Captain Stillis was nowhere in sight, and the chamber was almost empty except for a knot of servants outside the kitchen entrance. Lady Sinital was still missing, and confusion now seeped into the void of her absence.

Circle Breaker looked one last time at the guests in the garden, then he made his way to the doors. As he passed a long table on which sat the remnants of pastries and puddings, he heard faint snoring. Another step forward brought him to the table's end and into view the small round man seated in a plush antique chair. The smeared cherub mask hid the man's face, but Circle Breaker could see the closed eyes, and the nasal drone that matched the rise and fall of his chest was loud and steady.

The guardsman hesitated. Then, shaking his head, he moved on.

Beyond the gates now within sight waited the streets of Darujhistan, and freedom. Now that he'd begun his first steps on that path, he would let nothing deter him.

I've done my part. just another nameless stranger who couldn't run from the face of tyranny. Dear Hood, take the man's shrivelled soul-his dreams are over, ended by an assassin's whim. As for my own soul, well, you shall have to wait a while longer.

He passed through the gates, welcoming at last the smile that came unbidden to his mouth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ravens! Great Ravens!

Your damning cawls deride histories sweeping beneath your blackened wings-

Shatter the day O flags of night, rend with shadows this innocent light Ravens! Great Ravens!

Your drumming clouds arrive swoop'd sudden sheer, hissing travails from no place t” the other-

Shatter the day, O flags of night, rend with shadows this innocent light Ravens! Great Ravens!

Your beaks clatter open disgorging the sweat of straining dismay the clack of bones promised this day-

I've seen the sheen of your eyes the laughter that rimes the living your passing but an illusion-

We stop, we stare we curse your cold winds in knowing your flight's path wheeling you round us again, oh, for ever again!

Ravens Collitt (b.978)

Raest had driven two of the black dragons from the battle.

ining two now circled high overhead while Silanah Redd down and out of sight beyond the hill. She was hurting, the Jaghut Tyrant knew, the power of her immense lifeforce bleeding away.

“And now,” he said, through tattered lips, “she will die.” Raest's flesh had been torn away, ravaged by the virulent power of the dragons, power that burst from their jaws like breath of fire. His brittle, yellowed bones were splintered, crushed and shattered. All that kept him upright and moving was his Omtose Phellack Warren.

Once the Finnest was in his hands, he would make his body anew, filling it with the vigour of health. And he was near his goal. One last ridge of hills and the city's walls would be visible, its fortifications all that stood between Raest and his greater powers.

The battle had laid waste to the hills, incinerating everything in the deadly clash of Warrens. And Raest had driven back the dragons. He'd listened to their cries of pain. Laughing, he'd flung dense clouds of earth and stone skyward to blind them. He ignited the air in the path of their flight. He filled clouds with fire. It was, he felt, good to be alive again.

As he walked, he continued to devastate the land around him. A single jerk of his head had shattered a stone bridge spanning a wide, shallow river. There had been a guardhouse there, and soldiers with iron weapons-odd creatures, taller than Imass, yet he sensed that they could be easily The rema Ungs spe enslaved. These particular men, however, he destroyed lest they distract him in his battle with the dragons. He'd met another man, similarly-clad and riding a horse. He killed both man and beast, irritated at their intrusion.

Wreathed in the crackling fire of his sorcery, Raest ascended the side of the hill behind which Silanah had disappeared minutes earlier.

Anticipating another ambush, the Jaghut Tyrant gathered his power, fists clenching. Yet he reached the crest unmolested. Had she fled? He craned skyward. No, the two black dragons remained, and between them a Great Raven.

Raest crossed the hill's summit and stopped when the valley beyond came into view. Silanah waited there, her red pebbled skin streaked with black, wet burns across her heaving chest. Wings folded, she watched him from her position at the base of the valley, where a stream wound a tortured cut through the earth, its lagged path choked with bramble.

The Jaghut Tyrant laughed harshly. Here she would die. The far side of the valley was a low ridge, and beyond, glowing in the darkness, was the city that held his Finnest. Raest paused at seeing it. Even the great Jaghut cities of the early times were dwarfed by comparison. And what of its strange blue and green light, fighting the darkness with such steady, unfaltering determination?