Under attack by the hordes of Genghis Khan…
Meagan heard the bells in her dreams long before she opened her eyes. The white glow of the room’s opaque window showed dawn was approaching. Meagan heard shouts from the Great Hall below.
Her first thought was that breakfast was even louder than dinner. Then she heard something else, or rather felt it. A tremor was coming through the stone floor, the rumbling of a hundred thousand hooves.
Shouting was in the hallways now. Meagan pulled her gown from a clothes pole and dressed in the half-light. She followed a stream of people into the hallway and through winding corridors. Bells rang from the towers as she crowded with others onto the battlements. Meagan strained to see, but all that was visible was a placid dawn sky. She pushed her way to the edge and looked across the fields.
The ground was black with horsemen. Galloping shadows swirled through the flaming village below. Black lines streaked across the green rampart. Mist rose in places to give glimpses of the nomads pausing to devour the village.
Men ran through the courtyards and lined the battlements, but they were pitifully few against the onslaught. A shrill scream drifted on the wind, a sound Meagan remembered with a knot of terror. The massed horde surged up, spreading as it came and circling the castle like a rising tide.
Thin flames streaked through the air as galloping riders shot burning darts over the stone walls. Castle archers returned waves of arrows. On the balcony, tonsured men began sacraments against the attackers as others backed away, ashen.
Copyright © 2008 John Royce
The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is an adventure through history … each section is about a different time period.
Eclipsed by Shadow (Book #1 of the trilogy) won national awards including the Eric Hoffer Award for best Young Adult Fiction, and the Mom’s Choice Award for best family-friendly Young Adult Fantasy.
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