The Lords of Aedyn had gathered for a crisis meeting in the Great Hall. Only Solon, the new captain of the guards, stood before them. Anaximander was rotting in a cell, awaiting execution for his treasonous acts.

"We face a catastrophe unless we act decisively," the Leopard was saying, pacing the smooth tiled floors. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back as he spoke. "Both the fair strangers have escaped. Our Lord Chamberlain has proved…untrustworthy. And the hostage children have been set free by those wretched outlaws!"

"Yes," said the Wolf slowly. "Please, Captain, tell us how that sad event came to pass."

Solon, who had told himself he had nothing to fear from the lords in his new position, began to tremble.

"It…it was something not of this world, my lords," he said. "My men saw the fair strangers approach and called to them to halt, but they would not. They drew their swords, ready to kill, and then the strangers…" He paused, coughed, and looked around. "They screamed."

"Screamed," the Wolf repeated. Solon nodded, swallowing hard.

"Screamed, my lord. Screamed so that it might have shaken the sun in the sky. The sound of it knocked in the door and burst all the windows, and…and it shook the chains from the captives. My men were paralyzed, my lord—their ears still ring with the pain of it."

"And the children?" asked the Jackal. "What happened to the children?"

"They ran out the door," said Solon miserably. "They ran out of the door and into the forest with the fair strangers."

"Ah," said the Wolf, and Solon began to tremble all the more.

"We are most displeased," the Wolf continued. "And had we not heard a similar tale about such a terrible scream from a patrol a few days ago, your life would not be worth the breath it takes to speak your name. Do you understand?"

Solon nodded. He understood.

"You will ensure that the guards are fully mobilized and ready to repel any attack from these bandits. It may come at any time. And you will make sure that the slaves never hear this news of the children."

The Wolf waved his hand. The audience was clearly over. Solon bowed and left the Great Hall as quickly as decency allowed, thankful to still be alive.

The Wolf paced the room after his new captain had departed, admitting to himself that, for the first time in centuries, he was worried. He fingered the ebony amulet at his neck as he pondered the situation. His grip on power was slipping, and there was now a real threat of revolt from the slaves.

The Leopard, seeming to read his thoughts, spoke up in the silence. "Everything is falling to pieces around us," he said. "There is no one left to trust—and no one who can stand against this new power. We are doomed!"

The Wolf turned angrily on his heel and spat his reply. "We have triumphed in the past and we will triumph again! Let me hear no more of that talk!" The Leopard, who had lived five hundred years without fear, began to be afraid.

The Wolf turned away from the Leopard as he continued. "We must now turn our attention to preventing a revolt within the castle. We shall institute a policy of terror. By the time we have finished with them, any thought of rebellion will die in their hearts. Guards!"

Two armoured men entered the Great Hall, silently awaiting their orders. "Fetch Anaximander from his cell. Tell him that he will be restored to our favor if he will show the slaves the meaning of fear."

By suppertime the children had been delivered to the safety of the garden, to shouts and tears of joy. After an evening of feasting and a good night of rest, Gaius, Peter, Julia, and Lukas gathered over breakfast to make plans for the liberation of Aedyn. They sat at a large wooden table, a series of maps laid out before them, while not far away in the garden Alyce and Helen sat mobbed in a crowd of children, all shrieking with laughter.

Gaius was deep in conversation with Lukas about military strategy, discussing how best to assault the castle. They now had twenty swords, captured from the guards the previous day. For the first time, they would be able to meet the forces of the Lords of Aedyn in combat.

"Twenty swords," Lukas was saying. "A help, of course, but we'll be fighting scores—perhaps hundreds of men. We simply don't have the numbers to meet them in full battle."

"No, we don't," Gaius agreed bluntly. "But perhaps there is a way." He turned to Julia, who had been largely silent. "Not an hour's walk from here there is a cave—a cave guarded by a messenger of the Lord of Hosts himself. In that cave are a hundred bows and quivers of arrows."

Lukas' eyes went wide.

"You never told me of this," he said, his voice accusing. Gaius shook his head.

"Perhaps, my son, when you have seen five hundred years you too will find that it is sometimes best to keep secrets." His eyes twinkled beneath his heavy brow. 

"These are the arrows Marcus brought with him from Khemia—the arrows that the lords did not destroy. They kept them hidden, but I have put my own protections on the hiding place. A messenger of the Lord of Hosts stands guard at the doorway. None but the Deliverer may enter and take what is hidden," he said. "And that day is upon us."

Lukas leaned forward, his eyes bright.

"With arrows we can attack from a distance," he said. "Distract the lords with an assault and send a group of men around to free the slaves still trapped inside. With a hundred bows, I'll have enough to arm all my men and more besides for those who join us from the castle." He could see only one problem. "Gaius, can you teach us how to use these bows?"

The monk shook his head. "In my time I was a scholar, not a warrior."

"Then they aren't really going to be all that much use to us, are they?"

And Peter's face broke into a grin, because even if he was rubbish at Orienteering and Wildnerness Survival there was one thing he could really do well. "I think I might be able to help you there," he said.

It was later that afternoon when he and Julia set out to find the hidden cave. The walk was neither long nor particularly arduous, and they passed the time in a companionable silence.

Following the eagle, who flew just ahead of them, they soon found themselves at the foot of a hill. As they looked more closely they noted that the bushes and scrub, although long overgrown, seemed too neatly ordered to have grown there naturally. At one point, a curtain of vines and creepers reached from the ground up to the top of the hill. Peter began to draw it aside, pushing his way through the thorns and barbs to reveal a cave. So well had it been concealed that nobody could have found it had he not known precisely where to look.

He was on the point of stepping into the cave, Julia close behind him, when a voice boomed into his hears. He looked wildly about but there was no one near…and yet the voice still rang in his ears.

"Who dares to enter here?" it roared. Peter looked frantically back at Julia, who came forward and laid a reassuring hand on his arm.

"We are Julia and Peter, the Chosen Ones," she said. "We seek the treasure you guard to restore this land to the Lord of Hosts."

A breathless pause, and then—"Enter," said the voice, and then fell silent.

They went inside the cave. It was dark, but that could only be expected, and saturated with an earthy smell—the sort of smell you get in a damp room that has not been aired for a long time. After only a few paces Peter found himself bumping up against some wooden boxes. They were too heavy for him to lift, but he was able to pry the top off the uppermost container.

He gingerly reached inside with one hand, privately hoping that there wouldn't be spiders, and was soon rewarded by the feel of a leather case. More confident now, he used both hands to pull out the case, his heart pounding. Even in the darkness he could see that the case had a distinctive shape—the shape of a bow. And there were quivers and arrows as well, carefully hidden beneath a protective layer of cloth. He had found the cache of weapons.

Julia, doing the same at the opposite end of the cave, gave at little cry of joy at her discovery. Only one question remained—would the weapons work? Or had they become worthless after their long disuse? There was only one way to find out. Peter extracted a bow from its case, noting with approval that the strings had been removed from the bows before they had been concealed. He carefully restrung one of the bows and fitted the nock of an arrow to the bowstring, making sure the string was properly aligned with the fletching near the base of the arrow. He carefully took the stance his archery coach had told him was the best, distributing his body weight evenly.

He held the bow in his left hand, drawing the bowstring back with three fingers of his right hand, two fingers below the arrow and one above, until his hand touched his chin. He raised the weapon and aimed for the tree ahead. A moment later he released the arrow, and felt the bow recoil in his hands.

The arrow missed its target, overshooting by at least twenty paces. Peter broke into a grin. The bow was far more powerful than any he had ever in the Scouts! He reached for a second arrow, adjusting his aim to allow for the unexpected strength of the bow. This one sank deep into the center of the tree with a satisfying thud. Julia broke into applause.

"It's marvelous Peter—marvelous! Come, we have to get Lukas's men to help us carry them back to camp!" She grasped his hand and fairly dragged him back onto the path. At last—at last!—they were getting somewhere.
 

As the sun was sinking in the west, Lukas's band of outlaws returned to the forest camp leading twelve horses heavily laden with the weapons. Peter supervised the stringing of the bows and the assembling of sets of bows, quivers, and arrows, marveling anew at their pristine condition. More of the magic of this place, he thought.

Julia watched approvingly for some moments, pleased that her brother's talents had finally been put to good use. She was confident that they would defeat the army of Aedyn and take control of the castle. If only that would be the end of this matter! But she knew it was not.

Gaius sought her out that evening as the small group of outlaws was bedding down, exhausted and eager for the rest. The children were huddled together as Helen told them bedtime stories, all of the young ones eager for the day close at hand when they would be with their parents again. As the fires sank low, Gaius motioned to Julia and she joined him, perched on a log beside one of the fires. Together they watched the embers glow and crackle with heat.

Julia picked up some fallen leaves from the ground and rolled them in her hands. They were highly fragrant, with hints of lemon and cinnamon. A smile came to her face. Why were wonderful fragrances so healing? They seemed to lighten her mood and heighten her awareness of the natural splendor of the forest around her. Why, she wondered, did such evil exist in the midst of such beauty? What had gone wrong? It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen, but it had become home to violence and treachery. Was it that people were weak and foolish, and failed to recognize evil when it arose? Or was it downright rebellion against the laws of nature, the deeper structures of the world?

"You remember the question I asked you," said Gaius softly. Julia nodded, her hands still turning over the leaves. The monk seemed to read her thoughts.

"How evil could happen here," she murmured. Gaius nodded, his gaze on the dying embers.

"I want you to keep that in mind in the coming days," he said. "As we fight to restore this land, remember what it can become." Julia nodded, unsure precisely what to say. She would watch and remember—but why this question? And why her?

Continue to Chapter Eighteen.