Free The Free Kingdoms (Book 2) by Michael Wallace Page A

nature of its advice, but also because of how often it lost its temper with the second, more reasonable voice. The second voice claimed to be Memnet the Great, a wizard from the Tothian Wars. He didn’t know if this was true, but had no reason to doubt.
    Why do you think that? Whelan thought as he watched Serena approach, leading a horse.
    She walked across the courtyard, avoiding the two knights sparring in the shade cast by the Golden Tower. Glittering topaz beads braided her hair, and the mane of her horse alike, belying the simplicity of the rest of her clothes, a white tunic with simple brown pants and riding gloves. At the last minute, she glanced over to the well as if spotting Whelan for the first time and veered in his direction.
    She is only lonely, Memnet said. All of that will change when Daniel returns.  
    Nonsense, the first voice said. Your brother hates the girl. She will always be neglected. If someone doesn’t save her from her loneliness, she is doomed to misery.  
    It wouldn’t hurt to be her friend, Whelan said, expecting a rebuttal from Memnet, but he said nothing. And so it began. By the time the king returned three months later, the damage had been done.
    #
    Ah, memories. How they haunted him!
    It was dusk when Whelan rode his horse into Eriscoba for the first time since King Daniel had banished him. Nearly sixteen hours had passed since he’d awakened from his sleep, but his dreams of the night before still troubled him. They were too real to be merely dreams, but fixed in his memory like the disturbing visions he’d seen in the Desolation.
    Cruel fate had led Whelan to discover Serena’s body broken from the rocks, rather than Daniel, who rode wildly along the beach, calling out her name, or better still, one of the dozens of men who scoured the beaches for ten miles, looking for the queen’s body among the detritus left by the storm. Would the cursed memory never leave his dreams?
    He’d passed Cragyn’s vanguard during the night, and just an hour earlier, a griffin rider had spotted him and brought him news that Daria had returned to the aerie and Darik was with Markal, thus removing a major worry from his mind.
    The Teeth had proved harder for Cragyn to break than Montcrag. Lord Garydon had held the castle against the might of the dark wizard’s army for three days. Wizard fire had blackened the castle and torn a breach in one of the outer walls, but still the castle held. If it could withstand a few more days of fighting, the Free Kingdoms might yet send aid.
    He passed nobody on the Tothian Way as he rode into Estmor. It was a small kingdom, and the swamp lands that marked the Way’s entry into Eriscoba were less populated than others, and, some said, haunted with ungathered souls.
    Estmor had once been drier and forested and small shrines to the Forest Brother dotted the land, their ruins strangled by climbing vines or half submerged in water. The Forest Brother was long-dead, as was the strength of this land.
    Night came and still Whelan rode. He stopped for a few hours to let his exhausted mount rest, but Whelan couldn’t sleep, so he walked through the darkness, listening to the bellow of frogs.
    Lights bobbed up and down in the distance; at first Whelan thought them wights. As he approached, however, he saw lamps floating on a small lake. About two dozen men sat on boats in the darkness, lamps held on poles over the water.
    Each man had a cormorant in his boat, with a metal ring about its neck. When a fish came to investigate the lamp light, the bird would dive into the water and grab the fish, returning a moment later with its catch, which it couldn’t swallow with a metal ring about its neck. The man would throw the fish into a bucket, feeding the cormorant scraps as reward, then return to his lamp.
    They’d leave their fishing soon enough, Whelan guessed as he stood in the shadows and watched. Not even the deep moors would be safe from Cragyn’s army.
    He returned to his