Here is a quick update on the podcast – still in the editing phase, but progress has been made.

In lieu of that, have an excerpt draft from book four:

Crossing the northern half of the Lion Empire’s vast, rolling hills and rocky earth was an exercise in threading various side roads and small trails, through empty lands of grazing animals and shepherds and small villages, all while keeping your direction straight in you mind. Brynhalla, raised up the island’s around Emera’s Watch, found it disorienting and stressful. At every intersection, roads branched in great winding patterns, single track often and always with other travelers. She fretted over being certain they were headed north, and over not being identified by the spies and servants of Aydwulf she was sure were hunting for them. K’sith, despite being native to the lands they were seeking, was of little help. He had crossed southward through ship and buying passage with traders, and thus hadn’t needed to navigate himself.

Waterhound was the one who led most of the time. He had a strange sense of direction that kept him on the right track, and an innate ability to charm or intimidate others on the road as necessary. At every turn of the road, he and Brynhalla would confer, and she found herself deferring to him again and again. In their travels they crossed the Stonestream and Westian Rivers, the former being a rapid moving and treacherous run of young water, the latter an old, wide, and lazy river. They crossed both over old bridges when the way was clear. They bedded down on rough ground under the stars, and listened to the wind over the steppe as well as the occasional moaning of Azareal, still in a kind of half-conscious stupor.

They arrived in the time expected, but not to what they expected. When they were outside the fringes of Gildan, Brynhalla began to doubt their course of action. She had wanted to find as straightforward a pathway through the Floodmarsh as possible, and the road from Gildan to Gerthan’s Pass was assuredly that, but Gildan itself seemed to be in the throes of a chaos she did not understand. Trem and Brynhalla stood atop a rise perhaps a quarter of a mile from Gildan and studied the sprawling, low buildings of the frontier town. It was a sizeable settlement, certainly the largest in the north of the Empire. 

What was unusual was a strong presence of legionaries encamped on the southern edge of the town, and the large streams of smoke that rose from areas among the buildings. The two looked on from the rise, both taking in the sight. Trem knew that Gildan was unusual in the Empire, with a history of uprisings and disputes with the greater government, as it existed far from the seat of power, held a lot of older traditions and beliefs tied to the Evenlar elves north of the Floodmarsh, and tended toward greater poverty than her other cities and towns. Clearly, something was amiss.

“I don’t like it.” Brynhalla said, stating the obvious.

“Mmm.” Trem felt her observation spoke for itself. He looked back at the cart, where the short and robed figure of K’sith was fussing over his patient and glancing repeatedly at the other two. 

Bryn sighed. “That is a lot of legionaries, and those fires….”

“Look like a sign of something we want no part of.” Trem finished for her.

“Right.”

Trem shifted from side to side. “Here’s the problem, Bryn, how do we get the cart to the road into the bogs if we don’t cut through Gildan at some point? And is there going to be anywhere we aren’t going to be watched?”

“I don’t know. We could deviate to a smaller village or farm further north, maybe a bit east, hope they have some paths into the mire.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I don’t know.”

They stood in silence for a while, but both knew what they would need to do. Azareal was stable only in the sense that he was not rapidly getting worse, but he was not getting better and K’sith was clearly worried over his state. Trem didn’t want to think about what happened if they lost any more time, but also they couldn’t get stopped in the town. K’sith would be an oddity, and they might already be looking for him, but at least Bryn looked like a Westian. “You take the cart and K’sith through, use one of the smaller roads, maybe there,” he pointed to the eastern side of town, “I’ll get inside and see what all the fuss is about. Maybe we can use it to our advantage.”

Brynhalla looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “Are you looking for an excuse to fight, Waterhound?”

“Absolutely not, but I think you can convince them you’re just transporting an ill man to get aid. If you toss me in the mix, well, maybe there are already Eyes out and looking for me.”

Brynhalla hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Don’t get caught.”

Trem hefted his pack and checked his bow and knife were within easy access, then he started a steady lope down the hill towards the town. The imperials had set up a perimeter and checkpoints all around the town, but it had no wall and no real border, some cattle walls of stone marking grazing areas, but those ended up making for better cover than a deterrent. Trem crept low and hopped over several until he was near the outbuildings, then he studied the gaps between them, looking for a less patrolled area. There was a mud daub cottage perhaps a few hundred feet from where he was hugging a large hunk of stone, and he could see a simple thatch door, certainly not locked or barricaded enough to stop him.

Trem waited for a group of guards to stamp past, then he ducked and ran for the cottage. He pushed the door open and spun inside. A crash of pottery immediately told him he had startled someone. He turned to see a young boy, maybe thirteen, hands trembling as a broken bowl of simple clay lay shattered on the floor. His sisters, Trem supposed, were seated at a battered wooden table, staring at Trem in terror.

The half-elf put a finger to his lips, then bent down and carefully retrieved the potatoes and radishes that had spilled from the bowl. He handed them to the boy. He recoiled, and so Trem placed them on the table, causing the girls to whine and pull back. Trem put his hands up placatingly, then he carefully made his way to the other door of the one room cottage, realizing nothing he did was going to ease their fear.

He opened the main door and stepped outside. The sight of the narrow alley and slop of muck and stagnant water reminded him more of a large city than a sprawling frontier town. There were tracks of carts and the spattering of mud everywhere from horses and other beasts of burden, but nothing immediately in front of him. An old man, missing a hand and leaning on his elbows in a rickety chair, regarded Trem with eyes devoid of curiosity or care. Trem chose to move on.

He followed the ragged track to a larger, more populated portion of Gildan. Here, the trouble became more obvious, and Trem immediately regretted his decision to strike off alone. There was a well in this portion of town, with soldiers leaning on it in their legionary coats and other, less auspicious men at arms, laughing and chatting away. Citizens moved around as well, but gave the soldiers a large berth. Trem only had to watch for a short time to see that the guards were camping at the well to harrass the locals. A young girl went forward with a bucket, to be poked and prodded by imperial soldiers as she tried to fill it. Trem pushed his anger down and moved past the scene. He couldn’t start a fight here, and if he did it wouldn’t be big enough to cause the distraction that might be worth the risk.

Trem moved through a few more winding streets of Gildan to many of the same scenes. He had never seen so many imperials in one place since the fighting at Aves years ago. It was then he realized he as looking at an occupied town, and he felt a sense of curiosity overtake him: what had brought the eye of Aydwulf el Vac down on Gildan?

Then his skin shivered and he felt a bubbling sensation. He almost stumbled, but kept his feet and let out a sharp breath. Someone was using a great deal of arcane magic, so much that it had triggered his elven blood to tingle in response. Trem paused by a vegetable cart, pretending to look at the wares, as he caught his breath and tried to get a sense of where the arcane energy was coming from.

“Don’t draw any eyes here, I don’t need the trouble.” Trem looked at the old woman manning the cart, pointedly avoiding bringing her eyes up at him. “Buy something or don’t, and move on, please.”

Trem put a coin down, he wasn’t sure which one, and grabbed a thick, green vegetable without regarding what it was. He walked a few paces away and took a bite. It was a pepper, a plain but sweet one. Trem chewed, and tried to gather his thoughts. The sensation of something under his skin came again, but this time he expected and managed it. A flash of light came from the north, and Trem, despite his misgivings, moved towards it.

By now, Bryn had to be in the town. If not, something had surely gone wrong. He passed now through more and more people, residents and imperial guards alike. Trem moved aside and pushed his way through the crowd, biting at his pepper and keeping his eyes down, his hood over his head. The guards paid him no mind, and he grew more and more confident. At last, he reached the great hub of Gildan, a circular common area with a pillar rising high out in the center, made of granite and etched with carvings of heroes of the empire, and older ones of Gildan herself. At base of the spire, a woman, in bright red and silver robes that seemed to move of their own accord, held aloft a silver staff with great wings spreading from the top of it. 

As Trem watched, she called out in a commanding, clearly arcane enhanced voice, and a subject of Gildan was forced forward. She called out to the crowd, extolling the virtues of the Empire, of Aydwulf, and of loyalty and service to both, before intoning a demand of service to the man who had been brought forward. “Are you a true servant of the Empire?”

The man, a poor worker by his garb and unease, stammered out, “Yes, my lady.”

The chanting began then, and Trem saw at last what had been making his blood boil with arcane power. The woman held forth her staff, pointing it to the man’s head, and a flash of great light came from it. He staggered and wailed, and a wave of arcane power swept over the crowd. As the man caught himself, she raised her chin haughtily and proclaimed, “A victim of the sin of doubt! Weakness in the face of the needs of our Emperor! You shall have the opportunity to redeem yourself, my son.”

The man cried out in denial, but legionaries dressed in the same bright silver and bearing far more extravagant armor than their peers, stepped forward and seized him, hauling him off to whatever fate the wizard had determined he deserved. Trem felt an anger growing in him he struggled to quell. This was a larger problem than he could tackle here, and perhaps more of a mess than would serve as a good distraction. Still, he watched as a young girl was pushed forward, and he realized his hand was on the hilt of his dagger. He had to do something, but he knew it had to be beneficial for Bryn, K’sith, and Azareal. And, he reminded himself sternly, you can’t get caught.

Trem let his hand drop from the dagger, somewhat regretting he had hidden his sword beneath the folds of his travel cloak and supplies. He also started to recognize the danger he was in, here, in the open. If the guards took note of him, especially those with the extravagant silver trim and trails, he feared he would be brought before the mage and questioned. Still, his anger at this forcible indoctrination made it difficult to walk away.

A hand fell on his shoulder and spun him, not indelicately, away. He went for his dagger but got a sharp blow to the stomach as he was pushed bodily into an alley. He caught himself on the wall and went for his weapon again, but found it was no longer there. He looked up at his assailant to see an elven woman, dark-skinned and with shocking purple eyes that burned with an intensity Trem found almost disturbing. She was holding his dagger, looking at it briefly with disgust, before she tossed it gently back to him. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble, wood elf.”

Trem found he reached for his pointed ears as she said it, his other hand holding the weapon, unsure if he would need to defend himself or not. The other scoffed and moved towards him, pushing him further down the alley and out of sight. Trem, not sure what else to do, let her guide him. She was shorter than he was, but he could feel the tautness of muscle and weight to her he would not have expected from an elf. He recognized she was Evenlar, based on her complexion and the eyes she could be no other elven heritage. He tried to speak with her, but she firmly nudged him onward until they were away from the main center of Gildan and by a number of small, rundown shops. They were even more meager than what Trem had seen on the edge of the town. 

She lifted a thatch cover from a number of barrels and he saw a stair leading downwards. “I don’t think….” She did not let him finish, pushing him into the hidden passage and following close behind. Trem was in a small chamber, a ragged bedroll in one corner, a hanging cauldron large enough to boil a stew or small fowl, and a vent that push the smoke out through what looked like a sewer drain. Clever, it wouldn’t look to most observers like a fire was lit in the building if it was merely smoke distributed through the sewers of town. Though, Trem thought, the smell must give it away to some degree.

The walls were moist and drab, but hung upon one was a wide, single-prong banner of silver, blue, and yellow. Beside that was a smaller, shield-like banner with three silver stars on a yellow field. Trem recognized none of these. The hatch he had come through with his savior, or captor, opened once more and three other elves entered. They were all Evenlar, with the dark skin, dark hair, and deep blue or purple eyes of their kind. Trem had never seen more than one or two at a time together, and even they seemed more exotic than his own mother had, whose skin had seemed lighter and less foreign to him. He found himself embarrassed to be such an outsider, so strange looking next to these people who should have been his kin.

The lead elf who had pulled him from the square came forward, removing her hood and taking his off as well dsimissively. He watched her eyes widen slightly when she saw his scars, but her face otherwise remained impassive. “You are a long way from home, wood elf.”

“I am, but I am also not a Silverleaf elf, as you keep implying. I am half-elven, and my mother was Evenlar.”

There was a chuckle from the elves behind his rescuer and she silenced them with a sharp look. She studied him meticulously for a time, an uncomfortable period of time if Trem were being honest, and just when he was about to tell her he needed to be on his way, she said, “You’ve retained none of your better side. Even your eyes are a dim reflection of our people.”

“I prefer to think of both my sides as equal.” Trem was getting angry, recalling the racism he had experienced at Aves at the hands of humans. Now it seemed he was facing the same from his other bloodline.

“For the Evenlar, only our vestiges of kin matter. We are so few, it is a shame to see one who shares what is left of us show it so feebly.” Her tone was softer, not accusatory but more full of sadness. Trem realized he had misunderstood her scrutiny.

“My mother was Evenlar, Elenya Alhana, but my father was a nameless man from the Legocian region and his complexion and color seems to have been passed on.”

“You are too young to be of the bloodline of Elenya Alhana. I know that name.” The voice came from one of the other elves in the back. He was silenced with a simple motion from the leader. 

“His heritage is irrelevant. You will be a target in this city, cousin. The bastard Emperor is laying claim to his new lands with force and magic. Outsiders won’t be tolerated, and to the legionaries here, anyone who is not a Westian human is an outsider, and even some of those are targeted.”

“But why here, in Gildan?” Trem ran a hand through his hair. “This is a frontier town, it isn’t of the same value as Fayn or anything on the coast. I was in Evertide,” he explained to her quizzical look, “they were celebrating the Festival of Sacred Ashes and there was no animosity or interrogation. Even before that when we were bullying the Eyes of the Raven from town, they never were so bold as to grab citizens for evaluation like they did here.”

“You bullied the Eyes?” A smile threatened to creep onto her face, but she fought it off. “This is Gildan, cousin. It has always been a thorn in the side of any nationalist imperial power, which is all of them to one degree or another. The people of this town have experience with many outside the Empire, and in most cases they build relationship with outsiders, something many rulers of the Empire have despised, seeing it as a way to undermine their authority. Many years before there were even open rebellions, but that has not been the case for some time. And yet, this new Emperor seems to believe the people are only moments from revolution, simply because they welcome all outsiders freely.”

“You say outsiders, would that include you?”

The elven woman tilted her head, studying Trem anew. Her company of followers smiled slightly. “What do you know of the Evenlar?”

“I know the kingdom fell in the Arcane Wars, but many still persist in Westia, fewer in other lands of Teth-tenir.”

“So you know nothing.” Her tone was not dismissive or harsh, but matter of fact. “The fall of our people was the sort which history quickly forgets. We were bold, brave, and determined. We were united and in the right, and we fought and died bravely and with good reason, and we lost. Our kingdom was scoured, our cities glassed and seared, and our people cast to the corners of this world. We are a footnote to the rest who survived, but only to the rest. For the Evenlar, the Arcane Wars, as you call them, are simply known as The Fall.

“What befell our homeland has been falsely reported as the demise of the Evenlar. This is not so, we exist still, the Kingdom still stands, but it has no ruler, not as it once did, and we are a shadow of what once was.”

“So why are you here, in Gildan?”

“To prevent another catastrophe, as has befallen us. Why are you here, cousin?”

Trem considered lying for a moment, but chose against it. “I am traveling with others, a human, a lizardkin, and a …outsider we can call him. We need to get to the Floodmarsh, the outsider is ill and can’t be helped here. We intended to cross through the mire, but with a cart and the density of that land….”

“It would have meant almost certain death, for your sick friend and for the rest of you. The Floodmarsh is not to be trifled with. Plants and creatures of strange and terrible origin live there, and many possess poisons and toxins for which there is no cure. The lizardkin exist there only because they come from it, and even they stick to their clutches and venture outside rarely.” She paused, thinking. “You are here alone, were you meant to find a way through Gildan?”

“We saw smoke rising from the town and the presence of legionaries. I thought I might recon the area and try to provide a distraction so my friends could pass through unimpeded.”

“A reasonable plan, but foolish. One man cannot hope to oppose the imperials here.”

“How about one man and some newfound allies?”

That brought a small smile again. “I think we may be of the same mind.”

Trem offered his hand. “Trem Waterhound.”

“Halvere Ve’tira.” She took his hand and shook it firmly. “I think we could use you and help you at the same time.” Without hesitation, she gestured to one of her followers, who brought forth a crude leather map of the town. She set it on the ground and Trem crouched beside her. Halvere pointed to several areas she had circled in a dark red clay. “These are bonfires, the ones you saw from outside the town. The imperials have been confiscating anything they deem a threat. Weapons of course, but also tools and herbs, essentially anything making a person or family self-sufficient. We believe they intend to weaken Gildan’s people and make them dependent on the Empire for supplies, and therefore survival.”

“What about the interrogations in town? Looking for traitors or just using an excuse to find hard labor?”

“We suspect both. There are those we work with in Gildan to bring in supplies, weapons, food, and medical needs. That is how we have opposed the Empire so far, but it is not enough. The wizardess who is in charge, she has brought every prominent local to her and found one reason or another to strip them of their authority or bend them to her will. This will break the town before long.”

“Alright, so what do you want to do about it?”

Halvere pointed to several locations she had marked in black squares. “These are the barracks where the legions have holed themselves up. They take supplies from locals, drink and abuse the populace, and in all cases these are homes or buildings stolen from the people themselves. They must be flushed out, driven to the outskirts of town. They need to know they are not welcome in Gildan.” She straightened and slammed a fist into her other, open palm. “But we have to strike for Gildan, not the people here. There cannot be a retaliation against them, it has to be clear the Order of the Arcane was responsible.”

“Order of the Arcane?”

“In Evenlar, there are several great houses responsible for many aspects of our society, or there were.” She pointed to the banner with the three silver stars. “Myself and my followers come from those who were part of the Order of the Arcane. A small group that worked in the magic of the gods.”

“Because unlike the Auvandaran, most of your people were priests and priestesses, worshippers of the gods, but not students of their language and manifestations of magic.”

“Yes, we were a small group, and unfortunately the damned beasts, the Auvandaran, were far more skilled in the arcane than we, and we could not counter their dark magic when the time came. This is our shame, and it is why we venture out to aid others.” She looked at Trem, her dark eyes searching his. “If you can aid us, I can assure you a grand distraction.”

“And will I be able to rejoin my friends?”

“I will not stop you, but I will also not promise you will be unharmed.”

“That is a deal I can accept.”