Raj Ahten had his endowments, thousands upon thousands of them. But his mines were petering out, and his forcibles were in the hands of his enemy. Whatever gifts he had now, the young king might soon match.

Raj Ahten felt utterly dismayed.

The snow was blowing. The first snow Raj Ahten would see this winter. In a few weeks, the passes in the mountains would be blocked.

He could continue this contest later, he reasoned. Shocked. He dreaded the thought of waiting until spring.

He shouted orders for his men to begin the retreat, leaving no time to loot the castle.

He stood for several long minutes as his soldiers scrambled to obey, pulling down pavilions, harnessing the horses, loading wagons.

The frowth giants emerged from the castle, bearing corpses of defenders in their paws to eat on the way home. Along the western hills, wolves howled mournfully, as if in loss at the sight of Longmot in ruins.

Raj Ahten’s counselor, Feykaald, shouted in a high voice, “Move, you sluggards! Leave the dead! You, there—help load those wagons!”

The snow thickened. In moments it piled two inches deep at Raj Ahten’s feet. He only stood, gazing at Castle Longmot. He wondered how he had failed here, considered how Jureem had betrayed him to King Orden.

When he finished musing, Castle Longmot lay dead. No fires burned in it, no men cried out in pain.

Cedrick Tempest wandered before the gates, the lone soldier holding his bleeding ear, cursing and muttering under his breath. Perhaps his mind had gone.

Raj Ahten took a horse, considered again how the wizard Binnesman had stolen his, and rode over the hills.

56

THE GREETING

By the time Gaborn reached Longmot, the land lay empty of troops, the ruins of the castle covered beneath a layer of new-fallen snow.

Most of Gaborn’s army was still far behind. Only some fifty knights rode mounts swift enough to keep up. In the woods to the west, wolves howled forlornly, their voices rising and falling in eerie cadences.

Binnesman had ridden ahead, rummaged near the ruins of the Dedicates’ Keep, searching among the rubble.

Everywhere lay carnage and destruction—walls and towers of Longmot in ruin, the soldiers of Orden crumpled under stone. Only a dozen or so of Raj Ahten’s troops lay dead outside the castle, riddled with arrows.

Raj Ahten had carried off a great victory here, a mind-numbing victory, almost unparalleled in any chronicle Gaborn had ever read. For the past hour, Gaborn had tried to deny his feelings, his suspicion that his father had died. Now he feared the worst.

Only one warrior stood alive on the battleground, a captain who wore the colors of Longmot.

Gaborn rode up to him. The soldier’s face was pale, his eyes full of horror. Blood dribbled under his helmet from his right ear and had crusted in the dark hair of his sideburns.