The enemy continued to advance until they reached the plaza, and by now the lords were twenty paces ahead of the enthralled warriors behind them, most wearing studded leather or chainmail. They bore an insignia of Minari, if anything, but a few showed signs of being from Gisla, a mixed mob of threats. Matt flicked a glance at Jolian, her massive red bulk crouched down by a building and wall out of view to one side. The lords reached her position and strode into the plaza and past the wall she hid behind. A few seconds later, just as the warriors came near, she rose, a blast of flames roaring toward the Lords of Fear, who whirled at the sound. The sorcerer Garian raised one hand and Matt saw the flames strike an invisible wall. Jolian seemed to sense it, too, for she turned to aim the blast at the ground between them and the warriors, who stopped and pushed back into the crowd, the sheer mass of them inhibiting their escape. The dragon could have roasted all of them alive if she had wanted to, but she let the flames die.
“Welcome to Ortham!” shouted Eric, and the lords half-turned to them. “Your fight lies with us.”
The sorcerer, Lord Garian, seemed to consider that and Jolian, who glared down at him but made no move to attack again. When Matt saw the sorcerer move toward them first and the others follow, he knew which one led them. They advanced until twenty paces away. Behind them, the warriors appeared to advance again until another spout of flames changed their minds, but one ran forward before slowing to a walk, Jolian letting him go but glaring at the others not to try it. So far, this was working as intended. He noticed the necromancer’s lips moving and wondered what he was doing. He could now get a much better look at them.
Lord Garion was young and wore a haughty sneer that ruined his otherwise handsome face, a neatly trimmed blond mustache and goatee adding refinement to his oval face. Green eyes glittered with intelligence and power lust, maybe a kind of eagerness that made him seem a little unhinged, dangerous, and unpredictable. Until the sorcerer smiled at him, Matt hadn’t realized a grin could be so malevolent. Instinct told him to look away as if bored and unimpressed, so he did.
Matt’s eyes fell on Lord Voth, who didn’t look the least bit like undead, but then he had died by being encased in dragon ice that preserved him until the necromancer awoke him. If someone hadn’t told Matt that Lord Voth was undead, he might never have known, and yet a sense of foreboding lurked in that direction. The knight’s eyes were black and flat as if truly devoid of life, and he stood coldly surveying those before him without the passion Garian showed. He had trimmed close a black beard on his square jaw. Someone had broken his nose, which poorly healed judging by the crook in it. Only now did Matt notice the frost along the edges of Lord Voth’s armor near his white skin. The symbol of Aranor, Soliander’s home world, adorned the chest plate.
Movement drew his eye to the assassin Kori, whose beauty would make any man stare. Did she use it to kill them? Many a man might stare helplessly until she plunged a knife into them. Large hazel eyes, an upturned nose, and full lips would mesmerize, the depth of her gaze riveting for the mystery it promised within. It might even draw attention away from a sexy figure that her attire only accentuated. For someone dressed to kill, she had still painted her fingernails blood red, neatly bound her hair with a lace tie, and applied makeup. He wondered if she poisoned her ruby lips for a kiss of death, and he knew that he only saw the menace of her because she wanted him to, not because she couldn’t hide it with ease. This was the most dangerous woman he had ever seen.
And beside her stood a man who spoke with the dead, raised them, and had their allegiance. Aeron’s deep set, pale blue eyes shone from a black face that he had ritually scarred using something circular and hot and the size of a pencil, curving patterns of welts on his face and hands and rising over his bald head. They stole any charisma that his round face might have given, and when he blinked, Matt saw his eyelids had eyes drawn on them in white and blue. Did it help him see into the underworld? What role did the scars play? Similar designs on the tunic were now close enough to be seen but still not understood. And Matt didn’t want to know.
“Are you wondering what happened to Novir?” Eric taunted them, breaking Matt’s thoughts.
For an answer, Kori threw a knife toward him with a flick of her wrist and the rogue barely dodged it. She was as fast as him, Matt saw, remembering her blades were poisoned. She cast a brief glance at the lone enthralled warrior who had reached them, hanging back.
“I’ll tell you anyway,” offered Eric. “We fed him to trolls, just like we’re going to feed you to the dragon.”
The sorcerer remarked, “I see you are short two dragons from when you started. Pity. But no more of you shall fall, by our lord’s order. We will ensnare your feeble minds for him after we amuse ourselves with you.”
Matt nodded to himself. So it was a trap to ensnare the Ellorian Champions. As if they didn’t have enough to worry about,
