Behind him, Medrash murmured a prayer. The holy Power he was drawing down warmed the air and made Khouryn feel vibrantly healthy and alert. But it didn’t produce a disembodied hand with an outstretched finger, or any other supernatural signpost to point the way.

Fortunately, it didn’t need to.

Though Khouryn was currently running his hand along the right wall, he suddenly sensed something different about the left one. When he looked straight at it, he spotted the minute cracks that outlined a hidden door. Maybe he’d unconsciously noticed them before, or else some subtler instinct was at work.

“Here,” he said, pointing. “A door of sorts. I think it turns on a central pivot.” He pushed on the wall, but there wasn’t any give at all. “Or at least it should.”

“You mean it’s latched or locked,” Balasar said. He ran his hands over the surface. “I don’t feel a catch, a keyhole, or anything like that.”

“It could be magic,” Khouryn said. “We might need a talisman, or to speak a password.”

Balasar whistled the same three notes that had supposedly calmed the portal drake. They didn’t open the wall. “I guess we could bring a mage down here.”

“That may not be necessary,” said Medrash. He planted his hands on the door and chanted somewhat louder than he had before. Khouryn had a sense of fierce but beneficent Power gathering. Then, grunting, Medrash pushed with all his might. And for that one moment he evidently possessed a giant’s strength, because something crunched and then the section of wall scraped partway open.

If it had opened fully, the space would have been just large enough for a donkey cart to squeeze through. On the other side were stone sarcophagi like Balasar had described, though Khouryn judged that this was a larger and even more opulent tomb. Tapers burned in five-branched candelabra, the flames variously red, blue, white, green, or teardrops of shadow. The statue of a five-headed dragon reared in the gloom.

As they crept inside, Balasar murmured, “I wonder why the family thought they needed a secret way in and out of their crypt. Or do you think the builders installed the door on the sly, so they could rob the dead?”

“I don’t know,” Khouryn said. “But I’ll tell you something I have figured out. Nala doesn’t really worship Bahamut. This is a shrine-”

He suddenly sensed motion on his left. He pivoted just in time to see Medrash cut at his head.

Aoth noticed that the faces around the crackling, smoky campfire all had one thing in common. They reflected a grinding weariness. Most of them looked worried too. But, included in the council of war simply because they were mages, Oraxes and Meralaine were surreptitiously trading smiles as they sat side by side on the ground.

Aoth supposed they were too ignorant to be scared. Or maybe youthful infatuation trumped mundane concerns. He wondered with a touch of wistfulness if he’d ever suffered from that particular delirium. Maybe not. His temperament had always been phlegmatic and pragmatic. Certainly, with a hundred years behind him, he was in no danger of experiencing it now.

Although Cera had showed him he could still like a woman well enough to do something reckless to help her. He smiled and hoped she was keeping out of trouble in Soolabax.

Then Tchazzar came striding up to the fire with a crimson cloak billowing out behind him and Jhesrhi in tow. Everyone rose to bow or salute as quickly as stiff, aching limbs would allow.

The war hero sat down on the campstool reserved for his use. He flicked a hand as though brushing away a gnat. “Sit. Report. You first, Captain.”

“I’ll let Shala and Hasos speak to the condition of the troops, Majesty. I spent most of the day with the scouts.”

“And?”

“Threskel has more companies in the field, essentially a whole other army we haven’t fought yet. They’re maneuvering to keep us from retreating to Soolabax and to keep reinforcements from reaching us.”

“How is that possible?” Shala asked, the firelight gleaming on the bits of steel trim on her masculine garments. “Threskel is a poor country. Even if Alasklerbanbastos spent every coin in his hoard, how can he field so many troops?”

“I can speculate,” said Aoth. “Ships supposedly in the service of High Imaskar have been raiding the Chessentan coast and Chessentan shipping for a while.”

Tchazzar gave a brusque nod. “The ships with dragonborn for crew.”

Aoth hesitated. Did Tchazzar truly not remember they had reason to doubt those particular pirates were actually Tymantherans? “That’s what the survivors claimed. At any rate, there was nothing to indicate the raiders were in league with Threskel. But it’s possible they’ve formed an alliance, and the pirate fleet landed troops to help Alasklerbanbastos fight us.”

“It would have been nice,” said Hasos, his head wrapped in bloody bandages, “if the great sellsword captain had noticed the existence of such an alliance before now.”

Aoth glowered, partly because he too had been privately wondering if he should somehow have predicted what was coming. “My lord, I remind you that I’m not one of His Majesty’s envoys or spies. I’m just a war leader. Now, if you want to cast blame because no one spotted the new troops before they reached their present positions … well, maybe there you have a point. But it’s hard to look everywhere at once, and we were busy keeping track of the three dragons and their minions.”

“Besides,” Gaedynn said, “this is your country, milord-give or take-and what useful intelligence have your own scouts ever gathered about anything? Perhaps you should pry their eyes open before you criticize the way my fellows do their jobs.”

Hasos sucked in a breath, no doubt for an angry retort, but Shala spoke first. “Captain, a moment ago you said, ‘ships supposedly in the service of High Imaskar.’ What did you mean by that?”

Grateful to her for interrupting the budding quarrel, Aoth said, “Ever since we learned the truth-well, part of it-about the Green Hand murders and the violence in Soolabax, we’ve known Chessenta has enemies who are using misdirection against us. And none of us scouts saw any Imaskari today. Even though, with that marbling in their skins and those black clothes they like, they’d be hard to miss.”

“Maybe they hired mercenaries and stayed home themselves,” Hasos said.

Aoth shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Whoever they are,” Tchazzar said, “they mean to kill us if they can. What is the state of the army?”

“One man in nine is either dead or unfit to fight,” Shala said. “The rest are exhausted. Even after scavenging what we could from the battlefield, we’re short on arrows. I recommend we not fight again if we can possibly avoid it. If we fall back toward the Sky Riders-”

Tchazzar’s glare was enough to cut her off. “We will not go any closer to the Sky Riders,” he growled.

Shala met his gaze for what seemed like a long time, then finally bowed her head. “As you command, Majesty.”

“Exactly,” said the living god, “as I command. Now, let’s talk about why we’re in this fix.”

With that, silence fell, broken only by the popping and snapping of the fire and the drone of the camp as a whole. Aoth was astonished-to say nothing of wary-that Tchazzar would redirect the discussion in such a way, and he imagined everyone else was too. He wondered if any good could possibly come of giving an honest response.

He was still wondering when Gaedynn spoke up.

“Since you ask, Majesty, I would have to say-with all respect-that even with the complication of Jaxanaedegor and the ghosts, the plan could still have worked. If you’d acted when the rest of us expected it.”

Tchazzar was as handsome a man as Aoth had ever seen, yet he contrived to smile a smile as ugly as the stained leer on a lich’s withered skull. “So it’s all my fault, is it? Do you all agree?” He rose. “Does each and every one of you agree?”