Narasan’s doubts began to fade. ‘If I’d known about this, I’d have held out for more gold,’ he muttered to himself.

4

The weather had turned warm as the flood subsided, and Narasan found it to be almost pleasant as he and his men began their march up the south bench of the ravine, despite the fact that things were very muddy.

As they neared the gap at the head of the ravine, the trees became less intimidating and the undergrowth diminished. The upper end of the ravine seemed almost to have a park-like quality with snow-covered mountains off in the distance and a tiny brook trickling over stones through a grassy little meadow surrounded by evergreen trees.

The archer Longbow was waiting for them, and he led Narasan, Gunda, Padan, and Jalkan up to the narrow gap to give them a chance to see the barren Wasteland lying far below. Then he drew their attention to a rocky ridge line a mile or so out in the desert. ‘There they are,’ he said.

Narasan stared in awe at the enemy force crowded along that ridge-line. So far as he could tell, they stretched from horizon to horizon.

Sorgan and his men arrived not long thereafter, and Sorgan also seemed to be a bit disturbed by the enormity of the approaching enemy force.

When the clever young Keselo discovered that the sandy slope was in actuality a stairway constructed of stone blocks, however, the situation changed radically. The stairway was a convenient source of building material, and the fortress Narasan’s men could build with those blocks would be virtually impregnable.

Not long after daybreak the following morning, a hollow roar that could not possibly have come from a human throat came echoing out of the desert, and enemies by the thousands came charging across the desert and up the now useless stairway. Longbow’s archers lined the battlements along the front wall of the fort, and when the enemy soldiers came into range, Longbow lifted his horn and sounded the death-knell for almost half of the attacking force. The cloud of arrows rising from the front wall of the fort nearly blotted out the sunrise, and it immediately set off an avalanche of dead enemies rolling back on down the stairway to confound the rear ranks. The mindless charge continued, however, until the last few enemy soldiers were killed before they ever reached the front wall of the fort.

Narasan smiled briefly. Things seemed to be going rather well this morning.

Veltan came by early that afternoon to speak with Longbow about the total lack of any encounters with the enemy during their trek up the ravine. Longbow gave him an explanation that chilled Narasan all the way down to the bone. It was fairly obvious now that they were trapped here at the head of the ravine with no possible means of escape.

Longbow, however, had already solved that problem - or so it appeared. As it turned out, however, their enemies were about two steps ahead of them. There were hidden burrows near the bench on the south side of the ravine, and their enemies swarmed out of those burrows and killed at least a quarter of the party of Maags who were coming down the ravine.

Narasan was certain that the time had come for a conference with his friend Sorgan, but Sorgan, it appeared was way ahead of him. The burly Maag came down to the bottom of the ravine and joined Narasan there. They agreed that the hidden burrows had quite obviously made their original plan obsolete, and now faced an entirely different situation.

They had just begun to come up with alternatives when a deep rumble preceded an earthquake so violent that they could barely stand up.

Then there was an almost deafening crash of thunder and a blinding flash of light as Veltan appeared out of nowhere. ‘Run!’ he shouted. ‘Run for your lives! Get your people away from this cursed ravine!’

Then Red-Beard, who’d been staring at the upper end of the ravine, suddenly shouted, ‘Fire Mountain!’ and he turned and ran.

Red-Beard’s somewhat distorted sense of humor deserted him at that point, Commander Narasan noted. Of course, with the twin volcanos at the head of the ravine spouting liquid lava-rock miles into the air, nobody in Narasan’s army was laughing very much as they fled down the south rim of the ravine toward what they all fervently hoped was the safety of the bay of Lattash where their ships waited.

When they reached the vicinity of Skell’s fort, Narasan paused. The fort had been built out of massive boulders, and the very narrow gap at the center that had been intended to let the river pass through wouldn’t really allow very much lava to rush on down. The fort had been constructed to hold back an enemy, and it seemed that it might even do its job when the enemy happened to be liquid lava.

When the first trickles of lava hit the large pond on the upstream side of the fort, a vast cloud of steam came boiling up to block Narasan’s view. Muttering a few choice curses, he moved on down to a point on the rim where he could see the downhill side of the fort. There was steam boiling out, but he didn’t see any lava streaming through. The lava was quite obviously turning back into solid rock when it hit the water, and that rock was reinforcing what had started out as a fort, but was now a dam. Narasan had more than a few suspicions at that point. Given the heat of the liquid lava, the pond to the east of Skell’s dam should have vanished in a cloud of steam, but it didn’t. Evidently, somebody - or something - was replenishing the water as fast or faster than the lava could boil it away. Narasan was greatly relieved. Skell’s dam, aided by that steady supply of water, would hold the lava back for long enough to give his men time to row on out to the fleet lying in the harbor. It appeared that he and his men would survive - even in the face of the natural disaster which had come boiling up out of the bowels of the earth.

5

When the combined fleet passed through the narrow inlet at the mouth of the bay, Narasan realized that the waves of the open sea were quite a bit larger than the waves had been in the protected bay, and he found that to be quite exhilarating. There was a sense of freedom at sea that was absent in the lives of those who lived on land. That gave Narasan a somewhat better understanding of Sorgan Hook-Beak.

Of course, the design of the Seagull also played a part in Sorgan’s personality. In many ways the Seagull was much like her namesake, swift, graceful - and usually hungry.

The Maags were polite enough not to dash off and leave the broad-beamed Trogite vessels wallowing far behind, and Sorgan stayed well within hailing distance as the fleet moved south along the west coast of Lady Zelana’s Domain. At Veltan’s request, his rather scruffy little fishing sloop was attached to one of the Trogite ships by a long rope. Veltan seemed quite fond of that sloop for some reason, and Sorgan had definitely approved of bringing it along. ‘We’ll be moving into strange waters, Narasan,’ he’d explained, ‘and that little tub can do the sounding for us any time we get close to a shoreline.’