Chapter 1

  Erban Tenggas, Second Captain of the Ulenbeter Guard, stalked through the lower levels of his city, trailing a platoon of heavily armed city watchers. Erban’s mouse ears twitched in frustration. His watcher guards were silent, each of them anxious about the calamity everyone knew was about to befall the city. Erban and his guards were following the inside of the Tall Wall, rounding up every citizen of the city and moving them inward toward the gates that led through the Gilded Wall.

  War was coming to Ulenbeter. Soon enough, the Tall Wall would be besieged by all manner of mysterious weapons and magics. It would not be safe at the extreme edges of the city.

  While Erban cleared the area of civilians, a mishmash of soldiers passed by, moving toward the walls. The army garrison comprised the bulk of the force defending Ulenbeter, but they were joined by members of the Wolf Brigade, a handful of different mercenary companies, and even some Mountain Guard orcs that had not been deployed in the failed attack on Batulan-bar. The soldiers climbed Tall Wall towers, stationing themselves all along the wall’s perimeter in preparation for an impending attack. They did not know when it would come, but they knew it would be soon.

  Erban still couldn’t believe it. The Wolf Brigade broken. The Mountain Guard in full retreat.

  A dragon dead. His dragon. Drakko, the Winged Inferno, who he had worshipped publicly and despised privately. Dead.

  It was impossible. One man could not be responsible for that. From what Erban knew of history before the dragons and humans formed their contract and shaped the worlds to their designs, it had taken hundreds of humans working together to bring down a single, lesser dragon, and the late Drakko had not been of the lesser variety. True, there were bigger dragons. Much bigger. But only one person in the history of the Seven Worlds of Gaia could possibly have defeated Drakko in single combat, and the worlds had not seen the likes of her in a thousand years.

  Now, someone or something had killed Drakko in Batulan-bar, and they were almost certainly coming for Ulenbeter next.

  Erban and his guards reached an intersection with one of the main city gates. Two hundred soldiers from the army garrison were already setting up defenses in case the gate was breached. Halberdiers set up barricades and laid out sharp sticks and wires to slow intruders. Archers and arbalists climbed to the top of the gate and set up on the roofs of nearby houses, ready to turn the intersection into a kill zone. Publicized mages and wielders of publicized weapons changed the terrain to create new walls and barriers, positioning themselves where they could do the most damage during a breakthrough.

  No one knew what kind of attack was coming. Would it just be one man? Would he bring an army of sympathetic elves and beastkin to siege the city? Erban had been warned that a revolution was starting in Batulan-bar. How large had it grown?

  A sharply dressed human Erban recognized stood in the center of the intersection, watching his soldiers prepare. Erban ordered his guards to continue searching for leftover civilians and went to talk to General Raval.

  “Captain Tenggas,” the human general said as Erban approached. “I trust the outskirts of the city will soon be cleared?”

  “Yes, Lord General,” Erban said, bowing his head. “This is the final ward of the city. All others are prepared.”

  “Very good, Captain.” General Raval gave Erban a sideways look. “You look nervous.”

  “No, Lord General.” My damn ears were the giveaway! Erban thought.

  “Out with it,” the general insisted. “If you have a concern, I want to hear it. If I cannot hold the walls, it will be your watchers who must hold the Waterfall Portal. You are the one person I trust to keep it safe.”

  “Thank you, Lord General. Your confidence puts me at ease.”

  “And yet?” Raval pressed.

  “If the Winged Inferno was defeated,” Erban said, “what hope do we have of doing any better?”

  “We have many advantages. I am sure you are aware of them. Numbers, an entrenched position, the skill of our warriors. But the simple truth is this. We will not fall for whatever trick this Dalex of the Expedition Seven used against Drakko. He got lucky. His minions held off the Mountain Guard long enough for him to spring some trap that the dragon could not see. The same cannot be accomplished here.”

  “Yes, Lord General.”

  “Still, you do not seem convinced,” Raval said.

  “I am confident, Lord General. My troops and I will do our duty.”

  “Very well. If you have a specific concern about the defense of the city, please inform me. We won’t be on our own forever. I expect reinforcements from the Field Legions within the next two days.” He looked over Erban’s shoulder at a corner shop across the intersection. “Oh, and one of my beastkin aides informed me of an unruly civilian in that tailor shop on the corner there. I think it would cause too much fuss if I rousted the ponce out. Would you mind?”

  “Of course, Lord General,” Erban said. “That is our duty in the guard, after all.”

  “Good man,” the general said, and turned away.

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  Erban called over several of his guards and marched to the corner tailor. Some of his subordinates were already waiting outside, looking uncertain.

  “Why aren’t you inside?” Erban asked.

  “There’s three of them, sir,” one of the watchers said. “The beastkin shopkeeper and two humans.”

  “I see. Move on to the next structure. I will take care of this one.”

  The watchers saluted and jogged to the other side of the intersection. Erban pushed open the door to the shop and stepped inside. He was assaulted by the fresh scent of starch and leather. Racks of colorful tunics, jackets, and cloaks covered the walls. Three pairs of trousers were laid out on wooden stands, ready to be adjusted. It wasn’t a shop Erban had visited before. It tended to serve human men and didn’t accommodate tails or other beastkin features.

  But the shopkeeper was beastkin, a horse-eared male from a more aristocratic class than Erban’s. He stood behind a counter, showing off a gray jacket for the human man and his wife. Normally, unless they had broken a law, Erban would have felt uncomfortable confronting any of these three people, but he couldn’t let that stop him here.

  “Excuse me, sirs, madam,” he said. “This area isn’t safe. You have been ordered to evacuate to the upper city.”

  “I told you someone else would come,” the man’s wife said. She was blonde with green eyes and wore a simple, blue dress. “Why are you insisting on doing this now?”

  The man, dressed in a startling red tunic and a pair of sleek gray trousers, sighed. “I haven’t had any time the last three weeks to do the shopping I wanted to do, and I liked the looks of this establishment.”

  He shook his head, disturbing his long brown hair, and looked at Erban pleadingly with similarly brown eyes.

  “Be that as it may,” Erban said. “You can’t be here. I have to ask you to finish your business and leave. You too, shopkeeper. I don’t want to have to call in my watchers to pull you out.”

  The shopkeeper’s eyes widened and, with an exasperated tone, he said, “I never!”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” the human man said. “I will finish my business. Will you allow me to buy the jacket, good sir? I liked the purple one too, but I’ll come back for it when all this nonsense is finished.”

  “If you hurry,” Erban insisted.

  “Of course.” The human stuck his hand in a pocket and pulled out a few gold coins. “Is this enough?”

  “Yes, that should cover the jacket, the trousers, and the tunic,” the shopkeeper said. “I will save the purple jacket for your return.”

  The human handed the shopkeeper the coins for the clothes he was apparently already wearing, and the shopkeeper passed him the jacket.

  “Thank you,” Erban said, “now please, head for the inner city. If you have questions about where you should go, one of the watchers outside can help you.”

  The human man looped his arms through the sleeves of his new jacket. “We know where to go. Thank you, good sir.”

  The two humans walked outside and disappeared around the corner of the intersection. Erban let the shopkeeper lock his building and then stuck around long enough to make sure he went on his way. All-in-all, the rousting had gone well. Why the man and his wife had thought this was a good time to be buying new clothes, Erban couldn’t say, but, curiously, they had complied with his demands quickly enough. Most humans probably would have complained more.

  Since General Raval did not have any more need of Erban, and the intersection had been fully evacuated of civilians, Erban gathered up his guards and marched them into the inner city. They navigated around crowds of evacuees and local residents, slowly moving toward the Waterfall Portal Plaza and the largest contingent of Erban’s watchers. His subordinates were spread in teams all over the city, keeping the peace and watching for infiltrators, but most of the watchers were posted in defense of the portal.

  Erban and his platoon passed through several interior gates before entering the plaza. The plaza was mostly empty space, a plain of polished limestone bricks surrounding the imposing portal, which stood on a raised dais of shining obsidian. There were no buildings inside the plaza. Erban’s guards had set up some tents and temporary fortifications, but anyone who entered or left the city through the portal was meant to leave the plaza without lingering.

  The portal itself was at least ten stories tall and wide enough for twenty wagons to pass through it side by side. It was circular, a simple stone ring set into the obsidian dais and filled with a swirling vortex of soft red clouds. A red fog spilled out of the opening of the portal, dissipating a few feet from the ring. The stone ring containing the portal was only a foot thick, but looking through the opening gave it the appearance of immeasurable depth.

  Erban had been in the plaza when Drakko had come through the portal three days ago. The dragon had tucked its wings in and crawled through the ring on its stomach, just barely able to fit. As soon as he had reached the Ulenbetter side of the portal, he had risen to his full height, let out a frustrated roar, unfurled his wings, and flew away east, knocking down part of the interior wall with one of his dangling feet. Some of Erban’s guards were now filling the hole the dragon left with a magical plaster created by one of the city’s publicized engineers.

  Erban did a walkthrough of the plaza, making sure all of his troops were in place. He needed them to be prepared for anything. Enemies might attempt to assault the inner walls surrounding the plaza directly, or they might come from the sky. The Ulenbeter Guard could handle either method of attack, at least for a little while. Truly, the city was prepared to defend against even a dragon. No one had ever liked to admit that was a possibility, least of all Drakko himself, but there were occasional wars between dragons. A dragon hostile to Drakko could have conceivably decided to take the city for itself.

  When Erban was satisfied his subordinates were prepared, he walked up the ramp to the base of the portal and faced away from it. He stood alone, watching the gate to the plaza. General Raval was right, this city was a fortress. This fellow, Dalex of the Expedition Seven, would have a tough time getting through the Tall Wall, let alone climbing up all of Ulenbeter’s defenses to reach the top of the hill and the Waterfall Portal Plaza. Even if he approached from the sky, there were so many weapons and spells ready to shoot him down.

  No, he would not even touch the portal.

  “Wow,” a voice said behind Erban. “This is really something else.”

  Erban turned around to see a man with long brown hair wearing a gray jacket and pants with the edges of a red tunic just visible under the hem of the jacket. It was the human from the tailor’s shop, and he was resting his hand on the stone ring of the portal, looking at it with an admiring expression. His wife stood a few feet away, looking displeased that he would touch the portal.

  A shiver ran down Erban’s spine. “What—?” he began, but then he stopped. Had the man’s hair always been gray? And short? “Who—?"

  The man turned around. His clothes stayed the same, but his long brown hair had been cut and dyed almost white, and his eyes were no longer brown either. He stared at Erban with piercing red irises. His wife suddenly showed the sharp and narrow ears of an elf.

  “Oh, it’s you,” the man said to Erban. “I didn’t expect to see you again. You must be important.”

  “You—” Erban stuttered. “You’re not supposed—”

  “To be here?” the man finished. “You’re quite right.”

  The man put his hand out to the side and a great axe the color of the pure blue sky dropped into his grasp. Its pommel clinked on the obsidian of the portal’s dais.

  “Nice to meet you,” the man said. “I’m Dalex of the Expedition Seven. What’s your name?”

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