There was a stir as the artificer came into view. The stage was low and there was no bunting or color. Latulla did not warm up the crowd as Haddad half-expected. Instead she launched directly into the heart of her speech.

"You have lost everything!" she screamed to the crowd. Mutters rose as they absorbed her words. "You left Keld and the battles of the north. Many of you were shipped in stasis, powerless to affect your destiny. There are no cradle houses in this land, the slaves are arrogant, and there is the tedium and trouble of working without female partners. Why would anyone come here?" Latulla paused and looked at the crowd.

"Because there is a land to conquer!" she shouted, and her supporters cheered her with a few of the crowd joining in. "These lands were the home of your forebears. Heroes and gods roamed these hills and contested with each other. But an evil force swept over the land, killing and slaying in the dark of night. The widows and babes of your ancestors fled north to escape destruction."

Latulla lifted her hands, as if in benediction, over the crowd. "But you have grown strong and have come to take your birthright back. You have arrived in the land from which Keld sprang and found what?

"You have found a race of weaklings who hold what is yours." She whipped a cover off something on the stage. A steel ant lay revealed. "A race so cowardly that it constructs a machine to fight while its soldiers stay behind." She pointed up into the sky. "A race that attacks your camps from the air for fear of your strength."

Finally she whipped the last tarp off the stage. Five dead Keldons lay revealed, none with an obvious wound. "An enemy who, when he failed to kill you, has resorted to the spread of corruption and disease." Haddad had heard of some dying from illness but found it unsurprising in a camp of this size. "The League has shown by its every action that it is the successor of the evil that battled our forebears. Will you let them win again, or will you break the world and remake it in your image?" Cheers erupted again, and Latulla seemed to swell as they rolled over her.

"The final days are upon us, and the final battle awaits in the west. Who will follow me into glory and victory?" Even Haddad cheered and chanted her name-not because he wanted the Keldons to win, but because this expedition west might constitute his last chance to escape. He cheered the fulfillment of his own plans and cursed the Keldons silently.

"Pig slop!" Alexi exclaimed as the deck surged up, a gust of wind grappling with the blimp. "Keep it steady!" she yelled up the cabin to the pilot. A muttered obscenity wafted back, but she ignored it as she tried to keep her stomach under control. When would this ride be over? she wondered silently.

The Hunter and the Eagle were hovering beside a storm. The two Mushan blimps had spent three days tossed by winds as Teferi worked the storm. Jumping from ship to ship, he herded it toward the coast even as he wove his spells into its structure. The planeswalker was ready to expunge the Keldon colony from Jamuraa, and now his moment neared. Far out to sea, a fleet of surface warships waited to land marines and supplies, but Teferi had put the attack on hold. Through magic he observed a huge exodus of the colony's warriors and fire barges the day before.

The surge of power as Teferi appeared in the cabin surprised Alexi. The planeswalker dripped water from his sodden clothes onto the deck, and a puff of ozone and magic assaulted Alexi's nose. Teferi worked inside the storm now. "Signal the fleet to start coming in," he ordered in a tired voice. "I am going to force the storm onshore. The marines should be able to make an unopposed landing. You will report any problems to the fleet." He looked exhausted.

Alexi spoke quietly. "Can't you stay aboard and rest just a little?" she asked. "At least direct the storm from here instead of jumping into its winds."

Teferi shook his head. "It's already starting to tear apart," he explained. "We need to act now. Call the fleet in, and be prepared for communications interference from now on. In a few minutes I will start a series of spells on the other blimp to smother Keldon calls for help. The enemy reinforcements marching west can't be allowed to know what has happened. I must go." Teferi closed his eyes and jumped. Alexi spun and stared angrily at the communications mage.

"You heard him," she said. "Call in the fleet now while we still have the opportunity." The man dropped into a trance as Alexi moved forward toward the pilot. "We will be moving inland with the storm." The pilot looked at the edge of the turbulent cloud and then his hands flashed to his throttles and rammed them forward. Teferi had begun.

The air seemed rough to Alexi, but seeing the torn mists and rain swirling inside Teferi's attack she knew that the Hunter flew in relative calm. The clouds seemed to draw away.

"Faster!" she ordered.

"We're the same distance away," the pilot said irritably. "The storm's getting smaller."

Alexi could see it now. The clouds were drawing near to the coast, and they grew even blacker. Like a hunkered giant, the storm crept into the bay. The clouds dropped lower and lower, touching the water. The high winds tore into the violent seas, and water began to pile up. The waves mounted higher and higher. Huge black-green hills of water raced from the storm to the docks. The bay narrowed, concentrating the attack.

The first wave hit. All small boats turned to kindling, the planks and oars flung up onto the docks as the larger ships surged up against the pier. The second set of waves arrived. The large ships listed heavily as the sea gripped and turned them. Masts hammered down on a warehouse as ships rolled nearly ninety degrees. Most ships capsized. Looking through a set of magical lenses, Alexi saw a few sailors flung from the wreckage to break against the pier pilings. The storm seemed to submerge as another giant wave raced forth. Fire rose over the bay as Keldon mages realized it was a magical attack, but their spells were matches flung into a stream as water raced toward docks.

In the colony, Alexi could see figures boiling out of houses and tents. Some went for higher ground as a wave over thirty feet tall hit the piers. Warehouses were shoved off their foundations and struck houses and workshops like battering rams. More and more people ran inland as Teferi began to push the storm toward the colony once more. It crept up the bay, sending a constant stream of fifteen-foot waves forward. Each wall of water picked up debris and threw it farther from the sea. Houses were bludgeoned by water and fragments of wood as the water level rose higher and higher. Like a cupped hand, Teferi's spell tried to empty the bay onto the town, and destruction mounted with every passing moment.

The waves crashed far from the bay as the stables and corrals were destroyed. Here and there barges raced for cover. Now water surrounded one and rose a few inches per second. The barge began to lose traction as it floated. Men swarmed over it. More and more crowded aboard, and Alexi could see swords hewing into slaves and warriors as the crew tried to preserve their craft. It was a hopeless battle and under the mass of screaming humanity, the barge capsized as it lost all traction.

No structure still stood in the town, and Teferi's spell dissipated as the last of it submerged in the muddy water. Deprived of the storm surge, water cascaded back toward the bay. Like a draining bathtub, the water left a thick coating of mud as it withdrew. Corpses and debris mixed with mud appeared as the land drained. A few living men struggled to stand, the water abandoning them in its race back to the sea. Alexi could see hundreds of corpses and wondered if anyone could know how many had died in the previous minutes. Teferi appeared in the cabin. His eyes looked tired.