Chapter Five

Mufaun had given Steed the very best men under his control. He’d even ordered the transfer of men from other legions at Steed’s request. Steed’s unit answered only to him. They were fast, proficient, and well-trained. Steed prided himself on the discipline of his elite scout unit. But after an hour of waiting, and still no reports from any of the ten scouts, the soldiers began to get restless.

Steed stole a look at his commander to find him looking back at him. Mufaun saw the uncertainty in his captain’s eyes, felt the pending doom that was creeping into his heart. Something was wrong. Something had gone terribly wrong. The silence seemed to grow heavier, as if it would strike down the first to break it. Swords began to slide from sheaths. The archers held arrows notched and ready to fly at the first enemy to show its ugly face. And as the tension mounted, Mufaun began to doubt he had influenced the disappearance of the villagers at all.

That had been his plan, arrive in a deserted town with just enough evidence to suggest the villagers had the foresight to leave town during the night. Wouldn’t be a hard story to sell given the reason they had come to this otherwise forgotten part of the realm. But if this woman was a seer, as powerful as the one described to him by Emperor Hotek, then perhaps he had underestimated her. He had pledged an oath to protect her and those with her so long as she was in danger. There had been an uneasy agreement reached in which the villagers would seek refuge in a mountain stronghold they affectionately referred to as the Dungheap. Once he had proven his word and the soldiers had left the land, they would consider the arrangement Mufaun had proposed.

Still, the unsettling feeling permeating this village was growing steadily, and Mufaun had seen enough battles to know they were in a bad position, a position he had put them in out of over-confidence, not a mistake he made often. Nor would he ever make again. Mufaun turned in his saddle about to shout an order for his captains to retreat, when his heart sank into his stomach. Something had been launched at the army from behind one of the nearby buildings. Mufaun knew what it was even before it crashed against the shields of the men to his left.

It was Rone, one of Steed’s scouts. The body rolled off the shields of the soldiers it struck, falling lifeless to the ground. What foe had the ability to kill a man, a powerful man, and leave no evidence of the instrument use to take his life? Whatever or whoever it was promised to hurt them dearly. Mufaun looked at the corpse as his men backed slowly away. Fate had crashed down on him like a blacksmith’s hammer. He had taken his men to their deaths. Pride had made him sloppy and Fate would be unforgiving it seemed. The other scouts must have come to a similar if not more gruesome end. He hoped angels had carried them on their way.

“Sir.”

Mufaun, Lieutenant Marshall of the Imperial Army, sat silent on his warhorse. He heard Steed addressing him but he was at a serious loss for words, far from being ready to give any order that might bring more suffering upon them than he already had doomed each of them to.

What had he done?

Mufaun’s eyes rose to the towering granite peaks that enclosed the valley. The Tambor Mountains were home to some of the most feared creatures in Eros-Sur. There were few men or women who braved their wilderness. The most feared of these beasts was the stone giant. It was rumored that they possessed an intelligence equal to most men, and rivaled even some of the wisest. They lived high in the granite peaks of the mountain range where they burrowed into the ancient mountains with their bare hands. This ancient, wise and dangerous creature was surely what lurked in the unseen alleys of the village, planning its slaughter of Mufaun’s battalion.

“Sir. Prepare us for battle.”

The simple request awoke the warrior leader inside Mufaun once again. He slid easily from his warhorse and looked at his men. Within seconds Mufaun was surrounded by his captains, issuing orders as fast as they came into his mind. Yet, even as his men carried out his plan, the enemy showed its ugly face.

Now, seeing one of these fell beasts in the road before his very eyes, Mufaun had to give some credence to the rumors. The animal was massive, like a piece of the mountain itself ripped out and tossed in their path.

Its skin was the color of smoky quartz, with black splotches spread over the entire 10-foot, 800-pound frame of the animal. The arms were abnormally long, with hands balled into fists like great stone hammers. When it moved, the knuckles of each fist would leave deep gouges in the hardened earth. Its large, round face was a hairless boulder set on massive shoulders with black coal-like eyes. There was nothing dumb, or clumsy looking about this animal. It was king of the mountain, come down to feed on human flesh. Suddenly, the unnerving disappearance of the villagers wasn’t so difficult to understand. Or so Mufaun thought.

But why the stone giants? Like something from one of the childhood stories he had listened to by the light of his father's fire, these ancient creatures seldom ventured into the inhabited regions of men. Stone giants hadn’t been seen in the lowlands for over a hundred years, not since the time of the elf and ogre wars. Why now? Why this village?

And even as the Mufaun squared off with his formidable foe, filling his hands with the leather bound hilts of his two shortswords, the unthinkable happened. Fifteen more equally impressive giants surrounded the army, heaving the bodies of five more scouts at them.

There would be no escape for Mufaun or his men.