sides screaming or plunging into the morass of the fallow fields surrounding the
estate. One horse, he couldn’t tell which, shrieked louder than the rest- a
broken leg most likely. Walegrin felt a rising tide of panic only marginally
related to the dull roar in his skull.
Strat heeled the bay horse around as if it were a sunny day on the parade
ground, then launched it at the only stand of trees in sight. Walegrin watched
the bobbing lantern for a few moments before it disappeared.
“Move in. We haven’t been hit yet,” he yelled to the garrison men who, like
himself, held the strange green-cast steel of Enlibar in their fists and were
somewhat insulated from whatever assaulted them. “Well, do something, Randal!”
he added for the benefit of the mage who had vanished back into the darkness.
“Use that bloody ball of yours!”
As abruptly as it had begun, the droning ceased. Except for the one in the
field, the horses quieted and got back to their feet. One of the men slogged
through the mud groping for a torch, but Walegrin called him back to the circle.
“It’s not over,” he warned in a soft voice. “Randal?”
He crouched down by the window, expecting to see the freckled mage bathed in the
glow of his magic. Instead he walloped his chin on Randal’s helmet.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something with that globe? Raising some sort of defense
for us?”
“I don’t have the globe,” the mage admitted slowly. “We never intended to move
it or the Stormchildren. Sorry. But there’s no one out there, no one watching us
in any way.”