He forced himself to continue, moving sluggishly at first but quickly recovering himself as the white-eye’s anticipation of a fight began to sing him his blood. He couldn’t tell how close the enemy were now, and tried to gauge it from the three ahead of him. They advanced steadily, covering the ground quickly before the shooting started elsewhere, using anything they could as cover, fallen trees and dips in the ground serving where bushes or bracken did not.
After fifty-odd yards they stopped and Vesna looked back to check on Isak’s position. The Farlan hero gestured to let him know that the enemy were approaching and Isak raised Eolis in acknowledgement. Where Leshi was they couldn’t tell; the ranger had vanished from sight, but Isak knew he’d be close. He could hear the Vanach soldiers now, the faint brush of bracken betraying their presence not far off. He put his hands down to the Skull at his belt and saw tiny threads of lightning crackle over his scarred fingers. He might be free of his obligations to Nartis, but the spirit of the Storm God lived on inside him and he could feel the magic hungering to be released.
As one, Vesna, Doranei and Veil broke from cover and charged. Isak followed, and saw Vesna reach the enemy first, his armoured fist encased in spitting green energies as he cleaved through the spear of the nearest and spun to shoulder him out of the way. He caught a second shaft with his left arm and it exploded into matches while he chopped through the mail-covered thigh of another.
Before any of the men could react Doranei had arrived with his enchanted blade, his long, graceful sweeps parting shields and men in a single blow. Veil followed his Brother, not looking for the killing blows as he slashed with a longsword, just putting them down: one he winged, another managed to deflect the blow with his spear, but was caught with a punch to the ribs from Veil’s spiked arm. The twin spikes were barbless and came away freely as Veil passed. Isak saw a bloody wheeze of air expelled from the man’s pierced side: he was no further threat.
As the three pushed on through their enemy, the line folded inwards to follow them. On their left flank a man suddenly staggered drunkenly, and Isak saw an arrow protruding from his neck just as a second shot from Leshi struck the next in the chest and knocked him over. Isak could see their uniforms now, and he launched a coruscating lance of magic at the black longsword stitched onto a pale leather surcoat, which ignited when the bolt struck. The lightning wrenched the first man around and grabbed the next in its teeth too fast to avoid; then another was taken by the spitting energy, striking with the force of a ballista bolt and smashing them to the ground where they convulsed, screaming as their black swords burned yellow on their chests.
Now Vesna turned and attacked from the other side. He stepped between spear-points and cut left and right before the soldiers even saw him. Limbs were severed and bodies dropped away, but he didn’t wait to see; he was already moving on to the next. The quickest of the Black Swords dropped their spears and pulled out their own swords out, but Vesna adapted in a heartbeat, turning away their weapons with a duellist’s flicking skill, then stepping in for short, lethal thrusts.
Isak did not bother with artistry but trusted to the edge of Eolis and his own supernatural speed. Holding his sword in two hands, he turned an outthrust spear and stepped in to decapitate the owner. Seeing Isak was inside his guard, another soldier slammed his shield into Isak’s side, trying to throw him off-balance. Isak rode the buffeting and slashed back, chopping the wooden shield in two and eliciting a scream of pain.
The Black Swords fell like wheat, unable to meet the skill of their attackers or resist the power of their swords. Isak punched one soldier with a magic-wrapped fist and the man’s head snapped back, his face shattered, while another, bewildered and terrified by the storm of blood all around him, stood still and stared aghast at the arrow protruding from his chest. Doranei glided past him as he looked down, caught in a dance of his own and barely noticing as he lopped the soldier’s sword-arm off And then there was only one.
Vesna struck the last a glancing blow, his armoured fingers whipping across the soldier’s face and sending him crashing to the ground, and at last he could be still: his sword outstretched and ready for another blow that was not needed. He looked around at the squirming injured at his feet and peered intently at each, then stalked over to one lying face-down and kicking weakly.
He rolled the soldier on his back and found the yellow scarf around his neck denoting a commissar. One of them had opened the man’s belly and the pock-cheeked man was gasping like a fish even as he tried to scream. Vesna ended his pain and moved on to the next, assessing the man’s injury before putting him out of his misery.
Isak checked those near him: the closest two were dead, but the man who’d hit him with a shield was still alive. He lay on his back, his face contorted with pain as his life’s blood pumped from the stump of his arm, spurting weakly with every panicked breath. The man was little older than Isak himself, but the white-eye felt nothing inside as he kneeled to inspect the injury.
Mihn said I did this once for Carel, he recalled. The man stared up at him with horror in his eyes, right hand clamped around what remained of his arm. Did he thank me, I wonder, or was it my fault to begin with?
He reached down and touched two white fingers to the spurting wound. The soldier shrieked then fainted as searing flame encased the end of his arm, blessedly passing out as his blood steamed and the fat sizzled with the stink of bitter pork.
‘That one still alive?’ Vesna called. Isak cocked his head, for a moment unsure, before he nodded to Vesna.
‘Good, that gives us two — that’s enough to find out who among the commissars doesn’t want a saviour.’
‘Two?’ Leshi asked with a humourless laugh. ‘Don’t reckon so.’ The ranger walked to where Vesna stood over the man he’d struck across the face instead of killing him. ‘You’ve got something of the white-eye about you now, Iron General.’ He rolled the soldier over with his foot and pointed. The man’s jaw, nose and cheek were shattered and bloody. There wasn’t quite the impression of a hand in his head, but the damage was clear. No one needed to check if he was still breathing. ‘See?’
Vesna stared down at the corpse, then flexed his black-iron fingers with a worried expression. There was blood smeared over the ornate metal.
‘Don’t worry,’ Isak called, ‘you get used to it.’
‘I barely caught him,’ Vesna muttered. ‘It should have just knocked him over.’
‘Try getting an accidental elbow in bed,’ Doranei muttered darkly as he bent to wipe his massive sword on a corpse. ‘Pretty sure Zhia broke my rib once when she rolled over in her sleep.’
Isak hauled up the unconscious Black Sword and draped him over his shoulder. Before moving off he turned to view the bodies of the rest. ‘Not one thought to run.’
Leshi said grimly, ‘Unless their commissar’s dead, they don’t dare. Better to get massacred than have your name reported back. The Black Swords are faithful soldiers o’ the Gods, the first tier o’ the Blessed. They’re encouraged to have families and raise the next generation of devoted warriors.’
‘And if the parents are found wanting, the children must be defective too?’ Vesna guessed.
‘You run from battle, you’re defying the word of your God — heresy through cowardice, and that means they make ’em face their death.’ The stoical, otherworldly ranger shivered and looked down. ‘Saw a mechanism for it in a core settlement, made just for executing cowards. They strapped every member of a family into the frame and swung down a bar with two spikes — impaled ’em through the eyes, one by one.’
With that Leshi turned and headed away from the slaughter to see how their friends had fared. Isak found he couldn’t tear his eyes off the dead bodies, it was only when Vesna started to go through the jacket of the commissar that he seemed to jerk awake.
‘There’s nothing here,’ Vesna reported after a short while. He fingered the dead commissar’s scarf. It was fastened by a white leather band just below the man’s throat.
‘I’d swear Yokar’s wasn’t white,’ Vesna said, looking at Dora nei, who had been closest to the man.
Doranei nodded in agreement. ‘It was darker, hard to tell exactly what colour at night, but certainly not white. Reckon this indicates a faction within the brigade?’
‘There are markings on it, a script maybe? It’s not Elvish or any I recognise. Some sort of designation I’d guess. Who watches the watchmen, eh?’
The King’s Man sheathed his sword and started back towards their camp. ‘Aye, keeps ’em all in line, then, recruiting the worst for secret internal security. Not so far from my job as I’d like.’
Back at the camp they found their comrades all healthy and unharmed. Though Daken was liberally sprayed with blood, the white-eye’s cheerful expression told them it wasn’t his own.
‘You took a prisoner?’ Mihn asked, as they approached. He glanced back at Daken. ‘Somehow we managed to