But the Coerliate men, just as surely as men ate beef. That would've been sufficient reason to handle the problem in the fashion Carus wanted, if the catmen had balked at Garric's offer of trial by battle. The Coerli shrieked louder. A Corl chieftain, the biggest catman Garric had thus far seen, swaggered out of the city. He paused just beyond the open gate leaves and, raising his maned head, bugled a menacing challenge of coughs and screams. "I am Klagan!" the catman cried.

Garric could hear the Corl even through the brazen cacophony of the royal army. "No one can stand against me!" "Wait and see, beast," said Carus with murderous relish. "You and your Council of Elders don't know what you're in for!" Carus'd been the ruler of Old Kingdom when it crashed into anarchy a thousand years before his distant descendant Garric was born. There'd never been a warrior the equal of Carus. If generalship and a strong sword arm could've preserved civilization, then the Old Kingdom would still be standing. Kingship requires more than military might, though. The anger and furious drive that'd made Carus unstoppable on the battlefield were as much the cause of his kingdom's collapse as the rebels and usurpers springing up whenever the royal army was at a distance. Eventually a wizard had sucked Carus and his fleet to their doom in the depths of the Inner Sea; and because the wizard's trust in his power had been as deceiving as Carus' own, they'd drowned together in the cataclysm. The wizard's death hadn't saved the kingdom, though. When death loosed the King's hand, chaos, blood, and burning had followed for all the islands. It'd taken a thousand years for civilization to return-and now the Change threatened to bring chaos in a different form. The Elders know what's going to happen, Garric said silently as he stretched, feeling his mail shirt ripple like water over the suede jerkin cushioning it. I offered them an excuse to permit them to surrender, and they snapped it up. Otherwise every Corl in the Place will die, and they know that too. He chuckled aloud, then added, Klagan may not know, of course.