Read The Nonborn King for Free Online Page B

tricky maneuvers, which delighted the more progressive Tanu but enraged the reactionaries of the Host, most notably Nodonn Battlemaster.
    The rivalry between Aiken and Nodonn for the battlemastership became more heated during the second day of fighting. At a war feast, Nodonn tried to discredit Aiken by dramatically producing Bryan Grenfell and his adverse study of humanity's impact upon the Many-Colored Land. Some of the Tanu abandoned Aiken because of this; but large numbers still were pragmatic enough to stick with him. In the duel between coercers, Imidol of the Host defeated the elderly Leyr- Tough old Celadeyr of Afaliah took the place of the defunct Veiteyn as Second Creator under Mercy.
    Shortly before the Combat's start, Brede Shipspouse had secretly taken healing Skin to the prison cell in Muriah where Chief Burke, Basil, and Amerie lay dying. The three were fully recovered by the last day of the Combat and Brede ted them, mystified, to a room high on the Mount of Heroes inside the Redactor Headquarters, which overlooked the White Silver Plain. Inside this room were lockers full of twenty-secondcentury equipment that the Tanu had confiscated from timetravelers- More important, Elizabeth was there, apparently in a deep coma. Brede instructed the three to take charge of the equipment and Elizabeth, and wait until the following morning, when they would know what to do. On no account were they to leave the room until then.
    The Grand Combat approaches its finale, in which the champions of the Tanu and Firvulag armies would meet hand to hand. The generalized phase of fighting had given the Tanu a narrow lead over the Little People, but this could be upset during the Heroic Encounters. The Firvulag were especially hopeful because neither Nodonn nor Aiken could participate in the first round of Encounters. Each battlemaster-candidate now had four heroes (leaders) pledged to him, and the candidate whose people won the most duels against the Firvuiag heroes would stand forth in the culminating Encounter of Battlemasters against Pallol One-Eye.
    In the Encounters, Aiken's partisans won two and lost two. Nodonn's won one, lost two, and tied one. This meant that Aiken would meet Pallol. If he lost, the Firvulag would win the entire Grand Combat. Aiken maintained that he could beat the Firvulag ogre if the Tanu High Table allowed him to do it in a human way, using the same trick he had used to overcome Delbaeth- Reluctantly, Nodonn and his people had to agreeAiken went out and downed the Firvulag Baitlemaster just as he had promised, and the Tanu were declared winners of the Grand Combat.
    Heartbroken by their narrow loss, most of the Firvulag decided to leave the battlefield before the award ceremonies. Not even the prospect of seeing Aiken and Nodonn battle it out with Spear and Sword seemed worth waiting for. Only the Firvulag royalty and their attendants remained for the finale.
    The Tanu victory was ceremoniously proclaimed and Aiken awarded the trophy Sword of Sharn (a photon weapon like the Spear). Instead of offering it in fealty to King Thagdal, thus acknowledging the Tanu's overlordship, Aiken drove the Sword into the ground. Thagdal signed to Nodonn to take it up as King's Champion. Meanwhile, Aiken's allies girded him in the harness of the Spear. The two squared off and began their duel just as the catac'ysmic flood from the encroaching Atlantic swept over the White Silver Plain.
    The mind-cries of the thousands of drowning people roused Elizabeth from her self-imposed coma. She and her three human companions looked out from the mountain refuge upon devastated Muriah and a submerged White Silver Plain- Redactor House contained a number of survivors and Chief Burke prepared for their evacuation.
    Not all of those combatants and spectators caught on the White Silver Plain perished, although a majority of the Tanu, who were especially vulnerable to immersion, did lose their lives- Some few Tanu were cast ashore by the