A Magic of Twilight

side. It was difficult to see through the smoke and fog, through the gathering dark under thicken-ing clouds, but he saw that Allesandra was right. There was an unnatural stiffness to the soldiers alongside the blasts of the war-teni. They didn’t flinch, didn’t cower, didn’t run. They stood upright, always looking forward, their heads not turning at all as their companions were consumed in fire.

The spell-fire ripped through them as if they were stones thrown through a painted canvas.

“We’ve been deceived. .” he breathed, but it was already too late.

The ranks of enemy Garde Civile shredded away entirely, like smoke driven by a gale. Fire-spells came now from the Numetodo: not from the ghostly ranks before them, but from the southern flank, fire-spells raking the Firenzcian lines. Not far distant came the clashing of arms and the pounding of hooves, and Jan saw the Nessantico chevarittai leading a charge, soldiers in yellow and blue pouring in from the river side of the Avi. “There!” he shouted to his aides, pointing. “Sound the horns! Quickly!”

As the horns began to shriek, as the battle clamor rose below him, he set Allesandra down from his horse. “Go back to the Archigos,” he told her. “Hurry! You, Page, take her!”

He drew sword then, without looking back, and kicked his destrier into motion.

Karl ci’Vliomani

Karl felt Ana shivering with the effort and exhaustion. “Let it go,” he told her. “You can let it go now. .” With a gasp and cry, Ana collapsed into his arms. He held her tightly. Around her, the ground was littered with the prone bodies of men and women in green robes-those who had helped her, who had taken the Ilmodo and fed it to her to create the illusion she’d woven.

He’d seen nothing like this, ever before. He hadn’t even realized it was possible. He suspected Ana hadn’t either.

“Now,” Karl called to the remaining war-teni. “Start the attack!”

He heard the quick chanting, and false suns bloomed above them to go shrieking off toward the Firenzcians. Around them, the Garde Civile gave a whooping cry and surged forward. A knot of chevarittai pounded up the Avi on their destriers, calling out a challenge to the Firenzcian chevarittai. As the hiss and boom of war-fire subsided, the clamor of steel on steel began to rise.

“Karl?” Ana whispered. Her eyes were closed. “Did it work?”

“It did,” he told her. “I don’t know how, but it worked.”

“Good. .” The word was mostly a sigh. “I need to sleep. .”

“Sleep, then. You deserve it.” He brushed the hair back from her head and kissed her forehead, laying her down on the ground. Another flurry of war-fire erupted above them to go shrieking off toward the Firenzcian line, lighting the meadow in a furious yellow glare, but it would be the last, he saw: both the war-teni and the Numetodo were exhausted. They would all need time to recover; the battle would be decided by steel now, not spells.

Karl motioned to Kenne. “Take care of your Archigos,” he said. “I need to go to the commandant.”

He brushed Ana’s cheek a last time and swung up on the horse that one of the e’teni was holding. As he rode away, he thought of what he’d seen, still marveling.

“I need all of you to do the Opening chant,” Ana had said, gathering several of the e’ and o’teni from the Archigos’ Temple around her while the war-teni and Karl’s fellow Numetodo watched. “Just as you were all taught in your first lessons: open yourself to the Ilmodo but don’t shape it. That’s all you need to do. Now!”

They’d done as she asked, as Ana chanted herself. Karl could feel the power rising around them. He thought he could almost see it, like a mist caught in the side of his gaze that vanished if he tried to look directly at it.

Several of the teni cried out as Ana continued to chant, as she gathered the power they’d opened to herself. “No!” she called to them. “Leave the Ilmodo open. Let me take it from you. .”

And she did. Already, they could see the illusion forming out in the fields and across the Avi in front of them: ghostly men in the garb of the Garde Civile, wreathed in fog and mist that the freshening wind didn’t touch, facing out toward where the Firenzcian army would appear. They stood there: motionless, waiting.

He could see Ana: her hands and lips moving as she controlled the spell she wove, the words lost in the cry of surprise that rose from all those around.

Sergei, watching, had laughed. “The Archigos has done her part,” he called to the offiziers and the chevarittai. “Now, let’s do ours. .” Calling out orders, he had ridden away.

Ana had continued to chant, and the ghost soldiers solidified and became more numerous as she continued to pull the energy from the other teni. It was marvelous to watch. It nearly made him want to believe as she did, if faith in Cenzi could lend her this much power.

For the first time, Karl had dared to think that this would work. .

A shrill of bright horns brought him out of his reverie. He could see the banner of the commandant ahead of him in the press of men, but the cornets were sounding from behind him, and they were blaring the call of the Kraljiki.

Justi, unannounced and unasked for, had entered the field.

Justi ca’Mazzak

“Kraljiki!” ca’Rudka bowed perfunctorily to him. “I thought you intended to remain in the city.” Justi thought he saw irritation in the man’s scarred face, in the way his skin folded around the silver nose glued to his skin. Justi saw the Numetodo envoy standing next to ca’Rudka along with A’Offizier ca’Montmorte. The Archigos was nowhere visible, and he wondered where she was.

“The battle is here,” Justi said to the commandant, “and I intend to fight this time. Word came to me that you were retreating. I will not have us retreat, Commandant.”

“I fell back at need, Kraljiki,” ca’Rudka answered, making no pretense to hide his scowl now. “But we’ve turned again.”

“Then we waste our time here, Commandant. I have brought the chevarittai with me, and they are ready.” The riders with him shouted agreement, their horses stamping impatiently.

“Kraljiki, you should remain here, so that we can place your men where they will do the most good. The pages will bring us news.”

“News?” Justi howled. “You’d have me wait here like a doddering

matron? I sent you forward to stop the Hirzg; you have not. Now I will do it myself.”

“Kraljiki. .”

“No!” Justi shouted. The man denied him his moment, and he would not have that. Better to die on the battlefield than in the Bastida.

Better to die as Kraljiki than as a prisoner. “You can remain here if you wish, Commandant, but I go forward to lead my men in defense of their city. I listened to you at Passe a’Fiume, and you gave up that city quickly. If you have courage, then join me; otherwise, stay here. Who is in command here?”

“You are, Kraljiki,” the commandant said. At the mention of Passe a’Fiume, his face had gone ruddy, and a scowl had twisted the mouth under the silver nose. Justi saw ca’Rudka glance at the ca’Montmorte, at the Numetodo, at the offiziers and pages around them. “Bring my horse,” the commandant said. “We ride with the Kraljiki.”

Justi nodded, grim-faced. He drew his sword and gestured up the Avi, to where the sound of battle was loudest. “Ride, then!” he cried.

“Ride!”

They pounded away, the chevarittai around him, the banner of the Kraljiki snapping angrily in the wind, not waiting for the commandant and the others. The Garde Civile shouted encouragement as they galloped past their ranks, and their cheers drove Justi forward harder.

Ahead, he could see the melee of the spreading front line, and he and the chevarittai plunged into it, breaking the line of infantry and plow-ing through into the ranks beyond.

The fury of battle banished any other thoughts.