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to kick him, but he was off like a shot, streaking across the plain.
    â€œIdiot,” I yelled after him, and then turned to see that Quismal, savant of horses, had somehow undone his reins from the tree and was standing in the middle of the creek.
    I spent a half-hour fishing my mount out of the water before I was on my way again. We crossed the open expanse of the fields of Harakun, where so many historic battles of oppression had been waged by the forces of the Well-Built City against the farmers of Latrobia. Thousands were buried in mass graves beneath the ground I traversed, their lives cut short by the Master’s will and whim. There was an eerie sadness to the desolate plain, which, as I had read in school, had once been fertile ground. Now nothing grew there but a tawny-colored saw grass and an occasional gnarled tree, as if the deaths of all those souls had also killed the very earth on which they had battled. I was equally tense for the fact that there was little cover with which to block my approach to the walls of the city.
    Quismal could obviously feel the spirit of the place, for he overcame his usual lethargy and was actually skittish at times, prancing to this side or that, whinnying at the sight of birds and rabbits. I stayed low on his back, trying to present as slight a spectacle as possible to anyone or anything that might be watching. When we would move across a clearing that held no grass, I more than once saw paw tracks in the soft dry dirt that I knew were too large to be Wood’s. In the late afternoon, I saw something moving through tall grass about a quarter of a mile to the west and was almost certain it had a silver-gray coat. As I continued deeper into the heart of the plain, I had the sickening realization that they were probably encircling me, waiting for nightfall.
    It was twilight when I first caught sight of the city’s jagged silhouette in the distance. The few remaining spires, the blasted outer wall, and the crumbled buildings appeared all together like the fossil of an ancient behemoth that had fallen from the sky. The shaft of the crystal tower that had been the Top of the City glimmered like a diamond eye in the setting sun. I could not help but think that it could see me returning. For a moment, I forgot about the horrors that had been perpetrated there and experienced a brief wave of nostalgia. I had spent my youth there, had risen to power, learned my gravest lesson there. I reached into my coat and retrieved the green veil. I could not deceive myself that I had come solely to save my neighbors.
    As I gauged by the position of the sun how long I had until nightfall, I noticed three birds moving through the sky from the direction of the ruins. At first, I took them to be crows or hawks, but then the last of the sun touched them and they glistened like splinters thrown off from the remains of the crystal tower. I needed no more of an indication than those brief sparks of light to know exactly what breed of bird they were. I reached back and brought up the crossbow. As soon as I had the quiver of arrows slung across my back, I leaned forward and pleaded for Quismal to run. He must have felt my fear, because, to my astonishment, he actually began to canter.
    By the time he achieved a gallop, the first of the metallic birds had begun to spiral down toward us. I pulled hard on the reins from left to right, directing the horse in a zigzag pattern while all the time watching the deadly mechanism in its descent. As if it had intelligence, it stayed with us as we fled erratically across the plain. When it was no more than a hundred yards above, it hovered for a second and then simply plummeted like a stone dropped from a cliff. It missed us by less than ten yards and upon impact with the ground exploded with an intensity that threw earth and rock high into the air, nearly knocking me out of the saddle. We had narrowly escaped, but the blast frightened Quismal back into his usual