"Where will we go?" yelled someone from the audience.
"West," the Bey declared. "We shall try the Lowroad. The underground route will have perils of its own, but the dwarves have always been our friends, and they will shelter and protect us, if we prove ourselves to them. Already they have agreed to give us sanctuary in Ascore, and from there we shall proceed west across the North kingdom, searching for some unclaimed land to make our own. The road will be hard and treacherous, and our enemies will be many. We face even more than orcs and bandits-our leader Shaquintar kept many creatures magically caged for his experiments, creatures freed by Karsus's spell. The most powerful of them, the demon Zukothoth, desires revenge, and he has rallied some of the others to this goal."
"But the tyrant Shaquintar is dead!" came the protests. "And we did not take part in these experiments!"
"It matters not to Zukothoth. He blames the folk of Runlatha. He is another reason that we must move, and quickly. Perhaps we will be able to slip away under his notice."
Not likely, thought Geildarr. He knew that the Bey would eventually go down fighting Zukothoth on the western border of Delzoun.
"Damn Shaquintar to Moander's stinking pit," someone in the audience yelled. "He is dead and gone, yet he will still bring ruin upon us."
"Perhaps he will save us yet. I scavenged the ruins of his manse, destroyed in the fall, and learned that not all of the magic of old has failed."
The dream spun again, and Geildarr was standing at the front of the room, watching as the Bey picked up a small wooden box and opened it. The Bey's stony face was bathed in red light as he plucked free the glowing artifact and held it high for all to see.
"It has survived!" a nearby arcanist cried. "I didn't believe it possible."
"Yes, believe it," said the Bey. "Those of you outside the Arcanist's Guild may not have been aware of the purposes of Shaquintar's experiments. Cruel-hearted tyrant that he was, in his way he loved Runlatha and all who lived here. He wanted to keep us safe, and sensing all this inevitable turmoil, he looked for ways to hide Runlatha from trouble. Shaquintar was not so different from Lord Shadow, but on a more modest scale, tormenting creatures good and evil to achieve his goals. It is said that the beating heart of an angelic planetar was used to create this artifact."
A collective gasp came from the audience at this revelation.
"Shaquintar called it the Heart of Runlatha. It was to be one of several artifacts. The others were meant to move the city to some far-off place. Either he did not create them or they were lost in the death of magic. I do not know how to use this artifact. Our surviving arcanists must try to unlock its secrets. Perhaps when we find a scrap of ground to call our own, it will help us conceal it from the world."
A cry of joy arose from the crowd. The Bey had given them hope. Geildarr admired the Bey's ambitions, but wondered if he ever really thought that they would find a peaceful home somewhere in the North, hidden by illusion. Little did the Runlathans know that they would be scattered and ruined, falling into barbarity and tribalism. All memories, and very nearly all traces of their civilization, would vanish from them, and they would become the Uthgardt.
Naive, perhaps. Or maybe not-maybe the Bey knew real success was unlikely, but he kept up this fantasy for the sake of his followers. If nothing else, he would achieve a legacy. Some sixteen hundred years later, his name, or a form of it-whether Berun or Beorunna-would be remembered. He wondered if the name Geildarr, or even Fzoul or Sememmon, would last a fraction of that time.
"Now we must leave Runlatha behind," the Bey told his followers. "We must renounce all claims on it, so that our own hearts do not remain here in the ruins but travel with us on the Lowroad and beyond, to wherever the wind might carry us. Let the orcs pick its bones. Let the desert rise and swallow it up. It means nothing to us any longer. Cities fall, empires perish. It has happened before, and it will surely happen again. But we shall outlast the death of our empire."
An inexplicable anxiety rose up in Geildarr's breast, the way it sometimes did in his dreams. He reached out to grab the Heart of Runlatha away from the Bey of Runlatha, and as his hand made contact with the artifact, he woke.
There, trembling in his own opulent bed, the sheets damp with his sweat, he heard the sound of distant footsteps.
With slow, powerful steps, six behemoths walked toward Llorkh. Long serpentine necks bobbed with each footfall. Their steps were synchronized like those of an army marching in time, so that each heavy step sounded like the beat of a great war drum, sending reverberations across the plains. The walls of Llorkh trembled at their approach.
Clavel and the other watchmen atop the city walls stared in disbelief as the brown-skinned lizards came closer. They seemed larger than those Geildarr kept imprisoned in the Central Square. To shocked onlookers, they appeared like vast hills of scale, juggernauts of destruction.
The behemoths followed the wide road, the Dawn Pass Trail, continuing along the same path many thousands of merchant caravans had followed. They marched directly to the west gate of Llorkh: the largest gap in the walls but also the best-defended section. The Lord's Men manning the checkpoint outside wisely retreated within the city walls.
"Archers," Clavel croaked, trying to overcome his own astonishment. He barked to his fellows, "Archers! Fetch the archers!"
"How many archers?" a Lord's Man asked.
"As many as we have!" Clavel cried. "Quickly-wake the barracks! Wake the city!" In the Year of Wild Magic, Llorkh had withstood an attack from hundreds of foes, but could it survive an assault from only six?
Vell walked ahead of the other five, watching purple-clad soldiers, small as beetles, scramble on the city walls. Before long, several dozen archers amassed around the west gate. In all the chaos and confusion, they failed to notice a giant hawk sailing over the unguarded southern walls.
What was this like for the others? Vell wondered. Did they keep their minds the way he did, or were they now the rampaging beast he had been when he killed that Zhentarim skymage outside the camp? With no way to communicate with them, he could only hope they would follow his lead.
The city gates grew closer, and so did the archers defending them. Some of them lit their arrows ablaze, as if it would make a difference.
I've never been in a city before, Vell thought, though he had always been faintly curious about life inside them. Some of the merchants who had visited Grunwald when he was a child told him stories about these faraway places with mysterious names. As near as Silverymoon, or as far as Calimport, they were all the same to him-so far outside of his experience that Vell knew he would never come near them.
A few arrows flew from the top of the wall. The archers were firing too early and the missiles fell short, striking the road in the behemoths' path.
Vell thought, I never considered entering a city in this way.
The Mayor of Llorkh paced his residence, the Heart of Runlatha still held in his right hand. All of his ancient treasures, hanging on his walls or placed on pedestals, trembled with the vibrations shaking the city.
Ardeth appeared from her door on cue, as she always did. He did not need to summon her. She always seemed to know when to appear.
"I sense Sememmon behind this, Cyric take him," cursed Geildarr.
"Really?" asked Ardeth. "You think Sememmon sent these behemoths to destroy Llorkh?"