The entire place was wreathed in smoke. It did, Dani realized, smell like a meal; like roasting flesh, at once greasy and savory. His belly rumbled. Attempting to lead the way, he found himself stumbling.

“Hey!” A figure emerged from the smoke, sootblackened and filthy, with unkempt hair and wild, red-rimmed eyes. It clutched a haunch of meat. “Lord Vorax says it’s done enough for Fjel,” it said in the common tongue, freeing one smeared hand to point. “Hurry, we’ve got to get it all moved!”

Tensed for flight, Dani stared in bewilderment as the figure—man or woman, he could not tell beneath the grime—beckoned impatiently. The slow realization dawned on him that in the dark, covered in filth as they were, no one could tell a Yarru from an Ellyl. He exchanged a glance with his uncle.

“You heard him, lad.” Thulu wiped his forearm over his face, leaving a muddy smear that further obscured his features. “Lord Vorax said to hurry!”

Dani nodded his understanding. Keeping their heads low, they plunged into the billowing smoke to follow the beckoning madling.

Darkhaven had invited them inside after all.

EIGHTEEN

EIGHTEEN

THE ARMY OF DARKHAVEN ASSEMBLED at dawn.

Tanaros scanned the scene before him with a seasoned eye. What he saw pleased him. Tens of thousands of Fjel were arrayed in orderly ranks, awaiting his command. They were eager, but contained. Vorax’s Staccians, five hundred strong, were mounted and ready.

There was chaos in the rearguard where the supply-wagons were still being loaded, but he trusted Vorax would see all was in order. Beside him sat Ushahin Dreamspinner astride his blood-bay stallion, the leather case containing the Helm of Shadows wrapped in his arms.

Together, they waited.

The orange rim of the sun rose above the easternmost peaks of the Gorgantus Mountains to meet the enshrouding cloud cover above the Vale of Gorgantum, and the sound of Ellylon horns rent the air, uttering their silvery summons. The ranks stirred. Tanaros raised one gauntleted hand.

They waited.

A distant Tordenstem roared, then another.

Haomane’s Allies were withdrawing.

Tanaros clenched his hand into a fist, and Hyrgolf bawled an order to the Fjel maintaining the Defile Gate. The bar was lifted. Two teams of Fjel put their backs into the task, and the massive doors, depicting the Battle of Neherinach, creaked slowly open.

“To war!” Tanaros shouted.

The long column began its descent into the Defile.

SPEROS OF HAIMHAULT, THE ARCHITECT of Darkhaven’s defense, was acutely aware that he was little more than baggage.

For all their unwieldy composition, the myriad companies of Haomane’s Allies executed their withdrawal with a disturbing precision. Dawn broke, the horns sounded, and they were on the move.