Or it would have been, if Dorian had succeeded.

At least it was peaceful here, he thought. He was alone with his grief and his sense of failure and shame. None of his officers dared enter this part of the tent. None of them wanted to catch the Witch King’s eye when he was wrathful.

If Dorian had been reporting success, as had seemed so likely a few hours ago, they would have crowded around him, elbowing each other out of the way to come into the view of the mirror’s great watchful eye. Now, there was no one except him there. Outside, all was silence. He knew the survivors of his staff were listening intently to see what transpired, to eavesdrop for any hints of their own fate.

He wondered if the sense of failure had started to ripple out through the army yet, if they realised exactly how bad things were or could be, if Malekith became really wrathful. They were hundreds of leagues behind enemy lines, in the heart of the oldest forest in the world. They were being supplied through a mystical portal created by an enslaved daemon who might turn on their master at any time. They were in a land they did not know and surrounded by an enemy who knew every inch of it. They had lost the element of surprise, which had been their greatest weapon.

He told himself not to be so defeatist. All across Ulthuan, the Witch King’s armies were striking unexpectedly in the heart of Elvendom. A gigantic host of Chaos marauders was descending on the elven realm from the north. This was the greatest invasion of Ulthuan since the time of Aenarion. It was not going to fail.

And yet, Dorian thought, he had. One solitary elf had turned the greatest of victories into the most disastrous of defeats. He glared into the mirror, willing his master to appear so he could report his failure. Nothing happened.

What was going on, Dorian wondered?

He reached out and touched the mirror. It felt cold and dead. It was inert, without the faintest trace of magic in it.

He waited for an hour. Malekith still did not communicate. Slowly it came to Dorian that he was not going to die immediately. If the delay was sufficiently long, he might not have to die at all. If he could just recapture the Everqueen…

And why not? He still had a powerful army at his command. He still had the advantage of surprise. His foe was only a solitary elf, in the company of an Everqueen who had yet to come into possession of her legacy of power. If he acted quickly, he might still be able to save the situation, his career and his life.

Filled with a renewed sense of purpose, he squared his shoulders and strode out of the tent, bellowing orders to summon his captains, his scouts and his magicians to him. At the very least, he thought, he would get revenge for Cassandra’s death.

Chapter Three

As the sun rose higher, Tyrion’s natural good spirits began to assert themselves. He was still alive and so was the Everqueen, and that meant that whatever the Witch King had planned could still be stopped. Ignoring the pain in his side, he vaulted over a fallen log.

He was not sure what that ancient evil being had in mind for the Everqueen, but he knew that it could not be anything good.