On her wedding night, Gaborn kept his promise. He proved to be no gentleman in bed, at least no more a gentleman than she wanted him to be.
That night, after making love, Iome lay in bed for a long time with her hand gently placed over her womb, wondering what manner of child she carried. '
For she knew she carried a child. The earth power in Gaborn was growing so strong, it was no longer possible that he could plant a seed and not have it take root.
Borenson and Myrrima married that same day with little fanfare, choosing a poor couple's wedding.
The next night, a quarter moon rose over the eastern hills outside Castle Sylvarresta. By its faint light, Gaborn, Borenson, and fifty Knights Equitable mounted their chargers and rode pell-mell into the Dunnwood, lances at the ready, to hunt for reavers.
The men were ferocious, longing for the hunt, and all promised that this would be one to remember.
Binnesman went with them, for he said that there were soils deep beneath the Dunnwood, soils once mined by the duskins, soils that carried magics of the deep earth, which could grant magical properties to the weapons that the Earth King's smiths would forge this winter.
Of what transpired on that great hunt, little was ever said thereafter. But the Earth King and his wizard and some of his knights returned shortly after dawn, three days later, on the last and greatest day of the Hostenfest, the day of the great feast.
By great misfortune, in the duskin mines they had found more than they could easily handle twenty-seven juvenile reavers, along with their reaver mage.
Forty-one brave knights died in that battle.
Borenson himself slew the reaver mage in her lair, and brought back with him a trophy, dragging the creature's massive head behind his steed.
He laid the head of lumpy gray leather out on the green before Castle Sylvarresta for all to see. It was almost six feet in length, four feet high, and somewhat ovoid in shape. It looked much like the head of an ant or some insect, except that it had no eyes, ears, or nose. Its only sensory apparatus was the patches of feelers that hung like gray worms from the back of its head, in mockery of hair, and down near its mouth.
The rows of crystalline teeth in its great maw made a huge impression on the peasants and children, many of whom were afraid to touch the rigid lips. The thousands of teeth inside that maw sat in seven rows, like those of a shark, but each jagged tooth was as clear and tough as quartz. Like the bones of the skull behind it.
Peasants by the tens of thousands came to view the monster's head. The children shrieked in delight to touch it, and many a maid gaped at it, and tittered, while the old folks just stared long and thoughtfully.
It was the first reaver mage found within the Dunnwood in nearly seventeen hundred years, and many of those present believed it would be the last one they'd see in their lifetimes.
But they were wrong. For it was not the last.
It was only the first.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Book 2
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Book 3
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Book 4
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Book 5
Afterword