Caleb accepted the hand he offered but allowed David to pull him into an embrace. Though it had only been a few days since they had seen each other, the king was used to having David around and had missed him. Not to mention they were both under an enormous emotional strain.
“How are you?” Caleb asked, pausing from his examination of the paperwork to look his right-hand-man in the eye.
David shrugged. He looked almost as tired and bewildered as Caleb felt. “I just… I don’t understand why this is so difficult,” he replied. “I feel that our men have covered every nook and cranny of the entire territory from Blackthorn west and north. We’ve even started searching down here,” he said, pointing to a location on the map just south and west of the castle. “It’s almost as if Matthew is playing h
