HAWKMOON AWOKE LATE feeling thoroughly rested, but then he noticed that the glowing shadows seemed agitated. They had turned to a cold, blue colour and were swirling around as if in fear!

Hawkmoon rose quickly and buckled on his sword belt. He frowned. Was the danger he had anticipated about to comeor had it come already? The Great Good Ones seemed incapable of human communication.

D’Averc came running into Hawkmoon’s cubicle.

“What do you think is the matter, Hawkmoon?”

“I do not know. Is Shenegar Trott scheming invasion? Is the boy in trouble?”

All at once the glowing shadows had wrapped themselves chillingly around the two men and they felt themselves whisked from the cubicle, through the room in which they had eaten, and along the corridors” at incredible speed until they broke out of the building altogether and were whirled upward into the golden light.

Now the speed of the Great Good Ones decreased and Hawkmoon and D’Averc, still breathless at the sudden action of the glowing shadows, hovered in the air high above the main square.

D’Averc looked pale, for his feet were planted on nothing and the glowing shadows seemed had taken on even less substance. Yet they did not fall.

Down in the square tiny figures could be seen moving in towards the cylindrical tower.

“It is an entire army!” Hawkmoon gasped. “There must be thousands of them. So much for Shenegar Trott’s claims for the peaceful nature of his mission. He has invaded Dnark! But why?”

“Isn’t it obvious to you, my friend,” said D’Averc grimly. “He seeks the Runestaff itself. With that in his power, he would doubtless rule the world!”

“But he does not know its location!”

“That is probably why he is attacking the tower. Seethere are warriors already inside!”

Surrounded by the flimsy shadows, and with golden light on all sides, the two men looked at the scene in dismay.

“We must descend,” Hawkmoon said finally.

“But we are only two against a thousand!” D’Averc pointed out.

“Ayebut if the Sword of the Dawn will again summon the Legion of the Dawn, then we might succeed against them!” Hawkmoon reminded him.

As if they had understood his words, the Great Good Ones began to descend. Hawkmoon felt his heart enter his throat as they dropped rapidly towards the square, now thickly clustered with masked Dark Empire warriorsmembers of the terrible Falcon Legion which, like the Vulture Legion, was a mercenary force made up of renegades who were, if anything, more evil than the native Granbretanians. Had Falcon eyes stared up in anticipation of the feast of blood Hawkmoon and D’Averc offered; they had beaks ready to tear the flesh of the two enemies of the Dark Empire, and their swords, maces, axes and spears were like talons poised to rend.