The Storm Legion Commander watched with satisfaction as a small army of Telarans trudged into camp. For all the untapped power of its sourcestone, this world had fallen quickly. Still, he wondered if Regulos knew they were stealing so many souls.

An ear-splitting bolt of energy shook him from thought.

“The Queen wants the captives alive!” he bellowed, pushing through bodies toward the gate. There, he discovered an old man standing over one of his soldiers. The Commander whistled, and Legionaries drew their swords.

“The Queen values power, Mage – and fealty.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Break him in the name of Crucia.”

As the guards charged, the old man summoned blades of energy. His eyes darkened briefly, staring past the Commander. Then he flickered among the attacking soldiers, who fell as one, clutching livid slashes in their armor.

The Commander was stunned by the pace of the erupting melee, the blades of sizzling magic, the swordsman who seemed to see the future. Though a dozen soldiers joined the fray, he dodged with prescient ease, or blocked their blows with shields of light.

“Archers!” the Commander shouted. But the old man flashed to the parapets where the bowmen stood, and the killing began anew. Warping space, the man cleft through arrows in flight and the archers who loosed them at the same time.

***

The Storm Legion Commander crawled through the muddy trail prisoners had left as they escaped. The wound in his side smelled of charged copper. He must focus. Contact the Queen. Warn her that his soldiers were dead. That this new threat had ripped his war machines apart.

A chain of light pulled him back to the gate.

“I am Prion.” The old man loomed over the Commander. His blades were gone, transformed into a scythe of glimmering energy. “This Queen of yours – she can hear us?”

The Commander’s tongue thickened as his consciousness was joined. He marveled at the sweep of light.

“Tell her the Harbinger has arrived.”