The attack that Saul suspected was not long in coming.

Saul spent an hour in the basement area of the barracks. Here, he found the limitations of his Heal spell.

Yes, it could be used on allies, and it could be used to bring wounded soldiers back into action. What it could not do was cure more serious injuries.

It could not set a broken bone or rebuild a shattered limb, and there were several wounded men that Saul had to leave unhealed. His spell gave them some relief but could not fix them back into fighting condition.

He remembered healing his own burns back at the warlock HQ, the immense and rapid improvement he’d felt straight away.

The spell can heal deeper injuries on my own body, he thought, but on allies it has less power.

Frustrated, he had to leave the wounded where they were. The young soldier who was in charge of the area caught his arm as he left.

“You have done well,” he said earnestly. “Don’t worry that you couldn’t heal them all. It’s okay. You did more than any of us could have hoped for.”

“Thanks,” Saul said, clapping the young man on the shoulder.

He appreciated the words, though they had little impact on his heart. In battle, the wounded on his own side had always affected him most deeply, and in his old life he’d channeled a lot of training and resources into the healing arts.

In this new timeline, he would follow up this healing spell he’d been given. This spell had come from the School of Earth. He had not yet unlocked all the magic schools yet, but once he did so he suspected he would have the opportunity to specialize.

Whether that specialization would mean developing one School of Magic over others, or whether he would have to choose particular kinds of spells to develop, he had no idea. But there would be choices to be made, that was for sure.

If he had the opportunity, he would develop healing as a priority.

On the walkway that ran around the inside of the palisade wall, gathered most of the remaining foot soldiers. In the space behind the wall, the raptors stood quietly, their riders standing near them or sitting on the ground.

Saul was pleased that more soldiers had not been killed or wounded in the attack. If he had not been able to get to Grimdir and break the central control spell when he had, it might have been a very different picture.

As it was, he thought that they should have enough manpower to repel an attack from the remaining warlock forces.

He stood with Brand. They were joined by Sergeant Merrick, the young soldier that Jerryl had promoted to take Dryan’s place. Merrick looked grim.

“We can repel them if they come again,” he said. “But I’m worried that they might bring reinforcements.”

“You think that’s likely?” Saul asked, looking out over the battlefield.

“I don’t see any reason for them to still be here if they don’t have more forces on the way,” Merrick replied. “What happened to you out there?”

Briefly, Saul recounted his adventure at the warlock HQ, his pursuit of Grimdir, and the appearance of the portal.

“So, there was some other power behind Grimdir,” Merrick said thoughtfully. “And a portal! I never thought such a thing would be possible in this age. I’ve heard of portals between places in legends, but I never thought to hear of one in my lifetime.”

“Nor I,” Saul said.

Saul was afraid that the warlocks would attack at night, but they did not. Instead, they waited until dawn the next day to strike.

Nobody in Harkin’s Holdfast got much sleep that night.

* * *

As gray dawn lightened the sky in the east, the remaining warlocks moved. They trailed out into the plain, a troop of black clad figures lit by the flickering of torches that burned in their hands. Here and there a glint of cold, cruel, white magic where a rune flickered out.

The force was mostly made up of robed warlocks and the black-clad thralls. Only a few monsters remained.

Saul stood on the wall with Brand and Merrick, looking out. He was unrefreshed by a few hours of broken sleep, but his force of will kept him alert as he scanned the battlefield and noted several gigantic spiders, easily as big as small horses. They were hideous creatures, but there were not enough of them to turn the tide of a battle.

Indeed, as the warlocks formed up and marched, it struck Saul that they did not seem a large enough force for an attack in earnest.

“What are they doing?” Merrick said, sounding worried. “There are not enough of them to assault the walls. They have no hope.”

“Let them come,” Brand said, grimly, his face set and ready for the fight. “We’ll finish them off. Maybe they think we’re not ready for them! We’ll show them…”

“No,” Merrick said softly, shaking his head. “There’s more to this than…”

His words were cut short by a harsh horn blast that echoed around the mountain slopes.

Saul looked from left to right, scanning the area for threats. There was, as Merrick had said, something more to the situation than met the eye.

The horn blast had not come from the advancing warlock forces. The blast came from off to Saul’s right, in the direction of a blank cliff wall that rose sheer up, climbing toward the gray sky high above. There was nothing there… or was there?

“There’s people coming from the rockface…” Brand said in a horrified voice. “What is this? Some kind of new magic?”

“No spells,” Saul said grimly. “Just the old-fashioned magic of long ropes. Look again.”

Brand looked and saw what Saul had already seen. The figures who had appeared at the bottom of the rock face—seemingly out of nowhere—had, in fact, abseiled down the cliff at the ends of long, gray ropes.

They themselves were dressed in gray as well. The camouflage made them nearly invisible against the rocky slopes.

But now Saul and his companions saw them for what they were—a large group, sixty at least, of tall, strong men in dark gray cloaks. They wore chainmail under their cloaks, and they had long beards and straggling hair the color of rain.

They moved as a unit, forming up quickly and silently. There was none of the mindless drive that Saul associated with the thralls. These were men with their own minds, trained and skilled.

Warriors who had come to fight on the side of the warlocks.

“What are they?” Brand asked breathlessly. “Who are they?”

There was something terrifying in the remorseless purpose that was suggested by the movements of the newcomers. They did not shout or roar or make a show, but they moved with an air of efficient competence. Such discipline was more terrifying to the beleaguered defenders than any over the top show of force.

“Elite troops of some kind,” Saul said with certainty, gripping the hilt of his sword. “The way they came down that cliff shows planning and skill. Whoever they are, we’re going to be up against it when they get here.”

“The Berserkers of Gorkun,” Merrick said quietly, as gray figures moved across the field toward the village, and the howling warlocks picked up pace and lurched forward too.

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“The what?” Saul asked. This was a name he’d never heard before.

“The Berserkers of Gorkun,” Merrick repeated. “They are an elite fighting force of mountain mercenaries. We thought they had left Xorn a long time ago, and they have not been heard of for years, but we must have been wrong.

“They are, as you say, an elite force of deadly fighters. They operate as a specialist strike force, and they hire themselves out to anyone who will pay their price. They originated here in the mountains of Northern Xorn, but it seems that Grimdir and the warlocks have paid the fee to bring them back home again.”

“Grimdir has paid them? I think it’s more likely that it was whoever is behind this rebellion,” Saul said, “and that was not Grimdir, I’m sure of it now.”

He was thinking of the strange zombie thralls, the ones whose armor and faces reminded him of El-Alun, that land far across the western sea.

Unless Grimdir had secretly uncovered and worked a gold mine here in the mountains of Xorn, he couldn’t afford elite mercenary forces and troops of warriors from over the sea.

Saul drew a breath. It mattered little who the enemy was, if they could not fight him off.

Grimdir’s funders could wait. The most important problem was currently moving across the battlefield from two directions in the form of wild-eyed warlocks, giant spiders, and a ruthless-looking berserker strike force.

“Listen to me,” Saul said. “I know a bit about the tactics of a strike force like this. Those men we can see? They will not be the real force.”

“What do you mean?” Merrick said.

“They are the force we can see. There will be another, smaller force, whose job will be to enter the village unseen and kill our officers, open our gates, and probably attack the barracks and the wounded men there. I’m guessing that Jerryl is another target.”

“What do we do?” Brand said.

He was pale, and not just from his wound. The young man was frightened. He did not believe they could survive.

Saul made his decision.

“Brand,” he said. “You’re with me. Merrick, sends word to Lieutenant Bellow of the Raptor Riders to be ready to take his cavalry out through the gate and charge the warlocks. You get your foot soldiers ready to follow out into the field.”

“Bellow must attack the warlocks on the flank, stop them from getting up to the gate, and stop them from coordinating with the berserkers. You must get ready to march out of the gate and meet the berserkers head on. Use a shield wall and hold them in place for as long as you can but leave enough men on the palisade to rain arrows on them from above. Don’t try to take ground, but at all costs don’t let them link up with the warlocks.”

“What are you going to do?” Merrick asked.

“I’m going to take Brand here with me, and we’re going to get Zorea. Then the three of us are going to form an elite strike force of our own.”

* * *

Zorea was reluctant to leave the sick men in her care, but when Saul explained to her what he wanted her to do, she nodded and agreed. They left the room, locking the heavy door behind them.

“That will keep any direct attack out of the room for a while at least,” Saul said.

They left by the corridor that led out to the room with the balcony on the upper floor. Here, they climbed over the balcony and scrambled down the rough stonework at the edge of the building landing on the ground out of sight of the main front of the barracks.

They crept along quietly, on the lookout for the Gorkun strike force that Saul was convinced would be coming.

He thought the strike force would climb the wall at the back of the village, where the palisade wall almost butted up against the sheer cliff of the side of the mountain.

Sure enough, as Saul and his friends crept through the deserted village, hearing the screams and roars of the battle being joined at the front, they saw a flicker of movement.

“There,” Saul breathed, pointing.

His young disciples followed his example, flattening themselves against a wall.

They watched the troop of gray-bearded figures move up the dirt road toward the barracks.

“There’s some magic there,” Zorea whispered to Saul. “They have something, some item…”

Saul nodded. Zorea’s ability to sense magic was even keener than his, though he too could sense it now.

So, they had a magical item of some kind. Saul scanned the three figures.

One was clearly the leader. He was taller than the others, his gray beard was longer, and his face was wise and cunning. His features were thin and narrow, and he had a long, hawk-like nose over a cruel, thin-lipped mouth.

The other two were by no means young men, but they were younger than the leader and wore helmets of dark steel that covered their features. They had abandoned their gray cloaks, revealing chainmail beneath. Each had a sword in his hand, but the leader was carrying no weapon.

Instead, he carried a scroll.

Saul looked again. It was not a scroll.

At first, the yellowish surface and the tubular shape looked like an old vellum scroll. At second glance, he saw that it was not so.

It was, in fact, a Sigilite Scanner, just like the one that Captain Jerryl had used on Saul.

The three figures snuck along the road next to where Saul and his friends stood. They had been visible between two buildings, but now they vanished from view behind a small hut.

“Now!” Saul hissed to his companions.

Saul in the lead, the three friends stepped out and turned toward the barracks in time to see the lead Gorkun soldier raising a grappling hook on the end of a rope. He whirled it around a few times, ready to throw it up at the balcony.

Saul selected Steal Breath from his School of Air spells and threw it like a dagger toward the leader. The spell flew like a gray-silver dart through the air.

It slammed into the man, and he staggered forward, a choking gasp coming from his thin lips. He dropped the grapple with a clang, his hands coming up to grasp at his throat.

The other two whirled to look for the threat. They raised their weapons.

Saul grinned with fierce satisfaction at the way Zorea and Brand handled the situation.

They darted forward, each heading in a straight line toward the men in front of them. At the last second, Brand darted to the right and Zorea darted to the left, crossing each other. The enemies, suddenly facing different foes from who they’d been facing a moment ago, did not have a chance to readjust.

Zorea dispatched her man with a vicious, calculated strike that punched her long, unusually designed sword through the man’s lower body. She whipped the blade back out and leaped back from the man’s counter strike, and then stepped in again to push the tip of her blade through his neck.

Blood fountained from the gray-bearded warrior as he slid to the ground, the dirt around him darkening.

The other gave Brand a little more trouble. He was quicker and had stepped back to avoid the young man’s first blow.

Brand had been fighting all day, and he was wounded besides. He was tired and slower than this tall, older warrior who was fresh to the fight.

Saul felt a moment of fear cut through him as he saw how Brand was overmatched. Then pride swelled in his chest.

Brand too saw that he was over matched, but instead of pushing ahead anyway out of bravado he immediately reacted, slipping back away from his opponent with the speed and dexterity of a cat.

The tall man’s blade cut through empty air as Brand put distance between them. Then Zorea steamed in from the man’s off-side.

Suddenly, the man was fighting a furious Zorea blade-to-blade. The man was armed with a Xornian shortsword, and Zorea’s longer weapon gave her better reach.

She was also fresh and full of energy.

The fury of the young woman’s attack caught the berzerker off-guard. She rained a flurry of blows down on him and he gave ground. The man found himself pressed against the wall of the barracks building.

Zorea pushed her advantage. Meanwhile, Brand advanced again from the other side.

Saul approached, but he was content to let his pupils have this fight. They deserved it.

Suddenly, the gray man dropped his blade and threw his hands up in the air.

“I surrender,” he said abruptly. “I surrender. I’m overmatched!”

Saul looked at him. There was something in his voice, something off…

Saul saw his eyes flick upward, and Saul looked up as well. There was something in the sky, something black, and it was heading straight for them.

“No!” Saul roared. “Get away from him!”

The two young people responded immediately. Unquestioningly, they dived out of the way, flinging themselves back from the gray man.

The small, black thing that had been diving from the sky above slammed into the man. It smashed into his chest with the force of a steel javelin, and his eyes popped from his head as he slid in a smashed, bloody mess down the wall.

“What…?” Brand asked, getting to his feet and looking at the man.

“Away!” Saul roared. “Get away!”

Then it happened. There was a thunderous explosion.

The black thing that had struck the man blew up. Flames exploded across the little space. All traces of the three gray-clad men vanished in the billowing smoke and flame.

Saul was flung backward by the shockwave, but he landed on his feet.

Where were his friends? He heard coughing and spluttering and looked round to see them both getting to their feet.

Zorea was helping Brand to rise. Brand was holding his head.

“Damn, that was a near thing,” Brand croaked. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“I have,” Saul said. “It was a tracking dervish, a maddened spirit trapped inside a device that’s packed with explosive powder. They can be directed to attack particular people or places, but they’re so small and silent that they’re very hard to detect.”

“Who sent it? And why would it be used to kill that berzerker?”

“Because he was about to surrender himself. He must have had some knowledge. Knowledge that whoever sent the tracking dervish should not risk being discovered. Any sign of that device the leader was carrying?”

They looked around the blackened courtyard for a bit. Zorea found the remains of the Sigilite Scanner.

“Here,” she said, pointing to the side of the wall of a house near the barracks.

Saul grimaced at the sight. Shards of crystal lay smashed on the ground, and a thick, golden substance was smeared over the wall. There were a few elegant curves of silver plastered on the ground; all that remained of the Sigil on the scanner.

“There’s no bringing that back,” Saul said.

He’d never seen a destroyed Sigil before, and the sight made him feel queasy. There was something about it that reminded him that his own System was so completely reliant on Sigils. He had never considered that they could be destroyed, and the sight of the remains of a shattered Sigil was unsettling.

“This proves one thing, at least,” Brand said. “There’s definitely something more behind all this than the spite of one wytchlord. Someone is up to something deep.”

“I agree,” Saul said, “and it’s beginning to have a distinctly foreign flavor to it.”

“What do you mean?”

“That tracking dervish, they come from a land over the western sea, a place called El-Alun. I’ve seen them before, in my old life, but I never expected to see them here in Keldor. It’s a very telling thing. Yes, and combined with the fact that those thralls look very much like the soldiers from El-Alun… I think there is someone over the sea who is, for some reason of their own, trying to stir trouble here in Xorn, and maybe in Keldor as a whole.”

A loud boom echoed from the direction of the gates.

Saul raised his head, hearing sounds of battle. All thoughts of the wider implications left him.

“We must get ourselves into the fight,” he said. “Come, our friends need us.”