Tulan staggered back and forth on the battlement, while in the Plaza below his agony drew harsh and mocking laughter from Zarel’s fighters. With a mad curse, Tulan tore off his satchel and threw it up into the air. He raised his hands and pointed. The satchel disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Uriah, screaming with rage, pointed his hands at Tulan even as Tulan staggered to the edge of the battlement and, with a final curse, threw himself off the wall. His body, exploding in flames from Uriah’s final spell, smashed on the hard pavement and split asunder.
Sickened, Hammen turned away.
“Of the four, he was perhaps the least harmful,” the old man said.
A stream of warriors now poured into the House of Kestha to finish the slaughter. Out in the Plaza Uriah stormed back and forth, shouting with rage and then finally directing his fighters to turn and head back toward the fighting against Bolk.
“The Houses are dead,” Norreen said, standing by Hammen’s side and watching the slaughter. “Zarel will win and then there will be nothing to balance and offset him. If we have any chance left, it is now.”
“We? I thought you were planning to get out of this madhouse.”
“I kind of got involved, if only for the memory of Garth.”
Hammen turned and looked back at his vagabond assortment of lieutenants.
“Juka, rally the mob on the street of sword makers, Valmar, the street of tanners, Pultark, the street of silk merchants, and Seduna, the street of butchers. It’s impossible to try and coordinate it properly. Just get them to charge. Perhaps we can swarm them under while they’re still out in the Plaza. If that bastard brings down the others and regains his palace, it is finished. Now move!”
The four men nodded grimly and left the room.
He looked back at Naru, who sat hunched up on the floor. “Don’t worry, you oversize cretin, we’ll still get one more fight in.”
Naru grinned with pleasure.
“Kirlen!”
Zarel, drunk with slaughter and triumph, moved toward his most hated of rivals. The old woman watched him come, silhouetted by the conflagrations consuming the other Houses, and she knew her dream of overthrowing his power was finished. From atop the flame-scorched battlements of Ingkara she saw Jimak looking down and could sense his glee at her downfall.
She turned to face Zarel, barely noticing that most of her fighters had turned and fled, stripping off their uniforms as they ran. She stood upon her throne and, in her moment of defeat, knew all that was now lost. Her agony pierced to her very soul.
Turning, she fled back into her House. As she hobbled through the doors she heard the harsh laughter of her foes. The door slammed shut behind her and she looked back at the two trembling guards.
“Hold it as long as you can,” she screamed and continued along the darkened corridor, not even noticing the two young fighters as they turned and fled down another hallway in a desperate bid to escape the final destruction.
She reached her room and stopped.
Her books, her precious books, manuscripts, all the arcane knowledge in her search surrounded her.
She heard the battering on the door outside, the bursting of the hinges, and the harsh taunting cries of her foes.
She extended her hands, waving them in tight circles, pulling them in close around her withered body.
Zarel stood before the House of Bolk, watching, as the building started to cave in upon itself. A fighter emerged from the door, raced up to Zarel’s side, and lowered his head.
“Well?”
“She’s gone. The room was covered in ice.”
“What!”
Zarel pushed his way through the door and raced along the corridor. He could feel the building drawing in upon itself, collapsing into ruin. He reached the end of the corridor and turned into her private quarters.
He could almost sense the ripple of laughter, the final taunt from the flicker of light in the center of the room. She had somehow fled. She was still trapped in this plane but she had escaped. A few bits of paper still swirled around the room and then fluttered into the light and disappeared.
The room was dark, and as cold as the grave.
Part of the ceiling overhead collapsed and Zarel leaped back with a wild curse. Turning, he fled back down the corridor and out into the Plaza. Behind him the walls of the House of Bolk crashed inward into rubble and ruin.
A mad rage consumed him. She had escaped. But she had to be somewhere within this plane and thus could be found again. With enough mana he should be able to conjure the spells that would find her before it was too late.
All that was left now was Jimak of Ingkara and as he turned to face the House he saw Jimak emerge. The old man walked slowly, looking around nervously at the carnage that covered the square.
The Plaza was aglow with a ghastly light, not only from the tremendous concentration of mana but also from the pyres of the three other Houses. Fighting still raged as the last survivors were tracked down, cornered, and destroyed.
“So you got what you wanted?”
Zarel looked over at Jimak, a sneer of contempt lighting his features.
“You betrayed your own for a handful of gold.”
“I figured you would win.”
Zarel said nothing, relishing the moment.
“We should have united against you the moment you declared that the fights were to the death. But we were all so intent on One-eye. We all wanted him and yet all hated him since we other three could not control him. If our best had not been slain in the arena, we could have held against you. That we should have seen more clearly.”
The old man started to sway back and forth and Zarel suddenly realized that his satchel was open and was filled not with spells, amulets, and mana but rather with gold.
Jimak smiled.
“I cast my mana to the four winds. You shall not have it; your victory is hollow. I’d like to think that Kirlen, with all her hatred of you, has somehow escaped as well.”
The old man fell over, gasping.
He looked up at Zarel.
“I thought the poison would be painless. I was wrong. But it will be over shortly. I’ll see you in hell.”
Zarel looked down at Jimak as he rolled over, his breath coming in labored, rattling gasps.
Screaming with rage, he kicked Jimak in the side and then turned away.
“Destroy Ingkara’s House,” he shouted. “Leave not one block upon another. And the same for the other Houses. Now gather before me the mana that has been taken from the fallen. Any who hold back I will kill with my own hands.”
Uriah, who had been standing and watching the exchange between Zarel and Jimak, stepped forward angrily.
“You promised a House to me and the power that was in Tulan’s satchel. He destroyed them before dying. I claim what is taken from the other Kestha fighters as mine.”
Zarel turned and, with a single blow, knocked Uriah over, sending the dwarf sprawling to the ground. Uriah struggled to regain his footing and Zarel knocked him down once again with a psionic blow that slammed the dwarf into unconsciousness.
Turning, Zarel glared at the other fighters.