There seemed to be a fair number of them. Eventually, after some hours the procession passed and was led off to a tented compound nearby. Azaar turned to Elakar and his fellow general nodded.

"Halim has surrendered," Elakar said. "We are triumphant. Let our victory be celebrated."

The Taloreans began to cheer. Azaar rose from his throne and limped wearily back to his pavilion.

 

 

Sardec sat amid the ruins of the burned out building and looked at his men. Their uniforms were dirty, their faces smudged with soot but they looked happy and more than a little drunk. All of them carried sacks filled with plunder. The army had fallen on Halim like a swarm of locusts set on devouring a field of corn. Anything of the slightest value had been grabbed, any liquor or beer seized. Now men guzzled stolen food and glugged down stolen wine.

Sardec did not blame them. They had risked their lives for months for the pittance the army paid them. This was their chance to get something for their trouble. Nonetheless he found it depressing. They were using tapestries as blankets and cloaks, and the frames of paintings burned on bonfires. In the distance he could hear the screaming of women, and now and again, a man would rise from the fires and head of in the direction of the sound. Some looked ashamed, some looked expectant but most of them went. A few men sat by the fires and muttered prayers against temptation, but some of those whom Sardec would have thought the most devout were among those most eager to head off. It was as if all normal rules of behaviour had been suspended. Laws did not apply in this time and place. Men could do now what they would have been hanged for at other times, and a significant number of them were taking advantage of that fact.

Woe to the vanquished indeed, Sardec thought. He knew from previous experience that in a few days many of those men would be ashamed of what they were doing now. He supposed that they knew that as well as he, and yet it did not stop them. It constantly surprised him what war brought out in men. At times they could be selfless and heroic as saints, sacrificing their own lives as they tried to help fallen comrades. At other times they were little better than beasts.

Out in the night now a whole city was being savaged by packs of marauders. Tens of thousands of people were suffering and thousands of their fellows were taking pleasure in that suffering, and making themselves richer while it happened.

He thought of the elementals he had seen unleashed earlier today, demonic entities that could be trapped and compelled to do what a sorcerer wished. They were potent and yet they could not survive long away from the home planes. In this world they were like fish out of water or divers holding their breath deep below the surface of a river.

Tonight another sort of demon had been let out of its bottle. He wondered how long it would take for it to vanish, or whether it ever truly did.