Embers of a Broken Throne by Terry C. Simpson Page B

frightening as you think.”
    “It’s not so much about me as it is that they were willing to risk the hangman’s rope, the Green Wastes, and the threat of shadelings. It leads me to believe they wanted someone to chase after this group. Maybe they didn’t expect you and myself, but once that became obvious they sent an army they thought strong enough to take us.”
    Ryne nodded, lips pursed. “If not for Irmina’s zyphyl they might have succeeded. Or at the very least forced us to flee.”
    Ancel glanced over to where Irmina rode next to the Dagodins. Their gazes locked, and she offered him a smile. Weariness showed in the tightness of her eyes. The horses’ hung their heads, and the men and women rode with shoulders slumped. Some shook themselves from dozing in the saddle.
    “Past time to make camp,” Ancel said. With the recognition of their fatigue he noticed his own aches.
    “Agreed.” Ryne nodded toward a hill. “The base of that would offer a place to stay warm and the hilltop would give our guards a good vantage.”
    “Mirz,” Ancel called as he angled to the likely campsite.
    Mirza spurred his horse forward. “Yes?”
    “We’ll make camp there. Charra and I will take first watch. Get as much rest for you and the others as you can.”
    After a dip of his head Mirza rode to the Dagodins. A brief conversation passed before relieved expressions crossed many a face.
    The soldiers settled in under blankets, bunched close together among the rocks. Ryne was a bigger mound away from them. Ancel sat with his back to a boulder on the hilltop, Charra’s white form a few steps away. Irmina had chosen to say close to him.
    “You should get some sleep also,” she said.
    “I can’t. Enough people have died on my watch. I won’t lose another. Not today.”
    “My zyphyl will keep watch. No shadeling can get close without him sensing anyway. Even if they use a portal, he will sense the Forging.”
    “It didn’t seem to make much of a difference earlier.” He wanted to words back even as he said them.
    A brief silence followed before she answered. “I didn’t know what to look for then. Now, I do. Besides, he says the shadelings found us by use of Ryne’s Forge that destroyed the Wraithwood.”
    He faced her, frowning. “Is it suggesting Ryne did it on purpose?” He didn’t wish to comprehend such a suggestion much less believe it, but the animosity between her and Ryne had become obvious to him. Whenever he broached the subject she avoided it.
    “No,” she said, waving him off, “nothing of the sort. Just that the shadelings were able to find us because of his Forge. When I told my pet of what happened in Aldazhar, he felt Amuni’s Children might have been tracking us in that fashion all along.”
    Ancel gave the suggestion some thought. At various times during their trek there had been cause to use powerful Forges. When they first entered the Sands of the Abandoned they had fought off a cohort of Ashishins and Dagodins sent by the Tribunal. Another time they battled a shadebane. There was also the instance where the Forgers delved beneath the Sands to locate water. Last had been an attempt to divert or lessen one of the storms that seemed to chase them since entering Ostania. They had failed in that, but the amount of power expended had been great. The various shadeling attacks during the journey seemed random, but now they made sense.
    Coincidence, my students, is nothing more than the birth child of intricate planning. Galiana’s favorite saying echoed in his head.
    “Your pet might be right,” he said.
    “That’s not all.”
    Eyebrows raised, he waited.
    “The earlier storm,” she paused as if uncertain of her words, “the zyphyl helped to lessen it. He says these storms aren’t natural.”
    The statement was surprising. “A Forging?”
    Irmina closed her eyes, brows furrowed for a moment. “He still won’t say.” She opened her eyes. “But insists they aren’t natural.”
    “Can