[center][h2]The Ytharien[/h2][/center]
Lothren sat at the top of the stairs, his arquebus between his knees as he loaded its barrel with a fistful of black powder. 

Damn lucky the King had found the Ytharien when he did. If ‘Alan’ weren’t waiting back at camp, Lothren would be out of options, forced to leave the Knight to either perish in imprisonment or escape on his own with potentially disastrous ends. What interesting timing. First the impossible sand lions consuming villages, and now the King escapes his castle, ranting about his father’s supposed murder ten years ago. 

If Ularien were here, he would be able to see precisely how these events might be aligning. Surely he had, and that was why he had gotten so close to Marion Bay. Too close, evidently, by someone’s measure. But not killed yet. Why… 

[i]Clang![/i]

His eyes twitched upward, momentarily distracted from his task. Had the Magus…? No, the knight had freed himself, utilizing the elf’s oversight. Hotly chagrinned, he smirked, the way one smirks fearfully at death. Lothren rose fluidly to his feet, and then began to descend. His match was locked and lit, waiting for the pull of the lever.

The others were on their way, but would they be fast enough?

“Blasphemer?” Lothren reappeared again, his elven weapon aimed downward at Gawain’s eyes. “Is that how you steel your resolve? Reducing a mage to one hateful word?”

A long ear twitched as it caught the sound of voices behind him.

“Down here!” he shouted over his shoulder, then laid his fingers over his gun’s level. “One false move, and your head will be a puddle on the floor. You want the monarch? Then I shall take you to him—if you behave.”

Lothren did not remove his eyes from the knight as he heard feet descending the steps.

“This is a Royal Knight of Areta!” he declared, the silk of his voice filling these stone walls. He had a penchant for declarations, possessing an earnest sound that could raise spirits and light a fire in the hearts of men. “We shall be taking him with us! Restrain him—subdue him if you must—but he's better to us alive.”
[hr]
[center][h2]The Knights[/h2][/center]
Amon hung in place, paralyzed between his responsibility to his men and Kolbe’s justifiable sense of urgency. There was no sign of the others. Not one faint voice in the air or patch of moving sand, where someone might have been buried. His tongue stuck to the back of his throat as he tried to control his breathing. Vainly he’d hoped that if he held still, silencing the shuffle of his armor and the moving earth… but there was only himself and the scarred knight. The others were gone.

“Yes,” he agreed in a quiet whisper. The last of his hopes waned like a dying candleflame until being snuffed entirely, leaving only the crushing darkness of overwhelming guilt. “Damned. God forgive me, you’re right. We must move on.”

Finding the strength to move his heavy limbs, Amon began to ascend the side of the bowl, moving toward the literal light of dawn. Once he was out of this pit, he might be able to make sense of his surroundings.

“Don’t forget the standard,” Amon added breathlessly without looking back. A cotton symbol seemed almost now, but two men had likely died under that banner. If they couldn’t deliver their bodies, at least the standard would make it back home.

Emerging at the top of the bowl, Amon dug his ungloved hand into hard, cracked earth, pulling his weight up and over. He rolled on his back at first, staring up at the serene sky for all of an instant before he was forced to roll over and cough into his arm once more. His next breath was full of dust. 

 “The Neratine.” Amon rose to his feet, and futilely began brushing himself off. The sand was everywhere. “It won’t be far from here. If we’re lucky, the horses had enough sense to run for water, and we’ll find them somewhere on the bank.”

In the gray light of a newborn morning, Amon squinted as he spotted a darkening spot in the sand, on the inner side of the bowl opposite from where he stood. A sense of hope surged violently through him and stuffed up his throat, thinking it could perhaps be another knight digging his way free to the surface.

A small glimmer revealed that it was only a trickle of water coursing through the dirt. All that was left of the tributary that fed the hamlet’s waterwheel. The majority of it had been instantly engulfed by the land, leaving only sips of water cut off from the main river. Still, if it wasn’t enough to drink, it at least gave them their bearing. That was north, so the Neratine was straight ahead. Unless a sinkhole had taken that too, it would be a short walk.

Amon began marching forward, at a loss for what to say about his men. To speak of their merits would be to accept that they were dead.

“They might be heading for the river as well,” he said quietly. “Couldn’t see anything I could make sense of. They might be alive. What was…” The Captain looked back. “What was it you were saying? When the very damned earth was cascading around us, you were reciting something. Or did I imagine that?”