The light of the elemental’s fire blazed, cutting through that blanket of fog. In that light, Gaborn could see—as if lit by a flash of lightning—three mounted soldiers battling among the nomen, swinging their great horseman’s axes wide over their heads, locked in furious combat.

Then the soldiers were gone, consumed in fire. The elemental began sweeping over the plain, so greedy for dry grass and timber and human life that she seemed to dissipate altogether, to lose consciousness, and become nothing but a great river of flame gushing across the fields.

Gaborn felt sick of heart. When the elemental had touched Rowan, he’d almost felt as if it pierced him, too. Now he heard shouts of despair in the fields, mingled with screams from the injured and dying here in Castle Sylvarresta. He could not block out that last horrid look of pain on Rowan’s face. Almost a look of betrayal.

He did not know if he had done well or ill in slaying the flameweaver. Killing the flameweaver had been impetuous—almost a reflex that felt somehow right, yet carried dire consequences.

For the moment, the walls of fire rising up from the field kept Raj Ahten from exiting Castle Sylvarresta, from sending his men into battle.

That might be a saving stroke for my men, Gaborn thought.

But perhaps not. Gaborn had no idea how many of his troops died in that river of flames. He only hoped that in that fog, the men had seen the fiery elemental crouching on the castle walls, had been able to flee.

Men were dead and dying in the castle. Dozens, maybe hundreds of Raj Ahten’s troops had burned in the flames. The portcullis of the King’s Gate had been incinerated.

Even as Gaborn watched, the huge oak drawbridge to the Outer Gate was aflame; the towers beside it crumbled in ruin. The gears to raise and lower the bridge had melted in the wreckage.

With one fell swipe of his blade, Gaborn had just compromised Castle Sylvarresta’s defenses.

If his father sought to attack now, today, he’d have an entrance into the castle.

Gaborn became aware of a tiny figure atop the Outer Wall, gazing over the walls of flames—the figure of a man in black armor, the white owl’s wings of his helm sweeping back.

He clutched a long-handled horseman’s warhammer in one hand, and shouted with the voice of a thousand men, so his words rang clear from the hills, made the castle walls reverberate. “Mendellas Draken Orden: I will kill you and your spawn!”

From his perch at the top of the stairs, Gaborn fled to hide in the nearest alley.

16

THE FEINT