The hooded figure walked to the harbour and climbed down a rope ladder to a tiny sailboat. The wind was picking up and the craft skimmed over the waves and out of the harbour.

Inside the Keep, the Vagrians dragged Karnak along the blood-drenched corridors. His remaining eye was swollen and his lips were cut and bleeding. Down the steps they took him and through the carnage of the great Hall. Karnak struggled to walk, but his left leg was swollen and his ankle would take no weight.

Out in the sunshine the men stopped and blinked in surprise.

The courtyard was packed with Drenai soldiers and at the centre stood a man in the shining Bronze Armour carrying two swords.

'Release him,' ordered the warrior, his voice muffled and almost metallic.

The Vagrians stepped back.

Karnak staggered and almost fell, but the warrior in bronze moved forward to support him.

'The Vagrians are routed,' said Egel. 'The war has swung.'

'We did it?' whispered Karnak.

'By all the Gods, I swear it,' Egel told him.

'Kaem?'

'He killed himself.'

Karnak struggled to open his eyes, but tears swam in them.

'Take me away from here,' he said. 'Don't let anyone see me.'

Epilogue

With Kaem dead and the major Vagrian army surrendered, the war was over on the last day of autumn, when Egel and Karnak led the Drenai army to link with the Lentrian general Ironlatch on the outskirts of Drenan.

The following year, Karnak led the invasion of Vagria which saw the Emperor toppled.

The Drenai ruling houses refused all talk of monarchy and a republic was instituted, with Egel nominated to lead a government. The general refused, but took the title of the Earl of Bronze and returned to Delnoch, where he organised the construction of a mighty six-walled fortress across the Pass.

His adviser was a priest named Dardalion, who had been found seriously wounded in the library room at Purdol. Egel was much criticised for the expense of constructing Dros Delnoch, but maintained his faith in Dardalion's vision.

Five years after the success of Purdol, Egel was assassinated in his rooms at the fortress. In the civil war that followed, Karnak rose to rule the Drenai.

Jonat survived the siege of Purdol and became a general in the Legion. He died six years after the battle, leading a rebel force against Karnak in the civil war.

Danyal, with the gold Egel gave her for returning the Armour, bought a house in Skarta where she lived with Krylla and Minel. But she was often seen riding in the Delnoch Pass and scanning the northern horizon.

Six months after the Vagrian defeat, she and the children vanished from home.

Two neighbours discussed the disappearance with the South Gate sentry.

'I watched her leave,' he said. 'She was riding with a companion. A man.'

'Did you recognise him?'

'No, he was a stranger. A waylander.'