Author's Note:

Hey guys. This one is a little different from the other stuff I've posted. It's really just an idea and I'm probably not going to continue it, but I thought I'd post what I had.


The Gallan

The knight shivered as a chill breeze picked up and tugged at her tall frame. She stood on the battered wall of the sacked refugee camp, watching thoughtfully as the men below began the back-breaking work of digging graves.

Her eyes flicked to the neatly laid-out rows of the dead and counted them again. Most were the camp's soldiers, a third were those civilians who had resisted. There was only one child, a toddler shot through with a crossbow bolt.

Actually, that wasn't quite true.

There were ten other children and they had been the 'walking dead' for about a fortnight judging by the smell and the state of their blackened, bloated little bodies. But they weren't the camp's children. They had come with the Scanrans; the frightful weapon of King Maggur, and the vile work of a shadowy figure known as Blayce the Gallan.

Whispers spread across the countryside of curses and black magic. Hardened veterans would turn-tail and run instead of face the ghoul-children. These northern inland basin valleys trapped the summer heat, and by the time the ghoul-children arrived on Tortallan soil the decomposition was quite bad. Flies swarmed in clouds, maggots seethed in the uncannily-seeing pits that were once their eyes, and a foul stench preceded them. Normal swords and arrows didn't stop them, just slowed them down. Rumour had it that anyone they touched would also rot alive, until the flesh had fled their bones and their restless ghosts would forever roam, unable to find their way to the Peaceful Realms. Not even Stormwings would touch a battlefield where the child-ghouls had been.

Keladry of Mindelan was not just any knight. She was a knight of the Order of the Chamber of the Ordeal of the Kingdom of Tortall. It was a mouthful of a title; they usually called themselves the Knights of the Order, or sometimes they were called Hunters. She knew how these ghoul children were made, and what their master was. Kel turned and looked away from the men digging graves. Near the camp's ruined gate stood Sir Nealan of Queenscove, a fellow Knight of the Order and Kel's friend since their page days. A mage, Neal had just finished purifying the site, and now rinsed his hands with charmed water and flicked the excess over his shoulders to protect himself from angry ghosts. He looked up and signalled her. She signalled back, and watched as he spoke a word of power to activate the charms he had laid on the bodies of the ghoul-children. The little bodies flared bright and hot and then faded, leaving only ash. Kel murmured a Yamani prayer for their souls to find their way to the Black God's realms.

This is it, she thought. The kidnappers are taking the refugee children to Blayce the Gallan and he will defile them, feast on their blood, and make two hundred more ghouls to send our way.

At the bottom of the stair the area commander, Lord Wyldon of Cavall, waited for her.

"Lady knight," he said with a sharp nod.

Kel bowed to her former training master.

"I leave you Sergeants Connac and Hevlor and their squads. Finish up here tonight and return to Fort Mastiff in the morning. If Mastiff is under attack move on and report to Lord Raoul at Steadfast instead. Do not engage the enemy at Mastiff."

"But sir, the camp children—they took..." Kel protested.

"Not now, Mindelan," Lord Wyldon interrupted. "You do not see the bigger tapestry. Maggur has that cursed pattern, remember? He hits several places at once. I want to be back inside Mastiff's walls before he hits again."

Kel clenched her jaw. Wyldon wasn't a Hunter; he didn't understand.

"But they'll take..."

"Report to Mastiff tomorrow," Wyldon interrupted tersely. "You have your orders, lady knight."