Lost and alone, disheartened by failure and wanting only to go home, Thomas Gown and his companions face the darkest hour of their lives when they stumble across a remnant of the once mighty Agglemonian Empire. There they make a stunning discovery t...
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The wizard Lamaniss picked his way carefully across the rubble strewn streets of Fort Battleaxe. On either side if him stood the ruined shells of buildings that had, just a few weeks before, been filled with ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, complaining about various woes and imagined Injustices that must seem utterly trivial to them now if they were still alive. Some of the buildings were still smouldering, but the lull in the fighting had allowed most of the fires to be put out. It was almost possible to imagine that the war was over, that the long task of rebuilding could begin, but to Lamaniss, who knew the reason the enemy had ceased their attack, every blackened timber was a reminder of what was to come. A horror beside which everything that had happened so far was nothing more than a brief prequel.
Arriving at what had until recently been the Fort Battleaxe branch of the Imperial Bank of Belthar, he saw that the line of refugees queuing up to enter had shrunk to just a couple of hundred, waiting their turn to use the teleportation chamber in its basement to escape to safety. Lamaniss squeezed past them and into what had been the manager’s office where another wizard, Catavolcus, had a glowing globe of crystal in his hands, his eyes closed in intense concentration. He gave a jump of alarm as Lamaniss put a hand on his shoulder. “Greg! Gods, you almost gave me a heart attack!”
Lamaniss smiled wearily and reached out to take the globe from him. “I’ll take over, Del. You look bushed.”
“This thing’s almost finished anyway. Another half hour I reckon, then anyone left in the city has to get out the old fashioned way.”
Lamaniss nodded. The enemy had surrounded the city with a barrier of magic in an attempt to prevent the defenders from being resupplied and reinforced by teleportation, and it also prevented the city’s civilians and auxiliaries from being sent to safety. The globe punched a hole through that interference, allowing the teleportation chamber formerly owned by the Fellowship of the Golden Griffin to send people to the island of Pargonn without them arriving with their guts on the outside. It had never been Intended to be used this long without the spells that animated it being renewed, though, and Lamaniss saw a delicate cobweb of tiny, hairline cracks all across its surface telling him that it could shatter at any moment. Every second it survived meant more civilians escaping the fall of the city, though, and so he squinted his eyes and concentrated on feeding his body’s magic force into it, forcing it to operate a little while longer.
“How’d it go out there?” asked Catavolcus, dreading the answer.
His fear was confirmed when the other wizard just shook his head slowly. “I’ve already told Vento,” he said. “They’re making preparations now. You know, I never really thought it would come to this. Not really. I mean, I knew it in my head. You know?”
Catavolcus nodded. “It’s basic human nature to cling to hope, no matter what the hard facts may be. You and I will get out, the Gods willing, and we’ll make them pay. We’ll make them pay with interest!”
