ULREM AWOKE IN agony. His legs bucked and kicked at the sand. He clutched at his side and gasped, heaving.

“You’re alive,” Jakt said wearily.

Ulrem opened his eyes. Glaring sunlight poured through the old window behind the dais. The blond man was drenched in dried blood: a vision of death. His wounds were bound with strips of dirty cloth. He looked more like a leprous beggar than a soldier.

“Not dead,” Ulrem groaned. Probing himself with ginger fingers, he saw that Jakt had taken care of his wounds, too. Then he remembered Sergeant Lidtho and scrambled painfully backward, looking for his sword.

“Easy,” Jakt said. “You shouldn’t be moving. Hells, you should be dead. I saw what Lidtho did to you. But by the time I got to you…well, it looked as if a surgeon had been at it already.”

Ulrem did not answer his unspoken question. Lidtho and the other corpses lay where they’d fallen, though it seemed Jakt had already stripped them of their valuables. A small pile of kit was heaped beside the man. Full water skins, bloody tunics, and enough knives to arm a full squadron of hardy fighting men.

“You killed two of them,” Jakt said, tossing Ulrem a water skin. He caught it and drank deep of the tepid, sandy water. “They were mad. Raving about the Lady, and baronies, and some such. It was hard to understand…through everything else.”

“Did you see her?”

“She was beautiful, but so sad. What happened to her?”

Ulrem sat in thought for a while, feeling the aches of his body, reveling in the sensation of being alive, however unpleasant, and fiercely grateful that Targoth had not snuffed out his flame. Even more then the injuries, the ring had exhausted him, as it always did when he drew too deeply upon its power. The long lines of his muscle traced a cage of pain he would suffer for days.

Jakt avoided his gray gaze, for anger burned in his granite eyes. Anger… and grief. Eventually, he worked up an answer. “She was trying to save her city,” Ulrem said. “She was determined to find a way.”

“But she was a ghost...and the city was already lost.”

“Aye,” said Ulrem. “And most battles are lost before they’re joined. The damned just don’t know it, until their hour comes. Help me up.”

With an effort, Jakt hauled the big man to his feet.

“Is she gone?”

“I hope so, for her sake.” The words were true, but Ulrem’s proud heart longed to look once again upon Laeila’s lovely face. He would have moved mountains for her fierce love. But he was too late. Always, he was too late. The big man ground his teeth, but did not explain himself to Jakt’s watchful silence.

They leaned against one another, limping back out of the palace, making their slow way towards the great stair. Outside, the ruins of Targoth were striking in their barren quiet. Beneath the cobalt sky of dawn, pink clouds splashed above the tawny desert plain. All the world was still in that early hour, and the sun’s vitalizing rays warmed skin chilled by the long night.

By the palace ridge, they could see the extent of the once-great City of Festivals, and how far the builders’ ambition had spread. Even half-buried in sand, Targoth was magnificent. The devastation was equally awe-inspiring. The Targothi had put up a bold, desperate final act. Perhaps things could have played out differently. But who could read the winds of fate?

Ulrem would never know.

Jakt pointed north, towards the Mekdi lowlands. “I’ve had enough of wars. Let’s head that way, and get the hell away from this city.”

“Can’t argue with that.”