The faint rumble of a distant crash drew them both back to the destruction of the Solamnic Citadel. They watched as Thunder demolished the inner gateway, doing the damage it would take a human siege party weeks to accomplish. Dust, smoke, and ash whirled around his blue hide. Lightning from his powerful jaws smashed into the barracks and the main hall. Like a creature maddened, he roared and stamped and swung his heavy tail into the walls and the towers until they cracked, shattered, and came tumbling down.

In less than twenty minutes, Sir Remmik’s pride and joy became little more than a pile of rubble. No building remained standing, no tower stood above the heap of broken masonry. Like a victor swollen with triumph, the blue dragon scraped the mounds of rock and smoldering debris into a large rough platform, then he leaped to the top to survey the Missing City from this new height. The Brutes cheered.

“I guess this makes you the new Solamnic commander,” Falaius said. There was no levity in his voice.

Linsha remembered Lanther’s words to her only two nights ago, that her sentence would be erased if the entire garrison were wiped out. The entire garrison. Seventy-two men and women. Sir Hugh, young Sir Pieter, all the Knights she had come to know the past year. Perhaps they had let Sir Remmik have his way too often, but they were good men, and she never wanted their blood to buy her freedom.

She turned her head away without answering and slid down the stone until she was sitting with her back to the cool wall. She rested her aching head in her hands. The new Solamnic Commander… of a ghost garrison.

Trouble at the Gate

18

“Where is Lanther?” Linsha asked. It was a question that had lurked in her mind for some time and only now found a moment to be asked.

Falaius leaned against the stone crenellations of the city wall and gestured vaguely behind him. “I don’t know. I sent him to a militia post near the north gate this morning. Not seen him since.”

Linsha nodded. If the Legion commander was even half as tired as he looked, then he felt about the same way she did. That brief conversation was all she could manage for now. She closed her eyes again and let her muscles relax. She had rarely felt so sore and listless, not even after that sword duel with the Dark Knight assassin.

“Look at that,” Falaius commented softly. “They really want this town.”

Linsha forced herself to stir and turn her upper body around so she could see the streets of Mirage below. It had been about three hours since the city defenders had fallen back on the wall and left the outer city to the mercy of the Brutes. So far, the invaders had shown a sort of brutal mercy to the town and the inhabitants who had not escaped. All the buildings and houses were being thoroughly searched, but none had been put to the torch and few had been ransacked. There was no sign of the expected pillaging, drunken riots, or rape and slaughter. The survivors, including the women, were being herded into a guarded pen of sorts on the beach near the waterfront. Only the wounded had been killed outright and hauled to a growing heap of bodies left piled in an empty lot. The bodies of those Brutes killed in the fighting were immediately collected and carried back out to the ships. They were, Linsha noted, nothing if not methodical and thorough.

Meanwhile, workers resumed the repairs to the docks and the unloading of supplies on shore continued without a break. Any fires outside the walls had been put out. In the past few hours only the Solamnic fortress and the Legion headquarters had been stripped and demolished.

The Brutes had made no move on the city wall yet. The man with the blue skin and golden mask had made one appearance-on a horse this time-to the people guarding the Legion Gate. He offered them once again a chance to surrender, and once again Falaius said no. The leader of the Brutes saluted the Legionnaire and promptly ordered archers to guard the gate. Their whole attitude seemed say, “Just wait. We will come when we are ready.”

Thunder seemed to be content to let them do what they wished. After destroying the Solamnic Citadel he had settled on the ruins to talk to the leader of the Brutes. Moments later he lifted his great blue bulk into the air and disappeared to the west. He had not been seen or felt since.

Linsha acknowledged Falaius’ comment even though she was not sure what he had seen to prompt it, then she pulled off the hot, heavy chain mail and sagged back against the wall. The next attack would come soon enough. She sat patiently, silently suspended between sky and stone, breathing the thick hot air laden with dust and smoke. The heavy afternoon sun soaked into her battered body and dragged her consciousness under. She had fought it for a while, wanting to stay awake in case Falaius needed her. Now, she felt her strength ebb beyond her reach. Her head grew heavy; her eyelids slid closed and locked in place. The world faded away.

In its place a dream took shape that filled her mind like a room fills with smoke. She saw herself standing on a ledge on the side of a great mountain-a mountain she knew all too well. The ledge was empty, and the cave that opened at the ledge’s head remained silent and abandoned. She looked up and saw the mountain’s peak looming against a brilliant blue sky, then smoke belched from its fiery summit. A black cloud of ash and smoke billowed down the mountain’s side toward her. She wanted to run, but she could not move fast enough, and in the blink of an eye she was enveloped by the hot, stinking fumes. Coughing and choking, she reached out to the cave entrance. But he did not come. Another form came instead-a smaller, upright shape that walked slowly out of the darkness and materialized before her startled eyes. Even after all that had passed between them, she felt her traitorous heart lurch at the vision of his roguish good looks and his cool blue eyes. Ian Durne. She thought she had loved him, until he killed her friend and turned his blade against Hogan Bight.

Linsha, you are as beautiful as ever. And just as blind. Do not trust him.

“You are a fine one to be telling me about trust.”

Ah, but I always trusted you to do what was right. I knew you better, you see. I knew when the time came you would follow your honor.

“Yet you loved me.”

He gave her that grin she remembered so well. Honor can be a powerful aphrodisiac to those of us who have none.

As can the allure of the dark rogue, she thought. “What are you doing here, Ian? Who is this I should not trust?”

Look carefully, Green Eyes. There are other rogues in this world besides Dark Knights. He turned back into the smoke and vanished.

“Ian!” she cried into the emptiness, but he was gone, and the loneliness he left behind swept over her with startling intensity.

“Linsha,” a different voice said. A hand fell on her shoulder. Tired as she was, she came instantly awake and her reactions responded with the speed of a striking adder. Her left hand clamped on the offending wrist, and her right hand snatched the dagger from her belt. She opened her eyes and looked into the imperturbable brown gaze of the old plainsman. She blinked in surprise; she had expected blue.

His deep-sunk eyes gazed at her steadily, unshaken by the dagger inches from his chest. “Remind me just to kick you the next time you are dreaming,” he remarked.

She collapsed back to the wall and let her dagger drop. Her heart galloped madly under her breastbone; her breath came in long drawn gulps. “Gods, that was a dream.” She groaned. “It was too real.”

Falaius studied her curiously. The tribes of the Plains of Dust believe in the power of dreams and in the realities revealed in their interpretations. “Who is Ian?” he asked, his voice calm and deliberately soothing.