The Suns Heir: A War of Two Kings

Rainer: The Beast.

The host set forth as soon as they were able, they were forty sun-guards and the two lords in all.

Rainer's stomach was still wrought with an ill-feeling. He could not shake the thought that his father would have them turn around, or that he had dispatched an additional retinue to collect Dash.

The victory he had felt back at the seer's hut had fleeted and he and been left with worry for his younger brother. It was unlike his lord father to concede. Not to him, not on the words of an unknighted guard. It was a curious turn of events indeed.

They came to a stop on the crest of a hill overlooking the village.

Smoke mixed with the blue sky, yet there was not a sound in the air. The fires had been quelled, and there was no sign of combat or raiders.

Lord Warner sat solemnly on his mount, long brown hair rousing in the gentle winds. His sword worn hand reached upward scratching his neatly trimmed beard. Beside the lord, his son sat tall atop his dappled ash-grey destrier, strands of his chocolate locks had freed themselves from his bun at the back of his head and begun to blow with the hair that would have flowed down his shoulders.

The sun-guards looked to their two lords, both of whom had set their sights on the village below.

The pair shared the same cocked brow, the came crease in their cheeks. The only true differences between them laid in their age, and the slight differing in their hair colour.

"We should have ten men circle to the other side of the village and leave a man on the hill with the horn." Rainer was the one to break the silence between the group. He had seen many a raid the past few seasons and it had broadened his mind as a warrior and a leader. No longer was he the boy who sat waiting in camp or the lordling who had only ever seen combat in the arena.

He was blooded at the age of thirteen. That was when he saw the raiders for the first time. The unsworn...

Growing up he had been regaled with the story of his ancestors more times than he could count. How they had united the bravest and most fearsome clans under their rule.

How foolish and naive he was.

The bravest clans had been the ones that had refused to bow to the Sunbarrow's. The ones who had retained their independence. Those same clans now resided on the raider islands. Islands that had been theirs long before the Sunbarrow's forged the realm into what it was now. Some had remained on the mainland, only to be pushed out to sea years later and join their brethren on the isles.

Over the centuries they had formed alliances. None large enough to overcome the hordes of the mainland. One or two raider clans would join, but never more.

Instead, they chose to pillage the outer lands and the river villages. It had been that way for generations. It was almost a written agreement, a sworn oath that they would never dare come inland.

That way of life came to an end with the passing of the crown, the agreement died with the last Sunbarrow King...

"Tis', a sound plan milord." A sun guard said.

Others found their voices and followed suit in agreeing with the younger Sunbarrow's plan. It seemed as if all were of a mind with him.

"There are no raiders." Lord Warner proclaimed. "We would have caught sight of them, or heard the sounds of terror in the village." There was a certainty in the lord's voice. One that had all the men that had agreed with Rainer now nodding in agreement with the older lord instead.

"Is it not wise to be cautious fathe-"

Before Rainer could finish his sentence, his father had already clicked his tongue and cracked the reins on his horse and the party behind followed, all forty of them...