Galdar raised his head, looked into the amber eyes. “You are my commander, Mina,” he said. “I swear fealty to you and to no other.”
Mina touched his hand again. Her touch was painful, scalded his blood. He reveled in the sensation. The pain was welcome. For too long now, he’d felt the pain of an arm that wasn’t there.
“You will be my second in command, Galdar.” Mina turned the amber gaze upon the other Knights. “Will the rest of you follow me?”
Some of the men had been with Galdar when he had lost his arm, had seen the blood spurt from the shattered limb. Four of these men had held him down when the surgeon cut off his arm. They had heard his pleas for death, a death they’d refused to grant him, a death that he could not, in honor, grant himself.
These men looked at the new arm, saw Galdar holding a sword again. They had seen the girl walk through the murderous, unnatural storm, walk unscathed.
These men were in their thirties, some of them. Veterans of brutal wars and tough campaigns. It was all very well for Galdar to swear allegiance to this strange woman-child. She had made him whole. But for themselves. . .
Mina did not press them, she did not cajole or argue. She appeared to take their agreement for granted. Walking over to where the corpse of the talon leader lay on the ground beneath the monolith, the body partially wrapped in the tent, Mina picked up Magit’s breastplate. She looked at it, studied it, and then, sliding her arms through the straps, she put on the breastplate over her wet shirt. The breastplate was too big for her and heavy.
Galdar expected to see her bowed down under the weight.
He gaped to see instead the metal glow red, reform, mold itself to her slender body, embrace her like a lover.
The breastplate had been black with the image of a skull upon it. The armor had been hit by the lightning strike, apparently, though the damage the strike had done was exceedingly strange.
The skull adorning the breastplate was split in twain. A lightning bolt of steel sliced through it.
“This will be my standard,” said Mina, touching the skull.
She put on the rest of Magit’s accoutrements, sliding the bracers over her arms, buckling the shin guards over her legs. Each piece of armor glowed red when it touched her as if newly come from the forge. Each piece, when cooled, fit her as if it had been fashioned for her.
She lifted the helm, but did not put it on her head. She handed the helm to Galdar. “Hold that for me, Subcommander,” she said.
He received the helm proudly, reverently, as if it were an artifact for which he had quested all his life.
Mina knelt down beside the body of Ernst Magit. Lifting the dead, charred hand in her own, she bowed her head and began to pray.
None could hear her words, none could hear what she said or to whom she said it. The song of death keened among the stones.
The stars vanished, the moon disappeared. Darkness enveloped them. She prayed, her whispered words bringing comfort.
Mina arose from her prayers to find all the Knights on their knees before her. In the darkness, they could see nothing, not each other, not even themselves. They saw only her.
“You are my commander, Mina,” said one, gazing upon her as the starving gaze upon bread, the thirsty gaze upon cool water. “I pledge my life to you.”
“Not to me,” she said. “To the One God.”
“The One God!” Their voices lifted and were swept up in the song that was no longer frightening but was exalting, stirring, a call to arms. “Mina and the One God!”
The stars shone in the monoliths. The moonlight gleamed in the jagged lightning bolt of Mina’s armor. Thunder rumbled again, but this time it was not from the sky.
“The horses!” shouted one of the knights. “The horses have returned.”
Leading the horses was a steed the likes of which none of them had ever seen. Red as wine, red as blood, the horse left the others far behind. The horse came straight to Mina and nuzzled her, rested its head over her shoulder.
“I sent Foxfire for the mounts. We will have need of them,” said Mina, stroking the black mane of the blood-colored roan.
“We ride south this night and ride hard. We must be in Sanction in three days’ time.”
“Sanction!” Galdar gaped. “But, girl—I mean, Talon Leader—the Solamnics control Sanction! The city is under siege. Our posting is in Khur. Our orders—”
“We ride this night to Sanction,” said Mina. Her gaze turned southward and never looked back.
“But, why, Talon Leader?” Galdar asked.
“Because we are called,” Mina answered.
Chapter Two
Silvanoshei
The strange and unnatural storm laid siege to all of Ansalon. Lightning walked the land; gigantic, ground-shaking warriors who hurled bolts of fire. Ancient trees—huge oaks that had withstood both Cataclysms—burst into flame and were reduced to smoldering ruin in an instant. Whirlwinds raged behind the thundering warriors, ripping apart homes, flinging boards, brick, and stone and mortar into the air with lethal abandon. Torrential cloudbursts caused rivers to swell and overflow their banks, washing away the young green shoots of grain struggling up from the darkness to bask in the early summer sun.
In Sanction, besieger and besieged alike abandoned the ongoing struggle to seek refuge from the terrible storm. Ships on the high seas tried to ride it out, with the result that some went under, never to be seen or heard from again. Others would later limp home with jury-rigged masts, telling tales of sailors swept overboard, the pumps at work day and night.
In Palanthas, innumerable cracks appeared in the roof of the Great Library. The rain poured inside, sending Bertrem and the monks into a mad scramble to staunch the flow, mop the floor and move precious volumes to safety. In Tarsis, the rain was so heavy that the sea which had vanished during the Cataclysm returned, to the wonder and astonishment of all inhabitants. The sea was gone a few days later, leaving behind gasping fish and an ungodly smell.
The storm struck the island of Schallsea a particularly devastating blow. The winds blew out every single window in the Cozy Hearth. Ships that rode at anchor in the harbor were dashed against the cliffs or smashed into the docks. A tidal surge washed away many buildings and homes built near the shoreline. Countless people died, countless others were left homeless. Refugees stormed the Citadel of Light, pleading for the mystics to come to their aid.
The Citadel was a beacon of hope in Krynn’s dark night.
Trying to fill the void left by the absence of the gods, Goldmoon had discovered the mystical power of the heart, had brought healing back to the world. She was living proof that although Paladine and Mishakal were gone, their power for good lived on in the hearts of those who had loved them.
Yet Goldmoon was growing old. The memories of the gods were fading. And so, it seemed, was the power of the heart. One after another, the mystics felt their power recede, a tide that went out but never returned. Still the mystics of the Citadel were glad to open their doors and their hearts to the storm’s victims, provide shelter and succor, and work to heal the injured as best they could.
Solamnic Knights, who had established a fortress on Schallsea, rode forth to do battle with the storm—one of the most fearsome enemies these valiant Knights had ever faced. At risk of their own lives, the Knights plucked people from the raging water and dragged them from beneath smashed buildings, working in the wind and rain and lightning-shattered darkness to save the lives of those they were sworn by Oath and Measure to protect.
The Citadel of Light withstood the storm’s rage, although its buildings were buffeted by fierce winds and lancing rain. As if in a last ditch attempt to make its wrath felt, the storm hurled hailstones the size of a man’s head upon the citadel’s crystal walls.