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Muscles protruded from beneath their tunics, and their black hair was long and braided. Fear encircled me as they did, squeezing my throat and clogging my thoughts as they tightened the noose by slow steps.

But the light of my handstone caught my eye and filled me with strength. My feet assumed a wide combat stance. I lowered the hood of my cloak and swept its long cape back to reveal two scimitars at my sides. I drew them slowly, feeling the power of the handstone churn within me. Positioning the scimitars in front of me, I tightened my fists around them until the handstone's light was quenched. With a shout, I released the handstone's power into the weapon. A surge of green light erupted from my hand and flowed into the blade, causing it to glow. The surge spread into the other blade, which crossed with the first in the shape of an "X", until the two blades shone brighter than had the handstone itself. I shouted, "Cursed be the one who challenges the Guardian and servant of Bel Arneth!"

The warriors fell upon me in fury as I spun my blades around my body, leaving trails of light behind them. I charged an edge of the enclosing circle. Parrying a blow with one scimitar, I decapitated the attacker with the other. The two soldiers on his flanks turned on me, but I deflected both swords with sweeping blocks whose momentum carried me outside the circle. I spun around in time to stop a warrior's head strike and match his blows one-for-one, until my swift left blade overcame him.

Four more were upon me. I blocked; then I ducked low and swept the legs of two from under them. My scimitars followed their fall and pierced through them, into the ground. Snatching up one's sword, I harpooned the third soldier at a distance. The fourth lunged at me, but I shifted to the side, deflecting his lunge and sending him tumbling down the slope.

I recovered my scimitars from the ground as still a greater number of warriors rushed in on me. Then I became like a wild beast; I fought for what seemed like hours, slashing, stabbing, jumping. I remember little until, with a kick, I hurled the face of the final warrior into a rock, and lowered my blades. I stood alone amidst the scattered corpses, my heavy breathing the only sound on the rocky path.

I looked around. The darkness remained. Shalkus must have unleashed his deepest stores of magic, expended much of his power, to snuff out the Tower of the Sun. And now these warriors. Shalkus often sent such a force as the vanguard of a greater army. A revelation seized me. "Invasion," I muttered. "He invades our land. Shalkus crosses the Dividing Mountains." He was already near. I closed my eyes and squeezed my scimitars in fear. My handstone grew ice cold, almost burning into my hand, as I felt his presence.

From behind me, I heard his voice. "Guardian," Shalkus growled, with a voice as deep as the pits where he lived. He appeared on a jutting crag above me. Shalkus was nearly nine feet tall. He wore no tunic, only breeches made from the hide of young dragons whose scales were still soft.