Editing Volume One: The Vampire of the Dungeons (section)

====<big>Postlude: And the Music Plays On</big>====

*A year has past and the realm of Adagalasck has settled into a state of acceptable uncertainty. Yet many things have occurred.

*The Seat of the West Wind was vacated and the public had begun speaking in the taverns and the concert halls of an Amberite as the West Wing. But battles have occurred.

*Princes Julian and Caine transferred the forces of the Horse Lord to the Arch. There they took possession of both sides. Trualta and Julian were often in each others presence.

*Time passed and the situation solidified. Realmer returned to the Embassy and business began. Many factors sought him out to establish trade with Amber. Requests for travel were made but the relations did not allow it yet.

*Nina and Julian were often together. Caine and Emile were never seen together but they were clearly seeking solitude for themselves. Caine traveled among the warriors. Training, singing, drinking, and making friends.
Then a battle occurred suddenly.

*Hagalta arrived without warning with a massive body of Adask warriors and a strong force of Azcalans. Having little warning the battle was engaged before Julian was at all prepared beyond what had been the standard guard.

*It was a brutal one, where forces of Trualta and Julian were hard pressed. A massive cavalry force battled a massive infantry one. In the end Trualta laid low an Azcalan Lord of the Royal line. Julian fought Hagalta in the center of the Arch.

*In an epic battle Prince Julian and the West Wind fought at the height of their might. On foot. When three great Adask lords intervened in the duel they nearly brought the Prince to death. He fell back and holding a trump, screamed into it. Two men stepped through. Both a bit confused, drawn suddenly from other endeavors, saw the battle and stepped forward. One a tall blond man in green. His clothes shifting from blue jeans and tweed to scale armor, a long blade in his hand. The other, a man in a dark red casual business suit jacket, raised a strong nail gun and fired with the clicking of clockwork. Julian stood and stepped back into battle.

*Hagalta battled like a great lord but faltered. The man in red, answering to Rinaldo, sank a row of 6” nail from his nail gun across Hagalta' face, causing one eye to pop free and fall to the ground where it was recovered by a soldier of Trualta's force.

*The giant man slew around him, shoulder to shoulder with his brother, achieving a long held desire of the princes to fight beside each other in battle and balance out the time they fought each at the Gates of Dawn.
In the end Hagalta was taken from the field, near death, by Azcalan warriors. Though not without losing an eye and a blade.

*Prince Julian raised the plain long blade, seeing it for what it was, and slid it into his belt. Thus did Prince Julian claim Farslayer.

*Dalt and Rinaldo stood beside Julian as Trualta acclaimed him the West Wind.
It followed fast as Julian found himself ruler of a quarter of Adagalasck with the agreement of the other 3 Winds.

*Things settled after the battle. Julian moved to the West Wind and claimed its stair. The other three Winds visited him in State and the forces of the West Wind greew to know their new ruler.
Hagalta was heard to have withdrawn to Azcala.

*Morganstern went to run with the Rhynahn for a time.

*Julian presented Realmer, the Ambassador to Amber, with a clear jar holding a bloody eye. He suggested it be sent to King Random so that it didn't grow a new Hagalta.

*Caine and Emile announced that their marriage that had been consecrated in the Grove of the Unicorn eons past, despite King Oberon's objections, had finally born fruit. Princess Emile was expecting.

*And in the Dungeons of Amber, an imprisoned prince cast a personal tarot. A son and a niece, a brother and a cousin opposed and reversed, a unicorn and a tiger. And a daughter wielding the Red Sword of Bursain. He chuckled listening to the steady drown of a wargod reading romance novels aloud to him.