Harkin cracked the whip with an urgency wrought of sheer terror. His companion and friend slumped at his side, a spear buried deep in his side, bright blood flowing freely and staining his brown woolen tunic a dark and ugly red-black.

"Come on, run!" Harkin urged his team, and he cracked the whip hard again. He couldn't help but consider the terrible irony of it all. He had been taken from the front lines of battle - a war that had been raging since he was a very young man - and given the seemingly safe job of driving Prince Yeslnik about the growing lands of Greater Delaval. And now this, to be caught and killed on the road!