Caveria rose into the air, but she hadn’t got far when someone else came hurtling out of a window lower down and chased after her on similar pillars of fire. She looped and sent a volley of fireballs towards her pursuer, who deflected them and kept barreling towards her.

“It’s Lecander,” Tiriel said grimly. “That blue and white, that’s him. Damn.”

The battle mages clashed, high in the sky, in a billowing cloud of fire that should have killed them both. Somehow it didn’t - I saw them in the fire, leaping, falling and circling in a dizzyingly fast three-dimensional dance. It was beautiful, but deadly even down on the ground. Fireballs streaked left and right, and tongues of flame shot out and licked the palace roof.

I stared in fascination and fear. I’d seen Caveria doing something similar to this, when she’d fought the silver fish monster, but this was even more intense. Tiriel seemed as fascinated, beside me.

The sound of shouting and fighting from below jolted us back to our predicament.

“We can’t stay here! We’ll be trapped!” I said just as the balcony shook, forcing me to grip the door for balance. Tiriel didn’t even sway. She dashed up to the balustrade and looked down.

“That’s Glaur!” she cried. “And the others! Let’s go meet them!” She turned and ran inside, with her long knife out. I was quicker this time, but still had to race to keep up with her. She was the most impulsive person I’d ever met.

We sped down the stairs and got two floors down before we met anyone. Unluckily, those we met were soldiers. The duke’s men in blue, pushed back up the first few steps by three of the king’s men.

There was no way we could stop, so I followed Tiriel at she crashed into the melee at breakneck speed. She screamed her battle-cry, as I’d begun to think of it, adding “for the King of Dimra!”, and slammed into one of the duke’s soldiers. He cried out and tumbled helplessly right into the path of one of the Dimran soldiers, who cut him down.

The other blue-clad men tried to adjust, but they were taken by surprise and stood no chance. I killed one of them, as I plunged towards him with my sword in front. The sword cut right through his body, and we went down in a heap. The impact tore the sword out of my grip and I scrambled frantically to get up and get it back.

I wavered for an instant when I saw the tip of the sword sticking out on the other side from the hilt, and blood gushing from his body. It had gone straight through, and it was the most gruesome thing I’d ever seen.

Right then Tiriel screamed again, as more blue soldiers came running up the corridor. I forced my revulsion down and pulled the sword free. I had to stand on the dead man’s body and push with both legs.

I leapt over the corpse to stand beside Tiriel, and as I raised the sword blood spattered in my face and on my tunic. I wanted to throw up, but there was no time. One of the Dimran soldiers called out, “this way!” and Tiriel and I followed into a side corridor with small rooms.

There were no blue soldiers there, but I could hear them chasing us. I cursed myself for taking the rear guard again, out of habit. We ran past a small hall with tall windows, and fire and lightning flashed outside against the blue sky. I’d forgotten about Caveria, but it seemed she was still fighting out there.

We ran down a small spiral staircase, too fast to be able to stop, but didn’t run into anyone until we burst through a narrow wooden door and onto the inner courtyard.

There, on the other hand, we emerged into a full-blown battle. It wasn’t just a few groups of soldiers, it was masses of blue and red-and-purple fighting in formation. I’d never been in the military, so I had no idea if these were platoon, companies or something else, but there were a lot of soldiers.

And at least one dwarf battle-mage, judging from the earth mounds dotting the courtyard, and the bizarre spray of soil over on our right. Tiriel waved at me frantically and raced towards it, and I took one look at our temporary allies who were rushing to join their comrades, and followed her.

I caught up with her when a couple of the duke’s soldiers blocked her path, and we fought together for the first time. My sword and long arms together with her jabbing knife and lightning-quick feet made a good combination, and we dispatched one of the soldiers in short order. The other one retreated and joined some other blues.

Tiriel and I grinned at each other and sped on towards the slowly moving fountain of dirt. Above us, the fire battle still raged, illuminating the courtyard with a red, hellish flickering light.

We dodged another fight but then skidded to a halt in front of one of the mounds. It was several meters tall and seemed to consist of flagstones, masonry and soil in a jumbled mix. We hesitated for a second, which was enough for two soldiers to come running around the mound and attack us.

I reacted on pure reflex again, swinging my sword and leaping towards one of the attackers. He dodged, and I stepped in close. Our blades clashed, broad sides meeting, and he stumbled backwards. We circled, so close that I could smell his breath. He looked wild and excited, and he was stronger than me. He pushed me slowly back. My arm was beginning to hurt from the strain, and now Arndrir’s training didn’t help. I had no reflexes for this. I had to think, and quickly.

The only idea I could come up with was that I had to change something, and couldn’t battle him on strength. Right then I saw Tiriel, in the corner of my eye. She had danced up on the sloping mound and was now flashing her knife in rapid jabs towards the other man, forcing him to defend rather than attack.

I screamed, at the top of my lungs, into my opponent’s face, and pushed with my free hand on our blades, as hard as I could. They slid, and nearly cut off all of my fingers, but it also forced the man to jump back. I almost fell, but didn’t, and swung my sword in a figure-of-eight pattern in front of me. My sword was longer and lighter than his, and he couldn’t reach past it.

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I scrambled back, following Tiriel’s example, up on the slope. The man halted and glared at me. I paused for a gulping breath, and when he lowered his sword for a quick break I thrust my sword forward in an awkward backhand grip, and jumped at him.

The force almost ripped my sword out of my hand, which would probably have been fatal, but I managed to hold on, and drove the sword right into his chest. He fell backwards and I let him fall, letting gravity pull the sword free.

“Peter!” Tiriel called out behind me. I turned and dashed up to her. She hadn’t killed her opponent, but wounded his arm and he was running off, one hand pressed against his arm just below the shoulder.

“Here!” she cried, and held out her hand. I took it, and we ran up the mound in that weirdly light way.

We stopped at the top and she moaned softly. “Oh, I will need to rest after this,” she said, sounding pained. “Look!”

We were standing on one of five earth mounds in the courtyard. Behind and between them ran a moat, a couple of meters both deep and across. It split the courtyard in two, with the main part of the battle on this side. On the other side was the main gate, a few small groups of blue soldiers, and Arndrir, Thord and Glaur.

They were moving slowly towards the gate, surrounded by a whirling wall of dust. The duke’s men were keeping their distance, but following.

“Can you get us across the moat?” I said to Tiriel.

She nodded. “But not much more than that. Come on!”

I took her hand and ran down the slope. She counted - one, two, three! - and we jumped, sailing effortlessly across the gap.

Just as we jumped, the whole courtyard lit up in a flash of red light from the sky. A blast of air hit us from above and slammed us to the ground, just beyond the edge. Thunder boomed between the palace walls, and as I looked back over my shoulder, the whole sky was on fire.

“Stay down!” Tiriel screamed over the rolling thunder, but I couldn’t look away. Where was Caveria? I couldn’t see her, but as the wall of fire broke up into a slowly falling rain, I heard, above the hellish noise, a scream of rage. That couldn’t be her, could it? It was too deep.

Something fell out of the sky, crashing on the palace roof at the far end of the courtyard. I looked back up and saw the rain was dissipating before it reached us. “Come on!” I shouted to Tiriel and pulled her to her feet. She stumbled after me as we ran to join our friends.

The dust wall had been blown away by the blast, and the three were now battling blue soldiers with their weapons.

“Just one more fight!” I encouraged Tiriel, who was looking tired now. She nodded and grinned defiantly at me. We drew our weapons and closed in on the nearest soldier.

Right then a fireball landed softly ten meters away. Before I could react it winked out, and Caveria stepped out. She looked demonic and demented as she let loose a cloud of fire which arced out and curled around the soldiers. They shouted and pulled together, breaking off their attack.

The fire cloud vanished, and I saw Caveria stumble. She was still glowing red all over, and her eyes burned like red lasers. Her robes were singed and frayed, and her hair stood on end with smoke billowing from it.

She was snarling at the soldiers and laughing at the same time, but she looked utterly exhausted. “To Caveria!” I said to Tiriel, and we veered off to block the soldiers from attacking her.

Arndrir, Thord and Glaur saw us then, and shouted with joy. They rushed towards the remaining soldiers while Tiriel and I raised our weapons, shoulder to shoulder. Behind us, Caveria did something, and fire roared behind us. That broke the soldiers’ courage and they fell back.

I spun towards Caveria. “Are you okay?” I called to her.

“No,” she replied in a calm voice, which was incredibly unsettling considering the fact the that smoke was actually coming out of her ears. “But you should see the other guy.” She grinned, and I took an involuntary step back. The inside of her throat glowed red, like a dragon.

“Let’s go!” Tiriel called. “Run!”

Caveria grunted as she followed, but we met up with the others and continued towards the gates. Arndrir looked at us in wonder, but shook his head and took the lead. Glaur ran half a pace behind him with his hands outstretched and sent dust and debris flying before us like a crashing wave of dirt.

I was sure we would run into another battle on the square, but it seemed to have ended. Dimran soldiers encircled and guarded groups of defeated blue-clad men. The king’s men looked triumphant.

Glaur and Arndrir led us across the square, past the soldiers, to a low, squat stone building, that looked more like a piece of rock than a city house. It wasn’t until I saw the dwarves standing guard at the door that I realized we had actually escaped.

Much later that evening we met in a private room deep under the Dwarven Hall. The Cave Master had extended every courtesy and welcomed us as honored guests. To our joy and relief, Serah was there. She’d had a very un-adventurous adventure, since she’d been captured by the duke’s men soon after we parted.

Nobody would harm a healer though, so she’d offered her services and actually healed a number of wounded soldiers, and slowly made her way out of the palace. By then fighting had broken out again and she’d decided it would be too dangerous to try to move around on her own on the upper floor, so she’d returned to the dwarves.

Now we all sat around a stone table, but the dwarves had courteously replaced the stone chairs with wooden, heavily padded ones. Everyone looked tired and exhausted - but we were all alive.

“I declare the mission a success,” Tiriel said and raised her mug. We joined her, but several winced and groaned. “To success!”

“I think the greatest success is that we’re all here,” Serah said. “When I came out and saw the battle in the sky I was sure the whole palace would be destroyed.”

Caveria snorted. “That useless piece of... ow!” She groaned, and smoke came out of her nose. Serah leaned over and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Thanks,” Caveria said. “Lecander might have destroyed it, but I knew what I was doing.” She sniffed, and coughed heavily.

“But you don’t think he’s dead?” Arndrir asked.

“No,” she said. “He’s as tough as I am. I beat him, and he won’t be making trouble for months, but I don’t think he’s dead. He had his henchmen along. I think he was unconscious when he landed, but they will have retrieved him.”

“He will come after you,” Thord observed.

“Oh yes,” she said, baring her teeth, which made her look disturbingly demonic even without the red eyes and smoking hair. “We were already enemies, he and I. Nothing new there.”

She fell silent, and nobody spoke for a while.

“A great success,” Tiriel said finally. “We determined the Duke doesn’t have the Blade, we defeated his coup, we rescued Caveria, and we all came out alive, despite great odds against.”

“We didn’t find the Blade, though,” Thord observed again.

“No,” she conceded. “I doubt it was ever here, though.”

“So do I,” Serah said. “I tried to scan the palace and square from the roof of the Hall. I didn’t sense anything that hinted at the real Blade.”

“What could you sense in that chaos?” I asked her. It must be impossible, surely.

“More than you’d think,” she smiled at me. “In war and battle men lose their mental discipline and all manner of things leak out. It’s not easy to sort through, but if you look for only one thing it’s quite effective. Although confusing as all heck.”

“We should discuss further tomorrow I think,” Arndrir said. “We are all exhausted and need rest and sleep. And healing.” He nodded towards Caveria, who smiled back. Very, very tiredly.

“Yes,” Tiriel said. She sat back in her chair. She looked tired too, but she still summoned her blazing smile and turned it towards each of us. “Tomorrow is a new day, and new plans!”

“Or old ones,” Caveria murmured. A strange light gleamed in her blue eyes.

“I think... Let us leave that as plan B,” Arndrir said, sounding unhappy.

“Sure,” Caveria replied. “There’s nothing wrong with having a plan B.”