Liam left the tent and strode purposefully toward the griffin pens. All around him, the sounds of men preparing for battle assaulted his ears. The scrape of swords against scabbards, the creak of leather harnesses in armor, the gruff talk of men about to enter battle. All of these sounds rang in Liam’s mind as he made his way to his trusted mount.

Above all this, he heard the bellow of orders and the boastful talk of Lysander. The rousing cheers from the men at Lysander’s hurled epithets against the enemy worried Liam. He knew the men were on edge. He was afraid that, despite his orders, the men would take matters into their own hands. And then he would be forced to step in, if he could.

Liam was sure that, one way or another, today there would be blood. Long years of command had taught him that some things couldn’t be avoided. No matter how well trained the men, a long campaign led to a slight break down in discipline. There were bound to be problems. And that meant that, even if the vast majority of men listened to his orders, rather than Lysanders, and even if he was wrong about the trap, there would still be a tragedy today. He only hoped he could keep it to a minimum.

He arrived at the pens and found his griffin saddled and ready for him. He patted the creature’s flanks and then climbed into the saddle. The two had been paired for nearly ten years, and so the griffin rose without any prompting, one she sensed that Liam had settled himself.

With the barest of touches on the reins, the animal wheeled to the southwest. Liam cast his eyes down to the landscape. As they passed over the camp, Liam reflected that it looked just like an anthill that had been kicked over. Frenetic activity on a tiny scale filled his field of view. He saw far too many glints from far too many swords for his taste. But he had to do his best to see that as many of those men as possible made it back to camp that night.

He turned his gaze to the southwest and squinted. At first, he couldn’t see anything, despite the fact that the sun was behind him. The clothing of the desert people were well designed to provide camouflage. Even when moving in large groups, from a distance they appeared as nothing more than shifting sands.

Suddenly, he caught sight of something. About two hours forced march from the camp, he saw a darker shade against the sand. If that was the group his men had spotted, then they were at the very edge of the patrol zone. But if Liam was spotting them from that distance, then they were making almost no effort to conceal themselves. The sharp eyes of his mount would have spotted them from twice as far.

Liam’s stomach tightened as his griffin flapped her wings, speeding in the direction of the darker splotch on the sand. They were being too obvious. Again, he had the sinking notion that the infantry were marching their way right into a trap. But for the life of him, he couldn’t see it.

From his vantage point, he had an excellent view of the lay of the land in this part of the desert. He knew where he would lay a trap, if it were his land he was defending. There was a ridge that would give good cover to a large force, although large was a relative term in this case. No force that could match the Imperial infantry could be concealed in the vast expanse of desert. And of course, attempting to find cover when there were griffins in the air was nigh impossible. To Liam’s recollection, no ambush against Imperial forces had been successfully launched since the last war of Et’alash, some three hundred years before, and that’s only because the griffins couldn’t cross the seas to that jungle land.

He spent the next hour searching the area around the encampment, and wracking his brain. He failed to recall any mention in the Imperial histories of any successful ambush of Imperial units when accompanied by griffin cavalry. And despite his worries, he didn’t see that record coming to an end. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned his mind to the more pressing concern of taking these people prisoner with a minimum of bloodshed. Additionally, there were other mundane concerns, such as where were they going to house the prisoners. Then again, these people didn’t seem to need much in the way of housing. After all, the one city they had found….

Liam felt the blood drain out of his face as he suddenly ran that sentence over in his mind. ‘The one city they had found.’ He suddenly remembered looking for another city, in a far off desert, and failing to do so. And he remembered that the desert people possessed the sole control of magic in the Empire. Magic that could be used to affect men’s minds. Liam thought of the awesome power that implied. He knew exactly what he would have done had he had that power at his disposal. He’d solved the mystery of how his men kept dying at night. And he knew, with an absolute certainty, that Lysander was leading his men to their deaths.

His griffin felt the change in her rider and squawked a questioning note. Liam hauled on the reins far harder than he had in years and the griffin made a turn so tight that Liam nearly lost his breakfast. But that was the least of his concerns. He had to get back to the infantry. He had to warn them. Now.