In a ragged semicircle, their numbers reduced to about fifty, the rebels braced for the attack. In the center of the line, Aeleth nocked his bow, and a dozen Que-Nara readied their slings. On each flank the officers waited-Rann on the left and Fordus on the right.

It was the old tactic, straight out of the Battle of the Plains. First the rebels salted the legion with arrows and stones, then Aeleth's troops turned and withdrew, the angry Istarians charging after. At the right moment, when the Second Legion was spread out and overextended, Fordus and Rann attacked, and the rebels converged on the hapless Istarians, who turned, broke ranks, and ran under a withering assault.

Fordus, eyes alight and head high, whirled across the battlefield like a deadly wind. An arrow passed inches from his head, ripping away his kaffiyeh, and bare-headed, his auburn hair blowing back and tan shy;gling, he urged his men to pursue the fleeing Second Legion.

The enlivened rebels surged around and past him, and the War Prophet whooped ecstatically. He had turned the Istarian army, and behind his charging forces, he thought he saw wavering shapes rising out of the bloodied ground.

The dead. The army of the dead had arrived.

Hear the word of the Prophet.

From his vantage in the Tower, Tamex saw the kaf shy;fiyeh fall from the auburn-haired warrior, saw as well the gold collar at the man's neck.

It was all he needed to see.

"Fordus!" he whispered. Then, aloud, "Messenger!"

The next courier galloped to the city gates, where a thousand men stood ready.

Celeres and the Sixth Legion got their order:

March. Attack. Take no prisoners.

The gates of Istar opened, issuing forth the Sixth Legion, their strides quickening with the loose, con shy;fident movement of veterans. The other Istarian sol shy;diers parted ranks as the crack troops moved into the open field. Spears raised, shields glittering, in a matter of minutes they closed with the remaining rebels.

Twenty of Fordus's troops fell before they could return a single blow. The rebels reeled back, turned, and routed, their destination the camp, the forest- anywhere.

High in her marble perch, masked by the face of Tamex, Takhisis laughed softly. She leaned against the wall, her masculine, faceted body as hard as the stone against which it rested.

And so it would have been over, were it not for the storm that lifted out of the sandy fields and bore down upon the armies.

For Sargonnas had not waited and brooded and plotted to let this moment pass.

When the Sixth Legion surged through the rebel lines, the landscape burst with a hundred geysers of fire. Borne on the rising wind, the glowing ash rained havoc on the Istarian rear guard. The red ban shy;ners smoldered and caught fire, and the vaunted troops scattered, screaming and burning, unable to fight what they could not understand.

In the front of the little battle the Sixth Legion slowed, uncertain. The firestorm rushed at them, passing over them in a deadly wave of fire. The stark hexagonal standards erupted in flame, and Celeres himself fell in the inferno.

On the far flank of the rebel forces, Fordus and Northstar scrambled clear of the storm. Behind them, Istarian and rebel burned on the blasted battlefield-Rann and Aeleth, the vaunted Sixth Legion fell quickly, engulfed in smoke and fire.

"The Prophet King . . ." Northstar began. He blindly searched for Fordus in the rolling murk of the smoke-filled sky.

"This way," Fordus shouted, and began to run.

"But, Fordus!" Northstar coughed. "I can't see you…"

The Prophet vanished in a curtain of smoke.

Spiraling to the ground, the great young guide of the Que-Nara crawled the tight circle he had already passed over, then circled it again. Cries burst from the smoke, and at the edges of his awareness, North-star could catch the dance of flames, shadows flit shy;ting back and forth through the smothering, twilight country.

"Fordus?" he called. "Fordus?"

No answer returned from the thickening smoke.

Choking, sneezing, the Plainsman fell flat on his face. Stay low in a fire, someone had told him when he was a child. So he lay in a flat, barren clearing, clutching his rescued medallion and praying for the fire to pass, for the smoke to spare him.

When three Istarians, swords drawn, stumbled into the clearing a moment later, they found him facedown on the ground-guttering, gasping, drowning in smoke. And though they, too, were seeking refuge from the fire-storm, passage through the flame and through the strangling smoke, they were veterans and merciless, stopping long enough to follow their general's orders: "Take no prisoners."

Northstar's hand at last relaxed on the medal, and he found his way to death with no trouble at all.

* * * * *

Using his extraordinary speed, Fordus burst clear of the smoke. Behind him the plains were ablaze from one horizon to the other. Istarian legionnaires raced toward the city in panic, but Fordus passed them by, his thoughts no longer on strategy and tactics.

He was bound for the city gates, for the Temple.

And for the Kingpriest.

On whose head he would rain the fire of vengeance.

* * * * *

Upon the Tower's highest balcony, reeling in dis shy;belief from the sudden turn of the battle, Tamex saw a solitary figure spring clear of the holocaust.

"Fordus!" he breathed, alarm changing slowly to a silent exultation as the man raced toward the gates of the city.

Oh, this is better, Tamex thought, his faceted fea shy;tures suddenly feminine, reptilian.

Rain on, Sargonnas. Rain on, you petty fool. May the smoke of your torment ascend for ever and ever, and may you have no rest in day or night. You can shy;not send fire enough to burn me, storm enough to make me seek shelter.

Now, across the burning plain, Fordus comes to Istar. He will be mine, and I shall keep my promise.

I will show him who he really is.

Chapter 22

The last morning of the Shinarion was disrupted by the smoke from the battlefield.

It began as a shifting haze overhead, a sharp musty smell in the sunstruck air. But slowly it thick shy;ened, and the merchants, the drovers, the pickpock shy;ets and vendors took to the northern streets in. curiosity at what could possibly overcome the lin shy;gering smell of dead fish.

Their golden ribbons, worn in honor of the god shy;dess, fluttered soiled and frayed. Their pockets were empty, their resources drained, for the saying held true that nobody grew rich at the Shinarion. Above all, they felt weary, tired out by the revelry, by the wheeling and dealing and the thick corruption on display in the final days of the festival.

What they sought in the streets, the air above them bristling with smoke and cinder, offered diversion.

Something was afoot in the fields outside the city. The rumors were as thick as the smoke.

So, many of the celebrants, watching the sky and listening and gossiping, missed entirely the strange, quiet warrior that slipped through their midst, borne on fleet foot through the northernmost streets of the city, his head bared, his eyes smoke-stung and ravening, his heart twisted toward murder.

The city lay before him like a maze of crystals, the tall reflective buildings blinding him, baffling his path to the Tower.

For long, painful moments Fordus ranged through the baffling marbled streets. Smoke from the burn shy;ing plain drifted over the Istarian walls, and the new, alien landscape of man-made things clouded over, hazy and indistinct.

At the edges of his sight, just out of focus, dark shapes flitted and dodged like swamplight. The Prophet could see the gold fretting on their robes, the gold ribbons drooping over their shoulders, a testament to some forgotten god. They chattered to each other in a hidden language.