Suti al-Suri was not done. “And black men,” he added bitterly. “Sorcerers. Long staffs. Shining balls. Explosions. Too many.” Abruptly, he glared at Bifalt. “Ride tusked beasts. Faster than horses.”

Too many? wondered King Bifalt. A sudden thought knotted his guts. Only a lifetime of severity masked his alarm. Those priests had not been sent to command the horde. Rather, the horde had been gathered to protect Rile’s sorcerers.

The strangers were cruel foes. They could savage any ordinary army. But they would be useless against the hard stone of the Last Repository. The gates were the keep’s only point of weakness, and they could withstand the fanged men. For any other attack, Rile would have to rely on sorcery.

The Great God had not brought so many men and beasts merely to destroy Belleger and Amika. His underlying purpose was to provide cover for his sorcerers until he reached the library.

Chewing his cheek, King Bifalt sat silent while his preconceptions crumbled.

Elgart may have sensed the change in his King. Or he may have been occupied by his own emotions. Grinning with half his face, he drawled morosely, “This begins to sound impossible, Majesty. The priests will let nothing stand in their way.”

King Bifalt tightened his grip on himself. He had to make Suti al-Suri understand. He kept his attention on the chief warrior. “It is worse than it sounds.” He needed the el-Algreb. “My men have fought those strangers before. They are difficult to kill. They shrug off their wounds and keep coming.” He remembered Flisk’s horror. “A bullet in the brain stops them. Or a cut through the neck. A shot to the heart may not be enough.

“Can your warriors hit a target as small as a head, Suti al-Suri? From horseback? At a distance?”

The chief warrior cleared his throat, spat into the fire. “You mock us, Brother. We not do. Rifles still strange.”

The King ignored Magister Brighten’s scowl of fury, Magister Crawl’s open dismay. They knew the dangers too well. Still speaking to Suti al-Suri as if only the chief warrior’s reaction mattered, King Bifalt replied, “That is not mockery. It is a fact. I want you all to understand it.” His old outrage was a lump of ice in his heart. It held him steady. “We cannot fight the horde the way you defeated the Cleckin.

“We have to risk a direct assault.”

That startled Prince Jaspid. Elgart’s eyes widened in surprise. Magister Crawl started to protest. But Suti al-Suri spoke first.

Straight at the King, he snapped, “No! Why? Fanged men slaughter. El-Algreb die. Horses die. Fangs terrible.”

In the distant west, the sun was setting. The fading sky showed a few stars. Already, the air felt colder.