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Our men stayed up on the hill, checking the surrounding grounds for activity and that was when I saw the plume of smoke coming from far over the mountains. I called to Jock, “What do you think that is?” and pointed it out to him.

“Some kind of rocket launch?”

I immediately called to the others to evacuate and get away from Mill Creek. We tried to get out of there as fast as we could and just in time, because the next moment there was a high-pitched whistling noise as a missile plunged into the creek and exploded.

A few people were injured but not seriously and it was clear that we had been led into the creek in the hope that we would be sitting ducks and able to be wiped out by a single strike.

We withdrew to higher ground and Ragnar sent one of his men over to let us know that they had spotted some cars leaving a nearby area. They were setting out after them. Jock and his men set off to join him.

I decided to return to the castle to strategize and think over the new information Jock had given me. It seemed something had been afoot for a while and I had not been payingattention. As we returned to our cars, a convoy of sleek electric cars arrived, blocking our return.

I watched as one of the cars, several from the front stopped. A man got out, with long, sleek black hair and an unnaturally white face. I knew at once, it was the Servant.

“King Lucca!” he greeted me, like an old friend.

I suddenly realized that this was the point of the entire conflict, it was to draw me out and put me in a vulnerable position. Finn had warned against me coming here but I would not listen.

“You are, the Servant,” I said, counting the number of men he had with him.

“Indeed, that is me,” he said, with false modesty, bowing from the waist. He was smiling widely but it was not friendly.

“I have been sent to restore order to the north and, indeed, now also in the West.”

“What do you mean?”

“The scourge behind the poisoned blood of course,” he said, his voice filling with concern. “I am acting on behalf of the Council, taking control of these lands…”

Before he could say another word, I summoned my army of crows to descend onto the convoy. Birds came diving down from the sky, screeching and screaming, flapping their wings and breaking up the groups of soldiers surrounding The Servant. The sky became dark as the crows blocked out the remainder of the light and I used the cover of darkness to get away as bullets rained down on us all of a sudden.

“Get back, get back!” I shouted to my men and those of us able to, took flight, heading back to the castle as quickly as possible.

Once I was safely within the walls of the castle, I paused to take stock of the situation, feeling suddenly unwell.

“Sire?” It was Finn, coming out to meet me.

“Are Layrr and Ragnar back yet?” He shook his head.

“What about Jock?”

“No, Lord Ferney is not here. But you, my lord, you… have been inured!”

I looked down and saw that I, indeed, had been shot. I saw dark blood and the dizziness made sense.

“Arm… the walls…” I said. “Get the…men back,” I managed before falling against Finn who immediately called for help to get me up to my rooms.

Chapter 11

Izzy

As soon as I heard about the attack on the Grey Castle, I needed to check on Lucca. We were in our rooms, having a simple breakfast of coffee and fresh bread with lashings of homemade butter. We’d been planning to go home today. Costello had found the parts he wanted for some or other car he was working on and I had been all over the Citadel, talking to people and gathering information. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on now. I had been sending messages to Lucca but none seemed to be getting through to him.

It was weird.

Then, this morning, the captain came in and told us of some sort of network outage in the outlying parts of the lands. “No radio or mobile coverage, seems the whole place is down.”

Costello and I looked at each other, basically thinking the same thing, something was wrong. Then the captain said, “I heard of an attack in the West.”

I sat up, “The West?”