Chapters (44)
- Cover
- OTHER BOOKS BY STEPHEN R. DONALDSON
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- PART TWO
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- PART THREE
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- PART FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next on your reading list?
“No,” muttered Bifalt through his teeth. “You will not.”
Limping, he and his friends crossed the outer rim of the plateau until they stood unsteadily behind their enemy.
He was too weak for this. But it was for Estie. I love you. And for all of the bloodshed that Rile had caused.
Somehow, the King shook off his friends. In his good hand, he raised Klamath’s saber like a spike, not a sword. Leaning until he almost fell, he lurched into a run.
He could not look at the Great God. Instead, he watched his feet until the heat scorching his face told him that he was close. Then he hammered his blade into Rile’s back.
The eruption of power from the wound tossed him away like a handful of flung gravel. If Elgart and Klamath had not caught him, he would have pitched over the rim of the plateau. But he did not feel them grab him.
His war was done.
EPILOGUE
THE LAST CHALLENGE
King Bifalt did not feel the passage of time. His absence seemed brief. In fact, he was gone for several days. The Repository’s herbs and drugs kept him sleeping.
While he slept in a clean bed, the open wound in his side was stitched and bound to protect his damaged ribs. His broken hand was set in splints. Poultices and powders were smeared over the fierce burns of Rile’s fury. When the physicians and shamans had done what they could, Estie spent hours every day at his bedside, mopping the sweat of occasional fevers from his face, replacing his blood-sodden bandages, lifting his head and stroking his throat to help him swallow healing elixirs. At intervals, she murmured encouragement.
When other duties called her away, or she needed rest herself, Commander Crayn or Apprentice Travail took her place. Healers visited regularly. Monks, servants, and Magisters looked in on him. The librarian herself spent an hour with him, simply keeping him company.
Later, he was moved to a different bed. There was not enough room for him in the Repository’s infirmary. Soon after the battle ended, and for the next two days, swarms of people emerged from the keep to scour the foothills for survivors. Servants, scribes, students, teachers, apprentices, Magisters, all labored up and down the slopes, looking for anyone whose life might still be saved. In that task, they made no distinctions. Horse-warriors and Bellegerins, Amikans and infantrymen, even priests were carried into the Repository and delivered to the physicians and shamans. Soon the infirmary was overwhelmed. A field hospital had been set up in the great hall, and still Magister Threnody scrambled to find more beds. The healers worked themselves ragged, and yet had more to do.
To ease their efforts in one small way, Queen Estie had her husband carried to her own quarters, where he was settled in the Commander’s chamber adjoining her sitting room. Crayn had lost his guardsmen when sub-Commander Waysel and the cannoneers were overrun. He had rooms and beds to spare. There Bifalt slept on, never alone. Especially at night, Estie sat near him.