“A great army is about to march on Longmot, so huge an army that even Raj Ahten must tremble!”

46

THE CURSE

In the cold, graying skies above Longmot, darkness flashed among the clouds like inverse lightning. Raj Ahten’s three remaining flameweavers were in their battle-splendor now, clothed only in brilliant crimson flames. They hunched behind a battle wall of piled stones—a stone fence left by a farmer, really—and hurled flames at Castle Longmot. Each of the flameweavers would reach up to the sky and grasp the sunlight, so that for a moment the whole sky would darken, and then strands of twisted light and heat would plummet into their hands and sit glowing like small suns, just before the flameweavers hurled.

It did little good. Castle Longmot was made of ancient stone. Spells had been woven into it by Earth Wardens over the ages. The balls of light and heat would sail from the flameweavers’ hands, expanding in size as they moved toward the castle—for the flameweavers could not concentrate their power at this distance—until the giant glowing balls harmlessly splashed against the battlements.

Yet the efforts had some effect. King Orden’s warriors had been forced to hide behind the battlements, seeking cover, and one flameweaver had hit a ballista on his first toss, forcing Orden’s artillerymen to withdraw the ballistas and catapults into the towers.

So, for the moment, the battle was a quiet struggle—flameweavers hurling fireballs with little effect, tiring themselves, giants loading the catapults to send stones over the walls.

Sometimes, when a ball of flame smashed the high walls just below the machicolations, the inferno would send a blast of heat upward through the kill holes, where archers hid. Then Raj Ahten would hear a gratifying scream as a soldier felt the sharpness of his teeth. In places, bundles of arrows had burst into flame like kindling.

Even now, Raj Ahten had men and giants gathering fuel to build a huge inferno. Sunlight often served adequately as a source of energy for his flameweavers, but the afternoon skies were going gray, and the weavers’ work was of poorer quality. If they could depend on a more immediate source of energy, their balls of flame would be tighter—perhaps small enough, even, to penetrate the archers’ slots along the twin towers.

So the giants hacked down great oak trees and pulled fallen logs from the hills, where they stacked them before the castle like a great dark crown made of writhing limbs. When the flameweavers tapped this crown for fuel, they would increase their powers greatly.

Half an hour after Binnesman left the castle, an outrider came thundering from the west with urgent news. He raced his horse through camp and leapt to the ground at Raj Ahten’s feet.