Retching, crawling, Sunbright collected Greenwillow in one arm and clutched her to his chest, while she dragged Harvester between his legs. Together they half fell down the stairs, then tumbled outside as hot smoke gushed all around them.

Shielding his eyes, Sunbright looked up at the palace. It was completely engulfed in flames. Fire licked through the windows and flared through the roof. Pressed flat by the leaden sky, smoke roiled from above and spilled out holes to writhe, like giant snakes, in the streets.

Sunbright ran down the side of the palace, along the front and down another side. Greenwillow had hiked her skirts to show long legs flashing as she pelted with him. Her chains jingled. "What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"Ruellana! She might still be inside!" Heat and flame drove him back from the small door they'd entered upon first reaching the city. "She must be on the third floor!"

"There is no more third floor!" hollered the elf. "Stop trying to be a martyr! She would have gotten out early; she knows to take care of herself first!"

Even in fire and battle, he thought, Greenwillow found time to be catty. But she must be right. No one would stay in a castle while a dragon was peeling off the roof. The two trotted back to the street where a crowd stood well back and watched the palace burn.

Sunbright stared, squinting. "That's the end of the One King, I'd say."

"True." Greenwillow rubbed a smudge on her nose, chains clinking at her wrists. "If he walks out of there, maybe he deserves to take over the world."

"No, he's gone," said a woman's voice behind them. "Imagine being so taken in by his mad dreams. We must have been mesmerized."

The pair spun about to find Ruellana standing behind them. Her bright red hair was raked straight and streaked with soot, and stripes marked her throat. She wore a queer costume: a red leather vest and silk shirt, red-striped trousers with flop-top boots, and a white baldric with a basket-hilt sword. It looked like a dancing girl's idea of traveling togs, or perhaps the costume of an actor playing pirate. She held up a bundle of dark green, black straps, and an ornate sword: Greenwillow's clothes and tackle.

The elf didn't hesitate, but shucked her thin, shimmery dress to stand mother-naked in the street. Sunbright felt his eyes bulge, for it was the first time he'd seen all of Greenwillow, who was lithe as a whippet but had womanly curves aplenty. Unconcerned, the elf donned her fine elven clothes, yanked her hair back into a fine black ponytail, and borrowed Harvester to pry off her manacles.

Sunbright had seen Ruellana do many odd things, so this latest conjuring trick didn't rock him. But he asked anyway, "How did you…?"

"I saw the dragon coming through the window and knew the king was doomed. So I donned my fighter's garb and grabbed Greenwillow's from a chest. Not bad for a simple country girl, eh?"

She was hardly that, Sunbright knew, but he didn't comment. Instead he tilted his head at a familiar sound coming from down the street, faint above the crackling of the burning building and other houses, but rising. Shouts, calls, cheers. "What's…?"

Down the street ran a trio of orcs, weaponless, protecting the backs of their heads with gray hands. Behind them rushed a mob of citizens hurling stones, bricks, and crockery. Some stopped to snatch up fallen swords or pikes. A dazed orc who staggered around a corner with a head wound was tripped and kicked, then stabbed in the belly by a balding man in a freighter's smock.

"The citizens," mumbled Sunbright. "Their city was occupied by the One King's army, and now they're revolting!"

The citizens who'd been standing around gaping at the fire joyfully took up the shouts of resistance, then scrambled away to find weapons and hunt down orcs and the king's men.

"Shall we go?" asked Ruellana.

"Go?" Human and elf stared at her. "Go where?"

Ruellana plunked her fists onto her hips, tilted jauntily so her sword rode at an angle. "Wherever you like! You've won the day, survived a bout with a dragon and a lich, killed an evil minister, freed a city, retrieved a magic book, and started a legend. Go where you will!"

"Actually," Sunbright pointed to the flaming palace, "I think the book's been burned up."

Ruellana snapped her fingers and dragged from behind her a white haversack the other two hadn't noticed. Lifting the flap, she displayed the ancient book with the ruby-studded cover. Smiling, she tipped up her shapely nose. "Shall we go?"

Sunbright and Greenwillow mutely spread their hands, then trotted after Ruellana through the rubble-strewn, ash-smudged, blood-dripping, smoke-streaked-but free-streets of Tinnainen.

Escape didn't prove that easy. The city had gone mad, and those caught in the turmoil had better duck their heads until the fever had run its course.

Trotting around a corner, sniffing and hacking in the thick smoke, they rounded one corner only to find a trio of orcs charging toward them. The creatures wore the red-edged black tunics of palace guards and carried red-hilted swords. One had a head wound streaming blood, another a shorn hand. Whether they were fleeing a crowd or pursued some private business wasn't clear. But at the rubble-strewn intersection of two streets where the houses were going up in flames, the leader pointed a long gray arm that dripped blood at Sunbright and growled, "He slew the king!" Howling, they rushed.

Sunbright had no quarrel with these orcs or anyone else. He wanted only to rest a moment and drink water until he floated. An afternoon in dragon smoke and now a city afire had scorched his throat so badly his tongue felt swollen. Certainly he'd had enough fighting to last a lifetime. But if he hoped to get any older, he had to defend himself. He hoisted Harvester, though the sword seemed as heavy as a dozen crowbars, in arms, that sagged like lead.

The orc captain charged and slashed overhand, anger and fanaticism lending it strength. Two-handed, Sunbright parried cross-body in automatic defense, and kicked for the orc's knees barbarian-style with his heavy boots. But the knotty-armed orc leaped above the kicks, banging again and again on the barbarian's sword blade. Finally, timing the blows, Sunbright simply stepped out of the way. When the orc blundered past, he'd cut it across the kidneys or neck, following with a chop to the back of its leg to sever an artery and end this fight.

But he snapped alert and learned why the orc was a captain. The creature had been anticipating the sidestep and plunged past the end of Harvester, but abruptly stamped to a halt and threw its shoulder into Sunbright. Bulling the barbarian forward and sideways, the orc swung its sword in a short, vicious arc to slash at the human's kidneys.

For lack of a better defense, Sunbright shot out his legs and landed square on his butt, jarring his spine to the top of his skull. But the orc's slash passed overhead, just ticking the human's topknot.

Flopping onto his back, the barbarian thrust overhand and overhead. Harvester's fat tip slid into the ore's side and guts, then under its rib cage and nicked its heart. Twisting to sink the hook and enlarge the wound, Sunbright yanked back and brought a red rain onto his head and arms. The orc collapsed like a pricked balloon.

Keeping clear of the stricken orc-even dying warriors could strike back-the barbarian levered himself to his feet, spit blood off his lips, and automatically cast about for his comrades.

Greenwillow was fencing with another orc that already bled from several wounds. Snarling, the creature curled gray lips and lunged again, slashing mightily with its sword. But it was careful to keep the sword before it as a whirling shield. Greenwillow shuffled, ducked, aimed, stabbed, and whipped her hand back, then repeated the pattern, so the orc now bled from four spots on its forearms. A few more such surgical pinks, Sunbright knew, and the orc would be too tired to fight or else hamstrung. Then it would feel steel in its throat.