Raj Ahten’s flameweavers incinerated perhaps some two thousand men. As the mushroom cloud rose, Raj Ahten’s flameweavers now fell unconscious into the ruins of their own bonfire. No flames leapt in the remains of the fire. No smoke rose, for the flameweavers had drained the vast majority of the energies from it, and in an instant the great blackened logs had incinerated, become ash. So now the flameweavers lay dazed among the hot coals.

But the white-hot salamanders suddenly leapt, as if freed from a cage, rushing hungrily toward the castle.

The scene before the castle gate was a pandemonium. Under the cover of darkness, Raj Ahten’s giants had made the wall. Raj Ahten’s archers unleashed a hail of deadly arrows—a hail that proved almost unnecessary—while his Invincibles began to race up ladders to the tops of the battlements.

No defenders stood on that south wall now. The explosion and waves of fire had all but emptied the wall-walk.

The castle gate stood undefended. The east tower was a smoking ruin. But within the west tower, a few men tried one last trick. King Orden’s men unleashed a rain of burning oil, pouring it down runnels within the tower. Stone gargoyles above the gate suddenly spewed the vile stuff as Raj Ahten’s troops raced in with their battering ram.

Some of Raj Ahten’s men faltered under the heat of that oil, but such was the speed of the men running that the head of the ram still struck the mantelet behind the castle gate.

All the energy of the spells bound within the wolf’s head exploded against the mantelet, sending timbers of wood splintering in all directions. Defenders behind the mantelet shrieked and died under the onslaught.

And in Raj Ahten’s mind, a peculiar flame began to dance.

He knew that he should restrain himself now, that it was wrong to destroy men so ruthlessly. It would have been better to use those he could, take their endowments. These men had virtues and strengths that should not have been wasted in such a brutish fashion. Their ugly, fleeting little lives could have been converted to a grander purpose.

Yet the smell of burning flesh suddenly enticed Raj Ahten, left him tingling in anticipation. Against all his better reason, he hungered for destruction.

Cedrick Tempest had been standing behind the mantelet, racing between two warhorses toward the Duke’s kitchens, where Shostag lay hidden, when the green wave of flame touched the battlements and a great ball of fire filled the sky overhead.