The Al'mud attacked Fort Drakness the next day.

  It began with Rollaug, at the front of his army, pounding his chest and shouting out a series of challenges to the defenders. "What's this about?" Sir Estil asked Arai, watching the show from the battlements.

  "Some kind of Al'mud tradition. They begin every battle with these ritual challenges. Rollaug is demanding we send our leader out of the fort, to face him in single combat. And now he's calling us cowards, for refusing his challenge."

  Sir Estil's mustache twitched thoughtfully. "Hmm."

  It wasn't much of an attack, in the end, just a minor sortie intended to probe the fort's defenses, and Grizz and the Steelmen had little trouble repelling it with archers and boiling oil. The Al'mud were ferocious fighters, however, and their screaming war-cries were unsettling to those who had never heard them before.

  "Well, that was easy enough," Arai commented in the late afternoon, when it was all over.

  "Easy enough," Grizz agreed, his face grave, "but there's ten thousand more where they came from. If they had decided to attack in force..."

  "We only need to hold them off until Lill--" He caught himself. "Until Leila unlocks the Nightfall. We'll have an army of monsters at our command then."

  "I hope you're right." He made a face. "Feri doesn't trust this sorceress of yours."

  Arai tensed. Had Feri told Grizz of her suspicions? He kicked himself for nearly slipping up and saying Lillandra's name; this had been happening much too often lately.

  "Oh?"

  "Sorcerers have some way of gauging one another's strength," he said, "and Feri says this Leila is the most powerful sorceress she's ever seen."

  "She is extremely powerful," Arai said guardedly.

  "She says her strength might equal that of the Night Queen's."

  "It's possible," he said, growing even more tense.

  He said nothing for a long moment, then asked, "Is the Night Queen truly dead?"

  "Yes," he said immediately. "I told you she was. Don't you trust me?"

  "I trust you," he said. "I don't trust her. That's partly an old prejudice of mine; I've never been all that fond of mages. I even keep Feri at arm's length. They're useful on the battlefield, and I have no fear of their fire-spells, but if she wants to, a mage can listen in on your private conversations, erase your memories, even control your thoughts." He paused and gave Arai a meaningful look. "I hope nothing like that is happening here."

  "Leila's not like that," Arai said. "She's on our side."

  "I hope so," he muttered. "For all our sakes."

  * * *

  The Al'mud attacked again the following day, in greater numbers, and dispatched some of their forces around the valley to attack Hammer's Castle as well. This attack was more difficult for the beleaguered Steelmen and their allies to hold off, and though there was little fighting on the ground, they lost several men to arrows and wizard's whiskers. The fact that they were even employing wizard's whiskers was an unusual development; Arai was familiar with the Al'mud way of war, and he had never heard of them using these sorcerous weapons. It seemed like a bad sign.

  Grizz agreed. "They used magic at Harbor Town, too," he noted. "There are some mages among them, it seems."

  The most powerful mage, however, was obviously the shaman, Allugog, who could frequently be seen parading around in front of Fort Drakness, chanting sing-song slogans in the Al'mud language. Having been enchanted by the Stone of Many Tongues, Arai actually understood these chants; they were paeans to blood and victory and to their leader, Rollaug.

  They saw Rollaug on the battlefield, too. He was a huge man, over seven feet tall, with a wild red mane. He carried a great wooden shield and a broadsword that was almost as tall as he was, and his face was covered in black-and-white grease paint that made it look like a living skull. His war-cries were louder than any of the other Al'mud warriors, and though he was ostensibly the leader of this horde, he was an active participant in the campaign, personally leading his men into battle. The native Velonese soldiers were terrified of him, and even the Steelmen, who had plenty of experience battling the Al'mud, found his size and savagery a little unsettling.

  The attack ended late in the day, but started up again the next morning. As before, the Al'mud made little progress, but the constant attacks, and the apparent hopelessness of the situation, were now beginning to wear on the defenders.

  Grizz assembled his lieutenants at Fort Drakness that evening, including Kel, Feri, and Vaix. "I've just received some bad news," he said. "It's not surprising, I suppose, but it is disappointing. Duke Cyrille has agreed to allow Dayan passage through his country. Neither of the Cyrilles, nor Grimcourt, intend to offer him any resistance. In a few days the Holy Legion will have arrived at the banks of the Tuv."

  "Wonderful," Kel sighed. "Any word from the Baron of Tot?"

  "He hasn't replied," Grizz said. "His forces are beginning to gather at Moes Depths, according to our intelligence, but his intentions are not known to us. He may be planning to resist Dayan on his own; he may be looking forward to a fight with the Al'mud himself. The barbarians aren't just a Velonese problem, after all; Tot and Typhon have had their own troubles with them, and this Allugog has them all riled up, from the Hardways all the way to Fool's Purchase."

  "Could there be a way of turning these armies against each other?" Vaix asked. "If we could pit the Holy Legion against the Al'mud..."

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  "One side would destroy the other," Arai said, "and the winner would take Velon. That's no solution."

  "Better to be conquered by the Holy Legion than by the Al'mud," Wick, the Velonese soldier, muttered bitterly. "At least we can negotiate with the Holy Empire. The Al'mud simply want to kill us, to steal our lands and run off with our wives."

  "We don't know what Dayan's plans are for Velon," Arai countered. "There's something very strange about all this. Why is Dayan -- and Bellarue -- so intent on taking Velon in the first place? He still has enemies in the Marquisates, and he's given the Trustees more than enough time to regroup. It doesn't make sense for him to have turned his back on these threats, to come to Velon, of all places."

  "What do you think they want?" Kel asked.

  "I don't know," Arai said. "But it's something more than just conquest."

  Grizz changed the subject: "How are the new fortifications at the Graile coming along?" he asked Kel. The Graile was a small castle situated in the valley between Fort Drakness and Hammersvik; it would be the city's last line of defense in the event either Fort Drakness or Hammer's Castle fell to the Al'mud.

  "Not much has changed since we left it two years ago," he said. "But I still don't have enough men. If we can't..." He trailed off suddenly, because the ominous chanting of the Al'mud had just started up again, and it was so loud that they could hear it from inside the fort. Allugog usually only led these chants immediately before an attack, which meant another assault was probably underway.

  Grizz ended the meeting, and the group went up to the battlements to see what was going on. They found Allugog and his disciples chanting, as they had expected -- about a hundred men, walking single-file in the vanguard of Rollaug's armies. After a few minutes of this, Allugog -- who could be identified by his helmet, which had been made out of a boar's skull -- stopped, lowered his arms, and approached the foot of Fort Drakness alone, while behind him his supporters continued to chant. The Steelmen launched a few arrows at him, which fell wide of their mark; either the man was wearing a Badge of Deflection or these archers were very poor shots. The shaman was not bothered by the arrows in any case; he seemed oblivious to them.

  The chanting reached a crescendo, then stopped. "Something's about to happen," Feri muttered.

  Allugog then raised his right arm. There seemed to be something in his hand, but he was too far away for Arai to make out what it was. "That's a zemi," Feri said. "I can't see its spell from here, but..."

  Then, suddenly, they heard screaming coming from the northern side of the battlements. Arai turned, and saw, to his astonishment, that the entire side of the fort was now burning. A tornado of strange black flames, blazing hundreds of feet into the air, was sweeping over the stone crenellations, burning the stone itself, incinerating everything in sight.

  "That's the Black Maelstrom," Feri exclaimed. "Everyone, run!"

  Arai ought not to have had any fear -- Silus protected him from these kinds of magics -- but this huge, unnatural curtain of black flame was enough to unnerve even him, and he followed Grizz and the others off the battlements and back into the fort. Above, the flames tore through the stone and brick of the fort; Arai could feel the intensity of its heat even from within.

  "What kind of magic is that?" Grizz demanded of Feri, as they ran down the steps.

  "The Black Maelstrom," she said. "It's related to the Burning Maelstrom. I saw Gravis Blackfinger cast it outside of Holybell, once, when I was young; he used it to wipe out an entire regiment. It's hard to calculate, but it's very effective. It burns everything, even stone and metal."

  "Must be the spell he used against Harbor Town," Grizz muttered. "But where the hell did an Al'mud shaman learn a spell like that?"

  "He was using a zemi," Arai said. "He could've picked it up anywhere."

  "Damn it," Grizz growled. "How can we protect ourselves from it?"

  "There's not much I can do," Feri said. "But that was the biggest damn Maelstrom I've ever seen. That one blast may have used up all the magia in his zemi."

  "We don't know that."

  They were starting to hear Al'mud battle cries now, over the rush of flame; the barbarians had gone on the offensive. "Your orders?" Vaix asked Grizz.

  He only took a moment to consider. "Send Bastion and some of the Velonese troops up there to slow down the Al'mud," he said. "The rest of us will retreat to the Bard's Tower for now. Feri, I want you to get some of your wizard's whiskers ready, and I want thirty archers up on that tower with you. We'll rain death on 'em as soon they start climbing up. Kel! Get back to the Graile. We're going to need it restocked and resupplied before this is all over."

  Kel, Feri, and everyone else nodded and went on their way. "I'd like to go with Bastion," Arai volunteered.

  "Are you sure?" Grizz asked.

  He drew his sword. "I'm sure."

  "Very well. Stay safe." And with that, they rushed back into the fort, on their way to the Bard's Tower, while Arai, Bastion, and a small contingent of Velonese soldiers returned to the battlements to confront the Al'mud, who were even now climbing up a set of ladders. The weird, unquenchable flames of the Black Maelstrom still burned, mostly on the northern side of the fort, but here and there on the southern side as well; the air smelled like charcoal.

  Arai was accompanied by perhaps thirty men, including Bastion, who was an old friend he had known for most of his life. They immediately set to work -- pushing over ladders, firing arrows into the Al'mud ranks, and doing their best to avoid the still-burning flames. It was hard, hot work; Arai was soon sweating under his armor.

  The Al'mud were relentless, however, and some of them eventually managed to make it to the battlements. They were terrifying enemies, with their painted faces, bone-helms, war-axes, and constant ululating, but very few of them had any kind of training; their strategy was to rush in and flail at their opponents as though as they were chopping wood. Arai cut down one man, and then another, with the Crashing Waves, slashing through their midst without even pausing to see what kind of wounds he might have inflicted.

  "Just like old times," Bastion said, coming up to join him, and for a few moments they fought back to back, before being separated again by the rolling battle.

  Arai was struck in the back by an Al'mud hatchet, but his armor protected him from the worst of it; he whirled around, cutting off the hand of his attacker, then ducked as another man came rushing in, swinging a sword over his head. He rolled away, jumped to his feet, and parried another sword-swing, but he was surrounded by three men now and he couldn't hold them off.

  A big Velonese soldier came to his rescue, using a mace to shatter the bone-helm of one of his attackers and kicking another off the battlements entirely; Arai cut the leg out from beneath the third man. He would have liked to have thanked the big soldier for his help, but there was no time for it -- more Al'mud were finding their way onto the battlements. All around was action -- men fighting, dying, screaming; swords hammering against shields; and below, the ominous chanting of Allugog and his disciples.

  Fewer and fewer Al'mud were reaching the battlements now, however; their long ladders were flimsy and several of them, crowded with warriors, actually broke as they attempted to scale the walls, sending dozens of men falling to their deaths. The tide was slowly beginning to turn.

  But then Allugog raised his arm, and the Black Maelstrom burst to life once again, its black flames roiling over the battlements, near where Arai was fighting. Arai himself was unaffected, but several of the Steelmen were instantly burned to death, and dozens of others were forced to retreat. He suddenly found himself alone on the battlements, surrounded by flames and blackened bodies.

  By now another group of Al'mud had managed to throw themselves over the walls, on the southern side. Arai, clutching Silus, got to his feet and grimly set forth, intending to bring the battle to them. But then he paused, because, through the smoke and flames, a singular figure had just emerged -- tall, heavily muscled, and carrying an enormous broadsword. His face was covered in greasy black-and-white paint, and he was hollering like a madman.

  Rollaug.