A Youngster's Journey Beneath the Twin Kings' Banner

Roy is an orphan caked in mud, with nothing in his pockets but a battered, unsharpened knife. Aelrui is an elf who sings off-key. There's a bounty of one hundred thousand gold coins on his head, and the Council of Elders is hunting him across the world to bring him back as their holy son. The two boys, both hunted across the continent, run into each other in the black pine forest outside Grayridge Pass. One runs, the other sings, and then... they team up. Roy owes Aelrui his life. “Anyone who wants to take you has to get past me first.” Aelrui says, “Fine, but you have to feed me.” Later, they seize Brokenfang Fortress, raise an army of youths, and beat up the Church's Inquisition and the barbarians alike. Whenever Roy's berserker blood is about to take over, Aelrui pulls him back with his off-key star song. Aelrui can't remember a thing, not even the name of the Elf Queen, but he remembers Roy's face. There's a saying across the continent: “Don't mess with that silver-haired elf. He's got a madman by his side who'd dare take an axe to a god.”