Stormed Fortress Read Free

to war, and the brutal sack of Alestron that will likely follow should the Alliance come to attack.
    On the heels of such set-back, the Fellowship Sorcerers lay a summons on Arithon to help them curb the Kralovir necromancers. The cult ' s invasive foothold in Lysaer ' s following at Etarra now poses a consummate danger, with Lysaer on the move with determined intent to muster the eastshore to arms to destroy Alestron. The hope of peace Arithon has worked to achieve is brought to a premature end and leaves his clan allies in deeper jeopardy than ever before, as he must abandon his efforts and travel at speed to Etarra.
    His journey takes him by way of Halwythwood, where his effort to console young Jeynsa s ' Valerient for her father ' s loss also misfires. Further, his one opportunity to consummate his undying love for Elaira is forced to an unrequited end by the dreadful discovery that the Prime Matriarch has laid a spell seal on his beloved, with intent to engineer the birth of their talented child for the co-opted use of the order.
    Left emotionally raw, aware that Lysaer is building another armed campaign to ruin every trust built among his vulnerable clan allies, Arithon must move on to Etarra where, at risk of his life and sanity, he uses innovative tactics and successfully annihilates every standing member of the Kralovir cult. In the aftermath, the Sorcerer Davien rescues him and transfers him to the focus circle at Sanpashir to recuperate.
    Now, with the peace plan ruined, and the demise of the Kralovir taking out several of the Light ' s highly placed officials, including Etarra ' s High Chancellor, fear has galvanized town interests against the Master of Shadow. The curse of Desh-thiere is wakened, driving Lysaer and the Alliance of Light to target the s ' Brydion as Arithon ' s collaborator. War is building to raze the citadel at Alestron, with a troop muster sweeping the entire eastshore of the continent and Sulfin Evend recruiting on the southcoast. The season is summer, and the year, Third Age 5671.

 

     
     

    Summer 5671
    Alestron the Bull whipped Adruin at darts.
Kalesh slipped behind with a knife in the dark.
Atwood ' s secure,
but East Halla ' s at war,
and the widows are ever in mourning.
- From an eastshore water-front lay, Third Age

    I. Binding Ties
    On the night that the portents had named to the elders, stars blazed in white splendour over the obsidian sands of Sanpashir. Their icy light flooded the vista in mercury, knifed with black shade where the ruin cast shadow over a landscape of crumpled dunes. As the signs had bespoken, when the hour foretold by the seers became manifest, the laid pattern of the Paravian stone circle did not arouse to harness the raw powers of the elements. Lane forces did not waken. The indigo coils of starred light did not bloom, as they would for the workings of Sorcerers.
    Where nothing had been but barren stone and the trackless waste of bare sand, the figure of the man just arrived seemed to shimmer, then settle into firm form. Naked, he sprawled as though asleep at the grand junction of the ancient focus.
    His appearance summoned the tribesfolk who lurked, alert and waiting amid the cragged ruin. They sang. Soft chanting that whispered under the starlight: of a hope renewed, promised to them for millennia. They moved out of cover, silently approached. Their seamed hands were gentle as they gathered him up and wrapped his chilled frame in rough blankets. His skin was not marked, except by old scars. Yet the rifts that he bore in the weave of his aura ran deeper than flesh, bone, and blood.
    ' Keir ' ve arish the oldest cautioned in dialect. Take him most softly. ' She pressed forward, brushed back the man ' s tangled, black hair, and touched a crabbed finger to still the lips that quivered as though to cry out from a nightmare memory of an unbearable agony. The shock to his life-force has been deep and harsh. He must not arouse through our handling. '
    Such damage