Thinking of Smirnaz I wondered if my people would leave their lands at my command and trudge off trustingly into the desert sands of the Wastelands to the mythical Forests of Darkor? I could only hope so.

My personal army that had fought for me these past few years would. They would follow me anywhere. How I wished I had them with me now!

I would wait for the Thyanians for one day at the border before I headed for Ephanum.

The next day I was blown away as over four times our current number came to us from the lowlands of Thyana. It would seem my reputation lived on here as few would talk of anything else. In fact I heard Thyanians, speaking to other Kingdomers around the fires at night, say that I first got my notoriety as a warrior within Thyana and that I was sort of a national hero to them.

I would lay no claim to that, but at least the notoriety had helped motivate many of them to come. I was glad for that.

The Thyanians confirmed that five days previously a large party of Yesathurim had slipped across their borders enroute for the Sarran frontier and no doubt the Holy Mountains beyond. I prayed for Ayaya's success and that it would be greater than my own to date.

I wished that more kingdoms would choose to embrace the future as so many of the Thyanians were. And yet almost nine out of ten Thyanians remained within Thyana. So many world wide gave so little credence to the prophetic warning of the Holy Scrolls.

*****

The Faquanna border the next day

I stared across the invisible line in the grass into the foreign country's realm. I had no army to repel an attack as most of those following me were of the simpler folk and a large part of them were women, children and older men. For the hundredth time I debated over the wisdom of going this way.

It was a much longer journey to go north along the shore of Lake Orlone in order to reach Ephanum, but surely it would have been safer. I could not be sure of that though. A rider had brought news that the invasion of Philanthia had already begun, but worse than that was the news that the Kingdomer nations of Sartorry and of Lancandia had already made a deal for peace, in which they had agreed to forsake the Kingdomer faith and willfully burn all their copies of the Holy Scrolls in exchange for not being invaded by the armies of darkness that had, it seemed, come from underground almost everywhere.




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