Excerpt

The sweet musical notes grew louder, warning him that he was almost home. He twisted himself upright as he flew on the warm cushion of air, ready to be deposited at the gate on Denduron. Alder smiled. He needed a rest and hoped that his duties as a Bedoowan knight would allow for a little downtime.

It was at that moment that he caught one last image floating in the sea of space. It was a fleeting image of a large group of dark-skinned men holding up spears, waving them angrily. The image caught his eye because it was familiar. The men were tall and thin. Each was as bald as the next. They wore thick, leather armor that was distinctly purple. Alder recognized them. They were a primitive tribe that lived on the far side of the mountain from his village on Denduron. They were a peaceful people. Seeing them waving spears, wearing armor and chanting angrily was disturbing. What could it mean? The image was gone as quickly as he registered it, swallowed up by the vision of a silver dygo digging machine from Zadaa. In Alder’s mind, the image of the angry armed tribe remained. He knew it wasn’t a good omen.

Seconds later Alder was standing in the familiar cave that was the gate to the flume on Denduron. His teeth began to chatter. He was freezing. No big surprise. The gate on Denduron was near the peak of a snowy mountain and Alder still wore the lightweight, tropical clothing from Ibara. He quickly dropped the dado-rods and changed into the warm, leather uniform of a Bedoowan knight. It felt good to be home. At the mouth of the cave was the small sled he would ride down the snow-covered mountain to his village below. He pulled the vehicle out of the cave onto the snow, squinting against the bright light from the three suns of Denduron. He waited a few seconds to let his eyes adjust. He filled his lungs with cold air. It felt good. Ibara was much too warm for his taste. After a few blissful seconds his eyes adjusted enough for him to make out detail.

He wished they hadn’t. What he saw made his blood run cold and it had nothing to do with the temperature. A field of un-tracked snow spread out before him. Jutting from the snow were several yellow spikes. They looked like gnarly, pointed rocks that were thick at the base and came to sharp points. Alder knew they weren’t rocks.

“No,” he gasped.

The quigs were back, lying beneath the snow, guarding the flumes. The rocky points were spikes that ran along their spines. Alder wasn’t afraid of dealing with a quig-bear. He had battled them before. What terrified him was that they were there at all. Quigs existed on territories where Saint Dane was active. On Denduron, the Travelers had beaten the demon and the quigs had not been seen since.

Until then.

Alder didn’t stop to wonder what it might mean. He wanted to be out of there. Without a moment more of hesitation he picked up his sled and dashed across the snow. He picked a route that was clear of quig-spines, threw the sled down and jumped aboard. Belly down. Head first. The small sled was primitive, but fast. It was made from carved wood, with slick runners that slipped across the snow like skis. In no time he was gathering speed, heading down the steep field of snow. He risked a quick glance back to see if he had disturbed any quigs. None of them moved. It was small consolation. Why had they come back? What was happening on Denduron?

Alder negotiated the snow field expertly, flying down the mountainside while steering past towering boulders of ice. The lower he dropped, the more patchy the snow became. He was soon skirting stretches of dirt and grass. He stayed on the snow as long as possible before his runners scraped rock, forcing him to give up his ride. He sat up and dug his feet in to stop, climbed off the sled and stood to look down the mountain toward the village below.

What he saw made him fall to his knees. He couldn’t help himself. It was like his legs had turned to rubber. Down below, on the vast grassy field that stretched between the Milago village and the seaside ruins of the Bedoowan castle, Alder saw an army of Bedoowan knights, dressed in full armor, lined up in tight formation.

Battle formation.

The Bedoowan knights were preparing for war.

The territory had changed.

“What has happened?” he gasped to nobody.

As much as he needed it, there would be no rest for the Traveler from Denduron.

He wanted Pendragon to be there. He needed Pendragon to be there. But Bobby Pendragon was still on the territory of Ibara.

Alone. Isolated.

Unreachable.