Chapter 5: Know Your Enemy

Allan passes thousands of uprooted citizens on the road fleeing the terror of war. Many are wounded and have that vacant look in their eyes. When he reaches the town of Fernly, where Emma and he first made love, they have already formed an army of sorts. Between the townspeople and angry refugees they number about three hundred.

Allan tells them, "I am honored to see courage and strength before me, but at this time you will not be able to stand against the advancing darkness. We are forming an army in the next princedom, so please go there and join with them." They are reluctant at first to leave their homes, but Allan makes them see reason.

In their hearts they know they cannot stand alone. They hastily make to leave.

In Allan's heart he knows he should make his way back to Emma, but his warrior sense tells him they must know the foe they face. From the reports, the enemy is but three or four days away. Allan changes horses to a bigger and faster stallion and heads towards the enemy's line.

"If you will, sir, if you can find Emma Tine at the gathering, and please return her most cherished horse to her."

"You take my stallion and give me this mare, and yet I am to give it to somebody else."

Disgusted, Allan says, "If you live you will be fully compensated." Though Allan doubts if he'll ever see Sox again. Damn it.

From the fragmented and odd reports he manages to gather, he knows he isn't going to like what he finds.

"Into death's maw I go, for it is not in me to live weakly." He rides on.

For the first day Allan travels with no sense of urgency, for he needs to formulate a plan of how he is going to get the needed tactical information to fight this new and aggressive enemy. In that first day he sees hundreds more refugees fleeing the occupied territories. Allan tells them of their gathering stand, at least he hopes Rax is starting the gathering, and then tells them where to go and who to find.

Into the second day, Allan runs across a wagon with two women in it. They have only one horse left to pull the big wagon, for last night the trolls attacked them and killed the second horse. Trolls are easily scared off when they are outnumbered, but lone or small groups with no fighters make easy prey. Frankly, Allan is amazed they survived at all. He guesses the trolls also know war has come to their realm, and they will not stay in any one place too long. Trolls aren't evil, they are just more animal. However, the trouble comes because they have an intelligence that is almost always underestimated. Allan has met more than one in his travels, and even befriended one. Conversation wasn't much, but there was no lying to him. Or at least he assumed it was a he.

Allan cannot let the women proceed alone, so he tells them, "Madams, I will escort you back to the next village of Trist, in hopes that there will be a group you can join with."

The trip back is uneventful, which in its self tells Allan something is wrong. As it turns out they catch the last group out.

Allan says, "I wish you well, and take these words with you and tell Rax and Emma that I will be delayed for some time." Allan knows, as the day of the wedding nears, Emma will start to fret. He knows this because that's what he is feeling, and it looms like a shadow on his heart.

Allan has lost valuable time escorting the women back, but it could have been no other way. He knows things are heating up, for his first day back on the road he has to dodge two roving patrols sent out to recon the path their army will take, and to find and number the opposition. The third day out, the wild wheat fields thin and then end, and turn back into rolling hills of grassland and shrubs. The majority of sparsely spaced tree are to the west, around the river that sustains life to this region. This, Allan is glad to see, because the patrols are increasing and the wheat fields gave minimal cover.

Now is the time for stealth, because the enemy has posted guards to give warning of an advancing army. Allan quickly dodges a galloping patrol and sends his horse hard down and around the nearest hill that will provide cover. His mount slips on some rocks and comes up lame. He avoids the patrol, sure enough, but now he is on foot. On foot is the prudent way to go now, but unless he later finds another ride he won't make it back until the war is over.

Allan cannot bring himself to kill the horse, even though that would have been the smartest thing to do, because soldiers tend to get suspicious of unattended mounts. Allan sends him on his way north the best he can with a quiet slap to the rump, and he is soon out of sight. Allan hopes he keeps going, and he hopes he doesn't become some ogre's meal, even though they have to eat, too.

Allan stays in place and listens to the terrain until almost dawn. He moves quietly for the next hill, and finds himself positioned between three dug in outposts. The sky is becoming light, so he cannot go back the way he came without probably being seen.

Allan ventures that he will have to take the middle outpost and continue on that way. As near as Allan can tell, there are two soldiers in each outpost. The outposts are positioned where they can see the forward terrain with their flat triangle positioning, but the outposts are blind to each other. However, they are within a scream's distance for help.

Allan will have to become the wind and strike like lightning to accomplish this foolish task. For one, they will know somebody is about when they find the bodies of their comrades. For another, Allan doesn't know if it is a trap. There is no time to think, because day is making its way towards him, and at times like this daylight is a foe.

Allan creeps silently up to their position. They are talking and relaxing in their hole, not even bothering to keep watch. That will help, but it also tells him these soldiers aren't worried about a foe. The reports have to show that the populace has fled before them, and with them went any resistance.

The soldier with his back to Allan has his head up to where the top of it just shows his curly dark hair. At least they are human. As soon as the soldier on the far side turns to grab something from his pack, Allan slits the other's throat. Unfortunately he is in mid-sentence and the other soldier turns to see what he has said, but it is too late, Allan's sword cleaves out his instrument to call for help. He thrashes about on the tip of Allan's sword for a few daunting moments, but no alarm is raised. Allan does not bother to inspect his handy work. He never takes pride in killing another being, and time is of the essence.

Allan travels fast through the daylight, and puts some distance between his kills and him, for surely they have been discovered by now, and soon the enemy will start their sweep in search of the varmint who did it. The only hope Allan has to make it to nightfall, is if they believe it was someone trying to get out and not in, and will start the search there. Long accustomed to covering his tracks, Allan makes it seem like that is the truth.

No such luck. It is late afternoon, probably around five, another hour before dark. Allan camouflages himself in an ambush position and hopes that a single soldier will walk by. The first wave of a hundred soldiers comes by in groups of threes and fours.

Allan is well hidden, but an enemy soldier never comes close enough to see that he isn't part of the clump of bushes he chose as his watch post. Soon another fifty soldiers come by, this time in pairs of twos. The commander walks alone. His soldiers spread out before him like a hive seeking the thief. He shows no concern about the terrain. A fatal mistake he will not make again. Allan pounces like a panther, silent and deadly. Allan breaks his neck so he will not get blood on his uniform. The tide of luck has turned, because night has fallen and action has been taken.

Before the enemy commander reached Allan's position, he listened to his voice and imitates it the best he can when he orders the soldiers back to base. Allan has heard the rigid almost abrasive accent before. These soldiers are from the Realm of Breen. It is obvious that these soldier are not professional soldiers, more like mercenaries, and it is also obvious that the commander is new to them, for several walk right by and make eye contact with Allan, but continue onward to get back to camp before it gets cold, for autumn is definitely on its way.

The beginning of autumn is to be their wedding day at a festival in the city of Woodshear, which is surely occupied by now. From what Emma told him about it and the positioning of the enemy, it is probably their forward base camp. It takes nearly three hours to reach the camp, and the closer he gets the more he realizes the size of the army before him. Even though he cannot count the unseen soldiers, there are thousands of campfires, and there you will find five to ten men at each.

Allan gives a salute to the guard at the perimeter of the base, and enters like he belongs there.

"I must, since everybody keeps saluting me."

All humor aside, there is but one penalty for finding an enemy spy in your uniform; death by torture.

Every morning Allan is up before dawn, leading another patrol to sweep the hills for the possible intruder. In the couple of days he has been amongst his enemy, he has learned many important things about them that will help win a conflict against them.

The first is that this is either a hastily prepared army, or unwilling people are being drafted into its growing ranks so fast the leaders can't keep track of their own people. Allan comes to this conclusion, because he walked into a commander's position and no one ever notices he isn't the actual person, not yet, anyhow.

Another important thing he learns is that the leaders, a mysterious lot all, are greatly feared by their own troops. As near as Allan can tell, even though only a select few are allowed around them, of which he is not one, they are not human. Clerics of a race Allan has yet to encounter in his travels, which can only mean they come from the Shadow Continent, the only continent out of the nine that he has not ventured into.

That coincidence is not by accident. The island, which is barely big enough to be called a continent, is surrounded by maelstroms in the seas and hurricanes in the skies many months a year, and they only serve to hide a magical barrier long since established.

Allan wasn't even sure life existed there, and the dragons never speak of it other than to say stay away, which means that the continent has been that way for millennia. Which is why everybody usually claims there are only eight realms instead of the actual nine. It's forbidding and dark history is where it got the name Shadow Continent. It hangs low in the southern hemisphere.

Welcome to the world of Serene Primus and her Nine Realms.

The first realm belongs to the dragons, minotaurs and elves. Its name is in dragon tongue and quite impossible to pronounce, but everybody just calls it Isle of Draco.

The second realm, the one in which Allan finds himself now, is the human, dwarf, ogres and troll continent. Its name is Dwarven and is pronounced Tallyhinder Steen, but most people just call it Tally. It's supposed to mean something like the land of the builders. The races inhabiting this land certainly build things at a fantastic rate, and being that the dwarves are a logical people and they love to build, the name makes sense.