advantages of the Mekhani, but his army was still outnumbered by at least ten thousand warriors, probably more. Erlaan-Orlassai would break the shield wall himself and the advantage of numbers would do the rest.
He broke into a run at a hundred paces, arms pumping, massive shield on the left, his sword gripped tightly in his right hand. His strides took him quickly clear of the sprinting Mekhani and a thicket of spears seemed to converge on him. He trusted to the gifts of the eulanui and charged straight in, head bowed, sword lifted for the attack.
Wood splintered as Erlaan-Orlassai crashed into the first company. Bronze spearheads bit at his flesh, pricking his thick skin like thorns of a bush would scratch a lesser man. The impact of his arrival hurled two legionnaires backwards with buckled shields and snapped spears. Sweeping down his sword, he carved through three more and plunged into the heart of their formation.
Metal screeched on metal as bronze spear tips met bronze armour. The king-messiah used his shield as a weapon, smashing aside the enemy, crushing their fallen bodies beneath his booted his feet; his sword severed heads and limbs with every wide swing, slicing through shield, armour and flesh without hindrance.
He howled his excitement, the deafening noise terrifying the legionnaires around him. Most of them broke and ran, overwhelmed by the nightmare warrior that confronted them, their bravery washed away by the ensorcelled cry that rang in their ears. A brave few mastered their terror to thrust their spears toward his face, but such was his height, it was easy to sway aside. Erlaan-Orlassai's sword descended in a flash, carving apart a legionnaire from head to waist. With a snarl, the kingmessiah wrenched the blade free and swung backhanded, the edge of his sword chopping through a shield and decapitating another legionnaire.
Around and about their godlike king, the Mekhani poured through the breach in the line. The spear companies hurriedly adjusted their facing, turning their spears to confront the redskinned savages wailing and shrieking in their midst. Some were successful, greeting the charging warriors with a wall of spears; others were caught in mid- manoeuvre by the lightly armoured warriors leaping between their ranks.
With his foes dead or fleeing, Erlaan-Orlassai paused for a moment to take stock. He caught a glint of gold out of the corner of his eye and turned. Kicking aside the corpse of a second captain, he found the fallen icon of the legion, the numerals of the Seventeenth etched into a plaque beneath the disc of Askhos's face. For a moment, he considered mangling the standard, crumpling it beyond recognition with his bare hands. He stopped, remembering that he fought to become king of the empire. He was not some Mekhani savage; he was the future commander of the legions.
He sheathed his sword and stooped to pick up the icon. The stylised bearded face of Askhos was half-covered in blood and spattered with mud. With barely any effort, Erlaan-Orlassai drove the haft of the standard through the body of the dead captain and into the ground beneath. He tore the officer's cloak from his back and used it to wipe away the filth from the face of his ancestor before casting aside the ragged scrap.
Shouts and the ring of weapons sounded out from the left and right, mixed with the cries of the wounded and the screams of the dying. Towering above the normal men around him, ErlaanOrlassai could see some considerable distance along the line. From one end to the other, the Mekhani and Askhans were locked together. Several more companies advanced from a position in reserve to plug the hole opened by the king-messiah. Erlaan-Orlassai drew his sword and headed straight for them.
He met the nearest reserve company a few dozen paces from the mass of fighting. Perhaps having seen the destruction he had inflicted on their first company, the legionnaires did not wait for his attack but pressed forwards, both sides charging at each other.
Blood flowed from biting wounds as spear points found ErlaanOrlassai's face and exposed flesh between the plates of his armour. He ignored the stinging pain and slashed left and right, hewing down the legionnaires with no finesse. He laughed at himself, thinking about the careful guards and postures he had learnt for use on the bloodfields. His raw strength was now such that brute power served him better than any amount of guile or skill.
It was like being swarmed by wasps. The legionnaires converged on him from all directions, jabbing and slashing with their spears, setting his armour ringing, grazing his leathery skin, probing for eyes and joints. He swatted away a handful of foes with a swipe from his shield, bones splintering through flesh from the blow. A spear drove up between the plates protecting his lower back, digging the length of its point into his flesh.
He whirled around, the movement ripping the weapon from the legionnaire's grip and sending him to his back. Erlaan-Orlassai drove his sword point through the man's helm, slicing off the top of his head. Shields battered at his legs and more spears rattled and scratched as the legionnaires closed in again from every direction. Though he felt little pain, Erlaan-Orlassai could feel the trickles of blood flowing from under his armour, staining his hands and pooling in his boots. He swung his sword in a wide arc from right to left, not looking, the serrated blade savaging four men in a sweep of gore.
'Where is Ullsaard?' the king-messiah bellowed. A spear snapped, leaving its head in the side of his throat. With a growl, Erlaan-Orlassai kicked out, his foot crushing the chest of the legionnaire who had struck him. Hands grasped at his left arm, trying to drag down his shield, and he fought back, lifting two men from their feet, tossing them into their fellows with a casual flick of his shield. 'I'll kill you all if I have to!'
Another spear point took the king-messiah in the back of his right knee, forcing him down for a moment. Before he could right himself, his ears picked up another sound amongst the cacophony of melee: a deep-throated growl.
He half-turned, just in time to see the ailur leaping for his shoulder, claws bared, mouth wide. Her weight slammed into him, pushing him to one knee whilst her claws left gouges across the bronze of his armour. Her masked face snarled and hissed a hand's breadth from his face, hot breath on his skin. With a snarl, he flung out an arm, smashing fist and sword hilt into the giant cat's chest, hurling her backwards. She twisted and landed and sprang again, claws raking a furrow across the king-messiah's cheek. He kicked her away again and raised his sword to cleave her in half.
He stopped mid-stroke, hearing the steady tread of booted feet to one side. He caught a whiff of a familiar smell. It was Ullsaard. Almost absent-mindedly, Erlaan-Orlassai caught the leaping ailur on the flat of his shield. He pushed against the momentum of her attack and drove downwards, crushing her against the ground at his feet with the rim of his shield. She scrabbled for a moment in the last throes of life, blood leaking into the mud, mewls escaping her red-flecked muzzle.
The king-messiah of the Mekhani rose up and turned to face the king of Greater Askhor. Erlaan-Orlassai's sword was smeared with blood, as was his shield and armour. A hundred dents and scratches marred the bronze of his war gear. He felt nothing of the dozens of small wounds leaking blood along the swirls of runes etched into his skin.
'You'll pay for that,' said Ullsaard, hefting his golden-headed spear. 'You killed my cat, you cock-eating son of a snake's cunt!'
III
It was hard to make any sense out of the confusion. Nemasolai sat upon the back of his xenosaurus, a blanket for a saddle, looking left and right across the groups of warriors fighting under the shadow of the Askhan camp. He tried to direct the attacks of his tribe with shouts augmented by gestures from his wand — a crooked branch from an irsakki tree tipped with the skull of a sand weasel. He could not tell if his orders were unclear, unheard, or simply being ignored.
From the parapet above, Askhan youths pelted the Mekhani warriors with stones. The slingers did their best to reply, but the protection offered by the wooden wall proved impossible to overcome. Nemasolai had sent fifty of his warriors around the camp to attack from the other side, but there was no sign of them and he guessed that they had been slain. Ahead, the melee surged back and forth, companies of Askhans giving ground and advancing with the tide of battle as the tribal warriors attacked and regrouped.
Dozens of dead and wounded from both sides littered the trampled grass and mud. Broken spears and discarded shields added to the debris of war. A few dozen paces to Nemasolai's left, the two sides parted for a moment and the shaman saw an Askhan crawling through the gore, dragging himself over the fallen with blood flowing from the stump of his right leg. A Mekhani warrior, himself bleeding from spear cuts across his arms and
