Before Kosar could protest, A’Meer had drawn a small dagger for each hand and dropped down into the hole. He followed close behind, wondering what they would face at the other end.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

LENORA, LIEUTENANT TO the Mages, scarred from countless battles and her burning need for revenge, resident of Dana’Man for three hundred years but originally a Noreelan, circled her hawk high above the port of Newland and watched the preparations for war. Excitement coursed through her, because she knew where she would soon be heading. Excitement, and a calm sense of destiny moving things on. This moment was when her life would change again, and though she had been preparing for centuries, the actual instant was as sweet and satisfying as she had always hoped.

Below her, Dana’Man was a wasteland of snow and ice. A few lonely rocks protruded from the white blanket here and there. The stains of the Krote encampments on the lower hillsides were the only splashes of color, and it was so obvious that they did not truly belong. Mountains loomed above them, their dormant volcanic tips pointing skyward as if striving forever to reach the sun. It would never happen. This land had been cursed long before the Mages and their surviving Krotes had arrived, and it would remain cursed long after they left.

She circled, her hawk spreading its webbed tentacles to catch the meager thermals rising up from the town below. She could make out several warships in the harbor, their edges blurred by the movement of hundreds of people loading more equipment and weapons. Smaller vessels bobbed alongside, and farther out in the bay, constantly dodging chunks of ice many times their size, dozens more warships awaited the signal to depart. Even this high up there was a thrill in the air, a hint of excitement that Lenora had not felt for three centuries. Through all their time here—their catastrophic arrival, the battles that followed, the eventual subduing of the people they had found already living in this forsaken land—there had never been anything to really offer hope. Now Lenora thought that everything they had lived for down the years may well come true, something that even she had sometimes doubted. Fully armed and ready to fly south, she felt her love for the Mages glowing as strong as ever.

Their summons had come just that morning, and she had flown a hawk up into the Mages’ remote mountain keep. They had told her of the whispers from Noreela—the Nax awake, the Red Monks on the move—and she had not asked how they knew. They had their spies and ways. The implication of their words was huge; that magic was back in the land! She had seen the light of exhilaration in their ancient eyes, and Lenora left knowing that this was her last day on Dana’Man. She had packed her weapons and clothing without a moment’s regret.