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Arluin is here.Along with his necromancers and hordes of undead.
I tighten my fists. Teleporting awayhas meant I’ve missed the moment of his attack, and taking Lhorok to Nolderan has proven completely pointless. King Agzol can now see his city being attacked with his own eyes. All I achieved was wasting precious time. And magic.
“Wait here,” I say to Zephyr, who peeks at me from behind his brazier. “If any of the undead come in here, then make sure you hide.”
Zephyr gives me a nod, and I whirl around and head out of the hall. Lhorok’s footsteps are frantic behind me. I glance back to see Natharius peeling himself from the iron throne. In the next heartbeat, he’s close behind us.
“Where are Taria and the twins?” I ask.
“Assisting King Agzol,” Natharius replies. “I said I would wait in the hall and explain the situation when you returned.”
The night air slams into my face. I stop at the stone steps leading down from the Orc King’s hall and to the street. Anguished shouts and unearthly howling ricochet through the darkness in a cacophony of noise. Bolts of ghostly white light reach up into the sky, marking where the necromancers have cast their death gates.
Countless undead swarm the streets, and many dead orcs have already risen from their graves. Lhorok and I were away for half an hour at the most. How has Arluin caused this much devastation in such a short time?
Lhorok is frozen in place. He stares down at the chaos unfolding beneath us.
“We need to find Taria and the others,” I say to Natharius.
“The priestess’s plan is that she sees to defending the city with the orcs and to destroy as many death gates as possible before the streets are overrun.”
I glance around at the hordes of undead. It already looks as if the streets are overrun, and the orcish forces are vastly outnumbered.“And what about us?”
“We have the important task,” he replies. “Finding your necromancer and stopping him before he finds the ring of Lagartha the Old.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“I do not.”
“And you didn’t think to ask the king where it might be?”
Natharius glares at me.
I sigh. Of course he didn’t bother to ask King Agzol where we can find the ring Arluin seeks.
I turn to Lhorok instead. “Do you know where we might find the ring? A thousand years ago, it belonged to an orcish woman called Lagartha the Old.”
To my dismay, Lhorok shakes his head. “I don’t recognize the name.”
I draw my lips into a grim line. With the city being ravaged by undead, we can hardly stroll through the streets and ask the citizens if they’ve heard of such a ring.
“He wouldn’t be familiar with the name,” Natharius says. “Orcish culture has changed much over the last millennia.”
“So, that means no one here will know anything about the ring and where we can find it?”
Natharius ignores my question and raises his hand, darkness billowing out. The shadows settle into the outline of an iron ring with a dark, jagged stone at its center. I think it might be onyx, but seeing how the image is formed from shadows, I can’t tell whether there’s meant to be any color.
Still, it’s enough for recognition to flash across Lhorok’s face.
And horror.
“That’s . . .” He chokes on the word, stumbling back. “That belongs to my wife.”
“You’re sure it’s hers?” I ask.
“She is the Chief Stormcaller. It was passed to her when she assumed her position.”
Maybe Chief Stormcaller is a similar title to Grandmage and High Enchanter.
