking claws scrabbling to get through my mail and the pumping hot blood coursing over me sent a spike of panic through my brain. It hadn’t registered that the blood belonged to the Basilisk skink. The rider leered over the shoulder of the skink at me and rotated his glaive for a killing stroke. I brought my sword up and stabbed back. My first thrust caught it in the armpit, drawing a squeal of pain and fright. The second caught it under the chin, sending green blood spilling between its tiny, shark-like teeth. The third opened the goblin’s throat, washing the camouflage paint from his chest with a stream of ichor.

Sucking in my first good breath since being unhorsed, I rolled the dead skink and dying rider off of me. Looking at the broken, blood-drenched shards of the glaive in my left hand, I tossed the pieces aside. I sat up and looked around. The goblin riders were scrambling off amongst the spires. I rose to my feet. A general look of confusion gripped everyone else.

“Who’s hurt?” I called out. Glances passed between the others, but no one answered. “Anyone who’s lost a mount, collect anything you absolutely can’t leave behind. The rest of you, stay alert, we don’t want them circling back and catching us off-guard.” Sheathing my sword, I returned to Graymire and climbed into the saddle. It was still an awkward climb with his height. I mentally cursed myself for putting a bloodied blade back into a scabbard. Cleaning out the interior was going to be a royal pain. “If we double up, we can get out of these spires, then make for Steel Fen.”

“Won’t we tire out the horses?” I wasn’t sure who’d asked the question.

“Once we get into the open, the goblins won’t be able to get close to us unseen. We can dismount and walk the horses there.”

***

Steel Fen had the distinction of being the largest cultivated area within Ritterblume. It hadn’t been a marshland for quite some time. Drainage channels fed a canal that forked around the main manor house. Most of the year, the canal served as a dry moat, but with the spring meltoff, it was full of water. Green fields full of young crops waved in the breeze as we trudged the final mile to the bridge. High walls of cyclopean granite blocks rose above the artificial island in the middle of the canal. Green banners with white archers hung from posts above the battlements. At the end of the bridge stood a gate of heavy timbers banded with iron. The gates swung open at the sight of us. We slogged under the barbican and into a courtyard shrouded in gloom from the walls’ shadows.

Footmen in the green and white livery of the House Feyblooded greeted us. Their medics rushed forward to find the wounded among us. All they found were superficial injuries. Most of the blood caking us was not our own. The gate closed behind us with a comforting thud. Stal Feyblooded sneered down at us from a balcony overlooking the courtyard. He had lank, black hair, a narrow, triangular face, and a whipcord build. He wore a long jerkin with a metallic sheen and cradled a small dog in his arms.

“Announce yourselves,” Stal said.

“I am Kord Grosz, this is Lorenz Castor. We are here to inform you that Graf Ritterblume has called up the muster. Also, there is a band of goblin riders less than half a day’s march from your manor. They were brazen enough to attack an armed column.” I didn’t bother mentioning our attempt to collect a cohort of young riders. The Feyblooded got their name because one of their ancestors laid with an elf. It gave them prolonged lifespans, and diminshed their number of progeny.

“So this is the official word from Karststadt then?” Stal’s tone dripped with condescension. I tightened my jaw to avoid blurting out the retort that came to mind. After realizing I wasn’t saying anything, Lenz spoke up.

“Kirchner has been silent,” Lenz said. “We were caught off-guard.”

“I suppose I am obligated to give you lot a place to wash up and bed down for the night.” He withdrew from the balcony, and the doors closed behind him. The footmen guided us towards a stable at the end of the courtyard. Those of us who still had horses went in and began basic care for our mounts.

The space provided for the humans proved to be a bleak storeroom into which a couple of tubs of water were hauled so we could attempt to clean the blood from ourselves and our equipment.

“This is rather poor hospitality,” Lenz muttered. “The man is a pledged vassal of the Graf Ritterblume, and he treats us like unwelcome beggers. We should take Steel Fen from him and give it to someone more appreciative.”

“That is easier said than done,” I said.

“And why did you not challenge him when he mocked you?”

“Because nothing productive would have come from it. Were I anyone else, I might even have found the ‘word from Karststadt’ jibe funny.”

“You could have at least provided a full introduction.”

“Yes, because referring to you as Erbgraf Lorenz Castor zu Ritterblume would have make him think twice about housing us in a storeroom,” I said. “And he most certainly would have mocked me more had I given in to pomposity.”

“It’s not pompous when it’s your actual station.”

“Actual station? Had I spouted off a full courtly introduction, I would have been deserving of even more derisive mockery than I got.”

“What’s he talking about?”

We turned to look at the new speaker. He was one of those who’d been unhorsed in the ambush. He was close to the younger end of the age band, with bright coppery hair and wide, almost innocent eyes. His armor consisted of a jack of plates and a kettle hat, not exactly the most expensive raiment in the cohort. I couldn’t put a name to his face.

“I thought everyone knew,” Lenz said.

“Do not-” He ignored me.

“This is Prinz Kord Grosz von Karststadt-Salzheim.”

I muttered a profanity at Lenz and turned to face away from the others. That wasn’t even the correct title. It was either Furst or Erbprinz, depending upon whether or not I succeeded to my father’s title immediately upon his death, or if I needed to be properly coronated.[9] Though really, it didn’t matter.

***

We slogged out of Steel Fen by the dull gray light of dawn. Our circuit of the manors had been fairly complete, so there was only the leg from Steel Fen to the Castor Estate to cover. It was a hard march, but rotating who rode and who marched kept us moving. There was none of the cheery banter of the march before the ambush, as everyone had their gazes nervously towards the surrounding landscape. I was on foot, making sure Graymire didn’t try to throw the red-haired kid, when the familiar walls of the estate came into view. The march had taken so much of the day that the sun was disappearing from the sky. Still, we’d crossed a good sixty miles or more of the ancient road.[10] I was so exhausted that it didn’t fully register that we’d made it until the gates opened and the Castellan came out with a retinue of footmen.

“What happened?”

I blinked in momentary confusion. “We got ambushed, two days ago,” I said.

“Wasn’t it yesterday?” the red-haired youth asked.

“Feels like last year,” Lenz said.

“We lost some horses,” I said.

“And Feyblooded?” The Castellan asked.

“Did the bare minimum required of him when we stopped.”

The Castellan motioned for us to head inside the gate.

“Dismount!” I called. “Walk your horses.” With grudging complaints, the others complied. The horses were getting as tired as we were. We led the mounts into a corral by the pastures. The horses made a beeline for the water trough.

“The Graf is going to want more detail than you gave me,” the Castellan said. I gave him a weary glance. The Castellan was a gray-haired man with an impressively wide moustache and a pointed beard hanging from his chin. With a cuirass over his usual attire, he looked somewhat absurd. I had, however, crossed blades with the man in the practice hall. He was not unskilled with a sword.

“I know,” I said. “We just made Steel Fen to here in a day. They could use somewhere to rest.”

“Of course.”

“Do you know where the Graf is?”

“Try his office.”

I nodded. “Lenz, it’s time to talk to your father.”

Lenz grumbled as he fell in beside me. I ignored it, and we headed inside. Jost’s office was down the hall from the private apartments. It had windows that looked out to the south to catch the most sunlight throughout the day. It had a small fireplace in the side wall and was liberally decorated with candelabras in case he needed to work past sundown. The desk was a wooden dreadnought, clearly made somewhere far from Ritterblume and hauled here. I don’t know when, but it predated my arrival, having been there as long as I could remember.

Jost looked up at us when we entered. I pulled the sallet from my head, and it fell from my fingers to thump on the carpet. I sheepishly picked it back up again. Jost read our expressions with an ease born of long familiarity.

“What happened?”

“We got ambushed west of Steel Fen. We lost half the horses, but none of the riders,” I said.

“By who?”

“Goblin Skink riders. They were well camouflaged amongst the field of spires, and were able to attack from close in, then withdrew.”

Jost muttered a curse. “I didn’t think they’d come that far.”

“Sir,” Lenz said. “I have an admission to make.” Lenz stood as tall as he could under the conditions. “When the goblins attacked, I just froze up. The only one I even swung at, Kord had already maimed.”

Jost raised an eyebrow and turned a quizzical gaze towards me.

“The goblins attacked from my side of the column. I was focused on defending myself, so I didn’t see what he did or didn’t do,” I said. “The fighting took less than two minutes before they withdrew.”

“If their outriders have ventured that far, there will be another opportunity to prove yourself soon enough.”

Lenz nodded, eyes downcast.

“The original plan, however, will have to be revised.”

[9] Both Furst and Prinz are princely titles, and someone less well-versed in the aristocratic titles of the Volkmund might get confused, especially when the prefix erb- gets mixed in. In short, a Prinz is the son of a Furst or Herzog or can be a mediatized nobleman. The prefix erb- indicates the heir apparent. Kord was Erbprinz until he was crowned with the Iron Diadem, and became Furst, but could be accurately called Prince Kord both before and after his coronation.

[10] No they didn’t. It’s forty-seven miles along the ancient road from Steel Fen to Ritterblume Manor. A stiff march, but not ‘sixty or more miles’. I also doubt they managed it in a single day.

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