Glade Riders

The steeds of Athel Loren are foaled beneath the boughs and weaned on its strange air, and they fear nothing the forest does: not the walking trees, not the shifting paths, not the voices in the leaves. Glade Riders are the kindreds who ride them: wardens of the wood's margins and errand-riders between its scattered realms, travelling hidden ways that no map has ever held. A path a Glade Rider takes at dawn may not exist by noon, and those who give chase learn this in the worst possible manner.

In war they are the forest's harriers. They circle an invading column like hawks over a wounded animal, loosing from the saddle at full gallop, wheeling away before any answer can be made, and drawing pursuit onto ground where the trees themselves are waiting. They rarely stand to receive a charge, because they never need to: an enemy inside Athel Loren defeats himself with every mile he marches, and the Glade Riders' true craft is to make him march it angry, exhausted, and in exactly the wrong direction.