Samual Read Free

did want to stand and fight. Leaving meant abandoning their cherished homes, their city, and their hopes and dreams to a steel evil, but they would at least survive as would their kin.
     
    It was not an easy decision to make by any means, and some refused to leave even when the guards and surviving elders had made it for them. It might seem crazed to many, but to an elf to abandon their homes and their lives and everything they loved was almost worse than dying. Nor did leaving promise them safety. The elves had no guarantee that the golems, as the wizards named them, would stop attacking once they had taken the city. After all, they had no idea why they'd attacked in the first place. What would giant steel rats want with a city anyway? And yet clearly all they wanted was an empty dead city. Unless – though few dared to give voice to the thought – all they had really wanted was dead elves? Nor did they know if they would even be fast enough to escape the rats if they did give chase.
     
    Fleeing was simply the only chance they had.
     
    Before the sun had risen even a quarter of the way into the sky, more than fifteen thousand surviving elves had packed up as many of their belongings as they could and were preparing to depart their home, by horse, wagon or foot. The survivors quickly grew into a mass of horses, elves and wagons, which in turn and with a lot of shouting became a caravan. 
     
    Then, before the sun had risen much higher, the order was given and the city's residents began their long journey to safety. A very long journey since even then they knew or feared that their nearest or only refuge would be in Golden River Flats, at least four months travel across hostile terrain.
     
    It was a caravan of suffering as over a thousand of those fleeing were badly wounded. Many of them would not survive the journey. Adding to the distress there were only a few dozen healers with the caravan, as many of them had been killed. So many went without healing as they travelled. Too many would not survive the day let alone the journey. 
     
    It was a caravan of despair as elf after elf looked back at the glorious city of Shavarra slowly disappearing into the forest behind, and knew that they might never see it again. For most the city had been the only home they had ever known, or ever wanted.
     
    It was a caravan of fear as the survivors, burdened down with the sick and the dying, wondered if the rats would leave them alone, or if they would give chase. Few if any were still up to the contest of battle, and the horses were overloaded. They couldn't run and they couldn't fight.
     
    It was a caravan of mourning as there were few elves who had not lost someone in the attack.
     
    But most of all it was a caravan of questions. Who had attacked them? Why? And what would they do once they got to Golden River Flats? Sadly there were few if any answers. But as that first terrible day grew into a longer and more painful night many promised themselves that they would eventually get those answers. And then, though it was unelven, they would exact a terrible revenge on the master of the rats.
     
     
     

Chapter One.
     
     
    It was the sound of horses that woke him. The steady clip clop of their well-shod hooves on the hard packed clay road. They were still a distance away but were coming steadily closer. The sound wouldn't normally have bothered him, except for the number and the hour. There had to be dozens of them, and it was at least four hours past sun down. Lots of horses travelling late at night, and coming from the East. Possibly from the city. That had to mean trouble. But of what sort?
     
    As always Sam woke easily, and quickly had the dagger he always kept under the pillow in his hand. He had reason. Over the years Sam had discovered that the sound of horses late at night usually meant trouble, and more often than he would like, assassins. More than a few had been sent in search of his prized scalp over the years and