Soton cursed Roxthar and his stubbornness that was costing the Grand Host so many lives. A quarter to a third of the storming party was inside Tarr-Hostigos, swarming over it like bees. Both courtyards were littered with bodies, most of them Styphoni. Clouds of smoke wreathed the keep, but before they rose Soton had seen, even from his distant post, the savage struggle to enter it.
Why in the name of all the gods hadn't Phidestros held back, instead of closing the breach? True, it was such reckless abandon that had built Phidestros' reputation at the Battle of Phyrax, when he and his Iron Band had made a suicidal ride to join the battle after the calamity of Chothros Heights. Soton had even ordered him not to fight; if only had the rash commander listened, then there would have been someone to go down and put matters in order.
Instead Phidestros was wounded-badly, the tales ran. Small loss, with the last defenders of Hostigos dying even now and Kalvan fleeing toward the Saltless Seas. If Phidestros were going to make a habit of such follies, perhaps it would be best if he stormed Regwarn's Caverns the next time. If he didn't, Soton would make him wish he had!
The smoke around the keep eddied. Soton turned to summon a messenger.
He never completed the turn. Instead, something as invisible as the air but as hard as stone flung him to his knees. Thunder swelled until it seemed that someone was beating on his helmet with his own warhammer. Three Knights flew off the hill, along with a shower of rocks. Soton knew he cried out at that sight, but couldn't hear his own voice.
He lay, gripping the rocky ground as closely as he ever gripped a woman, until it stopped shaking. Then he rose to his knees, and when they did not betray him, to his feet.
The air was filled with acrid smoke and fine ash. Looking toward Tarr-Hostigos, he saw only a vast swirling cloud of smoke. Somewhere in that smoke was the entire storming party-one man in six of the Grand Host's strength.
One of the Knights was shrieking. "It's the Daemon Kalvan! He's come to save his people! Great Styphon, save us!"
Soton smashed his gauntleted fist into the Knight's face. The man fell as if poleaxed. Soton didn't know what he was really smiting, the Knight or his own fear.
Slowly, the air around what had been Tarr-Hostigos cleared. The slopes around it were alive with men, thousands of them, all streaming away from the castle. Soton let out a deep breath he hadn't even known he was holding.
Another quarter-candle showed him what was left, of Tarr-Hostigos. The keep was only a pile of smoking rubble, the towers had mostly lost their tops, and the walls looked to have been chewed by monsters. How many of the Grand Host lay there under the fallen stone or in fragments strewn across the hillside? The Grand Host would be far less grand by the time they were all counted-of that Soton was sure.
Yet this should not have been a surprise. Desperate men will take desperate measures. Who had more experience fighting the desperate than Soton, Grand Master of the Zarthani Knights?
Soton smashed his fist against his armored thigh, insensible to the pain.
"Roxthar!" he shrieked. "Investigator, you will pay for this! By Styphon's Wheel, I swear it!"