Mika and Christopher walked along the great inner wall of the mountain pass. Cups in hand, the two observed the camp below, its white tents stretching far away, thousands of refugees moving between the temporary homes. They reminded Mika of ants moving through crumbles of scattered dirt, experts at movement in the little spaces and making the most out of each inch they had been given. A sense of admiration came over him, seeing their competence even when the king Barak's horses started their invasion of the encampment.
Two hundred mounted soldiers made their way to the edge of the camps with the king at their front. Behind them, some two hundred more soldiers marched over the hill. These were not mounted. The two groups made for a long snake of men and beast marching down the hill. For a few minutes the king spoke with the soldier that Mika had spoken to before, and after some back and forth, the soldier turned and blew a horn. Down through the camps, three more horns blew, then every soldier within the area moved.
They forced those nearest the gate to uproot their tents and move away, which the refugees did very willingly. Beyond this, a hundred soldiers made a line reaching from this new open space all the way to the newcomers. Once all were in position, they went about clearing tents that were within a twenty foot radius of where they stood, making a pathway for the horses to begin traveling down.
Barak sat proud, looking only ahead. Mika noted that the two men on either side of him looked nothing like those within the mountains. The man to the king's right, seemed a bit old, and held a perpetual look of contempt upon his face as he looked about the encampments. The one upon the king's left did appear far nobler, perhaps even being compared to how he saw Christopher upon first meeting. Only, he looked far less rugged and more beautiful than his new friend. Mika sat upon the wall's edge letting his feet dangle over the stone as he fished out his notebook once more.
"Why are you doing that?" Christopher remained standing, cup in one hand and the other resting upon his great sword's hilt. Mika did not look up at him.
"It is my job, friend."
"Your job is to write words? Are you not a scribe? I thought they were to write messages for royalty or even the words of the royals themselves." He looked about. "I don't think I can hear them speaking now." Mika laughed at the joke.
"Yes, I suppose that is a scribe's usual position. However, I am within a slightly different order. You see, I travel and offer my abilities to those who would hire me. I teach children to read and write, or take the words of kings, or even write legal documentation." He looked out to take in the sight again, then wrote more. Barak was nearing the open space before the gate. "It just so happens that, when I came through this gate not long ago, that I fell in with a man who needed my help." Christopher too looked out upon the approaching forces.
"And what kind of help did they need? Counting outlanders and sellswords?" Mika halted his writing and looked up at the knight.
"No. No, nothing like that." He went back to writing. "I was simply hired to do one thing. Write down the tales of Northguard, to the best of my ability."
Barak stopped just before the gate. The mounts behind him and his two commanders filled in the space and even began pushing for it to become wider. The king looked up at the two men, who had caught his eye while riding up, as the only two who did not in any way share uniformity with the other soldiers upon the wall. He looked between them, though mostly at Christopher, seeing how he was the only one of the two with a sword.
Mika smiled and bowed his head, as did Christopher, though without smiling. The scribe observed the lack of any real metal armor upon the king, or any of the footmen, opting more for thick hides, like those of the garrison already guarding the wall. This made them all look much more rugged than the mounted ones, who wore breast plates and helmets of well polished metals. Even their banners and the way in which they decorated their mounts stood out with radiant blues and whites. He felt the footmen and king held more resemblance to the man on his right than anyone else in the company.
"What do you two think you are doing on my wall?" Barak said. Mika stood up awkwardly, fumbling to put the book back into his pack. Christopher took another sip from his drink.
"Just taking in the view." The knight gestured with the wooden cup, looking around at the gathering before them.
"So it would seem." The king of Mountcrane looked down at the man's sword once more. "I can tell battle is nothing new to you, outlander."
"You are correct in this."
"Yes. We have been recruiting all along the way here. Have you heard this?" Christopher, after taking the final sip from the drink, pursed his lips in satisfaction. He looked beyond the horses and to the foot soldiers beyond.
"No, but I can tell." He sniffed. "All from the finest stables I see." A silence fell over the company, and even the outlanders who did not speak the language knew something rude had been spoken. Mika felt his spine stiffen. Where he had moments ago been frustrated at his exclusion from the conversation, now welcomed it. In fact, he preferred to vanish from the wall altogether. Perhaps that magi had a spell for such things, he thought.
Barak remained watching the knight, a tension growing within his bearded jaw. He looked over to Mika after a moment, and looked him up and down. The scribe noted the lack of acceptance on the king's face.
"You are an outlander, that much is clear to me by your look."
"Indeed I am, sir."
"Then how is it that you wear the garb of Willow's Nest?" Mika, showing all the common courtesies he would any king, retold his meeting with a Magi named Abner, and his coming into a partnership with the man and the King of Willow's Nest. Though, upon the mention of the name Abner, and following it up with the naming of King Malakai, he noted the face of Barak growing red. The two captains on either side of him exchanged concerned glances, and Mika felt as though he had said something even worse than Christopher had. Barak looked down from the two for some time before speaking low to himself.
"Can I never be rid of that Magi? Even after sending him away he finds some trick to inflict himself into our matters." He sighed and looked back up to Christopher. His brow was deeply furrowed and face still red. Have you any interest in joining our cause, outlander?"
"I can't say that I do."
"I can tell you were from one of the noble houses. Is this true?"
"It is."
"You are sworn then to uphold the safety of those lesser than yourself. Does this mean nothing to you here?"
"I am sworn," Christopher's voice rose, cutting off Barak's final word. "to serve the house of my people." Mika looked over at the knight, and saw a light growing in the man's eyes that had been so dull up to this point. He took a step back. "My people are no more. So, until I find a new people, I serve no man."
"And your travels to find your new people have brought you through my mountain pass?"
"Indeed it has."
Barak nodded, frowning in contemplation.
"We will see about that." Suddenly, he turned his horse about and began barking out commands to all watching. "Now hear this. You all seem to be fleeing from something. Something that has been ripping your worlds apart, from the tales that reach my ear. The pale man." At the mention of the name, all outlanders present, save for the two on the wall, moved closer to hear the king's words. "Yes, I have heard of this outland usurper. He takes the lands of any he wishes, and none may stand before him. For the past half year now, we have been letting you outlanders come here, free of any price. And we have not hated you for it. But listen to me now." He barked the last sentence even louder than before. Mika felt a shock go through him. "This ends here. The pale man marched nearer to the outer wall each passing day. We need soldiers to keep him from entering Tovoran." Barak paused and looked about. "If you want your women and children to enter our realms, then any man within your camps over the age of seventeen must join us in the fight here." There was a ripple of whispers that hissed through the congregation as the king's words were translated for all present. "These are my orders." Barak turned his horse around once more, and looked up at Christopher again. "Anyone caught trying to leave without first offering his services will be executed." He gazed at the knight with an icy stare. "And make no mistake, even a stable boy can do that job."
Lines were formed and booths were set up at the wall for the outlanders to offer their men to the king's army. With each husband or son given a position within the wall's garrison, Mika noticed a family of outlanders pick up their campsite and travel down the road the king's soldiers had come down only hours before. He saw children and wives giving tearful farewells. They had all seen what type of enemy this king of Northguard would be facing in the coming days, and Mika had heard their stories. Kingdom after kingdom these families had found themselves the lucky few time and again. However, at the borders of the mountain people of the south west, there would be no more running. Here, their families knew their husbands and sons would die.
"I am afraid I must leave you now, scribe." Christopher came up to him. He had been through the line to make his mark on the ledgers. After this, the knight had gone back to his tent to gather his gear for battle. Mika looked him up and down and awed at the man who stood before him. Each piece of the armor set was polished beyond need, and each piece fit him like he had been born in the thing.
"By the gods, you look to have come right out of the thousand scrolls, Christopher." Mika felt his observation to be still lacking. Christopher gave him a sad smile.
"Thank you." He looked down at the growing forces below. "Last I checked, the outlander forces numbered to about seven hundred. With the king's foot soldiers, that should be near nine hundred."
"Not a bad number." Mika stepped to the edge of the wall and looked with his friend. "Remember, this is the inner wall. They will need to take the outer wall first. I believe three thousand men guard that one now."
"Not a bad number?" Christopher chuckled softly to himself.
"Something wrong?"
"My friend, those guarding the outer wall are no different than the men you see below."
"How do you mean?" Christopher walked to the other side of the wall and looked out towards the mountain pass. Its road stretched nearly a half mile in width, but twisted and turned so much that only two miles could be seen down it from where he stood. Gray and cold sat the stone on either side of the gravelly road, only made even more gloomy now that the clouds overhead had finally taken over the whole sky.
"What I mean is, these 'soldiers' filling the king's ranks are little more than boys who have never seen a real spear let alone used one. I might as well ask you to face the enemy."
"Your life has given you a cold bluntness my friend." Mika laughed. "Don't forget, I would be within those ranks had I come through the mountains a few weeks later."
"Sorry. I meant no offense."
"No, no." Mika put up his hand and then walked to be beside the knight. "You are being honest. Trust me, in times like these, honesty is what people need to hear." The two looked out to the distance, the view growing darker as the minutes passed.
"Even honesty will not save us from what is coming." Abruptly, the knight looked over to Mika. "Do you know your way around the country well enough?" Mika nodded. "Is there a place where you can go when the fighting starts? A safe place. Not some village, or anything like that." Mika thought for a moment.
"I suppose the nearest place would be Mountcrane. A castle some eighty miles west from here."
"And can you find your way there?"
"Of course. You just follow the road there. It branches and splits off into a northern and southern road. But still, both of them will take you to Mountcrane if you travel down them long enough." Christopher nodded.
"I see." He paused for a moment, then spoke again. "When the fighting starts, go there."
"What?" Mika laughed, but Christopher put a stop to it by grabbing his shoulder.
"Hey! You listen now. There is no reason for you to be here when the invasion starts."
"But I have been hired to record-"
"Fighting is fighting." The knight drew the scribe close. "You have heard all the stories from these people." He pointed back at the outlanders below. They were now being handed out spears of a shabby nature. Each man took his, a gloomy expression over his features. "You know how this fight ends. So, write it down now and leave."
"You don't know that. You can't lose hope like this."
The two men's conversation was cut off by a sound. Down through the valley it came. A cracking boom, shuddering the rocks all the way down to the inner wall. The powerful gate at its center shook and its heavy chains rattled. There came a cry from many of the horses, and all turned their heads to face down the mountain pass. Silence then fell. Not a man from any nation dared to move, but only listened.
"What was that?" Mika asked his friend, but kept his eyes trained on the valley. "Was that thunder?" Christopher shook his head. "Had to be thunder, though."
"I've never heard or felt thunder like that." Christopher responded calmly. Mika felt anxiousness growing within him.
"Then what?" The two looked out for some time longer before the answer came to the knight.
"It would seem the pale man is upon us sooner than we expected."