“Had you come to be healed sooner, Soshir, we could have finished this game much more quickly.”

I shook my head. “This game is played on a schedule none of us have made.”

A peevish expression flashed over Nelesquin’s face, then a false smile conquered it. “A call for the surrender of Tsatol Deraelkun will be rebuffed, yes?”

“As quickly as my suggestion that we duel again for possession of the fortress.”

“Gambit offered and declined; very good.” Nelesquin looked around at his army. “You cannot win. You know that.”

“But I can cost you a victory.” I pointed to the north. “You know the might of Nalenyr is coming.”

“You always did find the Naleni daunting. But me, never.” He posted fists on his hips, drawing attention to the fact he wore no swords. “Do not take it as any sign of insincerity that I do not kill you myself.”

“Not that. Perhaps cowardice.”

“I expected that.” He pointed toward his troops, and one of the hammer-headed apes, easily thirty feet tall with heavily muscled arms almost as long, lifted a huge stone. He drew it back over his head and I thought for a moment he meant to knock me from the wall. Instead the creature-responding to the driver’s jerking of gold rods-pounded the stone into the ground. It bounced, and I felt both that initial impact and the second.

Before I could puzzle out the reason for that action, another tremor ran through the ground. The wall shifted. Cracks appeared in the mortar, and support for the catwalk snapped. Archers fell, some over the wall but most into the courtyard. I dropped to a knee, then leaped free as my section of the battlement collapsed.

The roadway between the castle’s walls exploded upward. Cobblestones rose to meet me, propelled by the star-shaped nose of a mole the size of an elephant. Its stubby claws raked dirt into the hole, then it sprang out. Once the mole uncorked the hole, kwajiin warriors swarmed from it.

Arrows sleeted down, spinning blue-skinned warriors away. I landed in a crouch, drawing both my swords. Draw-cuts swept an arm from one kwajiin and blinded another. An arrow-stuck soldier stumbled into a lunging warrior. I parried with one blade and stabbed the other through his throat.

Beyond that hole another opened, and another. Then rocks flew, shattering crenels. Stone shards rained down into the space between the walls, ricocheting indiscriminately. Men screamed as they pitched from the walls. At such close range, the Steel Bears could speed shafts into gaps in kwajiin armor. One arrow punched clean through a helmet, emerging below the warrior’s jaw, dropping him at my feet.

No time for rally cries or bold boasts; it was Grija’s harvest. Reap or be reaped, mercy a mere fancy that would find no champions. Blood sprayed over walls, glistening wetly long after the heart stopped pumping. Cleaved limbs fell heavily to the ground and hands clutched convulsively. Men sat against walls, futilely stuffing entrails back into their abdomens. Others shrieked silently, their words emerging as black blood from deep within.

I was at once unconscious and hyperaware. In the chaos I noticed everything. Without thought I labeled the enemy in terms of threat, then dealt with the most deadly. I flowed forward with purpose, not trying to escape. My intent was to kill as many of the kwajiin as I could.

More stones flew and the walls began to crumble. The woolspiders gained the battlements, looking not at all like sheep with their webbing played out. They affixed it to the crenels, then leaped away into the fight. The web lines tightened and whole sections of the walls flew outward. The woolspiders attacked anything that moved, proving an equal annoyance to the kwajiin as to us.

At one point, in fact, a kwajiin and I broke off our swordplay to each dispatch one of the spiders. He killed his with a quick thrust through the carapace. Armed with two swords, I scissored its head off. The kwajiin and I shared a smile, united in our joint efforts-an omen of how our collaboration could have been.

Then with a casual cut, I matched a slash on his throat to his thin gash of a smile.

“Master Soshir, this way!” Dunos stood in a small sally port, a dead spider before him. His eyes blazed and though his lame arm held one of my old swords weakly, the other blade dripped with dark fluid.

I cut down two of the kwajiin as I dashed for the opening. “Get back, Dunos! Close the gate.” I turned my back to it, ready to deny the kwajiin access. A firm hand on my sash yanked me backward. I stumbled over Dunos and went down, thinking all was lost.

Then bows sang and arrows filled that gap. The first kwajiin fell well shy of the gate, and at least a half dozen fell behind him. Then a giant warrior in the armor of the Virine Jade Bears slammed the gate shut and secured it with a stout bar.

Captain Lumel hauled me to my feet. “There is no holding this place. We’re withdrawing. Come on.”

I sped away with his men and Dunos. Deep in the fortress’ bowels I caught up with Deshiel Tolo, Ranai Ameryne, and other of the xidantzu that had fought by my side. With them waited Count Derael, his wife, son, and Prince Iekariwynal.

The count nodded as best he was able. “The fires have been started. Nothing can stop the destruction.”

“Then get clear. Captain Lumel, you see them out. Dunos, you guard the Prince.” I looked at the rest of the xidantzu. “You have seen the plans. You know the bottlenecks. We hold them as best we can, and when the fortress comes down, we kill the survivors.”

Fighting in the tunnels was not as fierce as I had expected. Nelesquin, happy that his ruse had worked, did not press us. While we killed more than a few kwajiin, they didn’t pursue. We withdrew back through the mountains. I emerged at an overlook above Tsatol Deraelkun.

Fire engulfed the fortress. Its blackened towers vomited fire and smoke like distant volcanoes. Then, one by one, they sank into the inferno. Sparks rose and hot wind issued from the tunnel through which we had escaped. Down below the kwajiin cheered the fortress’ death, but it sounded hollow.

I resheathed my swords and set my feet on the path north. I had beaten Nelesquin at Deraelkun once, and now he had defeated me. I tried to tell myself that this did not worry me, but there was no sense in lying.

Nelesquin had come back from the grave. That victory, and the taking of Tsatol Deraelkun, started a nice string of conquests. That might have been enough to satisfy anyone but Nelesquin. His ambition had been strong enough to return him to life, and I was uncertain if there was much I could do to stop him.

TheNewWorld

32nd day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat

Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th Year since the Cataclysm

Ixyll

Though all of the warriors in the Voraxan expedition wished to answer Empress Cyrsa’s call as quickly as possible, they agreed with Borosan that a delay, so he could make their mounts faster, would be a benefit in the long run. The inventor made changes to gearing and other aspects of the mounts, then produced brand-new mounts in the Tolwreen factory. The old ones would be used as pack animals-an idea that saddened Ciras, despite his continued ambivalence about the mechanical beasts.

Vlay found that idea rather amusing. “You are very like Jogot Yirxan, whose blade you bear.”

Ciras swung from the saddle of his new mount, which was bigger, wider, and stronger than the previous one, decorated with a silver filigree of flames and sleeping tigers. “You knew him?”

“Not well. I knew him before he joined the vanyesh.” The swordsman passed a hand over his shaven pate. “He came to jaedun through the sword, then his curiosity got the better of him. He learned much from Nelesquin and Kaerinus.”