Fortunately, he’d been staring down, running away from the blast. The heat and energy of it shoved him face-first into the paving stones, so that his helm bent close to his head. For one moment, he’d felt the searing heat of the blast crisp his clothing, burn his skin at a touch. Then he tried to draw a breath in the hot wind of the fireball’s passage.

Horses kicked and fell under the impact of the blast. One of them landed half atop him, the body of a knight crushing him.

For a moment, Tempest fell unconscious. Found himself crawling among the stones, among the fallen horses. Men and parts of men rained from the castle walls, a gruesome storm of burned bodies, destroyed flesh.

In that moment, he gazed about in horror as a blackened boy plopped at his head, an arm fell near his hand. He knew then that he would not survive this day. Three days past, he’d sent his wife and children to Castle Groverman, hoping they’d be safe, hoping he’d live to see them again. He remembered how they’d looked as they left—his two toddlers riding the back of a goat, his wife carrying their babe in her arms, his oldest daughter trying to look mature, her lips trembling as she stifled tears of fear.

Tempest looked up to the castle walls, on the west. The walls were nearly empty. Those men still up looked dazed, confused.

Suddenly, a flaming white salamander leapt up on the merlon of the south tower, gazing about. Tempest hid his face, lest the pearly orbs of its eyes touch him.

A second, smaller explosion sounded fifty yards behind him. Tempest tried to scrabble to his knees, looked back. Raj Ahten’s Invincibles had just hit the little mantelet barricade inside the gates with their ram. The barricade exploded, sending shards of woods flying, flaming out.

Any men who stood near that barricade blew back under the onslaught of fiery debris, yet painfully few men had been standing at all. A few knights were still up on their horses, but the fallen bodies of their comrades hemmed them in.

The battle was lost. All along the walls before him, defenders were down. Thousands of men screamed and writhed in pain. Arrows were hurtling over the castle walls now, a dark and deadly rain, dropping into wounded men.

Some few hundred men were rushing from the north side of the castle, trying to reach the gates, to put up some kind of defense. Yet Raj Ahten’s Invincibles rushed to meet them by the thousands.

War dogs in grim leather masks raced through the streets, leaping over fallen knights and their horses, ripping apart any man or beast that lived, feeding as they slaughtered.

Tempest hoped still that he might find Shostag, slay him so that the serpent would form a head. Yet he felt stunned, confused. Blood dripped from his face.