darkness.
But startling news had come from the castle. The emissary, a grizzled Nerakan named Gundling, brought the story to Laca. Verminaard, who was now, some said, a cleric of considerable power, had vanished from the castle two nights ago. Rumors had it that he was somewhere in the mountains, communing with the goddess and readying himself for the great venture. And while he was gone, the garrison had come to themselves, Gundling said. They had seized the mage, who was near exhaustion, imprisoned him, then voted to a man to open the gates to the Solamnics, to hand over the castle.
As a Solamnic lord, Laca had heard stories such as this before-the hoarded promises of besieged towns, the lies of bandit captains. Strong magic could await them inside those walls, and a thousand lesser ambushes.
'We will wait,' Laca said, 'until your commander has the courage to come forth and parley.'
The Lord of East Borders was not alone in his patience. His knights stood beside him, fivescore times ten strong, and not one of the Order questioned his decision. But the archers grumbled, and the infantry fought among themselves as the legions foraged the countryside, finding little to nourish them in a landscape so recently burned.
Laca slept little that night, his dreams a confusion of fire and betrayals.
On the next morning, before dawn, a mist rose in the dungeons of the eastern tower. It rose unnoticed through the castle floors, wafting past Nidus's vigilant sentries, then onto the plains through the equally vigilant Solamnic infantry.
One of the Solamnics-a lad from the plains, not far from the ruins of the old Castle diCaela-thought he saw a shape in the mist, silhouetted against the glow of the campfire. But he blinked and it was gone, receded once more into the mist that passed through the encampment up to the hills, settling on a spot where the rubble inclined toward a rise, toward a copse of stripped evergreen and a rocky, shadowy hillside.
There, out of sight of the armies, in the midst of the evergreens, the mist took human form. Cerestes stepped from the copse and headed toward the high grotto, where Verminaard awaited him.
At midday, a sudden cloud rose out of the east.
The Solamnics cursed and scrambled for their tents, and the sullen sentries raised their hoods against the prospect of rain.
'Verminaard has much to answer,' the boy from the plains muttered angrily. 'Not even a cleric can make me wait out a downpour!'
But the threatened rain did not come. Instead, the dark cloud settled on the broken copse, and the foothills vanished in a thick mist. The infantry-commoners from Coastlund and the eastern borderlands-took it as an omen. The darkness, they said, was devouring Verminaard and his mage, and many in their number broke camp for a return to Estwilde. Laca found half of them cloaked and ready, the others packing everything from bows to bottles.
It took four squadrons of armed knights to invite the infantry to wait out the darkness.
That night three moons filled the sky-dark Nuitari in the midst of her luminous sisters, eclipsing both of them in the course of an ominous evening. The horses called to one another skittishly, and the infantrymen murmured of omens and the Cataclysm come again.
Then, out of the cloudy grove, came the sound of fire and splintering wood. A flock of starlings lifted raucously into the air, and behind them, in a glory of darkness, a dragon rose on wide and powerful wings.
When Laca came to his senses, the encampment was silent.
For a moment, he thought that the great beast had descended upon them, had ravaged his army with fiery breath and ragged claws. All the dragon stories of his childhood returned to him as he crawled warily from the collapsed tent and cast his eye over the desolate landscape.
Five hundred soldiers, he guessed, lay in shock or stupor. Others-knights and archers and infantry alike- rushed toward the western foothills, from the high grass north of the castle and from the blackened plateau of the South Moraine, where they had fled the encampment when the monstrous beast passed over and the Dragon-fear engulfed them. They were muddied, haggard, matted with dried grass and leaves.
We've been routed, Laca thought angrily. Routed by that monster… my son… and his damnable mage.
Then he shifted his gaze toward the castle, where the dragon turned in a slow arc and made for the one standing man left on the plains of Nidus.
Laca's breath caught fire before he could expel it on the curse that was his last thought.
The towers of Castle Nidus seemed to pivot below him, crested with fire and milling, panic-stricken soldiers as the dragon banked in the icy, thin air.
It was just as the Lady had promised, there in the cave when he took up Nightbringer. For she had shown him then: a castle, its battlements ablaze, its towers crumbling. A thousand castles-the last lights of the west dwindling, guttering, consumed by the spreading dark.
Above them, he would fly on the back of the dragon, its broad shoulders thick and striated with powerful muscles, the low, forgotten song of its heart beneath him.
Now, Ember, Verminaard thought. Let the Solamnics scatter. What are they to me, anyway? My army awaits me in Estwilde, and I will deal with the Solamnics then. But let us attend to the garrison of Nidus.
The dragon surged under him, responding to his thoughts. Verminaard felt the heat along the scales of the creature as its red wings stretched powerfully.
For they did not follow us willingly, bravely… They were the Stormcrow's garrison, not our own, and we shall have no part of them. Let the girl die with them, and let us go to the east.
But now, dear Ember, let us raze this wretched castle.
The fire struck the tower battlements like a windstorm. Racing over the crenels and merlons, over the startled and doomed soldiers, the breath of the dragon burned hair and bone, wood and metal and stone itself.
The western tower exploded in a blaze, in the screams of the burning sentries. The southern tower as well was burning, flames snaking through the upper windows, the terrible smell of seared flesh on the air.
In the garden, Robert dragged Judyth, coughing, out of the path of a collapsing, burning vallenwood as the handiwork of a dozen gardeners withered in the dragonflame.
'Are… are you able to ride?' he shouted.
Judyth coughed, glanced at him bravely, and nodded.
'Then damn the garrison!' the old seneschal said. 'Follow me!' Lurching into the bailey, he crossed open ground through flame and billowing smoke, Judyth close behind him.
But the stable was burning, its doors kicked open by the panicked horses who had rushed away, whinnying and shrieking, into the churning smoke. Alone, Judyth and Robert stood in the middle of the bailey, the wooden booths and outbuildings collapsing around them, and the granite walls of Nidus crackling with unnatural heat.
The dragon wheeled then, guided by the sure hand of Verminaard, and swooped for one last pass over the castle. Judyth gasped as Ember's glittering golden eyes fixed her in their gaze, and there, at the last of moments, she clutched the old man beside her as the dragon bellowed and the flames surged forth. Robert thought of the druidess and closed his eyes as the fire rained down and engulfed them like the Cataclysm come again.
It will be as I promised, Lord Verminaard, the Voice soothed as dragon and dark cleric passed over the castle, bound for the Khalkist Mountains and the fertile lands to the west.
Ember swooped low over the abandoned Solamnic camp. Then the great beast banked in the dark sky and rose, higher and higher, until the snow-covered peaks lay faint and white below him, and Verminaard rode alone amid the icy air and the indifferent stars.
Alone, but for the Voice. For the Lady continued to beguile and coax and vow…
I promise you a thousand castles-the last lights of the west dwindling, guttering, consumed by the spreading dark. Above them, you will fly on the back of the dragon, its broad shoulders thick and striated with powerful muscles, the low, forgotten song of its heart beneath you. And all around you, there will be more… black and blue and green and red, in sweeping brilliant colors, glittering like moonlight on the blood-black mountains, the sky darkened by the sweep of dark wings…
And the path of their flight will cross over a desolate country, where only the dead walk, mouthing the names of dragons. And the men in the towers, surrounded and riddled by dragons, by the cries of the dying, the roar of the ravenous air, will await your unspeakable silence.
And with the night wind at his back and Nidus a dim flame on the eastern horizon, Verminaard abandoned himself to the Voice. He knew that the goddess breathed through him and that now he would engender destruction
