"Get the boy!" Kaelor shouted, spurring his horse into a furious dash. The hooves of his mount tore across the trembling earth as he surged into a whirlwind of panic; massive horned sheep bleated and scattered in every direction, and the sky above was a maelstrom of leathery wings. Morning fog still clung to the ground, giving everything a hazy, dreamlike quality, and yet, it was all too real. Bats the size of men swooped and shrieked above, darkening the sky.
For a flicker of a moment, amidst the chaos, Kaelor's mind drifted, his old life flashed before him. A life of calloused hands, lifting blocks under the unkind sun. A man who served the grind of survival.
But this… this was who he truly was.
A rider in the thick of death and danger. A blade in the storm.
A Lord.
Shing!
His sword left its sheath with a clear metallic cry.
