will not harm you unless you break my faith. I am to be a God this day, so let mercy be my first act.’
Isak stared at Ruhen, momentarily forgetting the pain as the unexpected words slowly fitted into place in his mind. ‘Mercy?’ he croaked in disbelief.
The shadow-eyed boy smiled. ‘You think I do not know what mercy is? King Emin might not believe it, but he has long been my enemy. When you are at war your enemy sees you just as a monster, you understand? A creature incapable of reason, abhorrent in all ways. How else could you fight them?’
‘What about the rest, my friends? Mercy for them too?’
‘Most will die,’ Ruhen said, ‘but such is the nature of war. You fear eternal retribution? I admit I do not know what Godhood is like, but I choose to believe petty revenge would stain my victory. Those who oppose me must be dealt with, but to cast them all into Ghenna out of spite?’ He turned away and headed for the centre of the vast cavern.
‘We have time yet, Isak,’ Ruhen called back as Harlequins began to make their way between the stone pillars. ‘Rest a while, then join me with your Gods. We stand at the heart of the Land, on the cusp of a new age. History is born anew this day; the fulcrum of this moment can be permitted a few breaths to savour a purpose fulfilled.’
Vesna snatched up a sword that stood in his path, buried in the chest of a dead soldier. He ducked a blow and brought his own longsword up under the movement, dragging it across the Devoted’s chest with Gods-granted strength, opening the man up. The next attack he caught on his new weapon, shoving the soldier back and slashing at his face. The man stumbled and fell before the blow could connect, toppling backwards over the corpse of a comrade.
The Ghosts on either side of Vesna continued forward, their glaives swinging and falling in terrible rhythm. The fallen man was trampled, unnoticed, by the Farlan elite who squeezed the breath from his lungs before a heavy boot landed on his neck.
Vesna was the heart of their relentless march, shouting himself hoarse in between savage assaults on the Devoted. The remains of the first line were butchered and they drove on into the second, faltering on the slope as the effort sapped their limbs and arrows smacked down on all sides. But a renewed surge came behind Vesna, silent and swift, and it drained the resolve from the faces ahead of him. He didn’t need to turn to see the Legion of the Damned behind him, just charged on ahead of them, casting terrible flashes of light into their ranks to disrupt them before the wave struck.
Shields dropped, spear-heads lowered as yellow flames danced over tabards and tunics. Vesna ran forward with a half-scalped man at his side, grey, desiccated skin flapping loose as the undead mercenary chopped down with his enormous axe and almost split the first defender in two. Vesna took the one beside him, but blinded by spraying blood, the man never saw his own death as Vesna impaled him, shoving him bodily him into those behind.
The ranks were deep enough for most assaults, but Vesna’s veins sparkled with war’s own lifeblood and he punched through them with ease. In his wake came the undead, spreading like rot in a wound, dragging the fractured line apart with every batter and swipe. An arrow smashed into Vesna’s back as he turned to survey the breach, momentarily unable to reach any defenders. The force smacked him forward and he staggered, half-falling against a dead man, who grinned up at him with a broken, hanging jaw.
An arrow protruded from that man’s gullet, but he had no use for talk anyway; the undead soldier shoved Vesna aside and drove on, ruined face no hindrance as he surged down behind the line, chopping with abandon at the rear ranks. Vesna recovered his balance and flexed his shoulders. Feeling no wound, he waved forward the remaining Ghosts at the base of the hill. As he did so, more of the undead jumped past him and Vesna turned to see a counter-attack barrelling down the hillside, several regiments of the reserve charging to seal the breach.
The God-spirit inside him whispered words Vesna didn’t know and an arc of blood-tinted fire whipped across the advancing Devoted as arrows dropped like hunting falcons. The front rank collapsed, cut in two as blood sprayed high and shockingly bright against the threatening sky. Vesna ran to meet those remaining, battering one fear-crazed soldier aside and parrying the spear of another before smashing his vambrace into his chest. The soldier was thrown back as Vesna chopped through the legs of the next, both men savagely finished off by the eager undead.
Behind him came the remaining Ghosts, the foot legion who’d arrived in the wake of his insane direct charge. They swarmed forward after the Legion, almost a thousand men in heavy armour bursting their hearts to ascend the slope, swinging their short-handled glaives. The second line crumpled, split apart and descended into chaos. The archers and remaining reserves behind them raced to stem the tide, but with Vesna holding his ground and the Legion chopping through all who faced them, they could do nothing.
Gasping for air, the Farlan nobleman drove onward; King Emin and his black-clad attendants were close behind as he headed upslope. There would be more at the crest, of that he had no doubt, but the breach was won.
There’s still time.
‘Form square!’ Endine yelled hoarsely, his reedy voice echoing like thunder across the battlefield. The Narkang spearmen ran to obey, the first legion forming a shield-wall in the centre of the dip between rise and hill. On their right the Farlan Ghosts tore into the defending lines, but the Narkang men knew they were not there to help them. Arrows dropped from both sides, the Devoted on the nearside of the rise barely involved in the battle, but also aware they needed to hold their position.
Ahead of the shield-wall, on the open ground past the gap between rise and hill, stood a great huddled mass of white-cloaked figures. It was unclear whether they were armed — or whether Ruhen’s Children posed any threat at all. Although they massively outnumbered the three legions of spearmen, it didn’t look likely that the fanatics would be able to do much at all.
Endine turned to the left flank, where the battle clans were embroiled in savage fighting. The mercenaries were less enthusiastic in their assault, but holding position and tying up the Devoted forces as required. They didn’t need a breach there, despite the efforts of Wentersorn and Morghien, trying to draw Vorizh into the fighting. So as long as the left held their ground and prevented the remaining cavalry from encircling the centre, their job would be done.
For a moment he stood still, overwhelmed by the cacophony that surrounded him. The breach on the hill was clearly marked by a great stain of churned bloody mud. The High Mage felt a sudden, powerful sense of dismay at the sight of the desperate, savage struggles going on all across the field, the piled corpses, the screams of hundreds of injured men and women. The dead, already in their thousands, reminded him of the emptiness of that victory at Moorview.
Then a memory of his great friend, the oversized mage Shile Cetarn, filled his mind. They had been colleagues and rivals for years. Cetarn had always been cheerful and ebullient, even as they parted and he walked to his death. The man had been imperfect and arrogant, blinkered and stubborn — and he had been a hero.
When Death’s winged attendants called to him, Cetarn had not blinked or faltered. What more could a man ask for but be remembered like that? I’ll see you soon, my friend, Endine thought, drawing once more on the Skull he carried. Above him the air erupted into flame. Soon, but not yet. I’ll keep you waiting a while longer now.
Amidst the chaos, Amber found a moment of peace. As he moved through the ranks, cutting, hacking, battering his way through, his mind receded into calm. The pain of memory was gone, the fear and exhaustion of daily life had faded into the background. No black birds lingered on the edges of his vision, no ache of their presence drained the strength from his limbs.
He saw only the enemy ahead of him — the splintered shields and spear-studded bodies, the terror on their faces, the shocking scarlet of blood on the pale ground — as the Menin drove steadily forward. They were almost silent, lost in the slaughter as their God had taught them, unaware and disinterested in what happened beyond this fight. The Land could have burned around them and the Menin heavy infantry would not care; until the enemy were all dead or the last frantic defender fell, they would keep to their task.
Amber lunged, his right-hand scimitar scraping across a Devoted’s shield as his left-hand blade hacked into the man’s neck and he fell. Another took his place, only to be smashed from his feet by the infantryman on Amber’s right. Another volley of arrows flashed down and his comrade was caught in the shoulder. He reeled and hissed with rage, but continued to push forward. Another glanced off Amber’s pauldron and clattered against the man behind him even as a ricochet skewed wildly past his face and struck someone else.
The line was fragmented, their order barely holding as more soldiers pushed past Amber, eager to be in the
