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(6) All slept that night with great anticipation of what the coming days and weeks would bring. On the next morning, they entered the forest. They divided into companies of one hundred and set about seeking clues as to what had happened to the woodsmen. Though separated, the companies maintained close communication. Each company foraged for food and supplies as needed, yet they found no clues in the woods. For days and then for weeks, their quest was fruitless. The troops began to question whether the woodsmen might have left, whether they might have had reason to migrate to the cities, as the rumors had suggested, and some other reason to hide their tracks. Armadyl and Ikov counseled patience.

(7) The weeks dragged on as the companies combed through the woods, and some began to lose hope that there was an explanation to be found. Ikov sensed their disappointment, and it weighed on him. One day, while walking with Armadyl and one of the companies through a thicket, Ikov let out his growing frustration: "It must be an illusion!" he shouted. He didn't think it was the case, for he and Armadyl had discussed the possibility frequently, and neither could detect the slightest trace of such magic. But then anger flashed in Armadyl's eyes. He turned to the tree under whose branches Ikov was standing. He swung his crooked staff toward one of the branches just where it forked above Ikov's head. But the staff did not make contact with the tree; it struck something invisible resting in the fork of the branch - something made visible which fell to the ground before Ikov's feet with a clink. It was a stone, a mix of bright red and yellow in color, polished and smooth, like a kidney bean in its shape, and about two pounds in weight. Ikov studied it where it fell and then looked at Armadyl.

(8) Armadyl answered, "It is illusion, Ikov, and a very good one. It comes from another world, and I could not see it until now. You sensed it in your outburst. Go ahead and touch the stone; it is safe." Ikov picked up the stone; it felt cool in his hands. Immediately he could see the woodsmen, many of them, coming and going along clearly marked paths through the woods. He could hear them talking and the sounds they made as they shuffled through the underbrush. The woodsmen never came within fifty paces of his troops but seemed otherwise to ignore their presence. He also saw that each carried a strange lantern, with a frame of fancifully twisted metal. He reported all he saw to Armadyl and his company and commanded each to touch the stone. Soon all could see the woodsmen walking at a distance from them.

(9) Ikov dispatched messengers to recall the other companies and to report that they had made a discovery. Then Armadyl, Ikov, and the company set off down one of the newly revealed trails and came upon a small village. They stopped at the edge of the village to watch what would happen. When the villagers caught sight of the visitors watching them, they became afraid. They stopped what they were doing, and in worried whispers passed on the news that all should gather in the village square. Armadyl and Ikov ordered the company to wait at the edge of the village while they walked to its center. By that time all the village had gathered, and a middle-aged man - a village leader - asked Armadyl and Ikov, "How have you found us? Why have you come?" Armadyl spoke, "We broke the hold of the illusion over this place. We have come to investigate strange tidings from the woodland. Please tell us what has happened." The man explained all that had taken place there.

(10) A few years before, three powerful beings - called vampyres - had come to the capital, and soon they ruled the woodland from there. A general call had invited anyone intelligent and ambitious to come to the cities to serve in their new regime. Many had gone, but a few came back with terrible news. Taxes would be raised for the people of the lower woodland, but they were lucky, because the taxes of the upper woodland would no longer be paid in gold or in supplies but in blood. Those leaders of the people who submitted to the tax willingly were given honors and offices in the new government; those who did not were beaten, imprisoned, or killed. Most submitted. Very few were permitted to leave the upper woodland.

(11) Hevel had become a somber place: a slum of fearful citizens and a decadent court of government officials obsessed with flattery and intrigue, fawning always upon the rulers. The vampyres employed Aidos as a prison, locking in the towers their favorite victims, as well as any of their enemies they desired to keep alive. They had largely left Kathekontos alone, only appointing a governor and some officials there to collect the tax of blood. They sent out agents among the villages of the lower woodland to collect their taxes, and they sent other agents to make contact with the denizens of the moors north of the mountain - a place inhabited only by solitary and hateful witches.

(12) Shortly before, near the end of the campaign in the Asgarnian lands, a decree had been issued from the capital: Every woodsman would carry a special lantern, and a similar lamppost would be installed in every village, which would render them invisible to outsiders. Every trail known to outsiders would be obscured, and new ones would be made. No one would reveal himself to an outsider, and anyone seen interacting with outsiders would be treated as a traitor. Agents of the government would be sent to every corner of the woodland to enforce the decree.

(13) After hearing of the successes of Armadyl and Ikov, many woodsmen had hoped that the two would come to help them in the forest, but against their government they could not resist. They had no guarantee that merely discarding the lanterns would render them visible again, and they feared how the government might respond. So they obeyed and hid themselves. In fact, most woodsmen had been prepared to do battle against Armadyl and Ikov and their company on behalf of the vampyres if Armadyl and Ikov could not break the spell. But from that day things had changed.

(14) After his account ended, Armadyl said, "We will protect you. Are there any agents of your government here?" The village leader responded, "No, no one from the upper woodland has arrived, as far as we know." "Good, I sense no duplicity here," said Armadyl, "Will you fight with us?" All the villagers agreed with joy. Armadyl then commanded the stone which broke the spell to be touched by all the troops, and then for the stone to be sent with the villagers to every village from the south to the north, to break any lasting effects of the lanterns.

(15) Soon the lower woodland was freed. Agents of the government were overthrown and banished. Over the next weeks, Armadyl and Ikov journeyed through the villages from south to north, and the number of their troops grew tremendously. All rose up against the tyranny of the upper woodland. With an army of several thousand, Armadyl and Ikov moved into the great clearing before the ice-capped mountain and the cities upon its slopes. The cities were an intimidating sight: three rings of high, thick walls surrounded the capital, fully garrisoned with archers, and three moats about them; high walls and still higher towers rose up from the impregnable outcrop of rock upon which Aidos was built; and above it all, high and dark in the mists, watched the ominous fortress of Kathekontos.

(16) Armadyl and Ikov ordered camp to be pitched near the edge of the forest and then the construction of many machines of war: towers, ladders, catapults, and rams. Once the work was underway, Armadyl took Ikov aside. He said, "Ikov, I sense many spirits at work here, and they are not spirits for you to face. I know what vampyres are; they are powerful and would decimate our forces should we meet them in battle. Therefore, we should strike Hevel first, and I will fight in the battle for it. But the vampyres are not alone. There is another spirit here which gives them strength. It has settled into the land, and it will not give way until we have conquered the whole woodland." Looking to the summit of the ice-capped mountain, he said, "That means that I cannot overcome the vampyres until you take Kathekontos." Ikov looked up to the fortress; a shiver ran down his spine.

(17) "Therefore, I propose this. We will divide our troops beforehand. With the main bulk, I will attack the capital: at its main gate facing east, and at its southwestern wall where the roots of the mountain makes its defenses thin. You will gather those loyal soliders who wish to remain with us in our journey to the northern steppes at the end of this campaign, and you will wait apart with them. Once Hevel is taken, and I have cornered the vampyre, I will send half of the army of my soldiers back to you. You with your fresh troops will attack Aidos. While it appears impregnable, its towers are few, and no match for our machines of war; it will fall quickly. Leaving behind only enough to secure the city, you will march up the mountain and take Kathekontos."

(18) Ikov agreed. But Armadyl continued, "That is not it, Ikov. There is one more spirit here. It has inhabited the living rocks native to this land, for they haves been twisted and tortured by what has happened here. It is too great for you to face, and will be a challenge for me. It will rise in the middle of the clearing as a great earthen giant. I don't know when it will rise, but you should not be here when it does - it is too dangerous for a human sorcerer to oppose. After you take Kathekontos, I want you to continue on to the moors in the north, along with your chosen soldiers. Do the same as we have done thus far: listen to the people, whomever you find there, and seek out whatever evils the sun-god sent us to quell. Send the rest of the troops back to me, so that I may face the giant here. I will join you in the north when I have won." With fear in his heart, Ikov agreed again. "Do not fear, Ikov," said Armadyl, "but stand firm as you did among the sea-folk and the Asgarnians."

(19) The preparations continued for a few weeks more, while the people of the upper woodland waited behind their walls. At times the troops trembled with fear at the sight of the cities; and at other times, they boasted confidently of the coming victory. All the while, Armadyl and Ikov encouraged them in their discipline and their preparations. Then the day came to attack. Armadyl commanded two battalions. One equipped with many large shields, towers, and rams attacked the front gate of the capital. The other attacked quickly and unexpectedly from higher, rocky terrain which abutted the southwestern wall. The second battalion took the first ring of the city and procured safer passage for the first. Over the course of days, one by one the walls of the city fell, until Armadyl forced the vampyres to remain locked in their palace. Once the city was secured, he sent most of the army east, out of the city to Ikov.

(20) Ikov moved to meet the battle-weary soldiers in the middle of the clearing, along with his chosen troops and several machines of war, and then to march on the second city. He ordered the fresh troops to lead the way, and to encourage those who were tired. Aidos lacked archers, so its walls were quickly scaled; prisoners were released; and its enormous gate was battered down. The city was taken in only a few more days.

(21) Leaving behind the soldiers too exhausted to continue, Ikov gathered those he could, as well as one great seige engine, and began the march up the mountain. It was a long and narrow path, along a ridge rising gently from the base of Aidos to the summit. Through the whole march, the fortress loomed above, shrouded in the shadow of clouds. For two days they climbed. At midday on the third day of the march they approached within five hundreds paces of the defensive wall, stretching between two sheer walls of rock. All of a sudden, the clouds broke, and the sun shone upon Kathekontos - and the shadow that lay upon it, in an unnatural flutter, fled away. The troops cheered, for whatever dark spirit haunted the peaks of the mountain had gone. They advanced quickly. Under heavy shields they brought forward the machine, and with one heavy swing of its arm they breached the defensive wall. With great enthusiasm they swarmed over the crumbled barrier, and swiftly subdued the small garrison there, many of whom did not resist but welcomed their kinsmen as soon as the wall was breached.

(22) For a few days, Ikov and his troops rested. The people of Kathekontos voted for the execution of those who had cooperated with the vampyres against their countrymen and restored as much as they could their old ways of life. So as not to draw too heavily from the limited supplies of the mountain community, Ikov dismissed about half his troops to return Armadyl in the clearing below. Having confirmed that those remaining - about five hundred sea-folk, Asgarnians, and woodsmen - truly desired to continue on to the northern steppes, he procured what supplies the people of Kathekontos could afford to give them and led the march down the northern side of the mountain, into the moors.

(23) There Ikov and his army camped, and waited for Armadyl. For weeks, Ikov sent out scouts to reconnoiter the land. It was barren for many miles in every direction: continuous swamp and fog and rain. There was little food to come by, so food was strictly rationed. There was also little dry wood for fire. Many became ill after the days and nights of freezing rain. They encountered few people: a couple wandering witches and some banished officials of the vampyres' regime. One witch sold a potion to a sick soldier claiming that it would cure him, but it turned out to be poison. The soldiers invited a banished woodsman to sit with them around a fire, but he attempted to stab one of them and was killed on the spot. It was debated among the soldiers whether they should kill anyone they met in those barren lands. But Ikov dismissed the idea. He encouraged the soldiers as often as he could; they maintained their daily drills to keep warm and to keep their minds occupied while they waited for their god.

(24) Despite the difficulty of the life in the moors, Ikov kept watch over his heart and the spirits working there. He could feel some of what was happening in the woodland to the south. He felt the spirits of three vampyres, not destroyed but subdued and then banished from the world; he felt the freedom of the woodland from the shadow that had departed from the summit of the mountain; and he felt the stirring of the great earthen giant of whom Armadyl had spoken. At times he caught glimpses of his god: standing upon something - a hill or a platform - in the center of the clearing, his army arrayed behind him, before the edge of the forest, waiting. He saw the rising of the earth, swirling rock and dust, gathering and clumping, a massive figure forming. He saw Armadyl standing calmly before it, unflinching and relaxed. He saw terror in the eyes of the troops beyond as they watched a god meet the spirit rising from their land. Ikov did not see the battle, but he felt a pain in his soul, a pain so deep that it would remain with him forever. He understood that Armadyl had spared him and that he could not imagine what Armadyl endured. He knew the battle for the woodland was won.

(25) A few days later, after four weeks in the moors, Armadyl arrived. The troops were encouraged, and even more encouraged when he told them of his battle with the earthen giant, but Ikov knew a little piece of the pain of which Armadyl did not tell. Armadyl and Ikov did not need to discuss it. They prepared to move deeper into the moors. The war in the woodland had lasted about five months.

- a reserve in case of errors in the preceding sections -