That startled Rummage. He had assumed that the cavalry would come to take and hold the road. But without adequate support from the priests, the cavalrymen would be vulnerable to sub-Commander Waysel’s cannon.

Why would the Great God waste them?

Magister Rummage had to think. He was missing something.

Meanwhile, the god’s infantry crossed the track and continued upward. Ahead of them, sorcery parted the sands. The men marched as if they were beating their way over open ground.

At that pace, they might gain the road below the lower plateau in two days. The cavalry had much farther to go, but the speed of those beasts was astonishing. Those men might arrive well ahead of the infantry.

From the foothills above the road, General Klamath’s riflemen would oppose the infantry. If King Bifalt struck at the enemy’s rear with the el-Algreb, he might do significant damage.

But still—

Rummage could not procrastinate any longer. This war had been coming for a long time. Now it was almost here. He had decisions to make.

As irate as a whirlwind, he rushed to the round where the book he dreaded was shelved. Despite his fear and fury, he lifted down the book gently, cradled it like a loved infant in his hands for a moment. Then he tucked it safely inside his robe and swept away to rejoin Magister Avail and the librarian.

He needed his friend’s voice and Magister Threnody’s authority to help him swallow his dread.

Reentering the desert at the rear of his army, Klamath lost sight of the caravan-track. The twisting of the secret paths blocked his horizons. He could not measure Rile’s progress—or his own. He had no idea how long this stage of his unforgiving trek would last.

When the sands under his mount’s hooves finally faded into bare dirt, he found himself facing a steeper ascent among the boulders and outcroppings of the lowest foothills. There, however, his guides took him along trails intended for horses. Soon he could look back out over the desert that had nearly killed Prince Bifalt, Elgart, and him twenty years ago. From his vantage, it seemed to stretch forever into the west.

After so much time among the dunes, the air seemed almost unnaturally clear. Behind him, the enemy’s position was unmistakable. It was fixed by plumes of sand and dust cast upward with sorcery, or by immense, unstable mounds shifting in response. Rile’s forces were coming closer, but they were still behind the General. That gap would increase as the infantrymen scrambled among the contorted slopes of the foothills.

When the Great God caught up with Klamath, the last battle would begin in earnest.

The General wished that he could ascend the winding trail faster. Fortunately, he was not forced to wish for long. Sooner than he expected, he arrived on the road.