New WORLD OF EAGLEFRIEND Book

Valdroth the Quiet

A World of Eaglefriend Novel

Deadlier on the ground than in the sky. The Eaglemasters had spent centuries earning that reputation. But what about underground, where there was no sunlight to guide their movements, where the ferotaurs surged through tunnels too narrow for spears to swing?

One hundred years before the events of The Tale of Eaglefriend, there was a prince of Eaglemasters known for being a bit … loud. Such recklessness can get even a royal heir devoured when the realm of eagle-riding knights swarms with beasts a full head taller than men, their long, bloodstained horns and fangs obscuring faces that were once human.

The Eaglemasters recount little about this prince who would become King, father of Veleseus the Bold, except that, “…his face of stone sufficed alone to evoke fear in the enemy and obedience from his subjects, and so to hear his voice at all was both wondrous and terrifying.” Nottleforf the ancient wizard describes him as, “A man of few words, though still our conversations could be rich.”

Whether you’ve read The Tale of Eaglefriend or are new to this epic fantasy world, you’ll find this book stands on its own as you become attached to a legendary, beloved, and feared character. Follow Valdroth through the highest peaks in his quest to claim one of the giant mountain eagles, and crawl with him when he fights beside the Eaglemasters in an epic battle to empty the ferotaur hive beneath their kingdom.

Join the readers captivated by so many adventures in The World of Eaglefriend.

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Chapter One – Bloodred

“What force in this land can silence us, my countrymen?” Prince Valdroth shouted to hundreds of his fellow trainees as the day’s sparring ended. “We Eaglemasters who have bled together in the footsteps of our first king, Veldeam the Wise! Footsteps that abruptly vanish into the sky, which we and our flock have ruled for nine centuries! There is nothing that can drown us out. Nothing that can prevent our voices from reaching any ear. The skulls of our foes decorate our city walls, with mouths agape that wail unheard. Their long horns adorn our spears. Their blood is too thin to stain our capes that unfurl the deepest bloodred. Who could cut short your fiercest cheers, and who would dare to stifle mine?”

Val’s talkative nature had earned him frequent reprimands throughout these years of Eaglemaster training, but as he recollected today’s celebratory outburst, he found this punishment excessive. It wasn’t so much his airborne brothers hoisting him away like a hero only to strand him atop this natural pillar. Neither was it the ferotaur horde that slowly climbed rocky spikes and footholds to devour him. The real insult was that, here, he could speak his mind more freely than anywhere else. His superiors had understood this with broad smiles when they dropped him and soared out of earshot, leaving a pair of severed goats’ heads to be his audience.

Vekren and Ovris, he named the remains of both animals that stared blankly with tongues hanging limp. He was glad to honor the elder princes who’d provided them in lieu of any weapons for him—the youngest heir to their father’s throne. He could almost see their slackened jaws waggle up and down, mocking his predicament. “We Eaglemasters! Our spears! Our capes!” Vekren, the eldest, guffawed. “You’ve always said your skills and determination warrant a higher station, Little Brother. Can’t get much higher than this when an eagle won’t have you.”

“I’ve overheard Nottleforf the wizard mention to our father some fanciful notion about leaping out from a high rock,” Ovris continued. “I’d advise against that here. A true Eaglemaster waits for no hand to catch him, and those below seem eager for you to prove you’re not one of us.”

“If I were one of you,” Val replied, “I’d retaliate at our first meeting after my task here is done. I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself. Instead, I think I’ll have you look at my smile and wonder what’s really underneath. Year after year, I’ll smile, and you’ll come to forget what makes you so uneasy about it … until finally I make you remember.”

His two brothers’ bright grins reflected the downy white heads of the great eagles they rode, flashed the confidence knights of the realm gained after donning the traditional red cape that he had not yet earned. Blades of blond hair poked at the feathery mail around his neck, while steel and rusty iron had already broken through theirs and left scars as proof. The weathered princes absorbed his grim promise with the icy wind that washed them and their carriers, until it cut open a smooth transition to laughter. “Has anyone told you that your attitude sours far too many sweet, jubilant affairs?” asked Vekren. “Perhaps, if you remain sour enough, our hungry friends will be drawn instead to something more appetizing.”

Val revisited the image of them flying off without him, hearing their amused farewells echo, “Valdroth the Verbose! Valdroth the Voluble!”

Blood trickled out from both detached goat heads, nearing the stony perimeter that barely contained his feet. The ascending rabble shook his lonely tower of rock, so narrow from base to summit that he wondered whether it might topple over like a tree. If so, many ears would hear the sound of his fall, but he would allow no satisfying note of any scream.

Years of attaining lethal precision with sword and spear, aspiring to rise on wings like his red-caped brothers at the age of sixteen. Was it to truly culminate in this isolated appraisal of a realm that might taste his scattered entrails in minutes? A realm that could be perfectly outlined by the meandering Silver River, if they could only sequester their savage foes to the far side of those waters. Deadlier on the ground than in the sky. The Eaglemasters had spent centuries earning that reputation. But what about underground, where there was no sunlight to guide their movements, where the ferotaurs surged through tunnels too narrow for spears to swing?

Here, abundant sunlight made him shine in silver armor like a trophy for his assailants, many of which had already surpassed three quarters of the height that elevated him above certain death. To their clouded eyes that focused only on the most alluring reward, he was a radiant jewel affixed to a royal scepter. Hundreds of elongated limbs and sharply horned heads sped upward to pluck such a prize, and he could neither leap nor stand his ground.

He became the Crystal Spear of his kingly fathers, and knew this luminous display was the closest he would get to poising such a weapon against his enemies. The heirloom itself, passed down from Veldeam the Wise, would never be his to brandish, let alone touch. Vanity could tempt him to bathe in the gleam that brought short-lived recognition, until it consumed him and left no trace. Strength could drive him to cast aside those cravings, feeding neither himself nor his enemies, but the realm.

No eagles were in sight, nor any masters who would whisk him to safety. If jumping did not liquify him, these ravenous brutes surely would when he landed. But, if he patiently labored toward a more delayed outcome, forgoing the need for swift deliverance, he might look down triumphantly at all other paths that led to destruction. If he moved gracefully lower, he could reach heights he’d never before seen. Here, marooned on a berg while predators circled below, he must sink to rise.

He removed his glittering helm first, glad to breathe the cool air deeply until it grew rank with the stench of his foes. No longer looking out through protective slits, he took in the droves of curved horns that could impale him on engorged, humanoid skulls, which snapped their drooling jaws at the sight of him. His broadened periphery revealed the total absence of allies as well. He was no mere trainee in an exercise of steadfast balance with a safety net of instructors; he was cocooned on an anthill, its occupants swarming to slice him a thousand ways before he could fly.

Hurling his helm downward, he took little pleasure in its metallic smash against the leader’s bared teeth or the creature’s plummet to a dusty grave, for this did nothing to deter the others. His discarded breastplate and gauntlets made similarly meager dents in the hostile host, as did his greaves and steel-toed boots, until soon he stood shivering in only woolen undergarments. Half expecting his brothers to dart in from behind the clouds, hollering at his embarrassment, he was not fortunate enough to suffer such a juvenile prank.

Blood from the goats’ heads trickled over the pillar’s western side first, and from there he heard cries of delight that met only jealous moans all around. Sour. His brother’s unasked advice rang in his ears. Remain sour.

He swiveled both dripping throats out over the stony edge, painting all but a sliver of this circle a glistening red. Then, hearing a chorus of appetized growls erupt exactly where he’d spread his bait, he inched toward the minuscule section that remained dry, and knew the route he must take.

A narrow vertical path invited him to begin a perilous descent, so he crouched and surrendered bare heels to the air, gripping the rock with his toes while knees and fingers followed. He flowed slowly like thick, bitter tree sap between columns of insects, desperate to avoid contact that would encase him and his foes in amber—fossilized and forgotten. Just as he’d hoped, they were drawn to something sweeter, and his modest attire helped camouflage him against this stone.

But their senses, made keen by nine hundred years of insatiable hunger, were not dulled to his presence entirely. They grunted and snorted as he tentatively passed, peppering him with dirt and spittle, and he had to muster a warrior’s discipline just to stifle a sneeze. He developed newfound gratitude for the tedious obstacle tracks that had dominated the first year of every aspiring Eaglemaster’s lessons. Crawling through mud under barbed steel, with dogs lunging at his favorite body parts, could now serve a purpose he’d never appreciated. After emerging from those trials mostly unscathed, his skin was thick enough to cling to this towering phallus while he dangled himself like the first course at a morbid feast. He’d spent so much of his early youth whining alongside his comrades for a chance to engage the ferotaurs up close. Now, it seemed, that naïve starvation would be overindulged—a nauseating baptism to either anoint or drown him.

Suddenly, his left foot dislodged a cluster of pebbles that tapped an ominous tune against the armored ferotaur beneath him, and he did not have to wait long for those bloodshot eyes and flared nostrils to find their target. Nevertheless, he refused to be an easy, trembling target, and when the beast swung a sharpened scythe for his ankles, he lifted both feet just clear enough to let the blade crash and stick in the rock. Then, he stood upon the embedded weapon’s handle and sprang off to catch himself on the ferotaur’s opposite side. With numb fingers, he pulled a dagger sheathed at the creature’s hip and drove it through that ribcage twice the size of his own.

The ferotaur’s guttural bellow shook the pillar from ground to sky, and it flailed in a dive that thumped a final drumbeat far below, halting the climb of every enemy. As though awoken from a trance, hundreds of heads turned and froze him in place with vengeful glares, making him wonder if he could simply meld into the rock. But the tribute of blood and viscera presented on the high, round altar was so close within horns’ reach that the ferotaurs succumbed to carnivorous hypnosis again. With most of the horde continuing to push above him, he felt his shallow breath return, until a foolish downward glance forced him to gauge the masses that still separated him from safety.

To make matters worse, it had started to rain, and he knew the erosion of slick grips and footholds could condemn him to a sheer drop. At first, it appeared red clay seeped through this rock to streak like tears, until he realized the fluid was deep red before it even touched any surface.

The first wave of ferotaurs had reached the summit where his brothers left him, and they tore through what remained of those ill-fated goats like a parched man consuming apple and core. Blood from their frenzy sprayed and streamed all around, spilling in globs and sheets. He had to divert attention from the foes at his feet to dodge the pungent substance that would mark him as their prey, and still the copious volleys proved inescapable.

Looking up in time to see a single droplet about to burst between his eyes, he pushed off with his right side and clung with his left to swivel away, until he slammed his back into the pillar he’d been facing. This brought him nose to nose with a ferotaur whose foamy lips would not be repelled by any agile maneuver, so he knocked his skull into its forehead, stunning it just enough to wriggle down beyond its grasp.

The nearest ghoul opened bulging arms for a wide embrace to end his descent, but he kicked away with skinned heels and wrapped callused fingers around its horns, swinging to cling like a cloak on the creature’s back. Its rage against such a burrowing parasite drew the ire of many beside them. When the one at their right slashed a rusty sword for Val’s wrists, he dug both feet into his host and jerked its head back, until the crude blade missed his flesh and removed the two horns he gripped.

His anchor severed, he tumbled backward arms over head and flipped repeatedly in dizzying freefall, but managed to thrust out and pierce a ferotaur’s exposed thigh with one of the horns he clasped. His weight tore a dreadful gash that extracted shrill screams of agony, and as he sank to a halt, suspended from the beast’s shredded ribbons of muscle, its blood saturated his hands, head, and woolen garb.

A pendulum swinging left to right, Val desperately evaded new swipes from both directions, building enough momentum that finally he plucked his spike from the ferotaur and flew smoothly left and down. He caught his new target quite unawares with both horns stabbing through the rolls of its abdomen, and its clumsy companions impaled it through the spine in failed attempts to stop him from moving on.

Like a mountaineer conquering a vertical cliff face that lashed out with tongues, tendrils, teeth, he hammered his deadly instruments of bone through flesh and rock. Soon, the ascending rabble sped upward not in hunger for the bounty above, but in fear of the unseen predator that spiraled among them. He needed not make a sound to impress allies or intimidate enemies—his reputation preceded him in the silence of every soul that felt the gravity of his presence.

Breaking through the very bottom ring of a herd that posed no threat to him anymore, Valdroth withdrew the two horns from one last yelping victim and rolled backward to land firmly on his feet. The hundreds of ferotaurs that had climbed this stony tower to strip his bones clean now clung to it, shivering from his gaze.

There was no taunt he wished to yell, no adulation he desired from audiences he’d once held captive. His baptism in blood did not drown him, but imparted more value to every breath he would draw henceforth, a wealth he would not squander. He disregarded his scattered armor that he’d thrown to cast down a few enemies—the dead could keep it, along with his boyish fear. The man who stood here, naked but not vulnerable, would walk into the mountains that rose above his father’s throne and claim an eagle as his ancestors had done.

As though in response to his readiness, a spear darted diagonally from above to crack the ground, a flagpole flying a fresh red cape that the wind opened for him alone to take. Its thrower revealed himself between a pair of mighty wings, at the head of a flock whose masters recognized him not as a subordinate who spoke out of turn, but an equal.

Vekren, his eldest brother and heir apparent to the throne, descended beside Ovris, followed by the commanders and captains who had witnessed his trial.

“We’ll have new armor forged to fit you better,” said Vekren. “That set was looking a bit small anyway. You’ll need to move as fluidly as possible when you accompany us on our next campaign. The ferotaur hive’s tunnels extend for so many miles in every direction, our grown sons may need to join in before the realm is clean.”

Chapter Two – First Bite

Val was unbothered sitting mounted behind Vekren on their flight north to the capital. He would acquire his own eagle soon enough, and every man present knew it. In fact, he took it as an honor that the crown prince would share his seat rather than make him fly with a less renowned figure, even their middle brother. Perhaps this signified that the line of succession was not so linear after all, determined more by merit than order of birth. Or, perhaps it embraced the prospect that unforeseen gaps could be broken in that line, given the daunting battles ahead.

His new red cape whipped and flowed over his shoulders, a banner for the Eaglemasters to follow through the moonlight. His long spear extended ready at his right side, its razor-edged tip glinting a salutation to any ferotaurs that looked up at their formation. Its blunt wooden base would soon brandish both curved horns he’d claimed, and he stored them in a leather pack for the smiths who would forge his armor.

Normally, such close proximity to his more accomplished, celebrated brother brought a cold tension, from which he insulated himself with rehearsed remarks that justified his presence. Tonight, despite the chill gusts and his exposure to the elements, in their shared silence he remained quite warm.

It was their brother, Ovris, unaccustomed to being marginalized, who eventually interrupted this welcome quiet. “Imagine our realm completely purged of the enemy. The Wildlands beyond the Silver River the only region where a ferotaur can breathe freely, and even there they’d tremble at any movement in the sky. And what will we do with all those halls they’ve chiseled beneath our feet, once every stench is burned away? Host banquets, I suppose.”

“Let the soldiers of Korindelf sleep there,” Vekren replied with a grin, “on the rare occasion they aid us with forces large enough to need special accommodations, to reciprocate for the Eaglemasters who have protected their lands.”

“They repay us with swords when they can,” said Ovris. “I wonder how they repay those others who’ve defended them all these ages, who need nothing behind those mists.”

Val recalled legends of warriors composed of little more than shadows and tricks of light, with the strength and speed of twenty men. Strangers with faces hidden under hooded cloaks, coming and going as they pleased through the Forbidden Isle’s bright mists, which turned to stone for any mortal who attempted to pass.

“How long can we be split along two fronts?” he asked, speaking for the first time since his isolation atop the high pillar. “One finger flicking the ferotaurs away from our home, another poking the shriekers back from Korindelf, until we find ourselves gnawed down to the knuckles. We should be one fist in one realm, with no openings to exploit.”

“A lucky thing you were born last of us,” replied Ovris, second at the head of their formation as he was second in line for the throne. His rebuke rang out more loudly than was necessary to be heard over the wind. “Apparently we just hand out red capes to anyone who can outsmart a few droolers. A king understands that oaths matter, alliances matter. You can let them become dead weight, or breathe just enough life into them to collect debts and dividends that outlast your grandchildren.”

“Had you been born first,” Vekren shot back, “Father would have told you oaths and alliances are more than transactional, and thus, deficits can be tolerated. Come to your allies as a tax collector, and they will treat you as such with the bare minimum. Make your allies remember the friendship and bravery that forged your bond centuries ago, and they’ll remember why it is worth strengthening for centuries more.”

The broader scope Val had attained in his rare flights enabled him to perceive the slights against him as he did scattered boulders on the plains—few and far between, not worth his sweat. When those barbs came at him from family who shared this elevated vantage, though, the prospect of them crawling together through the lowest foulness drew sweat even in a frigid breeze. He eyed their brother in his periphery for one more breath, and then focused forward at the constellation of silver glints flying toward them from the capital.

“Eaglemasters dispatched for battle,” said Ovris. “I heard no horns of distress from the cities, though our attention was on the young prince so long, an army could have passed under our noses at sunset.”

“No herd escaped us,” answered Vekren from out in front. “None that the cities can’t deal with on their own.”

“Korindelf, then,” Ovris replied. “Happy to promise future compensation for our services. You’ll have to wait for that new armor, Val. I’d wager my own we’re about to turn around for your first real battle. Unless you’d prefer we drop you off someplace safe.”

Val smiled at this offer, just as he’d promised he would. “But where would I be safer than at your side, Middle Brother?”

The airborne legion approaching them numbered roughly five hundred, and Commander Harnal hailed the crown prince with no acknowledgement of anyone else. “The shriekers have surged north from the Dead Plains. Korindelf’s men hold their ground, but your father ordered us to reinforce. Do you wish to accompany?”

“Why not?” Ovris interjected. “Fresh air will soon be so scarce for us, we’ll begin to miss the way Korindelf and the shriekers mingle their odors.”

Val was momentarily glad that his own speaking out of turn might soon be forgotten, but he found no relief in his eldest brother’s glare that held daggers for Ovris. “We will accompany,” Vekren answered, his firm brevity scrubbing most of the long smear that Ovris had left.

With that, Val held tightly—trying to conceal the effort—when his brother whipped them around to assume a position that led the entire force. Each commander readily fell in line behind him, and Val knew it could only be years of bold action, not boastful words, that compelled such respect.

They passed over the realm’s eastern forest, under which lay the dreaded ferotaur hive of countless intersecting passages. A potentially peaceful wood where their people could hunt and congregate festively was instead a haunted shadow along the border. Few who were hungry enough, brave enough to venture there ever returned. Those who did spoke of holes opening in the ground with long horns rising from the depths, the sound of hooves stamping after them until they dropped whatever kill they had secured for their family’s table. Even if the Eaglemasters managed to cleanse such a place, its wicked residue would cling to the old and young.

Adjacent to this, the Speaking River roared down from the north, dividing their lands from some that were centers of commerce and others insufficiently explored. Old legends were all they possessed to map out certain territories, carried back in the exhausted lungs of one or two messengers who had set out in parties of fifty.

Speckles of flame eventually marked the battle frontier toward which they sped, where Korindelf’s army blockade launched an arsenal of combustibles at waves of foes that charged them. Unlike the ferotaurs, whose frenetic divergence along the nearest bait trails disregarded effective combat lines, these ghouls were surprisingly disciplined and orderly.

The red-caped knights did not have to hurl a single projectile to reveal themselves; far from striking range, they received a ringing welcome that made Val’s most unmentionable hairs stand on end. High-pitched screams slowed the mighty wings of their flock, though this greeting was nothing new to most that were present. Fresh bursts of flame silhouetted thousands of tall, skeletal forms that reared oversized bald heads and bared long fangs at the sky. To fly above made a hardened warrior silently beg that if he fell from his mount, the impact would kill him.

No leader walked among the shriekers, nor were they ranked by height or breadth. Their synchronized motions and unified advance suggested an unseen kennel master gripped each one on a leash, manipulating them like marionettes on strings. Still, if one dug its claws into flesh and bone, it was likely to indulge its basest desires without restraint. All greater in stature than men, but so emaciated they appeared hardly alive, they were nearly identical, hairless and slick down to grotesquely stretched feet.

“I’ve heard we’re deadlier on the ground,” Vekren bellowed, in his best effort to sound like a future king over such wretched howls. Then, the more familiar voice of Val’s brother came through when Vekren drew his bow, “but let’s keep this in the sky as long as we can.” He loosed the first arrow, and when it impaled a shrieker’s chest, the hundreds flying behind him followed with a volley that flattened the front wave near Korindelf’s blockade.

“One arrow, one kill!” Ovris ordered. “Not all of their organs are bigger than mine, but you can be certain their lungs are.” He punctuated his remark with a single shot that felled his prey, leaving no room for doubt.

Hundreds of quivers were soon emptied, however, in exchange for only a few dozen dead. The shriekers pressed on with arrows protruding from their limbs, faces, and throats like bears with beestings. Any archer who still had ammunition hesitated to expend it, afraid that a nonlethal shot would only fill a beast’s nostrils with his scent. That was a sure way for the hunter to lower himself into close combat as a vengefully pursued meal.

Eaglemasters with torches and clay pots of oil flowed through their ranks next, igniting the cloth wicks of explosives that they quickly flung in destructive volleys. There was no need for surgical precision; each volatile vessel erupted to spray twenty enemies at a time with molten sludge.

The engulfed creatures stamped footprints of charred, peeling skin as they sprinted more fiercely toward Korindelf’s infantry. Streaks of orange and blue trailed after them, threatening whatever flammable stores the blockade reserved for future attacks. Just as the Eaglemasters prepared to descend for a ground fight, the conflagration below illuminated the Forbidden Isle’s nearby mists as though they were a towering fortification of pearl. Onto this bright, far-reaching wall, the fires projected shadows they expected to see—gaunt maneaters that sprinted heedless of any peril … until the true peril presented itself. Two tall figures, hooded and cloaked, were painted on this same canvas with brush strokes that could not keep up with their movements. Fragmented impressions illustrated the story of their swords blurring across this broad tapestry, contrasted against a starkly outlined horde that drowned and dissolved beneath such tumultuous currents.

Seeing the fate to which these two unknown judges had condemned them, the earth-shaking stampede slowed and ultimately reversed course, retreating into the Dead Plains. And, as quickly, seamlessly as they’d arrived, the shadows of both hooded visitors faded the farther they strode from the battle’s fires, until they disappeared through the vaporous barrier from which they’d emerged.

The Eaglemasters and their flock circled in awe of this spectacle. Seasoned veterans found that their memories of similar confrontations, spread out over decades, paled in comparison, and fresher troops realized their most outrageous embellishments could not do it justice. They had been treated to a wonder that needed no added color, each moment full of rich flavor that could not be translated—like the treasures rumored to be held within the Isle itself.

Val focused on the radiant, misty slate wiped clean of every shape the fires had cast. Reflecting on the pieces of images he’d been fortunate enough to see, he found the fullest beauty in their incompleteness, in the way they implied a vastness to be discovered between what was expressed. Perhaps a man with true wisdom could state just as little, and astound many with a vision of possibilities beyond the rigidly charted.

Vekren was the first to land with his carrier that bore them both, and Ovris rushed to do the same, almost urgent for his feet to touch this dangerous ground before his brothers’ did. The crown prince paid his hasty display little attention, and Korindelf’s soldiers gave even less. Their gratitude was for the future king of Eaglemasters, and none had any confusion about who that would be.

“Your father never leaves the men of Korindelf uneasy about whether our alliance remains strong,” the blockade’s leader said with relief and an extended arm to Vekren, who took it.

“Nor will I,” Vekren replied, with a sideways glance at Ovris. “We were actually searching for a banquet hall that could accommodate us after an especially trying day—perhaps you could point us in the right direction.”

The blockade’s front ranks responded merrily, some thrusting swords down into fallen shriekers that convulsed in their vicinity. Clapping his callused hands, the leader seemed glad that no toll was demanded beyond traditional revelry. “Korindelf’s hospitality is always open to the Eaglemasters, even without a single arrow fired or spear thrown. Tonight, our inns are yours, and tomorrow we’ll feast. And years from now, when a few more of our young citizens travel to your halls claiming to be royal heirs, we ask only that you give them a fair hearing.”

“I always do,” replied Ovris, remounting his eagle. “Proper beds are scarce in the city. I’ll need to be well rested before I present myself tomorrow at the king’s table.”

The middle prince stirred up the dust and ash of five departures, leaving those below him to sputter and swat at the pollution in his wake. Val was used to the bitter taste Ovris frequently left; a few added spoonfuls of rot blended perfectly into the dishes he served.

Forced to embrace decay for the moment, he pivoted south to gaze deep into the Dead Plains, where it was said a dark castle rose impregnable. It housed the bloodline that had once led the shriekers to conquer Korindelf, enemies banished by Veldeam the Wise and his very first Eaglemasters. That fortress was thought to be the beating heart of the shriekers’ power, but, looming over all this in the distance, the Dark Mountains silently grinned, inviting every onlooker closer to hear the cackling of the One imprisoned within. He Who Lurks In The Shadows had His far-reaching tentacles on every shrieker, every ferotaur, plus ample strings ready to coil around new puppets—only if they came willingly, and found His whisper in their ear too sweet to resist.

“See something you like?” Commander Harnal’s question suddenly jolted him back, and the man’s eyes were playful when he continued, “Or hear something, perhaps?” Val had little experience with this soldier who had intercepted them on their flight home, asking if they would join the battle. With a disarming tone, Harnal looked into him almost as though reading his very thoughts.

To answer at all would legitimize a question that was out of bounds, intrusive, making him more this commander’s subordinate than he truly was. Val merely nodded goodbye as he mounted behind Vekren again. The commander’s scrutiny lingered on him while he returned it with raised brows, and Vekren prepared to ascend.

“Rivals, adversaries, mingled so closely among friends and brothers,” Vekren muttered quietly so only Val could hear. “After a while, bared fangs and bright smiles appear far too similar. Looking repeatedly over one’s shoulders without a noticeable turn of head makes a man hungry. You wouldn’t have any surprises for me, would you?” He rotated to look Val in the eye with a friendly smirk, unabashed to reveal his vulnerability to his youngest brother. Perhaps Vekren didn’t consider him so young anymore.

Val asked, “Would it surprise you that I was ready to charge into the fray tonight, but in that moment I knew as little as I did on my first day of training?”

“Droves of shriekers have that effect when we initially confront them,” Vekren replied. “I’m just glad you remembered your latrine training.”

“That won’t count for much in the ferotaur hive.”

“Who needs a latrine when you can crawl with your friends through a sewer?” said Vekren. “And that is where you discover who your true friends have always been—those who stay beside you at your lowest. Beware those who don’t grimace through that torment, who instead grin as though they’ll cherish the memory forever.”

*

Korindelf’s great hall lacked the splendor of the Eaglemasters’ ornate silver and marble, but it sufficiently hosted the red-caped knights and high-ranking defenders of its homeland at first light. Val sat between his two brothers at the high table of King Folmok, whose long black beard garnished his plate in a way that called into question just how much else could slip under his nose. Commander Harnal sat at the king’s right, facing Ovris across the table, and Val tried to avoid interaction with both.

A frazzled serving girl, who appeared to have rushed to her post in the kitchens without time to bathe first, brought the Eaglemaster princes dishes of quail and carrots in thick brown gravy. When she returned with cups of wine for each of them, she failed to conceal her reddening cheeks and broad smile from Ovris, as though the heaviest layers of clothing couldn’t hide her body from his penetrating sight.

“Remember what I said about collecting debts and dividends,” Ovris said with a lean toward Val’s ear, not bothering to lower his voice. “Allies can show appreciation in so many ways.”

The girl snickered on her way to rejoin the scullions behind this banquet. Val didn’t ask Ovris her name, just as he wouldn’t ask him what meal he’d enjoyed two nights prior.

He stopped his fork an inch shy of the blackened carrot he was about to extract with gravy, finding Vekren’s utensil had already beaten him to his own plate. “Not this again,” Val protested with a sigh. “I’d hoped my earning the cape might break your arrogant overreach.”

“First bite goes to the eldest,” Vekren replied. “That’s been the special custom between just you and me, strengthening our affectionate bond ever since Ovris grew too quick to let me have my tribute. Not to mention, his numerous affectionate bonds make me hesitate to touch anything he might drool on.”

“You think slowness permitted your trespasses all these years?” Val asked. “It was pity. But now I have less room for that in my heart after the recent battles I’ve faced.”

Ovris interjected to Vekren, “Don’t let all your talk about the sanctity of tradition be for naught. He was still a boy just yesterday—take what you will.”

“Let the lad eat with dignity,” Commander Harnal cut in. “You embarrass your entire house with this conduct at the king’s table. If your father should hear about it …”

“You know my father chiseled this table out of granite, to match the throne,” said King Folmok, running his forefinger along the grain of what was clearly an oak tabletop, stained with several spills of wine over the years.

Vekren suddenly dropped his fork before it could steal any food, disturbed by something large that rubbed against his leg. When the hungry dog nudged Val with a whimper next, the solution to this prolonged annoyance became clear. Val snatched his dish away, not a single bite taken, and set it on the ground where the animal proceeded to eat its fill. “I’d sooner have a mongrel clean my plate than indulge your childish entitlement,” he declared, rising to leave. “Yesterday, I claimed what’s mine, and let no man forget it from this day forth.”

He turned and swiftly exited the hall, his brothers falling quiet. The only voice he heard was the king’s drunken squawk that trailed after him. “I once claimed the Forbidden Isle as a territory of Korindelf. I walked right up to it, slapped my open palm against its mists that felt like polished stone, and proclaimed it mine. To this day, I still feel the hand that reached back out and slapped my face in return … made me think twice about claiming other treasures around here!”

*

Hours later, at midday, the three princes and fellow knights returned to their own realm. They practiced with spear and bow, sprinted, climbed, and sparred. Engaging in activities that could bring any man illness or injury without foul play suspected, they were all quite fortunate.

In Korindelf, however, from which they’d departed, one was not so lucky. The flea-ridden dog that had cleaned such generous helpings from Prince Valdroth’s plate meandered dizzily under the afternoon sun. Eventually, its blurred, failing vision brought it to a vacant alley, where at least it could enjoy some small comfort in the shade.

The dog curled up, twitching with a scorched stomach and throat that no amount of purging could relieve. Thick, bubbly foam in its mouth and nose permitted only shallow, labored panting, until finally every airway sealed shut.

One last bubble expanded and deflated at its foamy snout, and then its convulsing body fell lifeless.

Chapter Three – Untamable Trail

The next morning, Val strode alone through the heart of the Eaglemasters’ capital, new silver armor almost setting his red cape aflame when it caught the sun. His spear’s base resembled a ferotaur head, brandishing the two sharp, curved horns he’d taken in his descent along the overrun pillar, and its tip glinted the same threat as the elegantly crafted beak of his helm.

Their great city, nestled against the Eagle Mountains, was contained within a triangular formation of towering stone walls that met in a vertex facing south. No ferotaur incursion had ever breached this perimeter, and not one of those brutes would so much as scratch it again if the red-caped knights succeeded in the imminent campaign. The three lower cities were meager garrisons splayed out like talons beneath this shining citadel, and perhaps one more would have to be built at the realm’s southern corner to securely seal it. That assumed the Eaglemasters could smoke out every foe that burrowed beneath wood and rock, and herd them to the Silver River where the rest of their kind surged every day.

To serve adequately, he must be able to move much more quickly than on foot. His time had finally come, he thought with pride, to travel the snowcapped peaks that dared him to advance as he looked up at them now. Some of his countrymen had only needed weeks to gain the loyalty of a wild mountain eagle … others, months. Gaining loyalty often entailed a dialogue of some sort, and an eagle’s words, like its wings, were won.

Another conversation he found daunting was the one that awaited him in the great hall, where his father sat the throne. The king had taken ill over the past year, and Val had only heard secondhand accounts of that deterioration while training at the lower cities. Some of his peers, notorious for exaggeration, relayed gruesome descriptions he couldn’t help but overhear. Others were conservative but disturbing all the same. His two brothers, never at a loss for words, maintained a silence on the matter that shook him worst of all.

He envisioned his father, a warrior who had slain ferotaurs with his bare hands, his face chiseled like the marble seat of their ancestors, now barely able to prop himself up in it. The prospect of approaching him red-caped and newly knighted, earning a smile of recognition, drove him forward a few more strides until his enthusiasm waned. He stopped cold, a hundred paces from the castle’s guarded archway. What if he entered, his arrival grandly heralded, and still no recognition came? What if those eyes he sought, at one time keen and bright like they belonged to Veldeam the Wise himself, swam cloudy and delirious, unable to distinguish him from a cupbearer?

Better that he commence their reunion with the greatest tidings and victories he could present, so that if one triumph went overlooked, another might still be appreciated. A feeble sendoff to his quest in the mountains would be worse than none at all, an unlucky start to the most aspirational endeavor that had left many of his predecessors crushed and thrashed.

Abandoning his course for the castle, he went instead to the well in its bright courtyard and filled his three waterskins, which he strapped tightly beside the bow and quiver on his back. Then, he veered toward the stone steps carved into the city’s western wall, and climbed. Proceeding upward for a half hour, he walked through wide rows of manors awash in sunlight, and looked down on the crowded villages and markets that could go up in smoke from a single spark on a thatched roof. All afternoon, vendors from below would cart their wares up and down the network of sloping roads that connected these lanes, braving even the highest districts that housed ten inhospitable residents for every potential customer. That daily trudge was the life and legacy of men who lacked the constitution for Eaglemaster training, and who preferred to avoid their sweltering silver mines.

When he summited their formidable capital, he still had to crane his head back to behold the lowest peak behind it. The flocks that circled closest to this kingdom could tear through five hundred ferotaurs, and these were but a pond of fish that splashed at the edge of rolling tides. More aerial waves crested to grant him the subtlest glimpse of a world beyond his own, the broad gaps in a tapestry whose lines had narrowed his focus for too long.

He marched into that chasm now, the clanking of his weapons and armored legs evoking echoes that sounded like laughs, as though this ageless habitat mocked the frivolous devices of men. The boy who had assumed a birthright to shout commands and demand applause faded like the shadow behind him. Despite being clad in the finest silver and armed with weapons that could slaughter dozens in his practiced hands, he walked naked beneath eyes and voices that had a truer right to pass judgment. Listening would be not his right, but his privilege from this point forth, and he must take care that any sound he made did not pollute this purity that accepted him.

The spear he’d arduously earned and happily displayed was already a burden in his hand; threats would earn him death here, and vanity invited humiliation. Silver flares on slopes a mile away betrayed his incautious countrymen who sported full regalia, and must be ten times more discernible to airborne predators. To succeed here, his physical presence must be as hushed as his voice.

Snow piled on the rocky pass as he continued, and the fresh armor accumulated frost that promised to nibble his face. Feathery mail that completed his beaked helm’s design as a fearsome eagle’s head would brand his neck. He soon suspected this ancient tradition’s primary aim was not to place a man’s weight atop an eagle, but to test how much the man himself could shed and still emerge whole—lighter, yet fuller.

Few soldiers ever pursued the eagles that dwelled near the city. A reputation for grasping low-hanging fruit didn’t exactly fit the red-caped knights, fabled to soar higher than the eye could see. But, more compelling than the fear of permanent tarnish was the allure of one particular prize, a trophy that needed no polish.

Countless pairs of boot prints were preserved up ahead, an icy monument to generations of fools who had all followed the brightest star. Their fixation on it blinded them to entire constellations whose wonders they could only begin to uncover. When they finally climbed high enough to touch this celestial flame, it burned their overconfidence to a fearful crouch, and cast them down. Untamable Trail needed no signpost, no markings on a map. Its prolific, diverging branches already warned that a man could circle the earth and still not reach its end. Crystallized stamps that told of so many failed quests made it unmissable, as did the eagle to which it led.

Like children raised on sweets from the most popular village confectioners, too many aspiring Eaglemasters failed to resist the aromatic pull toward instant gratification. He, on the other hand, brought up beside one brother who plundered his plates and another who sprinkled sand on what remained, had found value in what others overlooked. His peers spoiled their palates with sugar and salt; they grew restless without the clamor of cities and battle. Craving the highest extremes would lead them up the most precarious paths until they crashed lower than they knew they could. They would look up at him and learn that in a culture of overwhelmed senses, noise could be peeled away to reveal layers upon layers of tone, color, taste.

Gaining altitude in a domain of natural perfection, his steps grew slower not from fatigue, but because he found himself unworthy to proceed. Each stride into the white landscape made him fixate on ten flecks of dirt he must scrub off of himself before another inch forward, and each of those led him to discover a hundred more impurities. As the snow started to crawl up and over his boots, cementing him to the terrain, he realized he would freeze into a statue marking for future travelers the extreme opposite of greed and overindulgence.

Perhaps his sense of unworthiness, his self-examination, made him worthy to go farther than wherever these ill-fated steps beside him halted. The fact that his state of mind was a larger obstacle than burning winds and razor-edged cliffs boded well for the journey ahead. He carried with him far more vicious beasts and treacherous pits than any he would encounter here. If he could navigate his conscience, Untamable Trail would become the scenic route on a clear summer’s day.

He pictured his countrymen who trekked deeper through these mountains, their spears raised and gauntlets clenched to promise piercing, bruising, as a penalty for disobedience. Did he really wish to strike fear into any majestic creature that peacefully claimed the top of the earth? Would he want a companion that could be obtained by intimidation?

Transported for a moment back to the apex of that stone pillar, where the ferotaurs had thought him an easy meal, he recalled each possession he’d decided to cast away. Offering himself on a platter that day, he’d found bravery in place of dependency, strength that was not demonstrated in what he took, but rather what he let go. Here, he could strip away not just the distractions of civilization, but burdens he wore to belong as a respected member. He must spurn what men had been taught to value, and reap the underlying riches that had long awaited discerning eyes and ears.

With both hands on the spear, fashioned just this morning to be more uniquely his own, he dug its base with the two curved ferotaur horns into the sleet. He anchored it so it stood vertically, six paces beside the streak of footprints, and over its deadly tip he hung his beaked helm with feathery mail. Then, he fastened to these his breastplate and pauldrons, followed by gauntlets and greaves, and finally secured his red cape with a silver brooch to complete the ensemble.

His entire suit of armor stood before him like a hollow scarecrow in a farmer’s field, and his mind couldn’t help but inflate it with breathing lungs, animate the two vacant slits in its helm with fiery eyes. As he so often did whenever progress was in reach, he gave life to the disgruntled, ironclad gatekeeper who scoffed at his intent to pass. It demanded a toll not in coin, but in backward reflection that stifled any thought of forward motion. How could he presume to take another step when ten-thousand steps that had brought him here were so flawed, disgraceful, reckless? If he spent a year looking behind in exchange for every inch gained, his tax still would not be paid after miles.

They stared one another down, eye to eye, yet it towered over him, numbing his legs worse than the cold ever could. But, when his toes tingled in their leather boots, he found the strength to wiggle them until his left foot eventually twitched out to the side, and his right followed. The toll taker did not pursue, and from this angle appeared as bloodless as when he had built it piece by piece. Its only energy was that which he allowed it to drain, and when immense white-capped peaks beckoned his attention upward, the cruel guard’s broad shoulders shrank, for he fed it no more.

Collecting himself in his insulated undergarb—bow and quiver slung on one shoulder alongside a pack of provisions—he felt quite warm without the protective plating’s bite of frost. Now, he had only to fend off the fangs in darkest memory and imagination, and he would tame them soon enough.

Faced with two paths: one that led the shortsighted to abrupt disappointment, and another through past failings his eyes could trace eternally, he threaded himself between them both toward new elevation. Any red-caped knight he came across might not recognize him, seeing a hermit who had chosen a life of austerity. Part of him wished not to be recognized; let the realm come to know the man who entered this place with next to nothing, who set aside what other men coveted. He would emerge, arms spilling with wealth that could only be seen by eyes well-adjusted to darkness, ears overflowing with songs only the quietest could hear.

Those melodies struck his ears more fully without the garish metal barrier he had always worn as a warrior of the realm. He immediately detected nuances of expression, a mosaic with tints and shades he could almost see. Whereas before, he might say a tune was sweet or sour, now he sampled a bouquet that balanced bitter and fragrant notes on either end of a storm.

The Eagle Mountains, perfectly preserved above the world of men for centuries, opened to receive him. Astronomers who mapped the heavens from their kingdom’s tallest towers claimed that the stars, which men took for granted every night, had actually cast their light ages ago, and may now be burnt out. He could not help but wonder, then, whether each uplifted voice that made his heart race in this moment had rung out in ages past, only to reach him now with the radiance of a long-extinguished creature.

When dense white gusts pressed in, nearly stinging his eyes shut, those bells resounded more clearly to guide him. He navigated by sound, which became his sight, touch, and smell. Vibrations in the air steered him left when a rightward step would flail over a cliff’s edge. His life depended on silencing each breath and crunch of ice beneath heavy boots, so he could open himself to natural messages other men missed.

Soon, the gaps between each bell widened, as though in deference to the grandest of all. The atmosphere calmed to reverently avoid interference with this gargantuan essence that was expected to announce itself. Palpable static built in the air to promise a crash of lightning and thunder, but when none came, he did not feel stranded in the slightest. He was no aimless wanderer, adrift and left to sink. He soared a true course through turbulent skies, sailed steadily through choppy seas, and a great whale came to observe him up close, the earth’s elements washing over him in waves from its noiseless approach.

His eyes braved a blast of flakes that burned his forehead clean of dirt and dead skin, and no pain could seal them once he made out the faintest outline up ahead. A mountain suddenly began to move, spreading wide cliffs parallel with the ground while they flapped up and down. The displacement of air almost knocked him onto his backside, and he realized he was much closer to what he saw than this hazy landscape had led him to believe.

The eagle that thousands had painstakingly pursued before his entrance here, before the birth of his grandfather’s grandfather, now perched a stone’s throw away. Legendary talons, more than able to dismember and dice him while he marveled, withheld their fabled rage. No speck of frost dared trespass onto that golden beak, centered just below those two bronze eyes that blazed molten trails into his own.

“Roftome the Untamable,” he whispered—the only words that deserved a single breath since his climb had begun.

The eagle of old lore seemed to identify him and the tradition to which he belonged, even in absence of armor, spear, or cape. Disdain accompanied this recognition, but with enough intrigue and patience mixed in that Val suspected it was an elixir no Eaglemaster had ever tasted. Drinking it was wondrous enough, especially in a timespan during which hundreds of would-be masters had been flung away within an inch of their lives.

All he could think to do was bow his head, keeping feet anchored to avoid any hint of selfish intent. This was no trophy at his fingertips; he was in the presence of one of the world’s oldest memories, which likely preserved the empires of men as they collapsed upon themselves and sprang anew. The splendid structures and customs into which the Eaglemasters had been born were mere blades of grass to this king of the sky.

Chancing another upward glance, relieved that his face was not mutilated as a consequence, he felt no need to win a single word or anything else. This exchange spoke volumes already, that here he was presented an opportunity to take what his brothers would hunt to the ends of the earth, and he could think only of what meaningful thing he had to give. To convey that sentiment to one who expected aggression, narcissism, was perhaps gift enough.

He straightened his posture and took one tentative step forward, followed by another less cautious one that clearly demonstrated he aimed to move on alone. The guardian of these mountains let him pass, that piercing look from above now brimming with curiosity seasoned with amusement at something so foreign.

Valdroth pressed on, without the weight that might shield him from many dangers ahead, without attempting to force his own between unmatched wings. Traveling light had always been his preference. He was learning well how to make the fullest use of the fewest weapons, movements, words. And his education had only begun.

Chapter Four – Irseylia

Cloven hoof prints in the snow drew Val hungrily through the cold, but speckles of blood beside them made him ready his bow for prey and predator. A pouncing eagle did not merely wound a land animal, and an aspiring master was too skilled to leave such a trail.

In the absence of burdensome layers that had slowed his steps and made him dangerously conspicuous, he needed fur on his shoulders. Meat in his belly would get him through many harsh nights, too, if fire didn’t attract something harsher. A cavern up ahead offered shelter that this injured beast seemed to have sought; he only hoped he could take what he needed before his position was discovered.

That hope was already in vain, he realized, when the bloody trickle along the tracks’ left side led his eyes to a figure who stood alone on a ridge. Unaccompanied by any eagle, this person must have been starving to shoot from such a height. The climb down to a successful kill could allow a wide enough window for scavengers to pick it clean. A poor shot like this drew human competition, which could lead to violent confrontation if he didn’t work quickly. The hunter, hooded and cloaked, followed his every move with an obscured face. Perhaps Val’s sense of charity, and self-preservation, would compel him to leave a partial harvest.

With his arrow pulled tightly against the bowstring, he had to rotate and sidestep through the narrow crevasse, scraping his thin garments against rocky teeth. His boots sloshed through red sleet, indicating that a pool of blood beneath a carcass was likely not far. Even in dim light, the bloody frost glistened as he approached the collapsed mountain goat, which lay motionless with one arrow protruding from between its left ribs.

Though the rays that poured in from outside would help him skin and dress this fresh kill more quickly, he dragged it deeper into the shadows. Reserving his arrow no longer for beast, but man, he kept peripheral vision fixed upon the bright opening where a dark figure might appear at any moment.

The killing arrow was crude, he observed when he removed it, too humbly fletched for a proud Eaglemaster to display in his quiver, its head crafted of iron rather than their ornate silver. No armory in the realm had supplied this; it had been fashioned by someone living in these mountains for quite some time, or perhaps … someone foreign.

Having an underground recess to himself, in which he could stand while only worrying about faraway foes, was a luxury he should savor in this buildup to the ferotaur hive campaign. If he managed to survive that subterranean war, he might emerge a white-haired hunchback who twitched at the slightest flicker of flame.

No flame would be kindled in these confines unless he ventured back out to gather materials. One careless step into the open would likely send him stumbling back in here with a whole bundle of unfamiliar arrows stuck in his gut. If he leapt toward the daylight now with weapon raised, he might surprise any assailants enough that they’d reveal themselves with haphazard shots. The longer he enjoyed this hollow shelter, he invited a death by freezing, starvation, or those whose eyes trained on his only exit.

Baited like a hare, or perhaps caught in a snare of his own making while enemies sealed him off, he decided neither would be his end. He would confront any perils that slowly pressed in, and enjoy a warm refuge in what could be an icy tomb for a man of slower action.

“Never much cared for caves myself,” a young woman’s voice suddenly greeted, preceding her slender silhouette that grew more defined within the entrance. “How quickly a secluded escape can become an overcrowded prison.”

“And are you the warden who meant to incarcerate me?”

“Please … I’d never shackle my fellow man.”

“Fellow?” he spat the word back at her. “As in peer … equal? You know nothing of the trials I’ve faced.”

“Yes, I should choose my words more carefully. You do have the blond hair of the redcapes.”

“And do I have the red cape of the redcapes?”

“No. And they usually have the sense to avoid such a tight squeeze with only one way in and out. Unless, of course, a lady crosses their path. What’s that saying of theirs? Not the one about being deadlier on the ground than in the sky. No … the one they’ve charmed me with so many times: A maiden who dies by the spear is reborn a woman.”

“You’re no maiden.”

“And you’re no spearman. I find you more trustworthy by the second. There’s no way you’re cunning enough to pose the threat I thought you might when I cast this net for you.”

“I don’t need a spear for every strange encounter. What’s to stop me cutting through this net, and the one who cast it?”

“Nothing but uncertainty, I suppose. Whether others are waiting for me to extract you. Whether their retribution is something you’d like to risk. Whether our exchange of pleasantries has bought them enough time to riddle you with holes if you emerge alone.”

She strode forward with arms full of kindling, her face as pale as the snow underfoot that daylight barely grazed. Still, there was color beneath her cold exterior that fire could bring out, if he helped ignite what she now held toward him like a peace offering. Her long brown hair had a healthy sheen, as though she knew the rare hot springs that eluded seasoned Eaglemasters, and her brow was just as weathered and windswept as theirs.

Appraising her stature, he realized she was not the tall, hooded figure who had observed him from the ridge. He’d have to carefully ascertain her awareness of that stoic watcher, unsure which would be worse—that they shared a common goal involving him, or separate ones. “For every ten pairs of eyes I can feel watching me in these mountains,” he said, “there must truly be one hundred.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied, casually striding closer. “We don’t need that many to lure a lost boy into a chokehold he mistakes for a cradle.”

“My cradle. Our grave. The night is young, with so much yet to be revealed.”

“Firelight would help,” she said, pushing past him into the recess where snow hadn’t drifted. He could have brought her down with a dozen fatal wounds; instead she immobilized him with a scent he would have pursued for miles, had he known it awaited him outside the barracks he’d shared for years with sweaty soldiers.

“Now that I’ve successfully planted such paranoia in your fertile mind, if I have a host of armed allies watching this dark cavern, to them we are both alive and dead. Both possibilities are equally true in their estimation, at this point. And later, if you should find the opportunity to exit, you have equal chances of leaping into a volley of snowflakes or arrows. Let us be alive then for a few more hours, with none being the wiser.”

<Chapter Four will continue…>

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