Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

choking and clawing at their throats. I held on as long as I could, and then the poison took me. When I finally recover consciousness, I was surrounded by bodies, and the battle was over. I did my best for you, John, for as long as I could. I only wish it could have been more.'
    'Thomas Grey!' said the King suddenly. 'He was with you!'
    'He was lucky,' said the Warlock. 'He didn't care for the vintage, so he drank only a little. He and I were the only survivors, just the two of us, out of more than fifty.'
    'Who did this?' said Harald. 'Who stabbed us in the back? I thought all the traitors were dead.'
    The Warlock shrugged. 'The servant who brought us the wine is dead. Somebody used him, and then killed him so that he couldn't tell us who it was.'
    He broke off as Rupert stirred, and tried to sit up.
    'Julia?'
    'I'm here, Rupert.' She put an arm round his shoulders to support him, and he shook his head slowly to clear it.
    'How do you feel, son?' asked the King.
    'Bloody terrible,' said Rupert. 'But I'll survive.'
    'Of course,' said Harald. 'You always do.'
    'My eye hurts,' said Rupert, and then froze as his fingers found only sealed eyelids where his right eye used to be. 'My eye, what's happened to my eye?'
    'Easy, lad,' said the King, and Julia grabbed Rupert's hand to stop him clawing at his face.
    'I'm sorry, Rupert,' said the High Warlock, quietly. There's nothing more I can do.'
    Rupert swallowed hard, fighting back his panic. He felt maimed, crippled, even more than if he'd lost an arm or a leg. The world looked strange and different, seen through his one eye; it looked flat and somehow unreal, and he couldn't seem to judge distances properly. He remembered an old guard with one eye, who'd once told him something about depth perception, and how it had stopped him being a swordsman, and the panic surged up in him again.
    'How the hell am I going to use a sword, with only one eye to guide me?'
    'I wouldn't worry about it too much,' drawled Harald. 'There are so many demons, all you have to do is keep swinging and you're bound to hit one, sooner or later.'
    For a moment Julia thought she would kill him for being so callous, and then she took her hand away from her sword as she realised Rupert was laughing.
    'You bastard, Harald,' grinned Rupert. 'Trust you to put things in perspective.'
    'One of my more useful talents,' said Harald. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to make sure the battlements are secure.'
    He bowed politely, and moved off into the courtyard. Julia watched him go, and shook her head.
    'There are times,' she said slowly, 'when I don't understand that man at all.'
    'You're not alone,' said the King dryly. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes. Julia looked at him closely.
    'You look exhausted, John. How did your part of the battle go? Are you hurt?'
    'Just cuts and bruises, my dear. And there's not much to tell about the battle. I led my men out, and I brought some of them back. For a time, I almost felt like a King again.' He looked unflinchingly at the bodies lying heaped together on the bloodstained cobbles, and shook his head. 'It wasn't worth the price.'
    'You went back with me to help save your son. I've never seen anything braver.'
    'Bravery isn't enough any more,' said the King. 'Look around you, Julia. My army is broken, the Castle's under siege, and I haven't even got enough men left to guard the battlements. Twelve generations of my family built the Forest Kingdom and kept it strong. It only took one generation to see it all destroyed, one incompetent King.'
    'It wasn't your fault ...'
    'Wasn't it? The King is the Land, and the Land is the King. I failed as King, and now the Land is paying the price.'
    'Bull,' said Julia. 'You're a man like any other, and you did the best you could with an impossible situation. You mustn't blame yourself, John. The Darkwood doesn't care how brave or strong you are, it's a part of Nature, like an earthquake or a storm. You can't hope to beat it with swords and axes and armies.'
    'So what should I do? Give in?'
    'No,' said Julia sharply. 'We go on fighting, but in a different way. We've tried armies and we've tried magic, and they've both failed us. Now there's only one way left. Think, John — what's the real heart of the Darkwood, what gives it life and purpose? The Demon Prince! Destroy him, and you destroy the Darkwood!'
    'I don't believe I'm hearing this,' said Rupert. 'It's all we can do to hold the Castle against the demons, and you expect us to go