The road was wide enough for some forty riders to charge abreast, so the mounted knights had formed six lines. Nearby stood hundreds of other troops, including swordsmen and axers, companies of militia bearing spears and shields, and several companies of longbowmen. The last-named had been armed with all of the feathered missiles remaining in the city arsenal. All the defenders were eager to avenge the terrible damage that had been inflicted on their city, and their comrades, in the previous days.
After months of siege and days of disaster, they were ready to strike back. To a man, these warriors understood that the coming battle must result in victory, or the city that they loved, that had sheltered their families and property, would be forever lost.
“But, Your Grace,” Harbor continued, lowering his voice and leaning closer to the slender young woman who had not yet spoken. “Surely you don’t need to lead the charge. Let my veteran knights take that responsibility, while you inspire us from the rear.”
“My lord,” she said, her stern tone softened by the warmth in her eyes. “I have watched too much of this battle-and this war-from the window of my lofty tower. Now I must lead, and I will wield my own steel in my city’s defense.”
Harbor tried to plead his case further until he realized with chagrin that the duchess was staring off without listening. He settled for quietly admonishing the nearby knights to look out for Brianna, on pain of their honor and their lives.
She sat high in the saddle of her black mare. Her copper-colored hair was unbound, trailing across her shoulders; Brianna had disdained a helmet because she decided it was important that she be seen and recognized. A small shield was strapped to her left arm, and a slender-bladed sword-more of a rapier-nestled in a scabbard at her belt.
Now the duchess drew that blade with a flourish and held it over her head. Her mare shivered restlessly, and she heard the snorting and stomping of the other horses as they, too, stirred under their riders now on alert, feeling the imminence of battle.
“Warriors of Solanthus!” she cried, her voice clear and strong. “Today is the day we reclaim our city! Follow your captains! The time has come! Acquit your honor!”
She pressed her knees together, and the big horse started forward, the knights abreast to either side of her advancing slowly at first, down the Duke’s Avenue. Brianna rode in the middle of the front rank, between a pair of large Sword Knights, who flanked her protectively. She didn’t glance at them or behind her, but rode easily for a short distance before kicking her mare and increasing to a trot. The ranks of knights kept pace.
They came to the place in the avenue where scores of ogres lay dead, many of them mangled or crushed by the elemental king. Again Brianna spurred her mount and the mare broke into a canter with the rest of the line sweeping forward to match her speed. Surging now, the men and horses thundered toward the enemy. The columns of Solanthian infantry ran hard to keep as close as possible to the mounted knights.
But the galloping horses pulled ahead. The wind blew Brianna’s coppery hair back in a shimmering plume. The noise of the pounding hooves echoed and reverberated from the surrounding buildings. Dust billowed, smoke swirled, and the noise swelled.
Brianna felt a thrill she had never known before, a sense of fate and inevitability, as if all the experiences she had undergone in her life, all of her choices-including her marriage to the duke who had proved a scoundrel-had conspired to lead her to this, the realization of her destiny.
The first rank of knights drew close to the great plaza, where thousands of Ankhar’s troops had collected. These goblins and hobs, ogres and humans-including many who had recently witnessed and survived the rampage of the giant elemental-were in disorder. Units were scattered; captains tried to reassemble their troops.
And none had been posted as sentries to watch the approaches.
The smoke swirled across the avenue, parting enough for some weary goblins to catch a glimpse of the approaching army. They shrieked a warning and turned to run. Others of Ankhar’s troops looked up, hastily raising arms, trying to discern the cause of the alarm. But none of the enemy units was formed or prepared to receive the charge of armored knights bearing lances.
Brianna felt a surge of transcendent emotion as the riders burst into the plaza. She had never killed in battle before, but now she felt an almost frantic urge to skewer the flesh of an enemy with her steel. A dozen goblins were scrabbling on their hands and knees right before her. They scrambled to get out of the way, but every one was pierced by a knight’s lance or crushed under the hooves of a charger before they could flee.
The attacking knights spread out, the first rank riding ahead. Brianna’s blade finally drank deep of blood as she slashed a burly shoulder-but the momentum of her racing horse drove the blade so deep the weapon was almost pulled from her hand.
The city’s infantry spilled into the plaza. They attacked with swords and axes, pikes and spears, and they exploded from all the smaller streets and alleys connecting the plaza to the rest of the city. Trumpets blared, blown by heralds on their light, fleet horses.
The lofty giant, its head still surrounded with oily smoke from its flaming eyes, was busy stalking across the plain outside the city. With vengeful purpose, it tore through the trenches and approach routes the ogres had so carefully excavated in the ruined gatehouse, smashing down great walls of stone, filling the entrenchments with muddy water. Breaking onto the plain, the elemental king reached Ankhar’s observation tower and crushed it flat with a single stomp of its massive leg. Its purposeful advance never hesitated, and soon it neared the headquarters camp of the half-giant’s army.
Brianna saw Jaymes, equally purposeful amidst the chaos. He had his sword in his hands now. He and the kender fought side by side, hacking and slaying at the head of a company of Solanthian footmen. The lord marshal’s eyes met the duchess’s, and he raised the weapon in a salute then dropped it to cut down a roaring ogre that the humans had surrounded and trapped.
Fighting raged around other pockets of resistance across the plaza, but there was only sporadic opposition as the Solanthians swiftly cut down every invader who didn’t have the sense to turn and retreat. Regardless, many managed to escape, crawling through the chaotic wreckage left in the elemental’s wake, scrambling for survival in panic.
Outside the ruined city wall, a few goblins raised their bows and fired volleys of arrows at the citizen army. Their missiles soared overhead and showered down on the plaza, but the volleys were not dense enough to slow the counterattack.
Ankhar’s troops were driven from the city, with all semblance of resistance shattered.
That Battle for Solanthus was won.
“Put the damned box together-now!” roared Ankhar. “Remember, old mother, Est Sudanus oth Nikkas! My power is my Truth!”
And the Truth, he could see with his own eyes, was that he was going to die very soon if they could not find a way to control the raging, uncontrolled elemental king.
It had burst out of the city, wiping out the tower and breastworks that had been constructed at such effort. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Ankhar’s warriors had perished in the storm of its passage. The half-giant looked down at the little chip of wood in his hand, Hoarst’s wand, which he had lashed together with a leather thong. Surely the wand was useless.
Ankhar wished most fervently that he could become a dormouse or a bat or some other creature that could hide or beat a hasty retreat. But it was not to be, for even now the elemental king advanced toward the half-giant with great, determined strides.
“It is nearly ready,” said his stepmother with maddening calmness.
She knelt on the ground, carefully affixing the rubies to the outside of the tiny container. They were not attached with any adhesive; she had popped each stone into her mouth and murmured a prayer to the Prince of Lies as she held it against the flat surface. Each time she removed her hand, the stone stayed in place-until the last, when, simultaneously, four or five of the ruby chits had fallen at once.