Storm Warning

'It was fairly vague,' Karal replied after a moment, checking his notes from that first meeting. 'I've got it here. He just said, 'many moons.' That's not much help.'

Firesong blinked, as if he had forgotten that Karal had taken notes for all their meetings.

'Except that we know we have at least a few months to figure something out before the monster comes upon us,' Master Norten was quick to point out. Then he yawned hugely and looked surprised. 'Gods and demons, it must be late, or I wouldn't be yawning! Look, none of us are fresh enough to do any good right now. What if we three meet with you mages in the morning, and we'll see what we can work out from here?'

'That—would be good.' Firesong bowed his head. 'I hope you will forgive me. I am not used to being wrong. It sticks like a barb in my crop.'

'I can understand that.' Master Norten favored him with a sardonic smile. 'I'm not used to being wrong, either, and I hate it like poison when I am.'

'So we understand each other.' Firesong gingerly took the Master's hand as Elspeth and Darkwind watched, the former with approval, the latter with amusement. 'Tomorrow, then?'

'Tomorrow.' Master Norten favored Karal with his stiletto glance now. 'I trust you'll be there, with nimble fingers and sharp pens? I want notes on everything, even if at the time we think we've gone down a dead end. It might be useful.'

Karal sighed. It was going to be a very long day.

'Yes, sir,' he promised. That made yet another group he was taking notes for. At this rate, his fingers would be worn to the bone! It was just a good thing he had glass pens now, instead of the old quills or metal; the glass hadn't worn out yet.

Well, I did volunteer. And with luck, maybe Natoli will be impressed with all this diligence. I get the feeling that nothing impresses her quite like competence.

Only after he was well on his way down the corridor, walking next to his master, did he wonder why he'd had that particular thought....

Grand Duke Tremane listened to the tales of woe from his commanders with a blank expression and a churning gut. They had all ridden here—ridden, as if this was some barbarian army rather than the proud Army of the Empire. Most of them hadn't ridden any distance in years, but with all the Gates down —again—there was no other way for them to reach him.

It was very clear to everyone that the Imperial forces were in a state of barely-controlled panic. No sooner did the mages manage to fix all the things that had gone wrong, than another wave of disruption came along and knocked everything magical flat again. There wasn't even time to set up shielding around things! This was the third time, and it was worse than the last two; shields that had held through the first two waves had broken before this third onslaught.

Not one of his commanders cared a bean about gaining more ground in Hardorn anymore. All they wanted was for things to get back to normal! Even the weather-workers were having problems; they couldn't even begin to control the storms and were just trying to keep the worst effects off the camps themselves.

Add to that the panic and the disruption in services of all those terrible storms that dumped purely physical chaos down on the camps, and you had a recipe for disaster if he didn't do something to increase the troops' confidence. Rumors running through the camp right now were enough to cause even hardened campaigners to worry; new recruits were often panicking, and had to be restrained by their more experienced fellows. There were tales that Hardorn had bought the services of the Black Kings in the south, stories that some mage in the Empire itself had caused this by accident, rumors that Valdemar was unleashing the hidden powers of their Heralds and white horses. No one knew, but everyone had a theory. Most of those theories painted a grim picture of the first defeat that the Imperial Army was likely to face in centuries, if Tremane didn't pull some answer out of his sleeve.

The only trouble was, he hadn't the foggiest notion how to do that.

I pledge you a tonne of incense and a gross of candles each, he silently told the forty little gods, if you will just grant me some inspiration on what to do in this situation!

But inspiration and intervention, divine or otherwise, was clearly in short supply at the moment. None of the forty vouchsafed him a reply.

'We have to do something,' General Harde said, at last. 'No matter what your orders are, you have to order us to do something, or the troops will assume you've lost your nerve and we've lost the situation.'

'Consolidate,' he said finally. 'Everyone pull your men in, and consolidate our forces around this keep. To the coldest hell with the battle plans—I want every soldier right here where we can stay in contact by runners if we