spilled into the city’s plaza and swiftly overrun the pitiful remnants of the human defenders. This time, Truth willing, he was not going to let the elemental king advance out of his sight.
“Where is Eaglebeak?” he roared. “I need him and his damned archers up here now!”
Surprisingly enough, the hobgoblin captain appeared at his side only a moment later. Eaglebeak’s feathered headdress was askew, his ruddy cheeks flushed with the excitement of battle. “What are your commands, lord?”
“Bring your archers up as soon as Spleenripper’s columns have passed. I want a shower of arrows to bracket our advance, sweeping like a hailstorm on each flank.”
“It shall be done, lord,” declared the hobgoblin turning smartly and loping away to put the commands in motion.
Ankhar strode out of the avenue of cleared ground and entered the great plaza. The elemental king remained in view, having kicked through the feeble breastwork that the humans had erected.
Already the ogres were charging, bellowing in fury, heavy boots shaking the ground as they swept across the flagstones. Hobgoblins and gobs spilled after them. Spleenripper’s troops paused to gut, scalp, and otherwise mutilate the bodies of the humans who had fallen. But their captain was diligent and vicious, and freely wielded his whip to prod them on.
Within a few more moments, the attackers were spilling into the streets of Solanthus, racing this way and that with no coherent defense standing in their path.
His head throbbed. Dry, gritty dust filled his mouth. Jaymes spit-or tried to spit, but found he had no saliva- and struggled to remember where he was.
The smell of smoke was his first clue. As the ringing in his ears subsided, he heard men groaning in pain. Somewhere nearby a child was sobbing, utterly distraught. The marshal was lying on hard paving stones, facedown. The fingers of his outstretched hand touched something wet and his first thought was a keen longing: water! But almost immediately he realized the texture was all wrong-this was a sticky, viscous liquid, warmer than the ground and the air.
Blood.
Then the memories returned. The elemental king had closed on the barricade in three steps, kicked it aside in one more. The planks had burst into flame and the old gray-haired veteran in the middle had been easily crushed when a massive, windswept foot had smashed down upon him. It was his blood, a smear on the plaza, Jaymes was touching.
He pushed himself upright, shaking his head and ignoring the ringing pain at the sudden movement. A weeping boy was nearby, huddled over the corpse of his brother. Drumming filled the air, and a glance beyond the smoking, smoldering barricade showed a whole rank of ogres advancing down the street. Their bloodlust raging, they roared in exultation as they poured through the shattered defenses, their drums’ rolling thunder urging them on.
“Come on!” Jaymes said roughly, staggering to his feet, lifting the boy by his shaking shoulder. “Run!”
The lad’s eyes widened as he caught sight of the lumbering ogres. When Jaymes started away, the boy followed, and the two raced together out of the plaza and into one of the many side streets connecting to the wide-open space.
Jaymes and the boy came upon the Sword Knight who had tried to recruit the lord marshal for the left flank of the wooden barricade position. The entire rampart was wrecked and burning, with many defenders dead, and the mustachioed warrior was wounded. He was sitting up, leaning back against a block of granite, wiping at a bloody gash on his head. A few other men, most of them bleeding, were picking themselves up and trying to reorganize.
The ogres were spilling through the gap in the middle of the wreckage, but none diverted from the main charge to come after these few limping survivors on the fringe of the battle.
“Get these men out of here,” Jaymes said, assisting the wounded knight to stand. “Find a bottleneck in one of these side streets and try to make a stand there.”
“Yes, my lord,” the man replied. “By the Oath and the Measure, they will not pass!”
“Good,” said the lord marshal, clapping the man on the shoulder. In a few steps they came to a side street, finding a dozen men-at-arms standing there, looking wildly from the lord marshal to the ogres, who lumbered down the avenue toward them barely a stone’s throw away. When he looked across the plaza, the lord marshal saw the elemental king had passed this way, smashing a crude swath through several rows of sturdy stone houses.
“You stay here; help these men fight the ogres,” Jaymes ordered the boy, who nodded seriously. “And for the sake of all the gods, form a line!” he barked at the men who were still staring, aghast, at the scene in the plaza. “Rouse yourselves! Hold this street!”
“You heard him! Line up!” snapped the Sword Knight, suddenly finding his voice.
“Yeah! Line up!” shouted the boy.
Jaymes reached over his shoulder and drew Giantsmiter. With the blade extended, he started away at a sprint, heading for the ruins that spoke of the elemental king’s passage.
He hadn’t gone halfway when he was startled by a familiar voice and out of the corner of his eye he spied a small figure, waving to him from beneath one of the city’s ubiquitous sewer grates.
“Jaymes-hey, Lord Marshal! Yoo-hoo!”
The voice, quite unmistakably, belonged to Moptop Bristlebrow, professional guide and pathfinder extraordinaire.
“What are you doing down there?” he demanded.
“Looking for you!” cried the kender. “And you won’t believe what I just heard…”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jaymes, with Moptop in tow, accosted a Captain of Swords who stood with a small band of men at a barricade on the Duke’s Avenue. “I need to find the duchess!” the lord marshal announced. “Where is she?”
“She was commanding the left flank,” the knight offered. “I saw her come down from the tower before the giant stormed through. The garrison has a strong point at the Black Tiger Inn-the big stone house, there-and I think that’s where she went.”
Nodding his thanks, Jaymes took off at a sprint, skirting the plaza-still crawling with ogres-and heading through a narrow alley. The kender, unusually somber, trotted along, keeping up. They reached the Black Tiger a moment later and were both quickly passed through the gate into a large courtyard.
They halted to make way for a company of archers, all of them young men, scrambling up a ladder to take positions on the roof. A messenger came racing in the same door the swordsman and the kender had entered, shouting a plea toward the stables. “Ogres are flanking the Duke’s Avenue-a dozen or more, heading through the Silver District!” he called.
Four knights quickly mounted their horses and put spurs to the steeds, racing across the courtyard as a pair of men swung open the main gate. The riders clattered into the street, and the barrier was swung shut before they reached the first corner.
“The duchess has to be in there,” Moptop said, pointing toward the inn’s main hall, a large stone building on the other side of the courtyard.
Men in armor were coming and going through the open door to that hall, and the pair crossed over to it quickly. Jaymes entered the building and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness. Moptop followed, sticking close by his side.
The duchess was speaking to some of her captains at a table. Lord Harbor was pacing nervously behind her. Brianna’s face was ashen, and she had a scrape on her cheek, but she was poised, her words commanding. He could see at a glance that her presence had a calming effect on the agitated men-at-arms who had gathered around the table.
“My Lord Marshal,” she said, looking up at his approach. “I’m glad to see you; we all feared you perished
