A tempest of orcish arrows flew out of the darkness to meet them. The shafts clattered harmlessly off the rescuers, but the two victims cried out in pain as they suffered hits. When their comrades jerked them from the keep, one man had an arrow lodged in his shoulder, the other in his neck. Vangerdahast pulled a commander’s ring from his pocket and slipped it on long enough to activate its light magic, then removed it and tossed it inside.
The ring passed through the breach still glowing, then hit the stone floor and began to fade. The light lasted long enough for Vangerdahast to see a cloud of wasps swirling along the far wall and a dozen orc archers edging toward a door.
When Vangerdahast detected no sign of Tanalasta in the room, he commanded, “Fireballs!”
“Fireballs?” Owden gasped. “But that’s what they want! That kind of magic will turn the whole tower to stone.”
Vangerdahast shrugged. “What do we care? We’ve already breached it.”
As his war wizards prepared their spells, Vangerdahast saw that the battle on the peninsula was turning against him. A dense cloud of smoke, glowing in a hundred places with scarlet fire curtains, blanketed the battlefield. Dragoneers lay on the ground by the dozen, clutching at their throats or not moving at all. The few who remained on their feet could barely be seen through the flames and the fumes, standing along the shoreline in ragged lines, coughing and gagging on the poison air. There was no sign at all of the sorcerers assigned to support them, and the company horses were galloping along the shoreline more madly than ever. Cadimus, of course, was leading the charge. When Vangerdahast did not see any ghazneths swooping down from the sky, he dared wonder if the phantoms had finally fallen to his dragoneers’ iron weapons.
That hope was shattered when he noticed the magic shimmer of a force wall beginning to fade. Though his own troops blocked his view of the other side, he felt certain that the ghazneths were pressing themselves against the wall, absorbing its magic into their own bodies. Behind them, there would be a horde of orcs milling about, waiting to wade ashore and slaughter what remained of the Royal Excursionary Company.
Vangerdahast did not think the swiners would find the battle difficult. There would be a moment of confusion as Cadimus and the other horses charged through the opening, then victory would come quickly for the orcs. There were not enough dragoneers left to hold longer than it would take the swiners to trample them.
The rumble of a tremendous fireball erupted from the keep. Vangerdahast looked back to see a long tongue of flame licking out of the portal. The mud walls were instantly transformed to black marble as high as the second story. He took a small scrap of parchment from his cloak, then rolled it into a small cone and held it to his lips. He whispered a quick incantation and turned toward the survivors of the battle.
“Retreat to the keep!”
Though even he could barely hear his voice over the battle rumble, the remaining dragoneers broke ranks and ran for the keep at their best sprints. Half a dozen fell almost immediately to tendrils of poison fume or curtains of leaping flame. Vangerdahast guessed that half their number, perhaps twenty soldiers, would survive long enough to reach the keep.
The royal magician grabbed the nearest war wizard. “When I enter the keep, you are to take command. Block the breach with an iron wall-not touching it, mind you, but only a hair’s breadth away-then take the survivors and teleport back to Arabel.”
The sorcerer’s relief was obvious. “As you command.”
“What about Alaphondar?” asked Owden. “You haven’t sent up the shooting star.”
Vangerdahast glanced at the carnage around him. “Alaphondar’s safer in his hiding place. We’ll teleport from Arabel and fetch him.”
Vangerdahast returned his attention to the keep, where the last flames of the fireball were just dying out. He pulled a crow feather from his cloak pocket and brushed the vane up and down his body, uttering a low incantation. A warm prickle crept up his arms. He started to feel very light, then his feet left the ground, and he was floating.
As Vangerdahast completed his spell, the first dragoneers staggered in from the shoreline, stinking of brimstone and coughing violently. To a soldier, their faces were swollen and red with insect bites, and many had the glassy-eyed expressions of men ill with the ague. Seeing Vangerdahast floating in the air, one warrior stumbled forward to clutch at his robes.
“Where are you going?” The man’s voice was shrill and unbalanced. “The Royal Excursionary Company doesn’t desert!”
“Coward!” accused another. “Come back and make your stand!”
Several more took up the cry and lunged forward, all reaching up to grab hold of the wizard’s cloak. Vangerdahast tore his arm free and flew out of their reach with a quick flick of his hands.
“Who are you calling a deserter?” Vangerdahast demanded, growing furious. He pulled a wand from inside his cloak. “How dare you!”
Owden stepped forward, raising his hands to stop the attack. “Vangerdahast, it’s ghazneth madness!” The priest waved at their swollen faces. “They’re wounded and sick, just as you were in Arabel.”
“Then get them under control!” Vangerdahast snapped, feeling foolish-and more than a little frightened by all he did not know about the ghazneths. “I’ll see you in Arabel.”
“Me?” Owden looked shocked. “What do you mean? You need someone to watch your back.”
“How?” Vangerdahast flapped his arms and floated toward the smoking breach in the keep’s black wall. “Unless you can fly, you’ll only slow me down-and lose your weathercloak’s magic to the keep.”
“Wait!” It was the wizard to whom Vangerdahast had given command. “I can help.”
The royal magician looked back to see the war wizard and Owden scurrying after him, the sorcerer brushing the vane of a pigeon feather over the harvestmaster’s arms. A handful of mad dragoneers were stumbling along behind them, cursing Vangerdahast for a coward and promising to take vengeance in the afterlife. Behind them, on the near shore of the peninsula, the ghazneths had finally drawn all of the magic out of the force wall. Cadimus charged through the gap, leading the rest of the horses along behind him and bowling the astonished ghazneths over backward.
Owden rose unsteadily into the air, blocking Vangerdahast’s view of Cadimus’s mad charge. “Ready!”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Vangerdahast turned away and glided into the keep’s marble darkness.
19
From the hilltop where Alaphondar lay hiding, the keep appeared as a mere thumb-sized box at the heart of a slow-swirling spiral of brownish marsh haze. The men of the Royal Excursionary Company-what remained of them-were tiny stick figures glimpsed occasionally through the smoke and flame at the peninsula tip. The orcs were a frothing mass waiting in the water, while the ghazneths looked like four shadows and a single tongue of flame pressed to the face of the invisible wall. Now and again, Alaphondar’s hill would vibrate with the low rumble of an explosion, or the air would smell briefly of brimstone or scorched flesh. Otherwise, the battle had drawn in on itself, leaving him blind to the events below and frightened for his companions.
The one thing he could see clearly-the marsh mist spiraling in toward the keep-worried him more than anything. Aside from seeming rather unnatural, it suggested an ominous gathering of forces, as if the tower were drawing inward the Royal Excursionary Company, the ghazneths and orcs, even the corrupting energies of the marsh itself. Alaphondar felt quite certain that Vangerdahast wouldn’t notice the pattern, or appreciate its significance even if he did. The royal magician was a man of many strengths, but philosophical insight was not among them-and especially not in the midst of battle.