33

With Half of a Sword

It felt as though she had always been out of breath. Panting, Elenai and Elik pushed their way through the throngs, led by a squire urging haste. Only a few weeks ago, she had ridden past the palace at Elik’s side and into the streets for the celebration of N’lahr’s great victory over the Naor. She could never have guessed she’d return less than two months later wearing a khalat and a ring, or that there would be an army of Naor waiting beyond the inner walls.

Amidst all the changes, she was heartened to be in the company of her friend Elik again. They’d bonded early in their second year, recognizing in one another someone with the same work ethic and drive to succeed. Elik had been a master rider even before he’d joined the corps, and had always learned new information quickly, especially corps history, which he’d often helped her study.

He’d doffed his helmet and ran a hand through sweaty, curling brown locks as he walked beside her. One of the five brevets on his right sleeve was slashed. She didn’t ask what had happened to it, and maybe the precise detail didn’t matter, because the more general answer was the Naor attack. He’d survived that one. Soon they’d all be facing more.

With her and Elik came a scruffier, more valiant version of Rylin than she’d previously known, his shadow Thelar, and the twin redheaded exalts. Everyone had questions for them, mostly variations on the same two themes: what are the Naor doing and whether they thought Darassus would survive. A few asked if the queen had really fled, and others demanded to know if N’lahr had returned from the dead. Some insisted on impeding their progress to get answers.

She’d have to allay their fears. Elenai halted her companions, and when none of them seemed to catch on to what must be done, raised her hand for silence. A mass of citizenry cleared a circle about her while she sought and found the right words. “People of Darassus! Take heart! General N’lahr was never dead! The queen imprisoned him but Alten Kyrkenall and I set him free.” There were gasps, murmurs, and cries of outrage at this, but mostly the faces were focused raptly upon her. “He saved Vedessus from Naor attack, and we destroyed their army there. He and Alten Varama defeated the Naor who had taken Alantris. And now he has come to aid us in Darassus!”

She paused, turning to take more of them in. “We six are going to consult with him right now. Stand firm and help one another. We will strike as one.”

She turned then, and a squire came over to lead them through the crowd, which parted before him. A ragged cheer followed belatedly.

“Nicely done,” Elik said from the side of his mouth.

Rylin flashed a grin at her.

The squire guided them to the practice field beyond the stables, where a row of hay bales had been tossed out to form a barrier separating them from the curious onlookers. They stepped through it, joining a band of grizzled men and women in the black-and-gold livery of the city guard, the dark-skinned exalt she’d seen tending the stadium wounded, a dozen men and women in white shirts she recognized as junior members of the Mage Auxiliary, and two lone third-rank squires struggling vainly to look resolute rather than overwhelmed.

N’lahr stood apart, watching as Kyrkenall trailed Lothrun through the sand where Elenai and Elik had trained under Asrahn. The archer used the point of the curved sword to draw an oval.

This, Elenai speculated, must represent the inner city. As she watched Kyrkenall finish, an older Alantran woman drew up beside Elik and squeezed his shoulder. Her friend brightened and made room for her. With the old woman were three Elenai recognized as city councilors.

“Elenai,” Elik told her, “this is Governor Feolia, of Alantris.”

Elenai bowed her head in respect and the woman returned the gesture. The youngest of the councilors, a stern man in a trim blue shirt and dark pants, with salt-and-pepper hair, pointed at N’lahr. “That’s really him? Not some kind of magical trick to improve morale?”

“That’s really him,” the governor said. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“You didn’t tell me Kyrkenall the traitor was here,” the councilor continued to Feolia.

Kyrkenall had just completed the oval only a few steps from him, and he glanced back.

“He’s no traitor,” Elenai said, voice sharp.

“You can arrest me later.” Kyrkenall wiped the tip of Lothrun on his pant leg and sheathed the weapon as N’lahr stepped forward, carrying a short rake.

“I’ll be brief,” the commander said. “The enemy currently have a little over two dozen of those giant cattle, each carrying somewhere close to forty troops. There’s also cavalry. All told we face somewhere close to fifteen hundred enemy soldiers. In case it isn’t clear to you, this is not an invasion force. They mean to kill as many of us as they can lay hands on, and destroy anything they can’t take away.” He lifted his head and nodded into the distance. “You can see they’re already setting buildings on fire.”

He brought the haft end of the rake down to the oval Kyrkenall had drawn and slashed a line through its middle, then crossed it so the image was divided into four sections.

“Naor marksmen are already taking up posts in nearby buildings. Others are likely to remain on top of the black beasts, because once they come within sight of our walls they’ll have a height advantage. Our ko’aye allies will aid us against the marksmen, and so will Kyrkenall, who will be able to shoot from the back of one of them.”

N’lahr looked over to Elenai. “The Naor have at least one powerful mage among them, and they’ll use him and others to sow chaos. But the Naor have ever and always relied more upon brute force than finesse. Their goal will be to gain the wall. And once they have part of the wall, their goal will be to advance across and start killing. So—we need the people off the grounds.” N’lahr pointed to the councilors. “Get all noncombatants into the palace and Altenerai buildings. There should be enough room inside especially if you utilize the storage larders as well. Keep them out of the entryways, because those are our fallback points. Clear?”

“Clear,” Feolia answered, beside Elenai.

N’lahr tapped the lines he’d drawn through the oval. “We’ll divide the protection among four commanders. Rylin, you take from the main gate to the western sally gate. I’ll take the western sally gate over to the north gate.” He called to a bright-looking middle-aged woman in guard livery. “Captain Anaria, you take from the main gate to the gap by the Idris. And you,” he pointed to the graybearded man in dark mail. “Captain Cercah, isn’t it?”

The elder bowed his head in respect. “Yes, Commander.”

“You take the last section. Each of you is going to need support teams below who can feed up extra arrows, spears, rocks, pitchforks, whatever you can possibly use against the Naor. Put teams together including volunteers from the citizenry. Each of you are going to have to keep at least two and preferably three banks of marksmen handy, capable of firing in volleys. Are you listening?”

The response was delivered with military precision, many voices speaking at once. “Yes, Alten.”

N’lahr lifted the rake and pointed it toward the exalts. “Thelar.” Elenai was impressed by her commander’s retention of information—she was fairly certain Rylin had only mentioned the exalt’s name once in front of him. “You’re in charge of our magics. Apportion the spell workers on every wall. Spread mages among you. You exalts ought to know who’s good at what and what strength everyone has. Make sure everyone has about the same force, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Assign yourself to my wall, and keep Elenai out of your calculations.”

Elenai wondered at that, but said nothing as N’lahr faced Elik. “Elik, you’re going to command the mounted troop. Find us horsemen, and patrol the inner side of the wall. Come charging against any Naor who get over the wall, or through a gate. Get on that, now.” She also wondered how N’lahr had learned that Elik was a natural for cavalry and inwardly applauded his choice.

“Yes, sir.” Elik snapped a salute, gave Elenai a brief nod and a whisper of “luck” and hurried off, already calling the names of squires.

N’lahr pointed at blond-haired, brown-eyed Welahn. “You, third ranker. You’re in charge of the armory. You first make sure that all of Elik’s troop is armed and armored, and then make sure every weapon we have is in use. Clear out the place. Send an assistant to scour the palace and raid the Wall of Heroes. Alvor’s axe is going to do us a lot more good in someone’s hand than shining on the wall.”

Welahn’s eyes widened in surprise, then he snapped a salute. “Yes, sir.”

“Get moving.” N’lahr pointed to another city guard officer as Welahn dashed off. “You—” He snapped his fingers. “Your name?”

“Myllikar, sir.”

“Myllikar, you find retired veterans and strong builders. Have them identify and ready near the weak points. Postern gates, the main gates, every kind of entrance. Erect barricades just inside them. Use whatever you need—barrels, stable siding, anything that’s movable and defensible, even if you have to destroy buildings. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

He faced them all once more. “I can’t predict what other surprises the Naor might have, so we’re going to have to think on our feet. Be flexible. Don’t crowd the walls, but keep them occupied. Have people ready to fill in from below, because you will take casualties. Some Naor will reach the walls. Maybe a lot of them. When they do, take them back. Don’t forget—we have more people than they do. Questions?”

Elenai’s only question was why she hadn’t been assigned a specific duty, but she waited, silent as the others.

N’lahr watched for a brief moment. “You have your orders. Dismissed.” Without a pause he motioned Elenai forward. “Oddsbreaker, we need to talk.”

He turned his back to the crowd, stepping close to the shadow of the stables. A sprinting first ranker arrived with multiple quivers of arrows, which he passed over to Kyrkenall, who immediately dropped to the sand of the practice field and began to inspect the shafts. The rest of the men and women raced off to their assigned duties. Some were already shouting orders, and one of the soldiers called for any hunters or marksmen to gather about him.

“Their mage is throwing some powerful spells,” N’lahr said. “Any observations?” Understanding that N’lahr wanted a tactical assessment outside his own field of expertise, and quickly, she struggled to put her thoughts in order. “We’ve seen him work spells from a distance on multiple instances. He seems capable of keying in on a hearthstone and immediately countering it with something of his own that’s just as strong. Possibly another hearthstone. I know of no other source that might sustain him.”

“Blood,” N’lahr said. “At least in part, he’s using the black beasts as giant batteries to power his blood sorcery.”

“Gods,” Elenai said, wondering if that red spiking slash that had damaged her dragon had, in fact, been formed of blood.

“Once he has the beasts in place disgorging men he’ll have less need of them, and they’ll be even more useful as power sources.”

“Of course,” Elenai agreed more softly. Once again, she was astonished at N’lahr’s finely honed perceptions. He might not understand sorcery, but he understood, profoundly, how resources were allocated in battle.

“Do you think he’ll still be drawn to the hearthstone?” N’lahr asked.

“I’m pretty certain.”

“Can you sense him if he’s sensing you?”

“I haven’t tried,” she confessed, “but theoretically I should be able to do so.”

“Chargan may not expose himself to direct conflict, so once we locate him we’re going to have to go to him. And cut the head from the snake. We will have to wait for the right moment, which is why I want you on the wall beside me. Now let’s get to it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once again the populace was in motion, many retreating from the inner wall and into the palace and stone outbuildings. Women with babes in arms. Stooped grandmothers and grandfathers. Children, all kept in orderly lines by elders.

N’lahr was still arranging everyone, several dozen, upon his quadrant of the wall when the Naor moved in. A wide avenue lay just outside the inner wall, and all but one of the city’s main streets fed into it. This meant that the horned Naor monsters had easy access to the palace walls themselves and came stomping toward them, parallel to the defenders.

A single drover sat in a roofed framework slatted with metal behind the head of each beast. The Naor troops rode upon platforms of wood and leather. Rounded shields hung along the lower sides, behind which the Naor crouched between attacks.

As one of the reeking animals swung sideways to the wall beside them, Elenai kept the first volley of slings and spears back with a great wind spell, and Thelar followed her example on the second, but as other animals moved in more stones flew, more javelins arced and it was impossible to shield everyone. Some weapons found a mark. The screams were one with the bellows of beasts and clatter of arms.

The warriors on the wall gave as good as they got, firing into the eyes of the Naor animals and sending some fleeing in pain. Many Naor fell finally behind their shields. Before long, though, a siege plank crashed down, landing with a solid thunk upon the battlement. A group of slingers rained stones down as Naor warriors ran howling down from the beast and stepped onto the wall.

And there they met N’lahr the Grim, bearing Irion.

Not so long ago, Elenai had fought at his side. Never, though, had she had such an unfettered view of the warrior in battle. Fluid, unlabored, he stepped between blows, somehow assessing the maximum length of his opponents’ reach and remaining just beyond it. He advanced into battle almost like a ghost, impossible to touch, but slaying all that he passed with precise and deadly cuts. Here he thrust deep; here he parted armor with impossible ease, so that a Naor fell shrieking beside his weapon arm. Here he ducked so that an axeman brained another, and then brushed a throat with Irion’s tip before tripping a rushing warrior and cutting an attacker’s blade nearly in half as he parried.

Soon the swirl of combat encircled her, for a second black beast disgorged its hordes onto the wall, and then she was once more guided by that thread that enhanced her own blade skill, weaving past strikes to thrust home, ducking and rising with a slash, letting the incredible flexible armor of her khalat take the lighter blows. Thelar was in there beside her with a valiant second ranker and a band of archers whose arrows kept the nearest Naor marksmen too busy for concentrated volleys.

One moment she was facing a shouting bearded warrior; the next she was breathing heavily and her field was clear. Down the wall, N’lahr was still cutting a swathe through attackers, dropping them left and right. Closer at hand, Thelar finished off a downed Naor as the enemy soldier scrambled for a spear. The second ranker knelt beside a wounded archer. All up and down the wall beyond their quarter, as far as she could see, Naor fired from the black beasts or came rushing down planks to assault the defenders.

Elenai took note of the largest of the beasts she’d yet seen. It advanced to the corner of Altenera Way, a block to her west. If the others were twenty feet at the shoulder, this rose at least to twenty-five, and its massive horns were painted in scarlet. It paused briefly beside the great column with Queen Altenera at its capital that stood directly across from the famed Alteneran Gate. Then it advanced across the avenue, each step shaking the streets and puffing up gusts of fallen petals from the newly leafed trees.

Huge though the beast might be, it sat fewer Naor. Elenai saw only a handful upon its back. One was a trumpeter, even now calling signals that brought more Naor soldiers to the walls. Others were men-at-arms, broad of shoulder, their ringmail gilt with gold, their helms touched here and there with gold leaf.

She ascertained that the three Naor at the beast’s head were sorcerers, even though they were as heavily armed as their fellows. Looking through the inner world she could not miss the glow of two active hearthstones, and something more—the life force of the huge beast they rode was threaded into the magic of the stones. Further, one of the three was better connected to those threads than his fellows. Chargan. It had to be. His helm boasted the most elaborate flourishes, and a gold crest. He carried a remarkable long-hafted sword, brandished now in the air—one side of it was saw-toothed, and the other smooth.

At sight of the enemy leader Elenai looked for N’lahr, and found him in the midst of a fierce fight with Naor toops.

Darassan soldiers fired steadily as Chargan’s animal drew close. So, too, did Kyrkenall, for Drusa dived and he let loose a trio of well placed arrows as he swooped past.

But the moment missiles neared their target a bloodred dome of energy flickered into existence about the sorcerers; watching through the inner world Elenai saw the dark threads the Naor worked to manage the spell, and the mage that manipulated them. She reasoned then that each of the three must be apportioned a different task; one had threads into the animal’s mind, and the other was clearly in charge of defense. Chargan, who as yet did nothing, was likely offense.

A peculiar furred hump stood up along the beast’s back, directly behind its head, and Chargan drove that saw-edged blade down upon it. A gout of blood sprayed up, but the beast lowed only dully, as though it were removed from the pain.

Chargan raised his blade and swiped it through the air. Blood coating the weapon’s edge slung out like a great whip and Elenai’s eyes widened in horror. For when it struck the soldiers upon the wall, it didn’t spray, but cut through flesh and into armor. Men and women dropped, crying out, or fell silent in death, and the whole of the battlement was clear. Chargan sliced once more and cast a deadly scythe of blood at soldiers advancing from the right.

This, she understood with grim clarity, was the kind of attack he had sent into the sky against her dragon. And she was not sure she knew how to counter it.

The beast plodded at the gate, lowered its head, and drove its horns into the thick wood. So strong was the blow that Elenai felt the stones sway beneath her even hundreds of feet away. Naor drawing closer upon their own animals took up a sinister two-syllable chant of their leader’s name. Char-gan. Char-gan.

Below, she spotted a band of twenty Naor advancing across the parklike grounds of the palace until Elik’s armored troop broke them with a charge. From what weak point the enemy had emerged she could not guess, but this break was further sign the defenders could not long hold them back.

Elenai called again to N’lahr and saw him fighting to disengage. For now, she would have to handle the enemy mage herself. She reached deep within her hearthstone and sent a wave of bright energies against Chargan and his beast. To her eyes it looked like a solid sheet of lightning, but it did not move swift enough to stop that bloodred barrier from flickering into existence. Her attack struck it and dispersed into the air in small sparks.

Elenai cursed, even as a familiar voice called out to her. It was amplified, ringing through the air like a thunderclap.

You are outmatched, Altenerai! You cannot last!

Sensing his reach for her stone, she turned it off, and she imagined him grinning in triumph. His beast backed away for another assault against the wall.

A winded N’lahr arrived beside her on the battlement at last, his bloody sword in hand. Over his shoulder was a stream of bodies. “It’s time to take the offensive.” And he pointed his dripping blade toward Chargan, before the gate.

Almost she asked him how he meant for them to get there. But she, too, was Altenerai. She spun to the bruised and battered second ranker, miraculously still alive beside her. She’d never learned his name. “Hold the wall!”

Thelar had apportioned a quartet of mages to their command. One had fallen to a Naor spear, and the remaining three clustered near her, two men in white, high-collared shirts that were the new official garb of the Mage Auxiliary squires, and an older woman in bright blouse and pants. She looked like a grandmother. Elenai called to them now. “Mages, with me!”

And with that, she and N’lahr were rushing over bodies and up the plank to the nearest of the ebon monsters. Its troops had already mounted the wall and been slaughtered by N’lahr, and its drover with a small force of guards still clustered near the thing’s head. They were struggling to get the beast under way until N’lahr made short work of them, and she soon was brutally thrusting threads of intent through the monster’s feeble consciousness. She discovered a little more there to work with than she’d found in the dragon, and recognition burst over her. The Naor monster was nothing more than an eshlack, twisted and reformed into this gargantuan shape. She should have guessed that sooner, from the familiar stench.

“You saw that shield the Naor formed from their beast’s blood,” Elenai said to Thelar. “Can you build something like it?”

“I’ve never made a shield,” Thelar confessed. Yet as she reached into the stone and fed him energies, he gamely threaded them together, calling for the others to aid him.

They spun a glittering golden tapestry in a convex shape before the monster’s head.

She braced herself for an attack against her hearthstone, but it did not come on the instant, perhaps because the enemy mages were so busy with their own work. She shut it down before Chargan sensed it.

As their own beast lumbered down the avenue parallel to the wall, gathering momentum, Chargan sent a blood strike against them. The attack drove partway into the protective screen, sheering into the threads without collapsing them, and the mages struggled to lend it greater strength as Elenai followed the curve of the wall and forced her animal into a run, driving straight for the side of the enemy beast. She urged it to lower its horns, fueling its confusion over the loud sounds and strange scents into a rage now aimed at the larger animal.

Kyrkenall swooped past, trying once more, but again his arrows struck the red dome that sparkled into place about the sorcerers and dropped away. He had already blinded the thing, judging by the shafts about the head, but that didn’t seem to change its behavior.

Elenai’s eshlack was but thirty feet out when Chargan’s second attack cut partway through their shield. Most of the energies held, but a line of the blood broke through, passing within an arm’s length of her and taking one of the Exalt squires through the chest. Blood spouted as though he’d been sliced deeply with a sword, and he collapsed.

Sickened, Elenai shouted to keep the shield up.

As they passed by, Naor soldiers hurled spears. Clever Thelar might be, but his shield proved no barrier to physical weapons. In a near effortless display of skill, N’lahr cut the two weapons that loomed closest from the air. He lifted his sword, the sapphire upon his ring gleaming, and Elenai heard the Naor shout his name in a mix of awe and fear.

Thelar seemed to have a better handle on what he was doing now, and she sensed a stronger resiliency in the barrier spread before them.

Chargan’s next attack struck low into the animal’s right front leg. The beast stumbled. Elenai forced the eshlack on through its pain. Unlike the dragon she’d piloted, this creature seemed to retain more of its senses. She was alive to its agony, and shuddered with the animal as she fed that pain into its rage. She moaned as one with it.

She pulled her senses free from the beast in the split second before its horns rammed into the larger animal’s side.

Many of the Naor bodyguards went down and two toppled right over the waist-high leather shielding and plummeted into the street. Chargan and one of the mages lost their footing and dropped to the platform floor.

N’lahr recovered before the rest of them and charged across the sloping skull of their beast. His helm gleamed in the sunlight, and his sapphire glowed. He leapt up to grasp the edges of the enemy eshlack’s platform, already tilted toward him by the impact. In moments he was up and Irion shone in his hand. The elite guard suddenly had something much more troublesome to contend with than regaining their balance.

Chargan pushed himself from the deck to his knees and she felt his eyes upon her.

She had to act fast. “Thelar, I need the winds. Help me jump.” She was already running onto the furry head of their beast as Thelar protested behind her.

As her feet pushed off, she sent a wind behind and beneath her and she felt Thelar helping shape the energies. She ignored a little spark of jealousy that he had learned so much from extensive training she’d never had.

Aided by sorcery, the impossibly high leap sent her up and up so that it was almost like flying. She dropped from above the trio of sorcerers, drawing her sword as she came, and slammed it onto the shoulder of the defensive mage. It drove deep and she had to release it as she went to her hands and knees. He fell with a shout of agony. The enemy beast shifted beneath them, still bawling pain from the impact of its smaller fellow. She swayed to her feet as the animal twisted itself. Chargan swiped the saw-toothed side of his blade at her, but he was still off balance and stumbled back toward the bloody hump, missing his blow.

The other mage, the graybeard in charge of guiding the black beast, retreated toward a quiver of javelins. The sorcerer with her sword in his shoulder clawed at her foot. She braced one boot against his face and yanked her blade free with a great gout of blood. He slipped back along the platform, slanting now as the beast shifted again, and he hit the waist-high guardrail and flipped over, calling out in dismay in the brief moment before he struck the street.

She abandoned caution and activated her hearthstone. As the graybearded mage sent a javelin tearing toward her with impossible speed, she sidestepped, navigating the way through her split-second glimpse of possibilities. At that moment she neither knew nor cared if it were some natural gift or insight from Rialla. She followed its guide path, then with an ease that astonished her, lifted a screen of energies even as Chargan scythed blood at her. The attack splintered to nothing on her magical shield, and then she struck out with her sword as the mage snapped another javelin at her. Her parry sent it twirling away.

The beast they rode forced itself upright, tearing free of the others’ horns, its will subsumed to that of its master. The Naor sorcerers then alternated their attacks upon her: slices with the blood and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of javelins. Only her glimpse of the best path forward guided her between one calamity and the next. She leapt over one slow lash of the blood whip and then her sense of the future dropped away. The graybeard hefted another javelin and she understood she was off balance and wide open.

The man’s mouth sprouted a feathered arrow and he staggered back, hands going to his throat. She heard a familiar mad cackle and glimpsed a winged form soaring past on the edge of her sight.

Elenai advanced on Chargan.

The mage’s eyes narrowed. Behind her Elenai was dully aware of the shouts and screams and clang of weapons. It might have seemed ages, but so far this battle had lasted a minute at best. N’lahr was still engaged with Chargan’s bodyguard. Over the sorcerer’s shoulder she perceived a ko’aye diving at the Naor who’d now taken one of the walls. Naor had forced their way onto Rylin’s wall as well, she saw, though the bearded alten was in the vanguard of the defenders fighting them back.

Others, though, had ceased their combat to watch her fight with Chargan. Perhaps they had seen N’lahr’s jump or heard the bodyguard calling his name and thought it was he who battled their general.

Chargan laughed, and his sorcery lent him a godlike voice that echoed through the city. Elenai watched the threads of his spell coiling through the air with the words that followed. “You’re not bad, fae girl,” he called. “You just haven’t had practice. And now you never will.”

He brought the sword down at her head. She parried, saw the gleam of the sharpened blood on the slim side of the weapon. The strike notched her blade. He twisted it as he pulled back, trying to catch her chin with one of the projections on its saw-toothed side. At close range, she saw that the weapon’s pommel was a fanged skull with glowing rubies for eyes.

Laughing still, he lashed out again and again with the blade. What he lacked in skill he made up for in the energy that burned within him, powered in part by the hearthstones carried at his back, and in part by the blood of the creature beneath him. She had used magic to sustain and even boost herself, but this was far beyond anything she had managed. As he said, she lacked practice with this kind of fight. Her next thrust was true, but the blade didn’t pierce his well-made armor, and only a brief glimpse of possibilities swung her away from a savage slash that would have taken off her hand.

And her parry of his next blow sheered off half her sword.

She backstepped, wishing Kyrkenall were here, or N’lahr. She had done all she could, hadn’t she? Where was Thelar?

But they were not here, at this moment.

Chargan laughed. “Nothing can stop this blade,” he cried.

But that wasn’t quite true. She leapt to the side, buying herself a moment, saw N’lahr battling a final pair of soldiers. The animal they’d ridden against Chargan was under assault by a second and Thelar and the older mage were retreating onto the wall. Kyrkenall was nowhere in sight.

She ripped the satchel from her shoulder and brandished it in her left hand as a weak shield even as she flung a powerful sleep spell at the advancing Naor sorcerer.

He laughed off the attack and strode toward her. She swore, wishing she had some better choice, and readied to face him, her broken blade in her right hand.

He came in with a slashing blow from the side.

And she interposed the satchel, with her hearthstone.

She felt the moment the blade struck, tearing straight through the bag and into the stone. Elenai released her hold on the artifact at the moment of impact and threw herself sideways.

Probably Chargan felt the immense blast of magical energy at the same time she did. She rolled away, coming to her feet, broken sword in hand.

The result was almost instantaneous. So it had been when N’lahr himself had struck a stone. So it had been when the dragon damaged one. The hearthstone itself surged against its attacker. Bloodred crystals erupted across Chargan’s hands, spreading up across his armored limbs as spiky jets of blood erupted from his torso. Chargan wailed in terror and pain, his sounds cutting off sharply as Elenai passed her half sword through his neck and separated his head from his shoulders.

The crystalline transformation overtook his body, a warped rectangle of bloodred spikes. His helmeted head was left unscathed and she looked down to find its eyes fixed in a look of bewilderment.

The air was rich with the energies of the shattered stone. Her stone, she thought, and she scrabbled desperately to grasp at those powers, as one might pick up the largest pieces of a shattered pot. N’lahr had finished the bodyguards, for she found him panting steely-eyed beside her.

They had only moments to shape a victory.

Elenai tore the helm from Chargan’s head and lifted the grisly trophy by the hair.

Three of the four walls yet held, but the Naor had gained one, and a hundred or more of their army were dashing for the palace steps even as Elik’s cavalry troop led a handful of defenders to intercept them.

With her fading power she sent a mighty wind at the Naor on the nearest beast, blowing many from its back. She staggered the Naor running below. With a sweep of her hand she crackled a vast sheet of lightning over the heads of enemy soldiers on the far wall.

Nothing was left of her hearthstone’s power but minute tendrils. She used its last remains as she called out to the farthest corners of the battlefield, her voice heavy with an anger just held in check, not just for the destruction wrought to the city and the lives lost, but for the sacrifice of her wondrous stone.

“Yield, Naor!” Her voice echoed through the city, as though Darassus itself had been given voice. “I have slain your general!” She raised Chargan’s bloody head as proof. Though there was still the isolated clang of arms, most of the combatants had paused in their battles to contemplate her. “Surrender, and you may live! Defy, and you will be destroyed!”

N’lahr raised his own voice beside her. His gruff battlefield delivery sent his words almost as far as her own. “Hear me, Naor! I am N’lahr! Victor at Vedessus and slayer of Mazakan. This warrior Elenai brought me back from beyond the grave to oppose you! She has vanquished every power you possessed! This is your last and only chance! Surrender or die!”

It was a gamble. Perhaps their last. If the Naor pressed on, their numbers might carry the day. But did they know it?

The silence stretched on for what felt a thousand years, until a beardless Naor officer before the gate shouted up to them. Elenai knew that there were no women in the Naor ranks, yet she could have sworn the warrior shouted up in a woman’s voice. “We will never surrender! But we will serve the stronger chief!”

“Then swear allegiance,” N’lahr called back.

The beardless Naor looked to his fellows, then sank to one knee. “Hail, Elenai Half-Sword!” The soldier bowed his head. His companions stared at him. Then another beside him followed suit, crying out Elenai’s name. The ripples spread, and bit by bit the helmed heads sank, the numbers swiftly growing and spreading beyond the wall until almost fifteen hundred Naor knelt in fealty. They swore not to N’lahr, but to her, and she knew a terrible chill, a presentiment very different from those exhilarating glimpses of the best path forward.

Cheers erupted from the buildings and spread along the wall.

Still reeling from the energies she had wielded, Elenai looked to N’lahr. His eyes met her own. She saw pride there, for her, and maybe a little sympathy. What had he gotten her into? Was this how he’d expected things to play out?

No, she thought, this time he had improvised, just like her. She let out a breath she hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. Some improvisation. A better mage might have defeated Chargan without sacrificing her only tool. How was she to wield meaningful sorceries without her hearthstone? It troubled her that amongst all the other tragedies, the loss of the stone plagued her most, and that she already wondered if N’lahr had brought Belahn’s old stone, or if it would be possible to use Chargan’s. She would resist the impulse to ask, or to look for them on his corpse. She had understood only at the end how close she had been to tapping the limitless powers that the hearthstone offered. But she had seen, too many times, that the hearthstone road led to madness. Though she might regret the sacrifice for the rest of her days, perhaps it was better that she had surrendered it before she became its slave.