As the shafts fell around him, Breyhard called for his own bowmen. “Get those spawn of snakes!” he roared.

A contingent of Seascapers from the far west rode forward, short bows ready. The arrows had come from a copse of trees atop a nearby low hill. The gray-green bakali were hard to spot among the leafy branches, but a few Seascaper arrows found their targets. With shrill cries, injured lizard-men plummeted from their perches.

“If any of those live, I want them!” Breyhard ordered.

Warriors around him drew sabers and spurred forward to sweep up the fallen. They hadn’t ridden ten steps before noise erupted behind them. From the hilltop, Breyhard could see a melee breaking out on the floodplain. Fully armed bakali had sprung up out of nowhere among the idle troops.

The general bellowed, “Cornet, sound formation!”

The boy put his brass horn to his lips. An arrow in the back knocked him forward over his saddle, but the young Ergothian bravely managed to sound the horn, relaying his commander’s order, before he succumbed.

The bakali had buried themselves in the soft black loam of the river bottoms. Apparently, they could go without air for an amazing length of time. So utterly still had they lain, the Ergothians had rode right over them, ignorant of the danger beneath their feet.

More lizard-men were appearing every moment. Brawny, scaly, stained with dirt, they uttered high-pitched screeches as they raised high their axes and swords. They cut at the legs of the Ergothians’ horses, and when the riders were thrown down, three or four lizard-men would fall upon them and hack them to bits. Blood and soil mixed to make a dark and fearful clay.

The Ergothians tried to sort themselves into the usual fighting formation, but the enemy was among them, all around them, shrieking, slashing. Breyhard could not rally his confused, frantic men. He allowed himself another moment to curse the vile beasts he faced, then drew his saber.

It was not the sort of battle the Ergothians were accustomed to. There were no lines, no maneuvering, no great, sweeping charges. Fifty thousand Ergothians, more or less stationary on horseback, had been surprised by at least an equal number of bakali. A vast, formless brawl ensued as both sides fought to the death. Swords clashed, spears thrust, blood flowed. Men and horses screamed as they perished, and bakali keened their strange, shrill cries. Unhorsed soldiers, filthy from the same black earth that had hidden the bakali, continued to fight on foot. In the awful confusion, sometimes man fought man and lizard slew lizard. It was every warrior for himself.

Gradually, Ergothians gathered on the strand, pushed to the edge of the river by the great mass of lizard-men. Rafts and boats, used by Breyhard’s army to cross the Dalti earlier, had been tethered to the rickety piers of Eagle’s Ford. Masses of camp followers and other noncombatants attached to the army had been crowding aboard the boats. Such was their terror and confusion, nearly three-quarters of them still remained, fighting frantically to board the vessels.

Breyhard, bleeding from five wounds, sent word that the remaining watercraft were to be cut loose. His lieutenants blanched at the order, but the general was insistent that there be no retreat. Breyhard had realized that if the bakali defeated his men and captured their boats, they would be able to cross the Dalti in strength today-and the only other imperial force with a hope of stopping them, General Crumont’s, was busy crossing the river to the south, as Breyhard had ordered. The whole of western Ergoth would find itself wide open to the invaders.

The boats, freed of their moorings, slowly spun away, heading downstream. Empty boats collided with those carrying terrified camp followers, most of which were barely half full.

Breyhard turned his bloody, mud-stained face back to the battle.

“Let’s kill some lizards,” he said to his lieutenants, managing a savage grin. “I never could stand the smell of them!”

He urged his wounded war-horse into the fray. Shoulder to shoulder, his retinue followed their commander.

Valaran closed the mirror-box. The battle was over. The leather case beside her yielded a sheet of foolscap, which she lay on the reading table before her. She dipped a stylus in ink, then, choosing her words with great care, put pen to paper:

Your Majesty, she wrote. Lord Breyhard is lost, with half his army. Many bakali have likewise been slain. The Dalti crossings are unguarded.

She stopped there, offering only the bare facts, not advice.

After sanding the short note, she folded it and sealed the edges with wax. One strike on a small gong summoned a waiting servant. She was an elderly woman, whose crimson livery hung loosely on her gaunt frame.

Valaran commanded her to take the note to the emperor, warning her to pass it to one of his minions and not to give it to him herself.

“Do you understand?” Valaran asked.

Blue eyes, yellowing with age, regarded the empress without any change of expression. The old woman nodded. She had served in the palace for decades and did indeed understand. Whoever gave this note to the emperor risked a beating-if not death.

Alone again, Valaran unrolled a map of central Ergoth. Eagle’s Ford was slightly less than twenty leagues from the capital. If General Crumont extricated himself quickly, his fifty-eight hordes would suffice to defend the city, but he would not have enough men to attack the bakali. The initiative would pass to the invaders.

Grim but satisfied, she allowed the map to curl shut.

“Grasp every circumstance, make use of friend and foe alike,” she whispered. The little-known saying of her ancestor Pakin Zan had become the maxim by which she lived her life.

Valaran’s desire to be rid of her cruel husband had increased tenfold with the birth of her son. Dalar had arrived a full year after Tol was exiled, but Ackal V had made the first few months of her pregnancy hellish, until he was absolutely convinced the child she carried was his own.

Valaran loved her son, though she’d never craved children as some women did, but Dalar also provided her with the means to attain the end she wanted. As a woman, she could never gain the support of the warlords for herself, but they would support her son, the rightful heir to the throne.

The arrival of the bakali had been a gift from the gods. She had resolved to use lizard-men, nomad barbarians, and any other opportunity that presented itself to discredit her husband and display his utter unfitness to rule. By grasping every circumstance, making use of friend and foe alike, she would be rid of Ackal V. Dalar would become emperor, and Valaran empress-regent.

Egrin and Kiya departed on their missions. The Dom-shu woman was not happy leaving Tol with “one and half elves,” as she put it. Tol did not share her fears. Zala lived by her word, the same as Tol. She would stand by the pact they had made. As for Tylocost, Tol’s command over him was based in part on his old victory, and in part on the Silvanesti’s own notion of honor.

“Trust their honor?” Kiya had said sarcastically, when he explained. “Not too much to ask!”

She rode off north, and Egrin headed east. Tol asked Corij to watch over both of his friends.

The makeshift camp outside the still-smoking rubble of Juramona grew and grew. Five days after Tol’s arrival, it held a thousand people, mostly former residents of the town. By the time the sun set on his eighth day there, almost four thousand had gathered. Fully half of this total were able-bodied men-farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and the like.