Even if, as a last resort, he killed Fordus, the others would still attack, propelled by the martyrdom of the Prophet King and by his final prophecies-some delirious foolishness about armies of the dead.

Stormlight had known it would come to this when he bade Larken farewell, told her to wait with his followers while he set out after Fordus's quick-marched forces. He had looked over his shoulder once, twice, and she stood as he had left her, silhou shy;etted against the red light of Lunitari.

"Wait here," he had told her. "I shall return."

Now he was not so sure.

Miles away, on the other side of the lake, Larken stood in the Western Pass, staring across the water toward the harbors and walls of the marbled city.

Vincus stood at her shoulder; stroking Lucas, who danced back and forth eagerly upon her gloved hand. The young man believed that Lucas was his closest friend among them, the creature most wor shy;thy of his trust and reliance. Larken's sign language was soothing and familiar, as well.

Through the afternoon he had guided Larken and her hundred followers to the Western Pass. There they meant to wait-for tidings of the battle, for Stormlight and returning survivors.

All of them sensed the disaster approaching, doom riding the air as heavily, as corrosively as the wind-driven sand in the southern sterim.

Oddly, the bard had set aside her drum. She held the lyre now, softly fingering its bow as though reluctant to touch its strings. Lucas hopped to her shoulder, raining amber light into the moonlit shad shy;ows, his soft voice mewling, encouraging.

Vincus tugged at Larken's tunic. How long do we wait? he signaled.

The bard blinked, as though awakened from a light sleep.

Three days, she signaled in reply. Longer would be dangerous, but news travels slowly across the lake.

If we had the glyphs … Vincus offered hopefully.

But Larken shook her head. Those were the old days.

Now we have belief and waiting. Belief in Stormlight, in his skill and resourcefulness.

Larken turned again to her harp, and the young Istarian, cast back into his own thoughts, stared north over Lake Istar.

The distant walled city reflected serenely on the glassy surface of the water.

With a fumbling of weapons, the ranks closed behind the Prophet King. Solemnly, as though at the beginning of a great and somber ritual, the rebels marched toward the city-toward Istar, shimmering in refracted light.

In the distance, they saw the Istarian army group shy;ing-red banners aloft and fluttering in the rising wind. The rebels had seen these flags before, had eluded them over a world of high grass and sand, striking from the flanks and the rear with the swift shy;ness and surprise of swooping birds.

But now, they marched to meet Istar head-on. Sev shy;enty, seventy-five warriors arrayed against ten thou shy;sand. It was certain madness.

Were it not for the promise of the Prophet King.

For Fordus had sworn their deliverance in the council fires of the night before. Never trust simple numbers, he had urged them, for I have a magic that no numbers can quell.

Now, as they saw the army assembled against them, the banners and the bright, approaching stan shy;dards of four legions, for a moment it crossed their minds that the magic might fail and the prophecies go dry.

Yet each man stood at the shoulder of Kis cohort, and pride and illusion prevailed. Having come this far, they would not run and they would not waver.

Ahead, dressed in a dirty white robe and a brown kaffiyeh, indistinguishable from his followers, his golden collar hidden under the loose robes, the Prophet King shouted and beckoned.

Past judgment and past wisdom, they lifted their shields and followed.

The first wave of arrows rained down upon the rebels.

The archers perched in the distance, perhaps two hundred yards away, and their efforts, spent and inaccurate, clattered against the rebels' uplifted shields and fell harmlessly on the hard ground.

Good. The Istarians were nervous. Too quick to shoot.

The pikemen in the forward ranks lowered their weapons. Men of the Fourth Legion-old foes with a score to settle-quickened their pace, breaking into a run, a shouting, shrieking charge across the level fields where the rebels, woefully outnumbered, braced to face the first assault.

"Now!" Fordus shouted as the lines collided. Rebel weaponry flashed amid the lunging pikes, and Istarian after Istarian fell to the more mobile rebels. The Fourth Legion's attack billowed and eddied around Fordus, Northstar, and Rann, then the Istarian lines broke, the pikemen withdrew, and the distant archers showered arrows once more.

Fordus looked around him. Forty Istarians dead, but twelve of his own, as well. Even more rebels wounded, though these were rising to their feet, preparing for yet another assault.

It did not matter. Reinforcements were coming soon.

* * * * *

From the Kingpriest's Tower, Tamex looked out across the city, past the walls and onto the plains, where the skirmish unfolded. There, banners tilted and nodded as Istarian troops attacked and regrouped, then attacked again, each time suffering grievous losses, it seemed, but each time whittling away at the rebel numbers.

He could not believe the easy foolishness of this War Prophet, this Prophet King. Assaulting the Istar-ians with less than a hundred men.

He scanned the ranks of the entrenching rebels. Plainsman and bandit had gathered the shields and armor of the fallen Istarian pikemen. The desert robes were lost in a swirl of leather cuirasses, of bur shy;nished bronze shields so bright that the glare made the rebels hard to number, their leaders hard to identify.

Surely not Fordus, Tamex thought. Surely this is a scouting party only, and the War Prophet waited behind the lines, safe in an encampment from which he could direct the battle.

With the sight of a god couched in his crystalline eyes, Tamex scanned the horizons, his gaze reaching as far as a small rebel camp, twenty more miles of plains, and then the beginning of the forests.

Nothing.

No concealed forces. No rebel reinforcements, except for that huddled handful in the mountain pass, led by the jilted bard.

Still, the dark general refused to commit his troops. Perhaps Fordus had surprises planned, was waiting for the full assault to unleash a veiled and dangerous tactic.

The woods themselves could be bristling with rebels.

Tamex would wait. He would hurl attack after attack at the entrenching company of Plainsmen, losing ten men, twenty, even a hundred for each fallen Que-Nara.

What difference would it make? The rebels were gravely outnumbered. Eventually, the numbers would win out.

From his balcony, Tamex signaled the herald. The mounted messenger guided his horse to the foot of the tower. Scrawling a hasty message on a scroll, Tamex dropped the missive to the young man, who took it and galloped to the gates of the city, bearing orders for Celeres, the commander of the celebrated Sixth Legion, whose soldiers waited impatiently, hidden from rebel eyes inside the city gates.

Hold ranks, the message said. Wait until further orders.

They would hold until he found Fordus Firesoul.

* * * * *

Weary and battle-shocked, the Fourth Legion withdrew and regrouped in the milling Istarian ranks. Again the archers drew and fired, and then for a moment the battlefield stilled, as if neither side were willing to engage again.

Then slowly, not as if they had not been ordered, but prodded or pushed or cajoled, the spearmen of the Second Legion surged over the beaten plain, two com shy;panies of the finest Istarian swordsmen following.