Here and there, men on the walls began drawing symbols of protection, vainly muttering half-remembered spells. Some hedge wizard from out of the wild began to draw runes in the air, and the men around him clustered near for protection.

Tempest chewed his lip nervously as the wizards gathered their powers. Now, in the bonfire, the walls of flame thickened, becoming green things like no earthly fire. A luminous portal was forming.

In another moment, Tempest saw shapes materialize within that light—white flaming salamanders from the netherworld, bobbing and leaping, not wholly formed.

At the sight of those creatures summoned into the flames, Cedrick Tempest was chilled to the bone. His men could not fight such monsters. It was folly to stay here, folly to fight.

A cry of consternation caught in Tempest’s throat. Help. We need help, he thought.

He’d hardly thought this, when he spotted a blur to the east of the castle, someone rushing over the downs, returning from Tor Loman. He hoped it was King Orden, pleaded to the Powers that Orden had returned victorious.

But the man racing over the downs did not wear Orden’s shimmering cape of green samite. Raj Ahten raced toward them, his helm gone.

Tempest wondered if Orden had even caught the Wolf Lord, then glanced down into the keep. Shostag the Axeman was Orden’s second. If Orden had died, then Shostag should be up, should be the new head of the serpent. Tempest saw no sign of the burly outlaw down in the keep.

Perhaps Orden still lived, would come to fight in their behalf.

Raj Ahten shouted a command, ordering his troops to prepare for battle.

An old adage said, “When Runelords battle, it is the commoners who die.” It was true. The Dedicates in their well-protected keeps, the common archers, the farm boys skirmishing for their lives—all would fall without notice before a Runelord’s wrath.

All his life, Cedrick Tempest had sought to be more than a commoner, to avoid such a fate. He’d become a force soldier at the age of twelve, made sergeant at sixteen, captain of the guard at twenty-two. In all those years, he’d grown accustomed to feeling the strength of others in his arms, to having the health of Dedicates flowing in his blood.

Until now. He stood in nominal command of Longmot, struggling to marshal his forces against Raj Ahten’s troops. Yet he was little more than a commoner. In the battle for Longmot, most of his Dedicates had been slaughtered. He had an endowment of wit, one of stamina, one of grace. Nothing more.

His chain mail weighed on him heavily, and his warhammer felt clumsy in his hand.

The winds sweeping from the south chilled him, and he wondered what this day would bring. He cowered behind the battlements. Certainly, he felt death in the air.