Rachel glanced sideways at Ferrin as she crumbled her biscuits and stirred them together with her eggs. “Tell me about your night. I hear you saved the day.”

“I can share what I didn’t do,” Ferrin said. “I didn’t singlehandedly blow open the gates, ram a wagonload of fire through the breach, then commence with a hailstorm of orantium. How’s your head?”

“Feeling better,” Rachel said. “It was good to stretch myself. Hopefully, I’ll have more endurance next time. But I want details! I keep hearing how well things went at East Keep.”

“We entered belowground. I disposed of some guards silently. We had practically filled the dungeon before we had to blow a door to proceed. The blast announced our presence, but our foes responded poorly. We killed some sentries and made it to the top of the wall before anybody really understood what was happening. Some orantium followed by brawny drinlings went a long way toward clearing the top of the wall. While seedfolk archers rained arrows into the yard, we reached the mechanisms and opened the gates.”

“The displacer offers a humble account,” Herral said. “He slew at least twenty foes, including three displacers, and lost his head leading the charge along the wall.”

“I got it back,” Ferrin clarified.

“He personally opened the gates,” Herral went on. “Then he led a team into the keep proper by another secret way. Without using gatecrashers, we lost fewer than a hundred souls taking East Keep, and we slew better than a thousand.”

“The offensive could not have gone more smoothly,” Naman announced. “Attacking fortifications like these keeps, we should have lost at least five soldiers for every enemy slain. Instead, the balance of casualties was well in our favor. We lost fewer than fifteen hundred fighters in total, including fewer than a hundred at East Keep and fewer than two hundred at West Keep, where we enjoyed the greatest advantages.”

“It was an inspiring victory,” Galloran agreed, his eyes closed. “It will also be our only victory unless we take Felrook soon. The keeps were meant to hinder us, but the fatal trap remains. We will be outnumbered more than twenty to one when Maldor’s armies return from the east.”

Rachel plucked little chunks from her roll, pinching it apart instead of eating it. Last night had been nightmarish, and that had been a victory! What would defeat look like? She wished they had more time to enjoy their success.

“I’ll start walling off the gateless entrances this morning,” Brin said. “We’ll make our captured fortresses as secure as possible. And I’ll get to work on how we might crack Felrook.”

“We must all bend our thoughts toward raiding Felrook,” Galloran said. “We have no time to starve them out. We cannot flee. We cannot resist the coming tide of enemies. We must take Felrook before they arrive or else perish.”

Rachel had already been thinking long and hard about how they might penetrate Felrook. She had come up with no brilliant schemes. She would put more thought into it as Galloran asked, but she hoped they wouldn’t be relying on her to supply the answer.

“Felrook has secret passages,” Ferrin said, “but none that lead in or out. I know of no fortress more secure—no gate less available, no walls less reachable, no defenses more comprehensive. With only one way up the cliffs, we cannot throw numbers at the problem. There is no access for siege towers or ladders. Expert climbers would be hard-pressed to reach the base of the walls under ideal conditions. The best trebuchet ever designed could not fling a stone halfway up the cliffs.”

Ul leaned over and spoke to Obb in Ji, the staccato drinling language.

“We have orantium,” Obb said.

“Which could create opportunities,” Ferrin allowed. “It will be hard to deliver explosives. Even if we destroy the gates, the path up the cliff is rigged to collapse. How do wingless men attack a fortified island in the sky?”

“The task appears impossible,” Galloran said. “It will require all our strength and ingenuity. But there has to be a way to succeed. We know this by prophecy. We must invent a way to accomplish our aim. Not just our lives, but the lives of every man, woman, and child in Lyrian depend on it. Obsess about this problem. Encourage your best men to wrestle with it. And the least of your men. Stay open to strategies never attempted before.”

Ferrin leaned close to Rachel so he could whisper. “Translation? Pray that Lord Jason succeeds in his quest. Try not to lose your sanity in the meanwhile.”

CHAPTER 23

THE FUMING WASTE

Shortly after dawn, from the shoulder of a craggy hill streaked orange and white, Jason viewed his first panoramic vista of the Fuming Waste. Bands of red, orange, yellow, pink, and white gave striking color to the limestone landscape. Stunted vegetation subsisted in sparse patches—contorted trees, scraggly shrubs, and prickly cacti. Two geysers were erupting, one not far below, the other more distant. Both spewed sparkling towers of scalding water and steam into the air. Within a minute or two the nearer fountain shrank to a bubbling froth and then stopped. The distant geyser kept gushing for a good while. A third geyser started up in the middle distance, just before the far one began to decline.

“It’s lovely,” Corinne said from astride her gelding. “Look at the new one!”

As the soaring eruption continued to stretch higher, refracted sunlight laced the spray with prismatic ripples of color. Behind the radiant display, the farther geyser continued to diminish.

“Three geysers in a row?” Jason said. “I hope geysers are lucky.”

Jasher grunted. “If so, we have come to the luckiest place in Lyrian.”

“I cannot vouch for their value as omens,” Farfalee said, “but the waters of the Fuming Waste are certainly unruly. We’re only at the outskirts. As we draw nearer to the mountains we will find hot springs, painted rivers, sludge pits, cauldrons, sinkholes, steam vents, mineral terraces, mud volcanoes, and geyser cones. None of our maps will be perfect, for the geography here evolves much more rapidly than anywhere else in Lyrian. We will need to proceed with care. There are volatile areas where the ground becomes wafer thin above boiling lakes or where scant layers of sand disguise wells of searing mud.”

“Sounds perfect for a picnic,” Jason quipped. “Who brought the sandwiches?”

“I have ridden this hazardous region before,” Jasher said, “though I never came so near to the heart of the Fuming Waste as this journey demands. Certain indicators can help protect us. Watch for steaming ground. Watch for webs of cracks. Feel for warm pockets. Listen for gurgling. Listen for the earth below popping or splitting. We’ll ride single file.” He pointed into the distance. “The Great Yellow Cone is our first landmark. From there we must proceed across the Polished Plain to the Stepping-Stones, past the Giant’s Bathhouse, and finally into the Scalding Caverns.”