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Choking on clouds of dust, Damalanthas is relieved when the dragon fear wears off. He spends a brief moment marveling at the sight of the dragon winging its way towards the smoke-filled walls. Then he voices a few notes that resonate between places, and steps through a dimensional door...

At the first breach
At the site of the only remaining breach in the walls, casualties are mounting. Blood drips from Owen's temple, where a troll-bolt grazed him moments earlier. Both of his earth elementals have now been dispatched by the trolls, but the druid continues to wield his flaming sphere against the invaders. Four of Egreera's clerics target doom spells at trolls, but it is difficult see any difference in the creatures' behaviour.

The twins Domu and Domi have summoned two small fire elementals to try to stem the tide of trolls. The archers and wizards are also doing their best, inflicting as much damage as they can from the roof-tops. Some of the junior wizards, now out of spells, have taken to throwing bricks and rocks at the incoming trolls in desperation. Wave after wave of footsolders and pikemen race at the trolls, and they score some successes. But for each troll that falls, as many as a half-dozen defenders are cut down by the mighty trollswords.

At the edges of the battle, clerics of Egreera and Artafor dart in to try to tend to the wounded. But even their role is dangerous. Young Tirrian dies instantly as one of the trolls slams the side of its blade into his skull. His lifeless body collapses on top of the dwarven pikeman he had been trying to save.

The most senior of the footsoldiers at the scene, a bearded man named Terrul Forsh, is able to finish off a troll already badly scarred by fire. But he does not have time to recover before another troll grabs him around the neck. Terrul is able to let out a single choked cry before acrid smoke starts to pour from his mouth. To the horror of those fighting nearby, the troll melts right through Terrul's neck and moments later his still-smoking head detaches from his body and thuds to the ground. The troll drops his corpse to the floor and whirls around in search of its next victim.

It is clear that the defenders at the first breach are in dire need of reinforcements. They cannot hope to hold back the trolls indefinitely and there are already almost a dozen living trolls inside this breach.

Inside the now-sealed second breach
On a section of the wall near the command centre, Mother Nari casts true seeing on herself. Her spell complete, she scans the battle below, paying special attention to the score of trolls in view. The wise woman's suspicions are justified. Two of the "brown" trolls inside the city appear green to her enhanced vision -- one near Sir James Fortell's strike group and another near Ashfort Morn's team. Immediately, Mother Nari points the green trolls out to her two aids and sends them down to pass on this warning.

Charda reaches Lurik Mien's unconscious form. The High Priest has lost a lot of blood, but he is still breathing. Charda places her hands over his wound and prays to Artafor, asking the god to heal his fallen priest.

Down below, Luthe Domarian raises a burning brand to block a blow from one of the trolls, but then stumbles backwards over a fallen companion. The troll raises its sword, ready to bring it crunching down onto Luthe's spine... and Jori Missle completes his spell. With a loud ringing noise, the troll's sword shatters into a million tiny shards, and the blow never falls on Luthe. Shocked but relieved, the young warrior leaps back to his feet and thrusts a fiery branch towards the troll.

Stepping out from the cover of a side-street, Damalanthas the Bard mutters a verse of curses and gestures at the first wave of trolls. He carefully targets the densest grouping and releases a slow spell. The air shimmers and thickens around the trolls. Some seem to shake off the effects of the transmutation spell, but four of the trolls begin to move at a drastically slower pace. Liam Grell's blue team is closest to the slowed creatures, and they press home their advantage, throwing nets over their trollish opponents. The nearby team of alchemist's fire throwers leap in to ignite the ensnared trolls.

Next, Damus focuses his attention on Sir James Fortell. Drawing his sword, the bard raises his voice in heroic song. He rallies the troops around Sir James, and inspires him to equal the feats of the greatest heroes that have passed before. Now is his chance to be remembered for generations. Damalanthas then thows himself into the fray, sword swinging and voice singing alongside Sir James. The noble warrior now seems larger than life as he advances on the trolls. Damalanthas gulps back his own momentary panic as he sees the wave of trolls rushing towards him.

As the teams hand-picked by Euvgeni and Freca continue to battle the trollish invaders, two Artaforian priests -- Leddrar and Shatrock -- cast prayer spells on the battle. Immediately, more of the defenders' blows land true as they strike with renewed energy.

For now, the defenders are holding their own against the trolls. Together, they have felled four of the trolls, and several more have been injured. But the cost is mounting, almost of a quarter of those making up Euvgeni's teams already lie still on the city streets and many others are wounded. The city may be able to defend itself against the invaders, but at what cost?

On the streets
Although Euvgeni's teams have kept the majority of the trolls hedged in the area between the Command Centre and the walls, a few trolls have slipped past into the eastern side of the city.

Ursula York looks nervously at the trio of guards surrounding her. Not far away, they can hear the sounds of battle. Four pairs of eyes scan Dowser's Walk. Braziers of burning pitch stand on each side of the street, filling the air with acrid smoke. The guard standing on Ursula's left inhales sharply. Ursula swings round, and almost without thinking, releases her web spell at her target. The troll's loping stride is caught short as it becomes entangled in the unnaturally sticky strands spanning the narrow street. With a rousing cheer, the guards race forward...

A limping troll has trapped a small group of children in Taggit's End, a cul-de-sac not far from the Eastern Gardens. A feral snarl escapes from the brown's mouth and it swaggers towards the children... but the children flicker and vanish, to be replaced by a shallow pool of thick liquid. The troll loses its footing and falls over sideways into the pool. A band of townsfolk brandishing flaming branches runs forward to ignite the oil pool and then leap back as others pour pitch onto the troll from adjoining roof-tops.

At the Rotan museum
Inura the Short walks into the gallery of the Rotan museum, and shouts when she sees one of the two remaining dragon paintings out of place on the inspection table. Yesterday, the museum housed eight of the known Great Dragon paintings. This morning there had been only two left, the painting of Ayak and the empty landscape. How many were left now...?

The painting on the table is an empty landscape. Inura turns to the wall, looking for Ayak's picture. It is not there, but in the space usually occupied by the empty painting stands a painting of a  strange new creature. Inura stares at the picture. A sparkling, glistening dragon stares back. The creature has the body and wings of a dragon, but its skin seems to be made up of countless small crystals. These crystals reflect light in a multitude of directions, giving the creature a sparkling white colour.

Inura wonders if she should tell someone. Then she wonders who she should tell. And then she leaves the gallery at a run.

Body snatchers
One block away, Artak's Apothecary stands almost empty. Deppin Lorior potters around alone inside, carrying some jugs of bubbling liquid into the room Artak and his team have dubbed "the Interrogation Chamber".

Half a mile east, Artak, Fenishia Grink, the four other employees of the Apothecary and a motley collection of cityfolk they have recruited to help them stand at the edge of the second battlefield, watching Liam Grell's team. A troll goes down. As the defenders move forward to engage another troll, nine people dart towards the body. Fenishia casts a levitate spell on the troll's body, while the others douse the body heavily with oil. Six people grab the floating troll and the team begins to run back through the city towards the Interrogation Chamber. Artak keeps close to the troll, a burning torch ready in his hand.

At the infirmary
In a hall three blocks west away from the city walls, Sepyt Niam enters the temporary infirmary. Here, the injured and the dying are being brought. Already the room is packed; almost two dozen frozen bodies have been lined up on blankets, and another four dozen injured stand, kneel or lay nearby. Sepyt take a deep breath, and begins to chant. A feeling of calm spreads through the room. Wounds stop bleeding and vanish, ice evaporates from frozen bodies and those people kneeling and laying are again able to stand. Rejoicing and cheering, the healed defenders stream out of the infirmary. But even as they leave, more bodies are arriving...

The Lords awaken
Souriin's eyes blink open. He sees sky and Aster de Corbin's concerned face peering over him. His mind floods with thoughts. Damalanthas... the Empire... the Overmind... trolls... Souriin gets carefully to his feet. Guessing his first question, Aster says "You were unconscious for about a minute."

Flash is on his feet almost before he realises his eyes have opened. His eyes scan the battle rapidly. He sees a troll preparing to strike one of the dwarven pikeman. A second later, Bloodletter slices through the troll's arm... 

Euvgeni gets to his feet with one fluid motion and leaps to the edge of the Command Centre. He scans the battle on the street below and then notices Suwaya Illis standing with his message tube. "Status report!" The burly warrior growls. "I want STATUS!"

Outside the walls
Outside the city walls, more beams of light leap from the trolls towards the walls. Once again, they are dispersed harmlessly by Thalakos' shield. Tam notices that after the attack, white trolls are again visible. He estimates three dozen white trolls moving on the battlefield.

In the middle of the battlefield, the fire elementals and shadows have decimated the troll's ranks. Steadily though, the trolls have been fighting back against the elementals and the last fire creature has just vanished. Against the shadows, the trolls appear helpless and the shadows now number more than a dozen. As the summoning spell ends, the three original shadows evaporate. The remaining black forms skulk back to the fallen trollish bodies from which they were drawn and sink back into the ground.

The watchers on the city walls notice a disturbance in the air near the top of the walls. A glistening, roiling surface has appeared, sloping downwards towards the trolls. The defenders are horrified to see brown trolls begin loping up the surface towards the top of the walls. And then the black dragon returns. Ayak swoops low across the strange walkway and releases a long stream of acid over the front rank of invaders. Bubbling trolls topple backwards onto their companions and the smell of dissolved flesh wafts towards the walls.

Ayak flexes his wings and begins to gain height. He starts to bank, when a white hot ray arches from one of the trolls towards him. The dragon's body gives a shudder, and his flapping becomes slightly uneven. Two more rays leap from the trolls towards the black dragon, and he misses a beat, and drops several feet. Ayak seems to regain his balance and recovers some height. Then the unthinkable happens. Two more beams leap through the night sky to strike Ayak's wings. There is a burst of light from his left wing, and an even larger burst from the right. His left wing is torn and bleeding, but his right wing is even worse. The bones of the wing hang limp and the wing tissue is torn and useless. As the horrified defenders watch, Ayak's body begins to hurtle downwards. The stricken dragon thrashes his tail and flaps furiously with his one good wing and veers towards the trolls. Seconds later, an enormous cloud of dirt billows forward from the ground as the massive dragon crashes into the trollish army.

In their march towards the city walls, the trolls have left a trail of bodies. Burned, crushed and unconscious trolls litter the fields. Horst Arman lifts his arm in signal and the remaining cavalry units begin to sweep across the fields from behind. As they move, they douse the trollish bodies in oil and set them alight.

The Rings of Rotan
"Listen carefully" says King Anwell's voice. Sixteen people hear him. "Rotan has given us a gift. While I sit in my throne, each person who has accept one of Rotan's rings is linked to me. And through me, you are linked to each other."

Artak, Damalanthas, Euvgeni, Flash, Souriin and Tekuna realise that they can all sense each other dimly. There are links to others too... Annaline, the gnome Bolyani, Freca Narall, Mother Nari, Percival Ellwold, Rue and Sepyt Niam, Sepyt, Sir James Fortell and Tam the Archer. One link, a connection to the dwarven ruler Fengar, is dimmer than the others. The King continues...

"While I remain seated in my throne, you can all communicate with each other simply by thinking the words you wish to send. You can speak to more than one person at the same time. Your senses, or at least your vision and hearing, are also shared. Each of you can see and hear whatever the rest can see and hear. If you want to block others from sharing your senses, you may do so. Finally, you can share your surface thoughts with the other ring-bearers. You must consciously choose to share your thoughts if you want to do so, and you must also consciously choose to be aware of the thoughts shared by others. Rotan warns me that this might be an unusual sensation for some of you, so be careful."

The King's next words are heard only by Damalanthas and Souriin. "You may notice that your rings are working even though you are not wearing them. Provided that your rings have not been destroyed, you can communicate with other the ring-bearers even if you are not wearing your rings. However, you cannot share senses or thoughts with the rest of us without the rings."