What a wondrous thing it would be if Speros of Haimhault were to avert Haomane’s Prophecy!

The thought made Speros smile. He was still smiling when one of Haomane’s Allies, kneeling beside a wounded Arduan archer, rose to her feet and unslung her bow, nocking an arrow. Speros’ smile broadened to a grin. He reckoned he was too far away and moving too fast to be within range.

Of a surety, he was too far away to see that the archer was Fianna and the bow in her hands was wrought of black horn, gleaming like onyx. It was no mortal weapon, and its range could not be gauged by mortal standards.

Oronin’s Bow rang out across the plains; once, twice, three times.

Speros did not feel the arrows’ impact, did not feel the reins slip from his nerveless fingers. The earth struck him hard, but he didn’t feel that, either. He blinked at the sky overhead, filled with circling ravens. He wondered if Fetch, who had saved them in the desert, was among them. He tried to rise and found his body failed to obey him. At last, he understood, and a great sorrow filled him.

“Tell him I tried,” he whispered to the distant ravens, then closed his eyes. He did not reopen them, nor ever would.

Whickering in dismay, a grey horse raced riderless across the plains.

THE FIGHT FILLED TANAROS WITH a stark, pitiless joy.

There was a purity in it, one that no one who was not born and raised to the battlefield could understand. Two men pitted against one another; weapon to weapon, skill against skill. The world, with all its burdens and paradoxes, was narrowed to this circle of trampled grass, this single opponent.

He would win, of course. The outcome was not in question, had never been in question. Haomane’s Allies were fools. They were so blinded by the terror the Helm of Shadows invoked that they had overlooked the other weapon he bore: the black sword, tempered in the marrow-fire and quenched in his Lordship’s blood. It could shear through metal as easily as flesh, and it would do so when Tanaros chose.

Blaise Caveros was good, though. Better than his liege-lord, yes; better than Roscus had been, too. It was in his blood. He circled carefully, trying to get the sun in Tanaros’ eyes; it worked, too, until a flock of ravens careened overhead, blotting out the sun like a vast black cloud. He kept his shield high, prepared to ward off blows at his unprotected head. He stalked Tanaros with patience, striking with deft precision. Tanaros was hard-pressed to strike and parry without using the edge of his blade and make a believable job of it.