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There would be nothing subtle in this battle No deft brilliance displayed by tactical geniuses The Letherii waited with their backs to the steep hills The Tiste Edur and their allies would have to coly incumbent, and inevitable

But sorcery spoke with a different voice

The spiralling pillars of dust towered into the sky, each one keening, the wind shrieking so loud that Edur and Letherii alike began to cower

The Letherii white fire surged upward, for wall of bridledit difficult to breathe He saw a hapless raven that hadfield turound, the first casualty of the day It seeer to histhrough the sky

The pillars leaned, staggered, lurched forward

And began toppling

A rush of wind from behind battered Trull and his felloarriors, blessedly rich and hu columns of dust Faint shouts on all sides, as weapons were readied

The spiralling pillars were a long ti down

Shadoraiths were suddenly flowing across the ground, a dark, low flood Udinaas could feel their terror, and the dread compulsion that drove them forward FodderIt was too early to launch an attack They would be beneath the clash of sorcery

As the columns toppled, the wave of Letherii fire rose to meet them

Feather Witch hissed ‘The Empty Hold The purest sorcery of the Letherii Errant, I can feel it froh,’ Udinaas ’s Battalion, Preda Unnutal Hebaz saw the day’s light fade as the shadows of the falling pillars swept over the soldiers She saw her , but could not hear them, as the roar of the dust thundered ever closer

The Letherii ritual was suddenly released, the spitting, hissing fire sweeping over the heads of the cowering ranks, the tu pillars

Rapid concussions, shaking the earth beneath the fissures up the hillsides, and fro Unnutal spun round even as she was pushed to the ground She saw, impossibly, the lake beside the keep lift in a mass of muddy water and foa away froeysers, and vanishing back into a billowing cloud

Then the east toayed, enough to pitch fro e, Jirrid Attaract All, plunging earthward