Ashe sat on the bank of the river leaning against a tree and enjoying the sunset. It was a cool evening, and the sun was just beginning to dip behind the mountains beyond the forests and the distant dunes. The crisp autumn air was refreshing and the sound of the water helped soothe her mind. She had spent most of the day manning the pottery shop while her mother was running her monthly errands out of town. With all her chores complete, she closed up the shop early. This moment of relaxation felt greatly deserved.

Miles stood ankle-deep in the water, skipping stones across the lazy river. He had just picked up a nice flat stone and, throwing it sideways, sent it skipping eight or nine times across the calm water. Ashe gazed over the edge of the plateau beyond Miles. She watched the night sky creep over the ocean's distant horizon. She hadn't brought up the sparks since their last discussion several months earlier. It became another secret she had to keep from everyone, including her best friend.

She took a deep breath and sighed loudly, breaking the silence, "You know, I think I might go looking for Neijand someday. It'd be quite an adventure to find out if it really exists and all the stories are true. Perhaps become part of the story."

Miles's shoulders dropped, and he flung his head back in an exaggerated motion. He had grown tired of hearing her fantasies that the old legends might be true. "That's a romantic thought," Miles said, feigning his support. He turned toward her and continued, pointing a stone in her direction and adjusting his tone to be a bit more cynical, "That, my friend, is a waste of time. Even if Neijand is a real place, according to the stories, the magic is still hidden. So, whether any of it is even true, I doubt you'll ever find it."

Ashe humphed silently to herself and continued to look over the distant ocean. Miles tossed his last stone, which made an unimpressive heavy plop into the water and returned; sitting next to her on the bank of the river. They sat in silence together, each leaning against a tree until the sun had nearly completely set. The sounds of the forest faded out as the small critters prepared for the night.

Miles took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Well, we should get back before we run out of light."

"I suppose," Ashe replied. "My mom should be home tonight and might worry if I'm not home when she arrives." She got up and dusted off her pants. They began down the path towards the Citadel, bathed in the final pinks and purples of the fading sunlight.

"Either that, or we'll be locked out when they close the gates," suggested Miles. The Citadel was the governing town in the land of Morian. The king's castle was built upon the highest hill in the center of town and surrounding the entire village was a large stone wall. Every night at the beginning of the fourth watch, the castle guards would close the main gates to fortify the town against the perceived dangers of the night. Ashe thought this was stupid. The Citadel was perched atop a high plateau that only had one real way of getting up: the road to Keiper.

The path from the riverside led along the edge of a dense forest as it carried them home. They listened and enjoyed the sounds of the forest as they walked; the soft breeze blowing through the trees or the trickle of river water. Although Ashe had been raised in the Citadel ever since she could remember, she preferred to be out in the wilderness away from all the people and business of the town. She loved the sounds and smells only available beyond the city's musty walls. The forest in the evening was quiet, but the gentle creak of the trees or the shuffle of unseen animals was music to her ears.

They continued farther down the path when Ashe stopped in her tracks as they rounded a bend. "Did you hear that?" she asked in a hushed tone. She had heard something, a faint sound off in the distance. It was peculiar to her though, different from anything else she had heard in the forest. "Could it have been a bird?" she quietly suggested as if speaking to herself. She stood still for a moment when she realized that all the birds had already stopped their chirping for the evening.

Miles stopped and looked around, pretending to listen, "I don't hear anything."

"Shhh, Listen." she snapped. They stood quietly. To the east and south of Morian was the ocean. The town Keiper was at the base of the plateau just to the north of the Citadel where ships came for trade, but this sound differed from any boat Ashe had heard before. Then she heard it again. "There!" she whispered in mild excitement pointing toward the west, "Did you hear it that time?"

With the stories of magic continuously plaguing her thoughts, she quickly entertained the possibility that someone might come to attack the Citadel, but who would want to do that? To the north and west of town, beyond the forests and the close mountain range, was the Kanem-Brann, a large desert that extended several hundred miles in both directions. On the other side of the Kanem-Brann, there were other towns within the borders of Morian, but it was this large desert that protected the Citadel. The ancient kings thought it was the proper place to put their castle.

Ashe's mind ran wild in the dark of the forest. Perhaps there were barbarians in the area, looking for a new conquest. Maybe an army from another land had come to expand their empire. These thoughts took hold of her imagination as she slowly walked through the once again silent forest. She kept her ears cocked, listening for the sound. After a while, she thought she may have imagined it, but then she heard it again – a quiet trumpet in the distance. At least, it sounded like a trumpet. This was the third time she had heard the strange call. Deciding that she wanted to find out where it was coming from, she whispered, "Did you hear it that time?" as though she didn't want to scare off the creature making the noise.

"What are you talking about?" replied Miles in a normal voice, now slightly irritated. "I still haven't heard anything."

"Miles, I've heard it three times now," she said. "I'm pretty sure I am not making it up." They stopped and stood in silence again, waiting. A couple of minutes passed and nothing happened. Miles relaxed and let his shoulders fall.

He took a breath. "What? Are you trying to scare me? Just because you can't get over the fact that they're just stories and keep suggesting that there could be some truth to them doesn't give you the right to try—" but before Miles could finish his thought, there it was again – a quiet squawk of something like a horn. This time it was loud enough to catch his attention. His eyes widened and his mocking smile flushed; replaced with a look of mild concern. His heart thumped in his chest, and he could feel it pulsing in his neck. He gasped softly, lowered his voice, and whispered, "What was that? Everyone should be in by now, not blowing horns."

"So, you think it's a horn too? I was trying to guess what it could be. I thought it could have been an animal or something, but I thought it was a horn this last time. Maybe a call or a way of communicating?" Ashe tended to ramble when she was excited.

Miles reached up and pressed his finger against her lips to silence her. They stood still in the middle of the path, listening for the sound. After a few minutes, it came again. Ashe turned her head in its direction, but couldn't see anything through the dense trees. Off the path, the trees were so close together that hardly any light shining from above could cut through the dense canopy. The only light that made it to the ground was clouded by soft shadows from the leafy branches above. The waning sunlight could only just penetrate through the tops of the trees.

"We've got to go check that out," whispered Miles. "I think there is a cliff a mile or so off. We might see something from there."

"We can't do that," said Ashe in mild apprehension. The noise was startling enough to her as it was, but now that Miles was interested, she didn't know if she wanted to know its source. "We'd just better get back to the Citadel and tell the city guard. Besides, my mom will have a fit if I'm late. If we leave the path now, we may not find it again until morning."

"How can we not go? What if it is a horn?" Miles replied, now a little annoyed. "Who would blow a horn like that here in the woods? What if it is someone who needs our help? The last rays of the sunset should be bright enough, and if not, the moon'll be the rise. It's supposed to be full tonight. We should be able to make it back to the path if we need to."

"I thought you said you didn't believe in the stories."

"This has nothing to do with your damn stories. If you didn't want to go, then why did you get me to listen, anyway? We need to go check it out."

Unfortunately, Ashe was having the same conflict with herself. It worried her to think someone might be up to no good. Again, she tried to dissuade his concern, "It's probably a big animal groaning or something. Let's just go home."

Ashe took a step down the path again as Miles leaned up against a big tree. She turned and asked, "Ummm, do you want to get home?"

"Ashe," he began, taking a deep breath, "You may have stopped us to listen, but now I need to know what that sound is. It's piqued my curiosity. It's coming every few minutes, so I think we have a good chance of following it and finding out what it is. It sounds like it's quite a way off, so if we make it to the cliff out there, I'm almost positive we'll see something. You might be right; it may just be an animal. But doesn't it make sense to find out for sure? I would feel better knowing, wouldn't you? Will you please come with me to find out what it is?" He cracked a thin smile and chided, "Come on, you wanted an adventure."

That's exactly what Ashe feared. She had always dreamed of excitement and adventure, but with the actual possibility before her, she wasn't so sure anymore. "What about my mom? You know how she gets if I stay out too late." Excuses, she knew, but if they found something, she'd be responsible.

Miles was all about the adventure now. It was as if they switched bodies. "You only said she's supposed to be home tonight. She might be late. And if she does beat us home, then we'll tell her it was my fault. I'll take the rap for this one. C'mon."

A sick pit fell in her stomach. Apprehension tried to discourage her, but a tiny tenacious bit of curiosity finally won. She let out an exasperated sigh, "Ok, we'll go. I think you're right about the cliff, though. It's maybe a mile away. Let's go as straight as possible and see what we can see. If it's nothing, I am so gonna punch you one." Ashe said, stepping off the path toward the sound.

They crept slowly through the forest. Since no path led toward the cliff, they were careful to continue as straight as possible. The canopy of the trees had plunged them into darkness. They almost had to feel their way from tree to tree. Ashe kept checking over her shoulder to make sure she could still see the path behind them, but she knew this wouldn't last long as they crept further into the forest. Occasionally, the snap of a twig or the creak of a tree branch would send chills down her spine. As they moved through the silence, the constant bleating of the horn continued to ring out every few minutes. This helped keep them moving in the right direction. As they got closer to the cliff, the smell of smoke and the rhythmic pounding of a drum welcomed them.

They walked around a particularly large tree and could finally see a break in the wood. The edge of the cliff was only about one hundred yards off now. Ashe's stomach was in knots, and her heart pounded in her throat. The possibility of an evil horde over the edge of that cliff worried her immensely. As they got closer to the edge, they slowed their pace for fear that someone might see them approaching. They finally found themselves at the edge of a rocky shelf that ran along with the trees and dropped off sharply into a deep valley. Ashe's fear of evil hordes gave way to her fear of heights. She sat back from the ledge a few feet with her body firmly pressed against a deformed tree. Miles sat against another next to her.

"Well, what do we do now?" Miles whispered. "Do you want to look over the cliff and tell me what you see?"

"Me?" she squeaked; her stomach doing a backflip. The fear of the ledge, both its height and what could be on the other side, upset her all together. Miles could see the fear in her eyes.

"Look, Ashe, we are probably only a couple of hundred feet up; it's not likely that someone, or something, will see you if you take a look."

"Thanks a lot!" she croaked. "That helps. Only a couple hundred feet up! I'll go when I'm good and ready." Ashe snapped much louder than she thought she ought, forgetting herself. She slapped a hand over her mouth and shot Miles a dirty scowl. She wrung her hands and took a few deep breaths, trying to psyche herself up. With every ounce of courage she could muster, she peeled herself off the tree and lay down, sprawled out prone on the ground. She slowly dragged herself towards the brink. As she peeked over the edge, she could see lights glowing up from the trees below. She checked over her shoulder only to see Miles hadn't moved.

"Miles, get out here, you pansy... you gotta see this!" Ashe called back, her voice a little louder than a whisper. "It's way far down. There's no chance of anyone hearing or seeing us, but there is definitely something down there that shouldn't be."

Miles then lay down upon the ground and crept on his stomach until he was next to Ashe. There, they both lay with their heads peering down into the valley below. The trees weren't as thick as the ones they had just traveled through, and in them, a group of people appeared to be having a party. The sounds they heard were indeed horns and drums; the sounds of people making merry. They were not dressed like people from The Citadel or even the land of Morian. Their clothes were shiny black and glistened like highly polished leather that reflected the light of their fire. In the corner of their camp was a pile of shiny, metal weapons. From their height, Ashe and Miles couldn't make out much more than this. They had felled a dozen or so trees to clear their camp and had built five fires around the camp; arranged so that if you drew in lines, it was nearly a perfect pentagon. Ashe estimated the number of men to be about twenty-five though there may have been more out of her view. She couldn't hear anything being said, but she knew foreigners' partying in a valley so close to town in the middle of the night probably wasn't a good thing.

"Miles, we need to get back to town and tell someone," Ashe said, a concerned tone highlighting her words while she remained fixated on the gathering below. "We need to let the paladins know that there is danger. These guys can't be up to anything good."

Just then, beyond the partying camp, loud whoops and hollers came up from the trees. The music stopped and many of the people in the camp scurried to the pile of weapons. There was a frenzy as weapons were passed out and the people lined up for what seemed to be a battle. Ashe squinted to see if she could make some of the figures out better. The men dressed in black spread out and hacked at the underbrush with their swords, cutting a wide path.

They were yelling at each other, though Ashe couldn't make out what they were saying. Then, from out of the dark of the forest, a group of strange hunchbacked creatures came running into the camp from either side. They were skinny and gangly; carrying large clubs and other primitive-looking weapons. A fight ensued as the drums began again, this time beating out a steady battle rhythm. Both the men and the beasts met with heavy blows. The beasts rushed the center of the large group of men, attempting to divide their strength, but the men fought back with such zeal that both mesmerized and troubled Ashe as she watched from atop of the cliff. For nearly twenty minutes, the beasts fought against the men. At times, it looked like they were gaining an advantage, but then the men would change their positioning, and any gains the beasts might have had were lost. Finally, the beasts that hadn't fallen retreated into the dark of the wood, and the men made even more noise in celebration of their victory, though it appeared they had sustained several casualties themselves.

Ashe sat aghast looking over the valley. She couldn't believe what she had just seen. Suddenly, she snapped out of her shock and got up quickly, retreating into the woods behind. "What the hell was that?" she gasped as she paced back and forth just behind the first couple of trees. "What are they doing down there?" she hoped it was just a figment of her fatigue. She balled up her fists and gently bit the inside of her bottom lip. The soft pain of the bite told her that she hadn't dreamt the battle.

Miles also sat in shock, unable to move. Then he spoke slowly, "I don't know, but whatever that was... And what were those beasts? I've never seen anything like them in all my life. I hope those men are protecting our land. But, no one who parties this late in the evening dressed like that..." His voice trailed off, the thought left incomplete.

Although the men seemed slightly larger than toys from his vantage point, it didn't seem to Miles that they meant anyone well. He got up from his spot and scooted himself away from the cliff. He turned to Ashe, eyes wide, and together they quickly ran into the woods. Ashe took the lead, and she tried to go as straight as she could to find the main road again. Her heart was racing, and she was moving almost as fast, so much so that Miles struggled to keep up.

After ten minutes or so, Ashe tripped over a tree root and stumbled onto a new path. Ashe stood up and dusted herself off. She looked up and down the path in both directions. "Are we lost?" interrupted Miles as he pushed past the tree that tripped Ashe. He hadn't spent as much time in the forest as Ashe and was expecting her to get them home.

"I don't think so. The town should be this way," she said pointing down the path. "But I'm not familiar with this path." She turned, and together they followed the path toward The Citadel. The forest began to thin out, and soon they saw the town walls. As they approached the town's main gate, they saw one of the city guards standing at his post behind a heavy iron portcullis that hovered a couple of feet above the road below. Ashe turned to look behind her, but the path from which they had just emerged was no longer there. Ashe shook her head and turned to the guard and ran. "You have to help us," she shouted as she approached him.

The guard gave them a scolding look and replied, "What are you two doing out so late. It's well into the fourth watch. You had better get home before anything happens to you."

"Something bad is already happening!" she shouted. "Over the cliff there are..."

"Nonsense," the guard interrupted, holding a hand up. "You need to get home. And consider that an order." The guard signaled to another above, and slowly the portcullis rose into the air a couple more feet granting them entry into the town.

"Something bad is going on over the cliff out there!" Ashe said loudly. She stood her ground, not willing to move until the guard heard what he had to say.

"Codswallop! I don't believe it. That cliff is nearly impossible to climb. Besides, who would go to all the trouble to get down there if they were going to just come back up?" asked the guard incredulously. "There are only two ways into or out of that valley: you can either scale the cliff of which you speak or a full day's journey to the south is a large staircase hewn out of the side of the plateau. No one would want to be down there."

"I know what I saw," Ashe said adamantly. "Even if you don't want to, please have someone go check it out!"

"I cannot, but I will send you home to where you belong. If someone is in the valley, it would take them all night or longer to climb the rock wall before they would be of any concern. Now, go home before I have the city watchman summoned and have you two housed for the week."

Defeated and angry, Ashe clenched her jaw and scowled with her whole body as she stomped through the archway into town. Miles followed, and they walked down the street in disgruntled silence. Ashe was noticeably upset the guard didn't believe her story, and Miles didn't want to bring it up. As they approached Ashe's home, he saw another guard outside the main gates to the castle. She shot him a nasty glare, then let herself into her house. She turned to Miles. "I'm going to sleep... you should do the same." She feigned a smile at him and closed the door. Miles set off down the walk.

"And where under the stars have you been?" Cressida yelled as Ashe latched the door. "I got home two hours ago, and you were nowhere in sight. I even checked the shop. I was just about to go to the city watchman and report you missing. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Ashe stood there with her head hung down. "I'm sorry, mother." her voice broke slightly. "Miles and I went to the river to relax this afternoon. While we were returning, I heard a strange noise and I wanted to see what it was."

"Well," her mother sighed as her voice softened, "I guess it's no matter now. You can go to your room, and we'll talk about this in the morning. I am too tired and being mad at you would only make things worse."

Ashe went to her room without saying a word. She changed into her nightgown and climbed into bed. She lay quietly for a while listening for the sounds of drums or horns until sleep finally prevailed.