Tol squinted against the sunlight. Three, perhaps four, hours of daylight remained. The battle must be concluded before sunset or their great gamble would fail.

He and Frez guided their mounts to the ridge above the ravine. On their right, battle raged between Lord Regobart’s thirty hordes and the city’s army. The Tarsan commander, Admiral Anovenax, was bold and brave but not much of a tactician-very like his opponent, Regobart. The admiral had marched forth from the city with his entire garrison thinking to smash the Ergothian army and enable the Tarsan fleet to dock. With the Tarsan forces thus united, the imperial hordes would be outnumbered and cut in two. All that would be left to them was ignominious retreat.

However, the admiral’s plan had not brought him the swift victory he’d expected. Foiling his triumph were the inhabitants of a cluster of tents set up on the rolling dunes two leagues from the city. There, priests employed by the empire worked the powerful and prolonged wind spell that held the Tarsan fleet at bay. Twice the Tarsans had tried to destroy the clerics; first, in a night raid that failed, and then with magic of their own. Their hired magicians had called forth a flock of fire-ravens, living birds made of flame. Imperial spellcasters countered with torrential rain, and the fire-ravens were extinguished before they could do serious damage. Now Anovenax was concentrating his attack on the tents.

Sixteen hordes were under Tol’s command, the six thousand horsemen and ten thousand infantry which made up the Army of the North. All lay flat on their bellies, the riders’ horses likewise down. Rolling dunes screened them from the sea and from sharp-eyed city sentinels.