Led by King Ravelle, Aidan and Gwenne fled from their cottage into the streets of Mithegard. Nothing could prepare Aidan for the chaos he would see there.
Burning projectiles launched from Paragory’s catapults gouged arcs in the predawn sky. They crashed into the kingdom with thunderous fury. One slammed into a cottage, collapsing and igniting it. Another bounced upon the stone of the courtyard fifty yards from where Aidan ran. It left a burning path and careened into the side of a one-lane bridge that spanned Mithegard’s natural spring. The bridge splintered and plummeted into the water.
Burning debris from the explosions flew in every direction, causing hungry fires to spring up all over the kingdom. It seemed the enemy’s fire weapons could burn the very stone from which the kingdom was built.
More horrible to Aidan than the explosions and fire were the screams. Animal-sounding wails that rose from every part of the city.
It seemed that all of Mithegard filled the streets. Families stumbled toward the castle, ducking with the impact of each strike. Soldiers in their royal blue livery raced to support the guards upon the kingdom’s outer walls, screaming as they ran.
Aidan and Gwenne scrambled to keep up with the King as he sprinted through the crowds and over piles of burning wreckage.
Then, above even the screams and explosions, there came a sinister rumbling from behind. It sounded as if a great storm was about to hammer the Kingdom of Mithegard.
“Gwenne!” Aidan yelled. “What’s that sound?”
“Horses!” Gwenne screamed. She looked over her shoulder and stumbled. “Paragor must be bringing his full army to bear on the city!”
“They’ll have to stop at the walls, right? The walls will hold, won’t they?” Aidan asked. Gwenne did not answer.
The thunder abruptly stopped, and a chorus of trumpets rang out. For a split second everyone stood very still. A sense of danger hung heavy in the air. No one dared move. Aidan felt as if someone stood behind him with a knife raised to plunge into his back. But he would not turn.
“THE ARCHERS!” bellowed the King, breaking the spell. “The Archers of Paragory are preparing to fire! Everyone seek shelter from the skies!”
Aidan looked back toward the city walls and up into the sky. The walls seemed to be intact, though some were burning in places. Gwenne tugged at Aidan’s shoulder, but he would not look away from the sky. There wasn’t anything alarming there but smoke. What was the King talking about? There were no arch— Then, he saw it!
Rising above the city walls, devouring the dawn sky, came an evil red curtain—undulating and billowing high above the kingdom walls. The arrows flung from the longbows of a horde of unseen Paragor archers looked like thousands of teeth. They seemed to pause at their pinnacle, and Aidan, mesmerized, stood and stared.
If it weren’t for Gwenne grabbing his arm and pulling him into a nearby farmhouse, Aidan’s adventures and his life would have ended there. For, in moments, it literally rained arrows. Thuds, smacks, ricochets, and horrible stabbing sounds filled the air as the barrage of arrows pelted the city.
Though they were inside and protected by the structure’s sturdy roof, Aidan and Gwenne covered their heads with their hands and ducked down. A few seconds and several thousand arrows later, it became dreadfully silent. Reluctantly, Aidan looked out of their shelter’s window. Anything that wasn’t made of solid stone had become riddled with dozens of the cruel-looking, red-shafted arrows. But there was no sign of King Ravelle.
“The King! Where is he?” Aidan cried out. He was frantic, remembering that the death of a Glimpse had dire consequences on Earth. “I don’t see him.”
“I don’t know,” Gwenne answered. “He was just in front of us. . . .”
His eyes wide and fearful, Aidan turned to Gwenne.
“He must have made it to the castle,” Gwenne called back. “He knows his way around Mithegard better than anyone else!”
Aidan nodded. He wanted Gwenne to be right. He smiled grimly and looked at a post at the front of the farmhouse. There were five crimson shafts embedded in the wood up to their fletchings.
“That could’ve been me, Gwenne,” Aidan whispered. “I guess that makes us even. If you hadn’t grabbed me . . .”
“It is well that you were not pierced by even a single arrow, Sir Aidan,” agreed Gwenne. “For the Paragor Knights dip their arrowheads in mortiwraith venom.”
“Mortiwraith?” Aidan asked.
“Perhaps the deadliest creature in all The Realm,” Gwenne explained. “A large cave-dwelling creature, like a serpent but with many sets of taloned limbs. Row after row of poisonous fangs, it has, and each is filled with a dreadful poison. Even a tiny bit of its venom will kill even the strongest Glimpse warrior.”
“I hope I never run into a mortiwraith!” exclaimed Aidan, shuddering at the thought.
The Paragor Knights once again began catapulting flaming projectiles into the city. One vaporized a bell tower very near to the farmhouse in which Aidan and Gwenne had been hiding.
“That was close!” Aidan choked. The air was warm and smoky— difficult to breathe. “What are those things? Did you see what it did to the tower?”
“I am not sure, Aidan. Long we have had oil for our lamps and torches, but nothing that explodes like that! We’d better get to the castle!” They left the shelter of the building and ran, crunching the arrows that littered the cobblestone streets.
As they entered the main avenue to the castle, Aidan and Gwenne were greeted with a sight that would haunt their dreams forever. They had wondered why it had become so quiet after the arrows . . . why the screams had stopped—now they knew.
Lying dead in the wide road, pierced with innumerable arrows, were hundreds and hundreds of Glimpses. Aidan choked back tears and looked upon the lifeless bodies of men, women, and children who were struck down just a short run from safety. Their faces were locked in terror, eyes bulging, mouths agape, and their beautiful ivory skin was streaked violently with blood.
Even those who had taken just a single arrow in the arm or leg had perished and looked as though they had suffered in death. Mortiwraith venom was horribly efficient.
Then Aidan looked up at Gwenne, who shook and wept openly. He wanted to cry too, to rage and shriek against the reality of the horror all around them, but he could not. For somehow he knew that Gwenne saw more on those streets than just the dead of Mithegard. He knew that she also saw the ghosts from her past— memories of her parents dying, murdered in cold blood by the merciless armies of Paragory.
Without saying a word, Aidan wrapped his arms around her and held her. Gwenne put her head on Aidan’s shoulder and convulsed into wrenching cries as they continued toward the castle.
To see Gwenne—the swordmaiden whose eyes had silenced Aidan’s fears and whose words had made him feel like a hero—to see her in such agony kindled an inferno in Aidan’s heart. Someday, he thought bitterly. Someday, I will pay Paragory back for the pain it has caused.
Mithegard Knights appeared on the high walls of the castle. One called out to Aidan and Gwenne: “Friends! You must get inside the castle! Our small force is overrun, and the outer wall is nearly breached. Get inside! Hurry, before the armies of Paragory are here!”
Aidan called back to them, “Is the King alive?!”
“Yes! The King of Mithegard is rallying his captains in the main keep. He is as safe as may be, but you are not safe! You must hurry!”
Because of the dead there was no way to hurry. So, carefully, Aidan and Gwenne tiptoed around the bodies and made slow progress toward the castle. It was just a hundred feet, but it felt more like a hundred-mile journey through a hideous nightmare. They didn’t want to look down because of the dreadful scene at their feet, but they had to look down to avoid stepping on a leg, an arm, or fingers of the poor victims.
They were halfway to the castle of Mithegard when the ground began to shake. Aidan and Gwenne looked back down the avenue to the gatehouse and Mithegard’s outer walls. There was a deafening grinding noise and a tremendous explosion. For a moment, they couldn’t see because the smoke was so thick. When the cloud of debris settled, Aidan and Gwenne realized that a huge section of the wall had been knocked down. And through the gaping hole, like a sea of black and red, poured the armies of Paragory.
Aidan and Gwenne looked on in horror as the armies stopped and formed into horizontal lines that were several dozen Glimpses deep. What are they doing? Aidan wondered.
“They are going to fire another volley!” Gwenne cried. “Run!”
A lone trumpet sounded, and another wave of red arrows sped upward into the sky. Aidan and Gwenne turned to sprint for the castle, but they stopped short. The castle’s massive drawbridge had been raised. A sheer fall into a deep, inescapable moat lay in front of them. The ruthless forces of Paragory clamored behind them, and a blizzard of poison arrows was about to crash down on them from above. They were trapped.
