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sending sheets of stinging sand to spin from all directions.
    “I would advise against that!” Aldren yelled over the noise. “We need to return to the outpost! They must know what happened to the envoy! The capital needs to know! And the king? Everyone needs to know! These people have a dragon! ”
    “You go and tell them!” the man barked before turning to advance towards the ridgeline.
    “The weight of what we’ve discovered here warrants a return for both of us,” Aldren bit back, glancing at the dark riders. “What if something happens to me? Or my mount? Should you die, how many days would be lost before anyone discovered what happened?”
    This stopped the rider and his head leaned back, silently cursing the sky. Aldren knew he was right. They had to go back. Dragons that murdered men were not of this realm, and Amoria would need time to assemble.
    The rider spun his mount around, his face an angry scowl. Tossing the spear to the sand, he charged past Aldren without a word, heading north, back towards Dershaw.
    Shakily Aldren sheathed his sword and raced through the beating wind in pursuit, begging the strange men at their back not to follow.
    Glancing once over his shoulder, all he saw was swirling sand.
    Perhaps he’d be back at Stonewall earlier than anticipated.
    War had a way of changing things.
     

 
     
     
    Chapter 1
     
     
     
     
    Tenlon marched to victory with the other apprentices, listening to their hushed laughter and excitement, telling stories passed down from fathers or brothers or cousins who’d made the march before. To different locations, of course, but the end result was always the same. No matter the battle, the land, the heroes or the enemy, the core of such tales were always supported by the same foundation, the same pillars of truth and pride: Amorian soldiers, Amorian dragons, Amorian victory.
    Where Tenlon came from, past victories were a religion and the soldiers who fought for them divine. Young boys lived and breathed war, dreaming of it beneath warm blankets and praying for the days to pass with speed so that they might soon join the ranks of heroes. They longed to follow in the deep and bloody footprints left by Amorian warriors who had come before them, to reach the heights of strength and courage of legend. Theirs was a nation of power, of green-cloaked soldiers with swords and spears, of brilliant scholars and mages, and a bronze dragon that watched over them all.
    Tenlon did not share in the excitement that surrounded him and walked on silently, his thoughts uneasy and nervous of the days to come. Battles were an unpredictable affair, and to think any different was idiocy. Men gave their lives for a cause, and flesh would be torn from them by both sword and spell, or worse.
    Whatever blood flowed through Tenlon’s veins, it was not that of a hero. Looking far ahead, he could see violence on the horizon. It sickened him.
    Tenlon’s father had been a weak man, his mother had always said, although he was too young to witness any of it. A drinker and a gambler, the man was indebted to an unsavory group of fellows from Galla for a great deal of coin. Tenlon had been two or three when his father had finally vanished for good. The city guards who came to their house said that many of the gangsters had great ovens that could destroy a body in minutes. Upon discovering how much he owed, they didn’t search too hard for him. After that Tenlon spent a few weeks secretly sleeping on the hardwood floor next to his bed. He suffered from nightmares that his mattress was burning him alive, much like what he imagined happened to his father. His mother never remarried after that, and it had been just the two of them.
    As a boy he’d been small and frail, which hardly changed in adolescence. He was always the smallest, the thinnest. But he was quick-witted and smart, and after learning to read text at a very early age, found strength in the written word. In fact he’d learned his