Priget sat on a dais on one side of the room, flags and apparent battle trophies ranked behind him. A low table rested on the floor. On it were instruments of torture. Thumbscrews, skewers, and knives lay arrayed. Next to it sat an unlit camp stove with branding irons leaning against its side.

The Keldon warrior was herded into the room like an animal. Four men with poles controlled rope nooses over the prisoner's neck. The chair they chained him in was short, and his knees rose nearly to his chest. The guards dropped their poles and withdrew.

"You are called to explain your crimes," Priget announced. "Any attempt to deceive this court will be punished." The commander gestured to the tools of pain. Rayne hoped that the prisoner was fluent in the languages of the League, because Priget hadn't thought to use an interpreter.

"I am Couric, war leader and blood letter." The warrior paused to spit on the floor. "You mean nothing to me."

"Such behavior will result in punishment," Priget warned, waving a sergeant to stand by the table.

"You haven't even heated the irons," Couric said with contempt. "The League knows nothing of terror." He ignored Priget and turned his head to glare at the rest of the room. "You are weak, and we will sweep over your armies. Even now our forces march into position to start the final attack.

"We will pour from the north, and your men shall fall under our swords. Our barges will bull their way through your flimsy cities. The screams of your fallen comrades will announce our coming. We will own you all." The Keldon's voice filled the room, overriding Priget's weak tenor.

"The lands of our ancestors will be ours again. We shall walk in the footsteps of the Heroes and kick aside the trash that has settled the land." Couric spit again, the saliva carrying to the shoes of a guard.

"You all will be whipped and beaten into service. Your women," Couric jutted his chin to Rayne and her aide, "will go into the cradle houses and bear warriors for the greater glory of Keld!" His body heaved with each shout, and the chains scraped against the wood of the chair.

"Our ships will carry a river of captives to the north, and the League will cease to be anything but a story whispered by slaves!" Couric bellowed. The big Keldon stared at Priget with eyes full of hatred and disgust. "The winds of Twilight are upon us. The witch kings will ascend from the grave, and all of you will be judged by Keldon steel."

"Silence him," Priget shouted, and the sergeant moved toward Couric, a bludgeon held high to shut off the torrent of words.

Couric strained, the chains pulling against the structure of the chair, and he began shouting words from memory.

"The first wind of ascension is Forger, burning away impurity," he growled. A burst of flame exploded below the prisoner, and the arms and legs separated from the chair. Couric stood free, glowering at the sergeant, his arms still manacled to scraps of charred wood that used to be the arms of the chair. The angry Keldon warrior looked around the room, challenging the guards and magic users with his eyes. The guards hesitated at first, taking the Keldon's measure, then charged him en masse.

"The second wind of ascension is Reaver, slaying the unworthy." Couric was heavily muscled, and the Keldon scythed down the charging men with the broken wood still attached to his arms.

More guards poured into the room, trying to subdue the prisoner, but Couric surged back, ripping the handles from several poles at once.

"The third wind of ascension is Eliminator, clearing Keld's path to victory." One pole was in the Keldon's hand, and he stabbed it at the faces of the circling guards. Teeth and bones broke, and the victims fell to the floor, constricting the room even more as the captured warrior moved toward the door.

"Somebody get a webcaster!" Rayne called, and she moved closer to Priget, hoping to use his huge desk as cover.

Shalanda, who was nearer that door than Rayne, forced her way through the stream of oncoming guards to find something she could use to subdue the Keldon.

Couric was hemmed in, but he was holding his own and making ground. The dead bodies of the first round of guards littered the floor, and while the new soldiers carried stabbing spears, they were wary of the massive Keldon, not wanting to be another of his victims.

"Kill him!" Priget ordered. The commander was trapped but was ready to hide beneath the heavy desk if fighting moved any closer.

Couric gasped as a blade punctured his side. He struck at the attacker, but the League soldier retreated into the ring of spears. Priget rose from behind the desk to watch his troops dispatch the Keldon officer. Rayne stood beside him, feeling powerless in the interrogation room with no weapons.

"The fourth wind of ascension is Anointer, defying the worthy," the Keldon bellowed, and spinning to face the camp commander and the Tolarian scholar, the mammoth warrior threw himself at the dais. Priget retreated toward the wall. Couric shouted at his retreating face, ignoring everything in the room now except the man who had given his death order and the woman who had captured him.

Shalanda rushed through the door, a blue-robed figure in tow.

"The fifth wind of ascension is Exalter, fulfilling Keld's destiny." The warrior raised his hands for a mighty blow.

Spears sank into Couric's back, and the blood coated his clothes. He slammed into the heavy desk, and the bolts securing it to the dais sheared under his weight. Blinding blue-white energy arced from the doorframe toward the desk and the charging warrior. The Keldon seemed to slow in mid-attack, his cries of rage sounding deeper as his words stretched out. Another blast of arcane light burst from the blue-robed figure-this one targeted at Rayne.

Shalanda had returned with Barrin, and the ancient wizard now acted to save his wife from being crushed by the rampaging Keldon. The spell wrapped itself around her frame like a giant gloved hand, and it pulled her away from the sliding desk. Barrin's first casting had given him the time to save Rayne's life, but the camp commander wasn't so lucky. Hundreds of pounds of hardwood and Keldon forced Priget against the paneled wall. The commander was pinned at the chest, and Rayne could hear bones breaking, tearing into Priget's internal organs. Couric sprawled over the desk, bled out and nearly dead as he looked into the eyes of the crushed commander.

"Even a chained Keldon can kill one such as you,"

Couric whispered as angry soldiers stabbed him again and again with spears. The Keldon warrior died smiling under the dead gaze of his final victim.

The afternoon sun beat down as Barrin and Yarbo flew over the League army camp. The sun glinted from the arrays of war machines. Technicians labored over their charges, looking more insectlike from the height than the weapons they serviced. Cavalry and corrals of horses lay at the ends of the camps with formations of infantry conducting maneuvers in open fields. The combined forces of Kinymu and Arsenal City had gathered to drive the invaders back, and Barrin hoped it would be enough. Yarbo flared his craft's wings, and the ornithopter began a slow circling descent to the landing circle and a waiting committee. Soldiers came to attention as the craft settled, and Barrin stepped outside. For the first time since coming to Jamuraa, Barrin could not smell the sea.

An officer stepped forward. He was a very large Jamuraan man, as big as many of the Keldons Barrin had seen, but this man's features were more majestic and dignified-not as harsh or severe as those of the invaders. He wore an animal hide around his waist that covered him from mid-belly to toes, and his exposed upper body and face were swathed in a white chalky substance-presumably war paint. His hair was hidden beneath a great helm, but it was his green eyes that caught Barrin's attention. They seemed to measure everything, and the slight tension in the officer's figure signaled a readiness for action. This was the sort of officer who led his troops from the front lines.