“Slight change of plans,” she told Merimydion. “Tell your men to brace themselves. It’s about to get very ugly for us. And you might want to give me some room.”

The Sealord took one look at her face and fell back, shouting to his men in Calbernan.

She tightened her grip on Roland’s sword.

“Okay, Blazing,” she muttered, “let’s see what you’ve got.” If there was any small chance she could still save Wynter, Kham intended to take it. But if he was lost to her, if Rorjak’s hold over him was too strong to defeat, then it was her duty to stop him in any way she could. Even if that meant unleashing the same cataclysmic power that had ended the life of Roland Soldeus.

One way or another, the Ice King would never step foot off this field.

“Helos, Sunfather, whatever gifts this sword can give, grant them to me now.” She thrust the sword skyward and flung open the doors to her magic, calling to the gods and the sun and the skies with every part of her being.

What answered was far beyond anything she’d ever summoned before.

It was as if a column of fire had descended upon her, igniting her world with heat and flame. Strangely, it didn’t burn. Her skin went hot and tight, her hair swirled around her on a sea of heat-spawned winds, but there was no pain. Only a feeling of extreme warmth and the sensation of strength and vitality filling her body near to bursting. The edges of her vision went bright, golden white.

The diamond in the sword’s hilt was shining bright as a star, its light near blinding.

In the sky, she could see the flows of air swirling through the storm, like ribbons of blue and red and electric purple. She reached for them and forced them to her will, swirling the flows of warm air round and round in ever-tightening circles as she fed heat and moisture into the storm.

The Ice King roared and wheeled around, unleashing his Gaze. Two dozen Frost Giants followed suit. But even the coldest depths of winter could not extinguish the heat of the sun. The frost of Rorjak’s Gaze and the blizzard of the Frost Giants’ howls turned to steam, which Khamsin fed back into the storm. Lightning cracked and flashed. One bolt hit a tree near the Ice King’s army, exploding it in a burst of burning wood and vaporized ice.

Two dozen garm broke from their attack on Falcon’s forces, spinning around and galloping directly toward Khamsin and the Calbernans.

“Merimydion!” She shouted to get the Sealord’s attention and pointed at the herd of onrushing garm.

“I see them! Calbernari! To arms!” At his shouted command, his men stuffed wax plugs in their ears to protect them from the paralytic effects of the garm’s screams and readied their shields and tridents. Behind them others loosened their arrows.

The garm crossed the ground in land-eating strides. They fell upon the Calbernans in a shrieking pack, claws and fangs slashing and tearing. To their credit, the fierce warriors of the Islands held rank. Moving with the inhuman swiftness of ocean predators, they leapt and whirled and twisted to evade the garm’s slashing claws and attacked with their own brand of savage ferocity. Ice-coated shields bashed. Tridents stabbed and twisted, shredding flesh with their wicked barbs. Several Calbernans leapt over the backs of their brothers to hack and slash at the wounded garm with serrated blades. Red and blue blood ran like rivers across the snow.

One of the garm made it through the line of defenders and closed in on Khamsin with lethal speed, only to freeze solid and skid to a halt as Krysti stabbed it with Thorgyll’s spear. The boy yanked the spear free and ran to help the Calbernans finish off their lot.

Seeing his garm destroyed, the Ice King roared in fury and shouted commands on the howling winds. Twenty Frost Giants sprinted towards the Calbernans. The ground shook with the pounding of their feet as the colossal monsters approached. Massive serrated blades swung like scythes, and despite swift reflexes, more than dozen of Merimydion’s countrymen were unable to evade the blades. Sharp, icy steel cleaved them in two.

Khamsin kept her attention and efforts focused on the storm. She fed it more energy and stirred the rotation of the clouds even faster. Several thick, horizontal, spinning ropes formed in the darkening clouds. The sky turned an eerie shade of dark green. Pressure built in her ears, and the sound of wind grew to a roar. The tops of the trees began whipping about. Branches cracked and ripped free, flying through the air like javelins.

The spinning ropes in the volatile heart of the storm dropped down, thick, deadly funnels of wind and vapor that reached for the ground like the fingers of a god.

She sent several of the funnels into the heart of the army attacking Falcon’s troops and directed another at the Frost Giants running towards her position. Garm, thralls, even the massive Frost Giants were no match for her whirling winds. The cyclones swept them up and flung them like pebbles through the air. Khamsin drove the vortexes through the Ice King’s ranks with ruthless abandon, scattering his troops and breaking his lines while simultaneously calling down the lightning. The dark green sky went blinding white as bolt after bolt after bolt of incinerating fire shot down from the heavens, finding Rorjak’s minions with unerring accuracy.

Lightning hit the ground all around Rorjak as Khamsin tried to thin his ranks of defenders. Khamsin aimed a bolt directly at Reika Villani, but the vile woman flung herself out of the way at the last split second, then scrambled to her feet and took off running into the forest.

Across the field, Falcon’s forces began closing in on the remaining thralls and garm. Lancers pinned the thralls to the ground, leaving infantry to dispatch them. Archers turned the garm into pincushions. Red and blue blood painted the snowy field an awful shade of purple.