Donning his gloves once again, Tharos returned to the side of his horse, hauled himself into the saddle, and took back his spear from the soldier who had been holding it for him. He directed another glance toward the hook-nosed spellcaster behind him, whose complexion, Roran noticed, had acquired a deathly cast in the brief span since Tharos had set foot on the ground. Tharos must have noticed the change in his magician as well, for his own expression became strained.

“My thanks for your hospitality, Roran Stronghammer,” he said, raising his voice so that his entire troop could hear. “Mayhap I will soon have the honor of entertaining you within the walls of Aroughs. If so, I promise to serve you the finest wines from my family’s estate, and perhaps with them I will be able to wean you off such barbaric milk as you have there. I think you will find our wine has much to recommend it. We let it age in oaken casks for months or sometimes even years. It would be a pity if all that work were wasted and the casks were knocked open and the wine were allowed to run out into the streets and paint them red with the blood of our grapes.”

“That would indeed be a shame,” Roran replied, “but sometimes you cannot avoid spilling a bit of wine when cleaning your table.” Holding the horn out to one side, he tipped it over and poured what little mead remained onto the grass below.

Tharos was utterly still for a moment—even the feathers on his helm were motionless—then, with an angry snarl, he yanked his horse around and shouted at his men, “Form up! Form up, I say.… Yah!” And with that final yell, he spurred his horse away from Roran, and the rest of the soldiers followed, urging their steeds to a gallop as they retraced their steps to Aroughs.

Roran maintained his pretense of arrogance and indifference until the soldiers were well away, then he slowly released his breath and rested his elbows on his knees. His hands were trembling slightly.

It worked, he thought, amazed.

He heard men running toward him from the camp, and he looked over his shoulder to see Baldor and Carn approaching, accompanied by at least fifty of the warriors who had been hiding within the tents.

“You did it!” exclaimed Baldor as they drew near. “You did it! I can’t believe it!” He laughed and slapped Roran on the shoulder hard enough to knock him against the table.

The other men crowded around him, also laughing, as well as praising him with extravagant phrases, boasting that under his leadership they would capture Aroughs without so much as a single casualty, and belittling the courage and character of the city’s inhabitants. Someone shoved a warm, half-full wineskin into his hand, which he stared at with unexpected loathing, then passed to the man directly to his left.

“Did you cast any spells?” he asked Carn, his words barely audible over the hubbub of the celebrations.

“What?” Carn leaned closer, and Roran repeated his question, whereupon the magician smiled and nodded vigorously. “Aye. I managed to make the air shimmer as you wanted.”

“And did you attack their enchanter? When they left, he looked as if he was about to faint.”

Carn’s smile broadened. “It was his own doing. He kept trying to break the illusion he thought I had created—to pierce the veil of shimmering air so he could see what lay behind—but there was nothing to break, nothing to pierce, so he expended all his strength in vain.”

Then Roran chuckled, and his chuckle grew into a long, full-bodied laugh that rose above the excited clamor and rolled out over the fields in the direction of Aroughs.

For several minutes, he allowed himself to bask in the admiration of his men, until he heard a loud warning cry from one of the sentries stationed at the edge of the camp.

“Move aside! Let me see!” said Roran, and sprang to his feet. The warriors complied, and he beheld a lone man off to the west—whom he recognized as one of the party he had sent to search the banks of the canals—riding hard over the fields, heading toward the camp. “Have him come here,” instructed Roran, and a lanky, red-haired swordsman ran off to intercept the rider.

While they waited for the man to arrive, Roran picked up the knucklebones and dropped them, one by one, into the leather cup. The bones made a satisfying clatter as they landed.

As soon as the warrior was within hailing distance, Roran called out, “Ho there! Is all well? Were you attacked?”

To Roran’s annoyance, the man remained silent until he was only a few yards away, whereupon he jumped off his mount and presented himself before Roran, standing as stiff and straight as a sun-starved pine, and, in a loud voice, exclaimed, “Captain, sir!” Upon closer inspection, Roran realized that the man was actually more of a boy—that, in fact, he was the same scraggly youth who had grabbed his reins when he had first ridden into the camp. The realization did nothing to sate Roran’s frustrated curiosity, though.

“Well, what is it? I haven’t got all day.”

“Sir! Hamund sent me to tell you that we found all the barges we need and that he’s building the sleds to transport them across to the other canal.”

Roran nodded. “Good. Does he need any more help to get them there in time?”

“Sir, no sir!”

“And is that all?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“You don’t have to keep calling me sir. Once is enough. Understood?”

“Sir, yes—Uh, yes s—Uh, I mean, yes, of course.”

Roran suppressed a smile. “You’ve done well. Get yourself something to eat and then ride out to the mine and report back to me. I want to know what they’ve accomplished so far.”