Northern Desert Beacon Extinguishes, Traces Vanish; Thunder Spirit Backfires, Plans Go Awry

"That wasn't thunder from the heavens. It was thunder from the earth..."

What did thunder from the earth mean?

Sulu looked utterly baffled.

He asked what thunder from the earth meant.

The centurion lowered his eyes, his voice flat. "Smoke was rising from the mountain.

Dozens of dark iron contraptions rose out of the turf. No people were visible.

Then came the thunder, roaring one blast after another without pause, as if the mountain itself were bellowing.

When the first round of thunderbolts fell, a horse beside me was blown clean into the air. I looked twice for the man on its back and couldn't find him. On the third look, I saw a leg hanging from another man's neck."

"Where was General Agudamu?"

"Less than fifty paces ahead of me.

An iron shell landed at his feet and blew both man and horse to pieces.

When I ran past that crater, I couldn't find so much as his remains."

It had been brutal, sudden, incomprehensible. Flesh and blood could not contend against it.

Sulu reached his conclusion inwardly and suddenly understood the soldier before him a little better.

Faced with such a thing, no wonder they had collapsed.

After thinking it over, Sulu had him describe the evil artifacts in greater detail.

The centurion said the iron contraptions were quite large, mounted on two wheels, with barrels wide enough to stuff a head into.

When they roared, even the turf was blasted into the air. Those things had been hidden on the reverse slope; unless one charged right up to them, they were impossible to see.

Sulu asked whether he had seen any enemy evil cultivators.

The centurion said no. From beginning to end, he had seen no trace of any evil cultivators.

All he had seen were those