The ceremony was swift. Iviena led him through the oaths, first in Old Andu, then again in the modern dialect. As he spoke the words, Gaelin found that a strange, otherworldly vision came over him. He vividly imagined the ancient scene of Mhor Raedan touching the Oak with his bloodied hand, and the Oak stirring with the land’s acknowledgement of the Mhoried blood. At the end of the invocation, Iviena offered Gaelin a dagger, holding it across her palm. He took the weapon and cut his hand. Stepping forward to touch his bloodied hand to the smooth old bark, he spoke the words of his oath as the first rays of the sun set the Oak’s leaves to a brilliant, burning scarlet. With that, the oath was finished, and Gaelin was Mhor.

An hour after sunrise, the companions were on their way again, riding west from the abbey toward the Ceried estate.

The entourage surrounding Gaelin was growing. On Iviena’s insistence, the dour Brother Superior Huire had joined his party – ostensibly to provide spiritual guidance in Gaelin’s hour of need and maintain a representative of the Temple of Haelyn in the Mhor’s court. Gaelin guessed Huire was assigned to report his plans and situation to the high prefect at the earliest opportunity, but he accepted the gaunt monk into his confidence. Four Haelynite soldiers templar accompanied the priest.

Count Baesil’s castle and lands were located in the western reaches of the province of Byrnnor, and no major roads crossed this region. They traveled from village to village along muddy cart tracks and overgrown paths. Most people here were still in their homes and continued their daily work, watching over rolling fields of grain and corn or tending sheep on green hillsides.

The fine weather faded through the day as a leaden overcast darkened the sky, threatening rain. The wind turned to the north and cooled noticeably, and by the time they halted to water the horses and eat a scanty lunch from their packs, Gaelin’s face was red with windburn. While they ate, he motioned for Erin to join him on a lichen-frosted boulder, a short distance from the others. “I saw my father again last night,” he said quietly.

Erin bit into a small green apple and gave him a thoughtful look. “Go on,” she said.

“We were standing in the Court of the Oak. He showed me how the Oak was named, hundreds of years ago.” He paused, then turned to the bard. “Am I losing my mind? Or is my father’s spirit still watching over me?”

“The Mhor Daeric perished with Mhoried in great danger,” Erin said. “Perhaps he watches over you, hoping to see you restored to your rightful place, and the enemies of the land defeated.” She shrugged, and took another bite of her apple.

“And even if you’re imagining these meetings, what does it matter? You are as sane as I am, or just about anyone I know, for that matter. At worst this is your own way of saying goodbye to your father.”

They sat a while in a companionable silence. They had stopped by an abandoned farmhouse, its roof long since gone. The fields were strewn with boulders and the remnants of an old stone wall. Gaelin stood, stretched, and brushed off his breeches.

Erin started to stand as well, but she suddenly stopped and cocked her head. Then she scrambled for her horse. “Riders coming!” she cried. There was a moment of blank confusion, as some of the Haelynites looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. Gaelin dropped his food and ran for Blackbrand. In one smooth motion, he pulled himself into the saddle.

At the top of the hill, Boeric was standing watch. He leaped to his feet and zigzagged down the grassy slope. “Ghoerans, just behind us, and coming fast!” he yelled.

“How many?” Gaelin called.

“Too many to fight, that’s for sure,” Boeric replied. He hauled himself into his saddle and seized the reins. His placid expression was gone, replaced by a bright-eyed alertness.

Gaelin glanced around. Most of the party was mounted again. “We’ll try to outrun them!” he said. “After me!” He kicked his heels into Blackbrand’s flanks and let the stallion have his head. Mud and turf flying from his hooves, the horse b roke into a strong gallop down the rutted cart track. In ones and twos, the others followed, spurring their own steeds after him. In a matter of moments, they were strung out over a couple of hundred yards of countryside, each rider coaxing the best speed he could from his animal. Blackbrand outpaced the others, and Gaelin stood in his stirrups to look over his shoulder.

Black-clad cavalrymen swept through the old homestead, in hot pursuit. The trailing riders, a pair of Huire’s guardsmen, were only a hundred yards or so ahead of the Ghoerans, but they seemed to be holding their lead. Some of the Ghoerans were firing after the Haelynites, but their bolts flew wide of the mark.

Gaelin turned back to mind his own path. If the Ghoerans had been riding hard all morning to catch up to them, they might not be able to sustain this pace for long, especially since Gaelin and his band had just rested their horses. “Keep up the pace!” he called. “We’ll wear them down!”

Blackbrand’s hooves thundered beneath him. The track wound over several shallow hills, then plunged into a dense thicket, the trees pressing close in a dark tunnel. Gaelin risked another backward glance. Some of the Ghoerans were falling out of the race, but a few still clung doggedly to their trail, whipping their horses like madmen.

They burst from the copse into an open field, horses foaming at the mouth. The lead Ghoerans finally began to fall back. One persistent fellow stayed with them for another mile, but eventually he too dropped out, shaking his fist as his horse pulled up limping. Gaelin slowed his own pace and settled into an easy canter for another couple of miles, the rest of the Mhoriens following suit. Finally they turned off the road, finding another track leading in the general direction in which they wanted to travel.

“Think they’re still with us?” Erin asked. Clods of mud were stuck in her hair, and she grimaced as she pulled one from her tresses and dropped it to the ground.

“They won’t give up so easily, now that they’ve caught our trail,” Gaelin said. “We’d better keep moving quickly. That band may not catch us, but they’ll report to their superiors.”

The horses were exhausted from the long run, and Gaelin decided to dismount and lead them for a bit. They should have let the animals rest, but he didn’t think it would be wise.

He patted Blackbrand’s neck and promised himself he’d find an extra apple for the big stallion that night. Baesil Ceried’s army was still somewhere ahead, but he noticed everyone was looking over their shoulders as they marched on in the gray drizzle.

Riding as fast as they dared push the horses, Gaelin and his companions covered fifty miles on the first day of travel from the abbey. They encountered no more Ghoerans, but they ran across the work of marauders and raiders in several places.

Gaelin was surprised to find black-feathered goblin arrows by one homestead near the border of Dhalsiel and Byrnnor.

Even in the worst winter raids, the goblins of Markazor didn’t come this far west into Mhoried.

They camped for a few hours in the ruins of a long-abandoned estate in the countryside, stabling their mounts in the wreckage of the manor’s hall. Before sunrise, they rose and continued on their way, blundering through a dense, wet fog that shrouded them in gray mist.

After a morning of cutting across the broad, open fields of Byrnnor, Gaelin spied the dark turrets of a castle looming out of the rain, a few hundred yards ahead. Castle Ceried was not as large or modern as Shieldhaven, but it was still a well-built motte-and-bailey fortress, slowly improved over the years by the counts of Ceried. The fields around the castle were crowded with the white tents and smoky fires of the army of Mhoried.