Son of Soron by Robyn Wideman

his parents were passing from this world. At that very moment, he felt a pain throughout his entire being that he could not explain.  He lifted up a tearful and exhausted Rose. Her arms were scratched as were Ava's. Rose was slowing them down, so he swept her up and piggy backed her. Already, Nathan was thinking of shelter, water and food.  Ava was silent, speaking only to reassure Rose. She too was thinking about the necessities, and her parents and her grandfather. Being with Nathan and Rose was her only consolation.
    Nathan was acutely aware of the wind direction as they approached the treacherous swamp. The deadly vapors would follow the wind and kill them if they could. He calmed his breathing once again.  If strangers followed them and strayed from the exact paths they were taking, the swamp would vanquish them, claim their bodies and use the decaying bodies to nourish the dark and forbidding trees. It paid to know the swamplands, to follow where animals traveled safely.
    With every visible villager dead, Evollan retired his bloodied troops, leading them back east of the village and into the forest. If the southern riders were allies of the village of bandits, it was far better to meet them in the forest and not on open ground where horses would give them too much of an advantage. The duke was not overly concerned that the village of bandits and murderers consisted mostly of now dead farmers and berry-pickers, women and children alike.  The attack at Elderwood was to be another crowning glory.  While the duke might now be willing to concede to himself that the village was not full of bandits as his original assumption had been, it mattered not. His justification would be that the villagers were supplying the bandits with food and weapons, profiting from a liaison with murderers and thieves. As long as the bandit raids eventually stopped he would be well rewarded. Any rumors of unjust massacres would be swept away as hearsay, rumor from jealous sources.  Evollan congratulated himself for his cunning. He prepared himself to deal with the mysterious riders advancing.
 

 
    Chapter fifteen
     
    ASHUNA WITH HIS FIFTY horseback warriors arrived at what was left of the village of Elderwood. They had been riding hard, not to join in on an attack on Duke Evollan and his troops, but to make it to Elderwood before dusk. Elderwood was the last village on this northern road before it turned east towards Salma .
    Ashuna intended to buy food for his warriors before continuing on the way to Salma. When Ashuna and his men rode into the still burning village their faces were grim.  At first glance, it appeared bandits, ruthless murdering bandits, had struck the once peaceful village. But the assortment of bodies on the ground told a different story. For some unknown reason, soldiers had struck this village. He sent scouts to look in the woods for survivors. Survivors were found; terrified, hiding in the woods. Something very dark and evil had happened here.
    When Ashuna got to the body of Soron, he did not need a villager to tell him what had transpired here. The bodies of the soldiers lying around the arrow ridden body of a great northerner told him at least this part of the battle was not so one-sided.  This man, above all, was a warrior.
    Ashuna had his men help tend to the wounded while others buried the dead. He sent a few scouts back out into the woods to find out who perpetrated this attack. It did not take long for the scouts to find the company of soldiers fortified in the forest east of the village.
    It seemed the soldiers in the woods were waiting for the Chundo to attack. When Ashuna and the warriors finished tending to the wounded and burying the dead, they remounted and went toward the east to see what this company of soldiers intended to do. Ashuna had important business in the eastern capital and had no time to deal with this. He sent a rider to the edge of the forest under a white flag to arrange a parlay with