He paused dramatically, then cried, “Commence!”

Elicarno sprinted to his waiting men. “Jacks and levers! Move the beast around and bear on the target!”

His apprentices jammed long levers under the frame of the catapult and began heaving it around. The engine could swing on a pivot in any direction, but the lay of the land prevented Elicarno from using his loading device effectively unless he turned the machine.

While the engineers grunted and shouted, Mandes walked quietly away from the imperial pavilion, golden robe rippling out behind him. Softly, he intoned the words of a spell. A dark cloud began to form over his head.

The engineers had the catapult in position. Elicarno called for a quadrant and plumb line, to make sure the frame of the device was level and true. When he was satisfied, he chose a straight, sturdy dart from a pile of similar missiles and laid it in the launching tray. An assistant banged on the thick end of a wedge jammed under the ballista’s arm. With each blow, the plumb line swung more and more to the perpendicular.

“There!” Elicarno set the trigger mechanism. “Draw the weapon!”

Eighteen strong young men hauled back on the loading levers. With a loud clack, the hooks dropped over the bowstring, and the device began to ratchet back.

Meanwhile, Mandes stood alone in the trampled grass. The sorcerer’s hands were over his head, gloved fingers flexing ever so slightly. The steady drone of his voice carried to the pavilion. The black cloud that had formed over his head was now hovering above his target, growing larger and larger.

“Steady!” Elicarno shouted. His men quickly cleared away from the ballista, now poised and cocked. The power captive in the skeins could take off a man’s head if he got in the way of the bowstring.

The trigger line was a simple length of cord, surprisingly light to trip so large a device. Elicarno wrapped the line around his hand. After a heartbeat’s pause, he pulled the trigger.

Cords shrieked, timbers thrashed, and the bowstring sprang forward. Everyone in the pavilion felt the shock of the machine through the soles of their feet. The dart, two paces of turned hardwood with a solid bronze head, whistled through the air. It sailed over the target post.

“Down, three taps!”

Elicarno’s man pushed the elevation wedge out with three distinct blows of the mallet. The ballista was reloaded, a second missile thrown. This one landed half a step in front of the post, burying itself in the rain-softened soil up to its fletching.

“Up, one!”

A column of light, brighter than a sun, lanced down from the cloud Mandes had conjured. It struck the target post and exploded. The resulting thunderclap rocked the entire assembly, collapsing half the emperor’s pavilion and setting the tethered horses rearing and neighing in terror. Tol felt a glare of heat on the left side of his face. His skin crawled, and the muscles beneath surged of their own accord. Blinded, he flailed one hand and felt Kiya’s strong arm.

The flash faded and vision returned. A veil of smoke drifted across the Field of Corij. Mandes’s target was now only a charred, smoldering stump.

Looking a trifle singed, the sorcerer presented himself to the emperor. Valdid and assorted palace lackeys were struggling to erect the collapsed portion of tent, while Valaran brushed ash and bits of blasted turf from the emperor’s shoulders.

Mandes bowed, straightened, then declaimed, “My target is gone, Your Majesty. I have won!”

Ackal IV held up a hand. “Master Elicarno, can you continue?”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” the engineer shouted, even as he rubbed the dazzle from his eyes.

With the ballista ready, Elicarno loosed another shot. The great arrow struck the center of the post, burying half its length through the elm trunk.

“Rapid, commence!”

The catapult’s arms threshed, hurling a second dart into the target. With a concerted shout, the loaders cocked the weapon again, and another missile was launched. More followed. In short order, Elicarno had deluged his target with forty darts. At times as many as a dozen missiles were in the air at the same time.

The whack of the catapult and the thrum of flying projectiles made a horrible menacing noise.

When Elicarno finally called a halt, no part of his target remained visible. The bronze heads of forty missiles had reduced the wooden post to a scattering of splinters.

Ackal IV rose from his seat, and Valaran braced him. Together, they inspected the targets, starting with Elicarno’s. Valdid, the imperial bodyguards, Tol, Egrin, and the Dom-shu sisters trailed behind.

When the emperor came to Mandes’s charred target, the sorcerer was standing proudly beside it. Ackal IV extended a pale, spotted hand to touch the still-smoking wood.

The silence lengthened, and the tension built. At last the emperor shattered the calm with two words.

“Elicarno wins.”

The engineer’s apprentices let out a wild shout of victory, and the courtiers began to talk excitedly about what they’d seen. Above the din a plaintive cry soared.

“Why, Majesty?”

Mandes hurried after Ackal IV, who was returning to the shade of the pavilion.

“Sire, I struck first, and I destroyed my target before this-this-person managed his first hit!”

The emperor halted and regarded him with unsympathetic eyes. “Your target is not destroyed. Some of it remains. Strike again. Call down the lightning and remove the last vestige of your target.”

Nonplussed, Mandes stammered, “As…as Your Majesty commands. We should remove to a safe distance, then I shall resume my invocation-”

Ackal IV looked beyond him to where Elicarno stood with his apprentices. “Master Engineer, destroy the wizard’s target! Immediately!”

Without hesitation, Elicarno commanded his helpers to swing the ballista around. They aimed down the loading tray and let fly a fresh dart. Ten more followed, pulverizing the stump while Mandes was still gathering himself to begin his lightning spell.

The emperor and his party were only five paces from the target. The loud whir and thump of missiles drove Mandes, Valdid, and assorted courtiers and servants to the ground in terror. Ackal IV remained steadfastly on his feet, with Valaran holding his hand.

A few paces further away, Tol also kept his feet. He was proud of Valaran for standing in the face of Elicarno’s missiles, but prouder still of his imperial patron. Prince Amaltar had never been the bravest of men, but he had apparently reached a limit with Mandes.

Echoes of the bombardment finally died away. Those on the ground picked themselves up.

Ackal IV said, “My forces must be ever ready to strike and must strike hard. No enemy will wait for his foe to make ready, and no battle is ended until the enemy has been completely destroyed. Do you see? Magic is a powerful art, Mandes, but on the battlefield, it must give way to machines-and the men who command them.”

Elicarno’s apprentices shouted and clapped each other on the back. Several seized their master and hoisted him onto their shoulders. The whole group paraded around the ballista, chanting, “Elicarno! Elicarno!”

The sorcerer stood up, his gloves and the front of his golden robe smeared with mud. His defeat, and the emperor’s implacable logic, left him speechless.

“Go from my sight,” Ackal said. “You are no longer our councilor.”

As Mandes stood frozen in shock, Tol whirled and hurried to the pavilion. Justice had been delayed far too long. Mandes no longer enjoyed the protection of his imperial patron. Tol would retrieve his saber and kill the evil sorcerer at last.

“Don’t!” said a breathless voice behind him.

He turned, fury gathering on his face. Valaran was running toward him, moving easily in her huntsman’s togs.

“Don’t,” she repeated.

“I’ll have his head!”