But no one had considered how to benefit from the explosive force of such agents. So Raj Ahten’s flameweavers studied the phenomenon, learned to prepare and grind and mix the powders.

Now Raj Ahten watched in awe and satisfaction as years of nurturing his sorcerers and financing their grim study paid off. The skies all around went blacker than the deepest night as the final ropes of fire twisted down from heaven. Hail plummeted from the air, and the sound of thunder raged overhead.

The huge bonfire where the flameweavers stood with the beings they summoned suddenly snuffed out like a candle, the green walls collapsing, the creatures within drawing all light and heat into themselves.

The skies remained black, and in that sudden total darkness, no archer could have seen his target to shoot. For ten seconds, the skies gave no light.

Atop the castle walls, Orden’s knights performed one last defiant act. They broke into a grim song.

Under the cover of that shadow, Raj Ahten’s troops continued to race for the walls.

As the bowmen on the castle rose to shoot at unseen attackers, a blinding light shot from the center of the flameweavers’ infernos.

The sorcerous blast roared like a living sun from flameweavers and salamanders, and a green flaming wave of fire swept from the hilltop, raced toward the castle.

In the sudden rush of light, one could see the terrified faces of Longmot’s defenders. Brave boys unmanned, brave men trembling but still defiant.

As the wave of flame traveled inexorably toward Longmot, it touched the arcane powders in the sky.

Then the whole arch above the gate roared into an inferno. Raj Ahten’s powders exploded in a cloud of fire that rose like a mushroom some hundred yards at the base, slowly ascending a mile into the air. The concussion threw defenders from the walls like rag dolls. Many fell, stunned. Others staggered back in abject terror.

But the great green wave of flame was not a mere spark to touch off the explosive powders. It was much more than that.

The wave of green fire smote the castle walls, washing over hundreds of defenders who still stood.

On the crowded walls, away from the initial explosion above the arch, warriors were crammed shoulder to shoulder in ranks six deep. The green flames rolled over them like the roaring waves of the sea.

Longmot had been the perfect castle for Raj Ahten to use his powders on. Its south face was but a hundred and twenty yards wide. Defenders had concentrated along the upper wall-walk in that hundred yards.