The Red Knight

carefully hoarded power struck right back down the channel of his casting, burning him.

He screamed. Flinched. But far across the battlefield, Harmodius’s essence flickered and went out.

Lissen Carak – The Red Knight

The captain struck, the sword descending more from the force of gravity than from any power of his shoulders.

In the Aether he had Harmodius by the hand.

Take me, boy.

In one moment, the captain had to understand, and to act. He opened his way into his palace, seized the spirit of the dead Magus with one Aethereal hand and cast his own phantasm with the other. The air outside was heavy with discarded power, green and ripe for plucking, and he took it, aided by the meticulous ordering of last night’s foe, aided by the thaumaturgical knowledge of his tutor – of Amicia’s Wild casting-

And there he was. Standing on the plinth, where she had always stood.

‘Better the slave of a bad master,’ the Magus muttered.

Suddenly the captain was unsure whether he should have allowed this – entity – refuge to his palace.

‘Any port in a storm, lad,’ the dead Magus said. ‘Go fight monsters, or you’ll be as dead as I am.’

And he lifted his sword again. The air was still redolent with power.

George was behind him, and on his feet.

Amplify my voice, he told the dead Magus.

‘Wedge! On me! Michael – the banner to me!’ His voice rang out like some antique god’s.

In a moment out of time, the captain wondered if this was exactly how the antique gods came about.

No time like the present.

Kneel! He commanded the creatures of the Wild.

Hermes Thrice-sainted, boy! You are challenging his control! Stop!

A third of the creatures around him stopped fighting, fell back or stood, stunned.

Lissen Carak – de Vrailly

Ser Jean de Vrailly led the main battle of the king’s host down the last ridge, and their hooves clattered like a fall of hail as they crossed the bridge. He had more than a thousand belted knights, and no one – not even the Count of the Borders – questioned him. An archangel had given him great glory, and every man in the main battle knew it.

Jean could see the Royal Standard trapped, far out in a sea of foes, with another standard he didn’t know – lacs d’amour in gold on a field of black. A foppish banner.

But he laughed to see the battle, and led the first files to cross the bridge off to the left, west towards the setting sun.

The soldiers in the long trench were rising from it, either in loyal determination to save the king, or in eagerness to join his attack.

Good for them. For once, there was to be enough glory for all.

He continued to ride west, and the long file of knights followed him – gradually enveloping the southern flank of the enemy.

Behind him, the Count d’Eu rose to his feet, and pointed his cut-down lance at the knot around the Royal Standard. ‘A moi!’ he roared.

Daniel Favor, former wagoner, climbed over the edge of the trench, to stand on the grass in the wind. Around him, farmers from the villages around Lissen Carack looked at him, and knew they could not let him be a better man.

Adrian Pargeter climbed out of the safe trench, and put his crossbow on the ground to draw his sword. Older guildsmen looked at each other. A draper with a grey beard asked his lifelong business rival – we really doing this? - and then they were up the vitrified earth too, drawing their swords.

Ranald Lachlan leaped up the side of the trench, waved his axe at his comrades, and pointed it at the enemy. ‘Come on, then!’ he said.

The trench emptied in moments, and they came.

Lachlan threw his axe in the air, and it spun in a great wheel of light over his head and fell back into his hand.

And the thin line of men charged.

Lissen Carak – Ser Gawin

Gawin saw Sym stumble, and a pair of the armoured things took him – dragged him down. Sym’s dagger licked out, gutted another boglin which fell atop him . . . and then the archer was gone, and Gawin was alone in the doorway.

A bright green light flashed, and Gawin was able to see far too much in the illumination. The crawling things beneath him on the stairs turned brown, their eyes burned away and dozens of them sank to the ground, all vitality leaching away as their bodies crumbled.

Gawin heaved a breath.

There were a dozen of the things left – all in a clump, a crawling, rolling mass of legs – he cut and cut at them like a madman, and then forced the door with sheer weight and determination, and he stumbled back . . .

A swarm of armoured men fell on the knot of boglins, hacking with axes, stabbing with spears – six knights he knew all too well. Ser Driant – the King’s Companion – other men of the household.

Gawin found himself pulled to the floor. He’d lost a moment’s attention and two of the things had him-

But he was Hard Hands, and he closed his left hand and slammed it into a lobe-shaped eye, keyed his hand around his adversary’s arm, and ripped it off the boglin with a tearing like ripping old leather, and then he swung the taloned arm like a club beating the bleeding thing to the ground. Ripped his rondel from its place at his hip, drove his knee into the soft place at the centre of the second boglin’s breast, and as its arms closed on him, slammed the dagger home, breaking its back. Spears slammed into the thing from all sides.

He got to his feet with his dagger clenched like a mantis’s claw. But the only figures standing in the green-lit cellar were armoured men.

Gawin sagged.

Ser Driant reached out an ichor-spattered hand. ‘Ser Gawin?’ he said.

Gawin was looking for the novice.

She was slumped against the wall. At her feet were the remnants of Sym the archer – the skin of his face flensed away where they’d swarmed atop him. She was pouring her power into him.

‘You cannot help him,’ Gawin said. ‘However great your talent, you cannot help him.’

She ignored him.

Ser Driant seized his shoulder. ‘Is she a healer?’ he asked.

Lissen Carak – Thorn

Thorn felt the challenge as a blow in his gut.

The dark sun.

The young Power glowed with fresh vitality. He had taken new prey, and he was stronger for it.

Thorn gathered his wits.

I am hurt. He is not. And I have been duped.

What if he can best me?