And everything Chandyr had learned of the elven warriors through his long days of observation on the city walls told him that these were natural-born hunters and frighteningly skilled with bow, sword and those deadly curved throwing blades. More, they were equally at home fighting night or day and he couldn't believe they wouldn't try to disrupt the Xeteskian march.

Interesting. He could send his cavalry out to tackle Izack but he wasn't convinced they would prevail despite their superior numbers. Izack was a star pupil of Darrick's. And succeed or fail, having no horse guard left his own flanks exposed for a greater or lesser time to attack from elves.

He could push on, marching into the night and resting only sporadically but his men would tire and they had a fight ahead of them, whatever his strike groups' successes against the disparate pockets of resistance. And moving at night, without the capacity for a fixed perimeter guard and internal fire ring, the elves would rip them to pieces at will.

Chandyr could detach more of his core fighting force to sweep north and push back Izack but again, the Lysternan commander was too clever to be sucked into a combat that would leave him open to attack from horse, mage or familiar.

What would Darrick do? Actually, it was obvious. He was doing most of it already and that pleased him. He would keep harrying the enemies he found, keep them and their comrades on their toes, with their nerves jangling and their bellies empty for want of the hunt. He could destroy much of what was left because he had them running scared. He would let the elves go. He couldn't stop them getting to Julatsa ahead of him and they were better off the field in any case.

But the critical thing Chandyr considered was this. He knew a good deal about what he chased but nothing about what lay in

Julatsa. They had mages, they had soldiers, they had militia. Not many, he knew that, but some nonetheless. It was not going to be an easy fight and he would need every man and mage at his disposal to quell the populace and reach the college with enough strength to tear it down.

Yet even as he nodded to himself and let the finer points of his march strategy coalesce, Chandyr was sure he had missed something. Left out a factor that might turn the tide against him. It nagged at him but he couldn't pin it down. Was it as simple as he thought? Darrick had always lectured that the straightforward tactic should always be the first considered because it was less likely to fail in the face of the enemy.

And he'd picked the straightforward, hadn't he?

He remembered something else that the general had said to him personally after a lecture at Triverne Lake a few years back. It made him laugh suddenly and heads turned towards him. He waved that he was fine and the heads turned away.

What history has told us, Darrick had said that time, is that battle theory is best left on the table in the castle, three hundred miles from the fight. Because what you need most is a nose for that thing you forgot. And when you smell it, you'd better pray to the Gods you can communicate it before whatever it is comes at you from downwind and slits your throat.

Chandyr sniffed the air. Dusk was coming and it was going to rain again.

And now Pheone had lost contact with her deputation to the elven lines outside Xetesk. Just at the time she had thought them on the verge of being saved and feeling joy despite her grief and another mana-flow failure. The elves had recovered what they wanted from Xetesk and were preparing to come north.

Everything had finally seemed to be coming together. She had been giving the good news to every mage in the college when another Communion had come through. She had recognised the signature and accepted it immediately. In less than two hours, the whole situation had changed. Xetesk was coming, the elves were running ahead of them, the allied defence was smashed and no one knew who would get to Julatsa first.

The Communion had ended abruptly and she had not been able to raise it again though every mage had lent their strength to the signal. They were lost, they had to be.

So now she stood, as she had so often in the past days, gazing down into the pit containing the Heart, her thoughts chasing around her head, settling nowhere.

'You know why it's fading, don't you?' said a voice near her.

She turned. It was Geren, a mage she had distrusted when he had appeared, a dishevelled, stinking wreck, from the Balan Mountains something like a year ago but who now represented much of the will to survive that they still retained. He was a young and energetic man. Not a great mage but willing.

'No I don't, why?' she asked, biting back on her frustration.

Geren scraped some lank black hair from his face, pushed it back behind his ears and scratched his nose.

'It's because we are so few.'

'What?'

'Think about it,' said Geren. 'This shadow appeared and deepened at the same time the Elfsorrow was killing the elves. Think how many mages died, lapsed or not, during the plague. It weakened the whole order. And every day since they arrived here, the survivors have been whittled away. More and more Julatsan mages dying. Remember how it deepened more after the first mana-flow failure? I reckon that's because of the elven mages who died in the Xeteskian barrage that followed it.'

‘Idon't understand what you're saying,' said Pheone.

'I'm saying it isn't a one-way flow. I'm saying I think that every Julatsan mage alive feeds power back into the Heart, keeps the flow a circle, if you see what I mean. Doesn't matter how far they are away, they still do it. And now we're so few in number, we can't feed in enough power and so the Heart is fading. Don't forget, now the Heart is buried the normal cycle of mana beneath it is gone so it can't self-sustain.'

Pheone frowned. She looked hard at Geren, trying to see doubt in his eyes but there was none at all. Could he be right?

'It makes sense, doesn't it?' he asked. 'Have you checked the shadow on the Heart today? I bet, if you do, it'll be deeper. Not much but you'll see it. More mages died today. Julatsans. Why don't you check?'

Pheone shook her head. It didn't seem worth it. She could sense the sickness without tuning in to the spectrum to see the dull yellow, like thick dust on paint, that covered the mana flow.

'Have you told this to anyone else?'

'No,' said Geren. He smiled but it was a regretful gesture. 'It hardly makes any difference does it?'

'Why not? I mean, if this is the answer…'

'Then all we know is that with every mage that dies, we get weaker, only it's worse because the Heart weakens with us. We knew most of that already and the conclusion is still the same. The fewer of us that attempt the raise, the less likely it is to succeed. Let's hope your elves make it without losing anyone else or we'll be left with nothing but a shadow Heart in a few days, won't we?'

Pheone gazed at him and he returned her stare apologetically.

'Was there anything else you came to tell me?'

'Yes. The city council is here, like you asked. What are you going to tell them?'

Pheone began to walk to the new lecture theatre. It stood in the ruins of the six the Wesmen had pulled down and was a less impressive structure than any of its predecessors. 'Hear for yourself, why don't you?'

He shrugged and followed her in.

The audience in the lecture theatre was sparse. Thirty rows of stepped benches climbed up to the back of the medium-sized auditorium, all looking down on a brightly-lit stage containing a single long table, a huge raised blackboard and a podium. The lantern light was augmented by LightGlobes and the last of the afternoon sun, which shone through huge angled windows set in the roof.

Pheone walked straight to the podium, nodding at the five temporary college elders at the table supporting her. Geren walked across to sit with what looked like every other mage in the college, ranged along a few benches to the left. She counted about fifty. Pathetic, really. Perhaps one per cent of the number the college should have and could comfortably support. Geren's theory was looking solid.