The Tervola nodded, untouched by Shih-ka'i's dry humor. He was a man nearly Shih-ka'i's age, one of the old guard banished by Lord Kuo. He too remembered the Demon Prince's experiments. The dead could keep rising and rising, and could recruit their foes to their own cause. They could not be permitted to win battles. They would become stronger with each victory.

"Send those three back to the fortress," Shih-ka'i said, indicating the dead legionnaires. "We'll have that necromancer of Lun-yu's call up their shades."

His neck hairs prickled. He opened up, feeling for some new threat. There was none. He nodded to himself. Something was watching.

He went up the hill and looked to the east. Somewhere out there. In all that nothing. He studied the dust raised by retreating foemen, projecting their lines of march.

There? That heat haze hidden hump on the horizon? He oriented himself by the map. Yes. The hump would be smack in the middle of the suspect area.

"You should have kept your head down, friend," he murmured. "Now we see you. Now we're coming for a closer look."

A wind rose. It was hard and hot and dry. The dust it carried gnawed like sandpaper. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka'i ignored it. He stood on that hill like a sturdy little statue, immobile and unmovable. Behind his mask his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

3Year 1016 afe

Gathering of the Mighty

T HE WOMAN FOLLOWED her husband through a corridor in Castle Krief, the Royal Palace in Vorgreberg, the capital of Kavelin, one of the Lesser Kingdoms. Her steps were plodding, rolling. An unkind person would have called her walk a waddle. She was very pregnant. And very distracted. She caught herself falling behind, hurried to catch up. Her husband paused, a slight frown crinkling his brow. "Nepanthe, what's the matter?"