'Now we have something to fight back with!' The captain of foot who spoke thrust his clenched fist forward. 'Magic with which to counter magic!' He gestured contemptuously in the direction of the looming keep. 'A wizard who will do battle with more than mystified mutterings. A mage of action.'
'Great magic, too, if it is truly Susnam Evyndd.' Another officer regarded the courier expectantly.
Eyes blinking as she gasped for air amid the cloaking mist, the young rider nodded vigorously as she swore. 'It is truly he, noble sirs. I saw him myself, when he pulled back the curtain of his palanquin to peer out and gauge the weather.'
Raundel was nodding slowly. 'I have heard that his is not a countenance to be mistaken for another's.' He turned to the nearest waiting couriers. 'Pass the word to all defending officers that the celebrated wizard Susnam Evyndd is in the city, and will soon be involved in the fight to preserve it from the enemy.' Anticipation in defense of morale was no sin, the general believed.
They were waiting, all of them except Zisgymond, when the great man finally arrived. He was dressed simply, in a manner belying his status, when he finally ascended the last step and stood among them atop the parapet. Much shorter than Goughfree had expected, the wizard strode immediately to the overlook and stood there surveying the mist-shrouded chaos of combat. Clad in shirt of plain homespun and pants of gray poplin tucked into calf-high boots of dramunculi leather, he was of ordinary build. But his face bore the scars of a lifetime of doing battle with the unknown and powerful, his eyes did not water, and his voice cleaved the dank air with the assurance of one who knows, if not All, at least a good deal more than his fellow beings were capable of comprehending. It exuded an unshakable, almost jaded self-assurance.
'When I heard what was transpiring, I got here as fast as I could.' His tone indicated frustration at the delay, as if he had been personally affronted by Time itself. 'I see where your problems lie. We will deal with them now.'
Without hesitation or fear of the great height, he scrambled swiftly up onto the rim of the parapet. No one dared move to hold him back, or voice a warning that would clearly not be heeded. As the wizard lifted his arms, the officers of the general staff did not have to be told to step back.
Then Susnam Evyndd began to speak, addressing the unseen in a voice that boomed out over the city like a reassuring balm.
'MALORIAN NAR MACUSCO! SETHIN PAIS TAAL RA!'
The wizard's words rolled over and down the sides of the fortress and the high hill on which it stood like a peal of thunder emerging from the bowels of an arriving storm. It swept out and over clashing armies and howling warriors and echoed from the far banks of the swift-flowing Drimaud. Hearing it, soldiers of the Gowdlands looked up. Seeing a brightness beginning to coalesce on the rim of the fortress wall, piercing the omnipresent drizzle with its sharp radiance, some recognized the individual standing tall in its midst, and began to cheer. Meanwhile the masses of the attacking Horde blinked, and hesitated.
Lightning, white and pure, leaped from the billowing refulgence that had formed above the castle. In a great irregular arc, the angry bolt plunged downward to strike in the midst of the attacking Totumakk. It struck the bespectacled warlock of the bulbous red hat and, without ceremony or preamble, pierced him from front to back. A startled look transformed his supremely repulsive countenance. Slowly and without a word, sorceral or otherwise, he toppled from his seat.
Seeing this, the defenders of the Breleshva Bridge took heart and redoubled their efforts, quickly bringing a halt to the enemy advance. Once more, the well-placed shells of the Shandrac Thunder began to land unimpeded among the advancing Horde, raising havoc in their ranks and preventing reinforcements from surging across the bridge.
A second bolt of mage-bred energy demolished the porcine sorcerer, who squealed in terror as his feeble attempts to deflect the necromantic blow came to naught. Methodically working his way downstream, Susnam Evyndd next slew the third sorcerer. Each time their mystic protector was lost, the line of enemy Horde relying on him faltered. Already, the defenders of the Salmisti and Zhisbrechar Bridges were driving their attackers back across the Drimaud, recovering lost ground stone by blood-soaked stone.
Now only the four-armed warlock remained to shield the last of the enemy's attacking columns. As the wizard Evyndd was preparing to deliver himself of a fourth thunderbolt, the colonel of horse drew the attention of her fellow staff members to a spreading commotion among the Horde on the far bank. Something was emerging from the forest. It was large enough so that its general shape and size could be made out even through the light drizzle.
A giant stepped out from among the trees.
The figure was of indeterminate outline, clad from head to foot in black cloth. No gold thread adorned the massive chest, no precious gems sparkled atop the concealed skull. Though no more massive than the blond-furred lumpenkin or dark lurchers presently crowding the bridges, its oddly shifting outline inspired much comment among the onlookers. As to its identity, that did not long remain a mystery. A chant rising from the far shore began to swell in volume. Soon it was loud enough to be heard on the bridges, among the towers, and finally within the fortress of Kyll-Bar-Bennid itself.
'Mundurucu, Mundurucu,
'So that's the legendary Khaxan Mundurucu. At last.' Along with the restof his fellow officers, General Mauffrew was leaning against the parapet, staring across the river past the battle raging below. 'He's big, but not all that big.'
'It is not his size that should concern us.' No sooner had Goughfree proffered this sensible observation than the truth of it was proved right.
Erupting from the newly arrived necromancer's right hand, a ball of orange-yellow fire soared castleward. Among shouts and involuntary screams as the members of the general staff, their aides, and waiting couriers took cover, Susnam Evyndd calmly turned slightly to his right and raised both hands, palms outward, the thumbs touching. No one paid much attention to the words he uttered, but they must have been powerful indeed.
A glistening, shimmering transparency materialized around him, glass and crystal come together to form a bubble of what one distant onlooker later described as clear magic. Striking this, the ravening orange fireball shattered into fiery, swiftly dissipating embers before crossing the wall.
His arm wheeling round in a great arc, the wizard flung riverward a bolt of pure sorceral force so intensely white that it verged on blue. Goughfree and the others strained to see, but it was the colonel of horse, she of the sharpest vision, who reported to them that while two dozen attending retainers had been blasted into oblivion, the black-clad figure had only been staggered by the blow, and remained standing.
It was Chaupunell who thought to look, not at the continuing pandemonium of battle or the opposing warlock, but at the valorous Evyndd. What he observed was not encouraging. The wizard was frowning, his head inclined forward, as if unable to quite believe that the tremendous blow he had just delivered had not resulted in the complete destruction of its intended target. Drawing himself up, he raised both hands high above his head, fingers pressed tightly together and pointing downward. Lightning began to crackle and take shape before his fingertips as he summoned forth a ball of energy even greater than the one he had just flung at the opposite shore. Chaupunell had to shield his eyes from it. Everyone else kept their gaze focused on the far bank of the river.
Just as the eminent Evyndd was about to deliver his blow, a cylinder of gleaming blackness shot through with internal flame struck the parapet. The result was a narrowly focused but intense explosion that knocked everyone down while rendering them momentarily blind and deaf. When Goughfree had recovered enough for his eyes to focus, he saw that a man-size chunk of wall and floor was now missing from the castle's rim. Smoke rose from the solid stone, which, unbelievably, crackled with flame in several places, the raw rock burning like kindling. Fragments of quartz within the rock had melted and run like pallid butter from the extraordinary but tightly focused heat. His throat clenched, though not from the smoke or dust.
Of the great wizard Susnam Evyndd, protector of the Gowdlands and defender of Kyll-Bar-Bennid, nothing could be seen. Then a soldier cried out, and the survivors ran to see where he was pointing. Below the wall, on the lower landing, the transparent sphere the mage had enchanted around him still sparkled in the dim light. It had preserved not only the wizard's body but those who had been standing in his vicinity. In turn, it had absorbed the full force of the strike from the far side of the river. While not strong enough to penetrate the transparent shield, that awful speeding black cylinder of unknown composition and unimaginable power had blown it and the man contained within right off the parapet on which he had been standing.
Within the sphere of protection, the wizard Susnam Evyndd had been violently buffeted about by forces no
