toward the giant, despite the greater danger of his slapping hands and massive pinching fingers.
“It’s our fire!” Dart called out. “The flames goad them to attack!”
The flames were quickly doused. Malthumalbaen threw his last brand far behind the boat. It flew end over end, blowing brighter by the passage, trailing embers. The flock of bats took wing after the flying torch.
They all sank down into the darkness, scratched and bitten.
“Those mites are far worse than any snake,” Malthumalbaen grumbled, sucking at a wounded finger.
They continued onward without torches.
“It shouldn’t be far,” Tylar finally said, rolling his map, squeezing the scroll tight in his hands.
Proving his word, a glow appeared through a tangle of woods ahead. Tylar motioned Rogger to slip out of the clearer current in the flooded wood and edge more slowly through the choked channels. It would be easier to hide their approach among the heavier bushes and low branches.
As they left the swifter current, the waters thickened with weed and algae. Rogger cut the alchemy to a trickle, drifting more than powered.
The glow shone from directly ahead.
“Does anyone else smell that?” Rogger whispered, nose pinching.
“Brimstone,” Tylar mumbled, followed by a hushing motion.
Rogger drifted them closer, nosing them through bushes. He finally stifled the alchemical flows completely. Malthumalbaen propelled them from there on, reaching to tree limbs and bushes to pull them toward the glow.
“Far enough!” Rogger warned in a whisper.
They all shifted forward, weighting the bow down. The giant stepped back to steady the trim.
Dart scooted up beside Brant. Through a break in the foliage, the view opened to a monstrous sight.
An island rose from the center of an open expanse of water, a lake within the drowned woods. Six giant pinnacles rimmed the land, each tilting slightly outward. It made the entire island look like a half-submerged crown.
Dart saw that the inner surfaces of each pinnacle had been shaved flat. She could just make out etched pictures and symbols drawn upon the smoothed surfaces. It reminded her of the small circle of stones at the Wyr camp, covered with ancient writing.
Between the spires of the crown, low stone structures ringed the island. And in the center blazed a massive fire, shaking with green flame, shimmering off rock and stone wall.
“It’s an old human settlement,” Rogger said.
“Taken over by the Cabal,” Tylar whispered. “The location is not random or mere opportunity. The Cabal sway their human allies with a false promise of an end to godly tyranny. What better stronghold than one of our old settlements, ripe with sentiment and history?”
“Why does the water boil and glow out in the lake here?” Dart asked. “Is it more Dark Grace?”
Dart stretched to view the extent of the boil. All around the island, circling it entirely, the water trembled and bubbled. Steam wafted in shimmering sheets, high and away. Here was the source of the brimstone. A deep crimson glow shone from the depths.
“No,” Brant said, “it’s not Dark Grace. I believe it’s a flow from Takaminara, like the burn that cut a swath through Saysh Mal. She sends her molten fingers out into the hinterland.”
“But why? Is she protecting the island?”
Rogger answered. “More like protecting the world. I wager if she had the chance, she’d melt the island to slag, but that green fire must be fueled by the rogues, keeping her at bay. There is little else she could do. Takaminara’s influence beyond her realm is limited, and she is only one god against who knows how many rogues here.”
Faintly, Dart heard a few sweet chords echoing across the waters, a forlorn note full of power. Seersong. But Tylar seemed unaffected. The stone, whetted and wedded to the sword, kept him safe.
Tylar stirred. “We’ll have to move swiftly across the boiling water. Ride high and fast, and beach well up the strand. If we move now-”
A scream rose from the island, piercing with a wail of horror.
The force of it blew back the steam in a cold wash, turning steam to water and splashing it outward. As leaves dripped, they watched something rise out of the green fire, lit from below, though fiery in its own right. It twisted like smoke into the air, finally unfurling massive black wings. A cloak fell from its form and into the waiting flames.
“Perryl,” Tylar moaned.
“He’s been ilked into a wraith,” Rogger said. “A wraithed daemon.”
The beast screamed again, not quite with the force of his birth but fierce enough. Flapping high into the air. The power that welled from him could almost be tasted on the air.
“But who ilked him?” Dart asked.
Rogger answered. “Remember who wields this font of Dark Grace. A god who is well familiar with wind wraiths.”
“Lord Ulf,” Tylar said.
Rogger nodded. “He makes his final move.”
The end came with a thunderous crack.
It shook Stormwatch.
“The Shield Wall!” Kathryn cried out and hurried to the fieldroom’s window. Despite the terror, there was also a measure of relief. They had been waiting for the past bell, balanced between certain doom and frantic hope. A thousand plans had been proposed and discarded. Their only true defense was fiery pyres laced with alchemies devised by Gerrod and his fellow masters. But they had too little flame and too much territory to protect. More strategies were waged, to no avail.
So when the ice finally came, Kathryn could not dismiss a measure of relief, ready as ever to make this stand. She had kept the tower for this long night, against wraiths, against witches, against daemons.
Now she must stand fast against a god.
She peered out the window, joined by Gerrod on one side, and Argent and Delia on the other. Father and daughter stayed close. Too late perhaps to know each other truly, but not too late to be near.
Across the yard, as Kathryn watched, a large section of the Shield Wall caved inward, cracked from crown to root. A wall that had stood for four millennia.
Why this show of power? Why not simply freeze them out?
But Kathryn remembered Ulf’s cold countenance. She knew it wasn’t bluster here, some magnificent display to his might. That was not Lord Ulf. He meant to tear Tashijan down, wall by wall, tower by tower, brick by brick.
She remembered his words: There is no way to weed this patch. Best to burn it and salt the ground.
He meant to accomplish that end. It was why he built his ice all night, gathering the cold for this final assault. None would live-but more important to Ulf, nothing would stand afterward.
Another crack reverberated through the cold air. Another section of wall fell. And through the breaches, his ice flowed. Like a mighty exhalation from the storm’s heart, an intense cold blew into Tashijan. The outer towers frosted over. Stone shattered with mighty pops. One wall of the Ryder’s Tower burst as if struck by a fist. Its crenellated crown toppled with agonizing slowness, tilting, sliding, then crashing into the snow.
Kathryn heard echoes of annihilation coming from the other sides of Tashijan. Lord Ulf struck on all fronts. He bore his ice in a tightening noose around Stormwatch.
Kathryn tore her eyes away. The others did the same. Bearing witness would not save them; it would only instill despair.
After all the pickets this night, there remained only one more line to hold. “Sound the Shield Gong,” she said.
Gerrod nodded and headed out to pass on the word.
It was their only plan.
All of Tashijan would gather in the Grand Court, in the heart of Stormwatch. The central Hearthstone was already aflame with alchemies. Pyres burnt at every door. They would make their last stand there.
All around, stone crashed and mortar moaned.
Kathryn turned to Argent and Delia. “Get to the Court,” she said. “I will keep vigil for as long as
