gradually the dawn continued to break , but unlike other days it was to be a day of bloodshed , and even then the north seemed ominously dark in the first gleam of dawn , the dark sails bellied in the wind , it was a great fleet unlike those in the days of the first invasion when sondon came to contest the might of surrucia , and as they approached men quailed with a new fear at the powers of ibisia , for they had no conjurer of any sort to withstand the wiles of the abominable aardoo .