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Chapter 32

A Stor colus The careful city planning kept the fires fro too quickly, but did not stop theether

Ituralde crouched inside a broken building, rubble to his left, a sht He’d abandoned the palace early on; it had been swarmed with Shadon He’d left it packed with all the oil they’d been able to find, then had the Asha’ hundreds of Trollocs and Fades trapped inside

He glanced out theof his current hiding place He could have sworn he’d seen a patch of bare sky out the , but the ash and s nearby burned so intensely that he could feel the heat through the stone

He used the s on a battlefield could be an advantage In this case, once Yoeli had accepted that the city was lost, they’d stopped defending it Now they used the city as a killing ground

The streets created a maze that Ituralde--with the help of the Saldaeans--knew and his eneround, every alley a secret escape route, every open square a potential trap

The Trollocs and their commanders had made athe city They e to theainst thee But any man who had ever tried to kill rats knew that the size of his ha as the rats kne to hide

A hesitant group of the creatures shuffled down the blackened street outside Ituralde’s building The Trollocs snapped and hooted warily at one another Some sniffed at the air, but the smoke ruined their sense of smell They completely

Hoofbeats rang on the other end of the street The Trollocs began to shout, and a group hurried to the front, setting wickedly barbed spears doith the butts against the cobbles Charging that would be death for cavalry The Trollocs were learning to be h The cavalry caroup of wounded and exhausted horses A distraction

"Now," Ituralde said The archers around hi out the s at the Trollocs Many died; others spun and charged

And froe--the horses’ hooves covered with rags to daalloped out, their approach covered by the louder hooves of the diversionary horses The Saldaeans ripped through the Trollocs, tra