Antigonus Leech, High Priest of Moorfain’s Black Temple and Erudite Sorcerer of the Ninth Pavilion, stood at the helm of his fleet’s lead destroyer. Allentria wasn’t much of a sight. The fog obscured everything beyond the beach—which was vast and desolate and stinking with seaweed—and the dull gray cliffs in the distance.
His soldiers hastened to lower the gangplank for him. The metal bridge thudded down, sending a swarm of birds squawking and fleeing from an outcrop of rocks. Black cloak billowing in the breeze that had arisen, Leech descended the gangplank, splashed through the shallows, and stared down his hawkish nose at the Allentrians gathered on the sand.
“Which of you is Tanthflame?” Leech demanded.
A bald man with light brown skin stepped forward. Leech recoiled. The foreigner
