Around midnight, a messenger rode a lathered horse into the courtyard. Despite the lateness of the hour, Gunderson was there to meet him; the old man was always on hand during any crisis. He took one look at the messenger and called for men with torches and sent a servant running in haste to bring the king.

The messenger was covered with the dust of the road and so exhausted he fell from the saddle. He was parched and could not speak for the dryness of his throat. Someone brought him water and he drank thirstily and then gave his news.

“New Bramfells is attacked!” he said hoarsely. “Demons came upon us three days ago, surrounded the city.”

He took another drink, then spit it out, coughing.

No one spoke. All waited in grim silence.

“They brought with them hellfire!” he gasped, when he could speak. “They called down the lightning from the heavens. We could do nothing against them. The rocks our catapults hurled at the demons burst apart in midair. A flight of arrows changed into a flock of crows and flapped away. I am sane, Your Majesty!” the man cried wildly. “I swear to God I saw it with my own eyes!”

“I do not doubt you.” Edward took hold of the man’s shoulders, gripped him tightly. “Three days, you say? Has the city fallen? Do you still hold?”

“Hold!” The messenger laughed, brittle laughter that cracked. “There’s nothing left to hold. The city is destroyed! We tried to fight the fires, but the flames were everywhere and they spread too fast.”

All could now see, as they stared at him in the flickering torchlight, that his eyebrows and the hair on the front of his head had been singed off. Holes made by cinders riddled his cloak, and one sleeve was burnt away, revealing an ugly burn on his arm.

Every man there could picture the disaster. Fire was the terror of every city. Buildings with thatched roofs and wooden beams stood jammed up against each other in order to conserve space. With no effective means of putting out a blaze, once fire started, it could eat a city alive.

“Then there came a dragon,” the man continued, not looking at anyone, talking feverishly to himself. “A great red monster it was. We thought we were finished, but the beast did not attack us. It flew at the demons and . . . and . . .”

The messenger blinked and faltered.

“And what, man?” Edward demanded. “What happened?”

“A whirlwind took the dragon,” the man said, awed. “A whirlwind caught the beast and twisted it, so that it nearly smashed into the city. The same wind fanned the flames of the fire, causing it to spread that much faster.”