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But then who could conceive of a mountain or the sea, when all they had ever seen was the inside of a tower?

No, it was not about good and bad. It was about whether you had gotten a glimpse of the world outside the tower or not, and what that glimpse did to you. For Razin that journey had begun a bridge outside the city of Sarcella, when the great monster of their age had told him to learn from his mistakes or die in a ditch. It had ended when he’d looked at a woman he’d already been half in love with about to fight Yannu Marave to the death in his honour and seen nothing but futility.

A shameful, ugly waste that somehow everyone around him insisted was honour.

“But it was just blood,” Razin murmured.

But that was Levant, wasn’t it? Blood and honour, two sides of the same coin. The glory and the slaughter, so deeply intertwined they might as well be the same thing. And so Razin would not think in terms of good and bad, today. That was not the bone of it, the vein. It was about the tower, and how many people had stepped outside of it. Been dragged outside of it by this war.

About how far people would be willing to go, to go back in and close the door behind them.

There was a trap here, Hakram Deadhand thought, even if he was yet blind to it.

The Warlord was not a general in the way of others he knew and had known, more Nauk than Juniper, but he was a graduate of the War College and had fought in campaigns that would be studied for centuries to come. To his practiced eye the battle line of the enemy was a recipe for a rout, or at least severe defeat since the dead did not flee even when beaten. Keter’s centre was weak a weak half circle, only six lines of skeletons deep, and the sheer weight of a charge from Levantine heavy foot – Alava’s was particularly strong, entire companies heavily armed with plate and hammers – should plow right through.

The enemy had thickened its flanks instead, as much as thirty of the forty-five thousand it numbered split between the two. The rest, four thousand or some, was held in reserve behind the curved centre. Hakram was not as well-read as some in matters of tactics, but the formation smacked to him of the tactics of the Iron Prince at the Battle of Aisne, the overwhelming Lycaonese victory that had won Cordelia Hasenbach the throne. On that field Klaus Papenheim had drawn in a larger coalition of southerners deep past his flanks by letting his centre give ground before halting the retreat and falling around the flanks for an encirclement.

When he told Troke as much, the chief of the Blackspears spat to the side with a skeptical look.

“Won’t work here,” Troke Snaketooth replied. “The Dominion will keep charging and even if the undead send in their reserve it’ll be torn through.”

Which would leave the two strong flanks of the enemy army split and prone to being encircled in turn, a defeat in the making.

“So it’s bait,” the Warlord gravelled.

Hakram was not surprised. He had asked General Pallas to take a closer look at the grounds near the enemy and her riders had found that behind the battle line there were hints of the long-buried city that had once stood here. The thick of the ruins behind the curve of the enemy formation, within the hollow of the half circle. The general the Dead King had sent to command here must want their own centre to collapse, Hakram thought, for the Levantines to continue charging forward right into some sort of nasty trap that would shatter them and turn the battle around in a single stroke.

He’d written as much to Catherine, which was why he had been baffled when he had learned that she’d sensed a few undead under the ground where the city would be but no gathered power whatsoever. As far as she could tell, there weren’t even any constructs: just a handful of Bones. Hakram began trading messengers back and forth with Lord Yannu and General Pallas in the wake of that, their armies slowed to a halt far enough the enemy would not be able to steal a march on them. Not that they seemed willing to leave the ‘defensive’ position they’d taken.

“If we march away,” General Pallas suggested, “they might follow us away from their position.”

It was a sensible enough thought and the Grand Alliance attempted it, but the enemy did not move to follow. It only made the trap more obvious, but the enemy general knew the same thing they did: they could not afford to leave without fighting that army. If they pulled back too far there would be nothing to stop the dead from going around them and striking at the camps from behind while they were trying to storm the walls of Keter, a recipe for slaughter. And there was no doubt at all that the dead would march faster, because unlike the living they did not tire and standing in the sun wearing armour for hours would not exhaust them.

So the army turned back, taking its old position after having burned a little over an hour.

“Our purpose is to keep their army here,” Hakram told the others. “We can achieve it simply by standing here and facing them without actually waging a battle.”

Only, as Careful Yannu sent back in message, it wasn’t that simple. If they stayed too late, they would be stuck out in the Ossuary away from reinforcements in the dark, having no idea about the state of the coalition army that’d tried to storm Keter. Given that Proceran outriders had made it clear that there were still other armies of the dead gathering out in the plains, they would be running the risk of Keter throwing all those half-assembled forces at them from the sides while the army in front of them attacked them in the dark. That was potentially disastrous.

“We fight,” Lord Yannu sent.

“We fight,” General Pallas agreed.

“We fight,” the Warlord conceded.

There was no other way but to give battle, so all that was left was to find a way to do it without giving the Dead King what he wanted.

The wait was getting to them all.

Ishaq had chosen his band with care, knowing that he might never get an opportunity like this again, and he was still pleased with the plan he had decided on. It was a simple thing, as most functional plans tended to be. The Grave Binder to find the Scourge and reach them, the Vagrant Spear to close the distance, the Stained Sister to hold them down, himself for the killing blow and the Harrowed Witch to handle their retreat. Lord Hanno had been generous in releasing the two heroines to his service for the battle, seemingly uncaring that the deed of killing a Scourge today would see Ishaq added to the Rolls. The once-Knight appeared interested only in the end of one of the Dead King’s finest Revenants, indifferent to all other consequences.

A hard man to grasp, Hanno of Arwad. He acted weak where he should be strong, acted strongly where he should give. The Barrow Sword had refined his understanding in Salia, when he’d crossed swords with the Ashuran, but even now he was often unsure whether the hero was being clever or not. This band, for one. Ishaq had fought at the side of Sidonia and Aspasie before, facing the Drake together in Hainaut, and knew them well enough. So he’d anticipated that Sidonia would hold the Grave Binder in contempt, for the man in tattered robes was visibly rotting from a barrow-curse. A contempt that would be returned in kind, as Idris saw her as a hound of the Blood.

But he had not thought, however, that the Stained Sister would be as oil and water with the Harrowed Witch. Both Procerans were survivors of the Dead King’s advance, but neither cared for the way the other had survived. Aspasie had only disdain for the Sister staying among the living only because she had been buried among so many corpses the dead had forgot her, while the old heroine had not been shy in castigating the Witch over the sacrifice of her own brother to power an illusion that would let her flee unseen. Ishaq had twice been forced to demand silence as the bickering escalated towards thrown hands, wondering all the while if somewhere Hanno of Arwad might not be laughing at him.

Now all stood in sullen silence among the throng of Alavan armsmen, their faces hidden by simple soldier’s cloaks. Warriors gave them a wide berth, as much out of respect for Bestowed as the stink that came from Idris’ rotting flesh. It really was an awful smell, Ishaq thought to himself. The Grave Binder had told him that being ever dying deepened his hold over death, but even Idris admitted that the barrow had exacted from him a deep price for the rings that taught him his learning.

“I hope people will stop marching all around soon,” the Harrowed Witch muttered, breaking half an hour of silence. “I’m getting a headache watching them.”

“How little it takes to-” the Stained Sister began, hands folding into the sleeves her red-stained garments, but Ishaq’s hard look put a stop to that.

Like children, sometimes. As if just standing in the vicinity of each other was enough to drive each other mad.

“The hosts are getting in formation,” Sidonia told them, sounding distracted as she spoke.

The Vagrant Spear was looking at the same ‘marching around’ that Aspasie had complained of. Ishaq was no captain of warbands himself, but he too could see that Careful Yannu and the Warlord had been moving around their armies in preparation of the battle. The Clans had split in two, taking the flanks, while Levant tightened the centre. Why he was not sure, and it was not his trouble to bother with. The Barrow Sword had come here to hunt.

“Movement?” he asked Idris.

The Grave Binder was picking at his wrist, gazing off in the distance, but when addressed returned to the present. The Bestowed’s fingers went to the glittering bronze rings on his left hand, a small shiver of power touching the air.

“Four Revenants in the army,” Idris said. “In pairs. And the two out in the field haven’t moved for the last hour.”

“Could be the Hawk and an escort,” Sidonia facing Ishaq directly and refusing to acknowledge the other man’s existence.

It was a grim source of amusement to the Barrow Sword that though he too had stolen from a barrow, a few hard fights back-to-back had seen this offence to honour forgiven while Idris would be scorned to the grave and likely even beyond. Sidonia was not from a noble line, not having any of the Spear’s blood even though she had inherited the Bestowal, but she had been welcomed warmly by the greats of the Dominion and so eagerly adopted their hypocrisies. Idris had done little that those of the Brigand’s Blood had not surpassed in horror a dozen times over, but a darkened Bestowal and enmity with the Binder’s Blood meant he must be deserving of death.

That would change, after the war. Ishaq would see to it. And that change would begin with his being the first villain to ever added to the Rolls.

“It could also be bait,” the Barrow Sword replied. “We wait.”

Some dissatisfaction at that, but none challenged him. He was representative for the champions of Below, though the title in his hands did not command the same respect as it had in the Black Queen’s. No matter. Soon the Scourges would reveal themselves, trying to snatch some great name’s life, and then his time would come.

Like all Bestowed before him, Ishaq would write his entry in the Rolls blood-red.

Aquiline Osena shaded her eyes with her hand, peering at the enemy as the sun pounded down on her helm.

By habit she glanced through the ranks for a head worth taking, some great captain or Revenant, but much as she hated to admit it the days where she could wade into the thick of the slaughter were past. She was only twenty-two, young enough that there should still be many years for her to slay great names and bring back their skulls to the Silent Shrine, but as Razin kept saying if either of them died then all hope of change for the Dominion would die with them. It was still frustrating to hear, and if he had not been clever enough to save that kind of talk for when they were naked and sated she might have quarrelled with him for it.

The Grim Binder’s Blood made for canny men, it was known.

No, now her eyes were meant for different prizes. As the years passed she had become the leading captain of their host, her betrothed taking a step back and to instead hold command of reserves or the camp. Razin was not without talent as war captain, Aquiline believed, but she would not deny he did not have the knack for it that some were born with – like Abigail the Fox or Rozala Malanza. Yet in the Dominion none were held as Yannu Marave’s equal when it came to leading warriors, which was part of why Razin had stepped back. If it comes to war, Razin had said, it will be you that leads our captains. Best you and they get used to it.

He really was sweet, Aquiline thought, still pleased at the memory. She toyed with a strand of hair, smiling, but was brought out of the reverie by a cleared throat. Captain Elvera was looking at her, worn face pulling into a cheeky grin.

“Not even wed and already losing your head,” the old captain said, shaking her head. “What would your father say?”

“That at least I had the sense never to fuck a Proceran,” Aquiline replied, entirely unashamed.

“I just taught him how to handle an axe,” Elvera lied.

The Lady of Tartessos still found it wildly entertaining that Elvera had slept with one of spymasters of Procer back when they were young. She’d also been relieved it wasn’t the dead traitor or the one that looked like a skeleton with dry skin hung on it, since it would have called her old teacher’s tastes into question. In the distance a deep horn sounded – deeper even than those of the Army of Callow, which Aquiline knew well – and the sound called them back to order. Her eyes returned to the enemy’s ranks, still find the same conclusion laying there to be found.

“If we charged we’d tear right through them,” Aquiline Osena stated. “Their centre is thin and thin on shields.”

“Which their captain wants of us,” Elvera agreed. “That formation is too odd for it to be otherwise.”

By the count of the outriders, the dead numbered over forty thousand. Likely closer to forty-five, the kataphraktoi had claimed, but they could not be sure given the way the enemy kept some of its troops hidden at the back. That meant the numbers of the Grand Alliance were higher: fifty-three thousand had set out with down and marched to this field, all in all. Twenty-seven thousand for the Dominion, twenty-three thousand orcs and three thousand kataphraktoi under General Pallas. It was rare for the dead to fight when their numbers were the lesser, given that Bones were hardly better than even Proceran levies as soldiers, but rarer still for the dead to stand on the defence.

And that was what Aquiline’s eyes were telling her: the dead were still preparing to defend, not attack.

“I can’t see the sense in it,” Aquiline admitted.

“A trap of some sort,” Elvera replied. “It’s why Careful Yannu sent orders that we are to hold the centre but not break through.”

“He didn’t thin our numbers, though,” the Lady of Tartessos replied, frowning. “Which he means he’s worried about them breaking through us.”

There could not be many reasons for that. Both their gazes moved to the Crab as their thoughts flowed down the same path. The monster was gargantuan, as were all of its kind, but this one was not like the others Aquiline had glimpsed. It was not a city on great spindly legs, workshops and smithies and dens of sorcery protected by walls, but instead entirely a creature of war. The mountain of death belched trails of smoke from great bonfires that looked like a thousand eyes, the air wavering from the heat around it, and from all sides extruded paired and massive folded tusks of steel. Aquiline could see in her mind’s eye how they would unfold, turning into cutting lines that would carve through a man’s height across the length of half a mile as the monster advanced.

“We have our own monster, my lady,” Elvera finally said, nodding upwards. “And if it comes to a scrap, I’ll bet on ours.”

Aquiline refrained from looking up, looking for the silhouette of the crow and her rider. It would have felt childish, like a child tugging at her mother’s skirt. A feeling she resented all the more for knowing the Warden was not much older than her. Not that one would know, from the way she carried herself: halfway between a sage and a lunatic, but ever a step ahead of her foes.

“She said she would handle it, so she will,” Aquiline simply said.

Her worries had to be on the ground, where steel would clash. The orders had come from Careful Yannu and the Grand Alliance army had at last finished taking a formation of its own. The captains of the Dominion had taken the centre, Aquiline’s own armsmen and those of Malaga in the middle while Alava stood on one side and Vaccei the other. The Clans had agreed to hold the flanks, Warlord Hakram taking the left flank while an orc by the name of Troke Snaketooth took the right. General Pallas’ kataphraktoi were being kept in reserve at the back, along with eight thousand mixed foot from the Clans and the Dominion – the four thousand Levantines there under Razin’s command, while Oghuz the Lame held it the orcs.

It was a large reserve, but Aquiline approved of the caution. There was something afoot. In the distance the deep horns of the Clans sounded once more, soon after answered by the beat of Levantine war-drums. Aquiline breathed out, rolling her shoulders, and straightened her back. Her sword left the sheath easy as a breath and she raised the steel until it gleamed in the sun’s light.

“Forward,” Aquiline Osena shouted, and across the dusty plain warriors began to march.

The Warlord was not in the thick of it when the lines collided.

For now he was still of more use behind, watching the greater currents of the battle. Time for the axe-song would come soon enough. Instead he watched as the shield wall of his flank collided with that of the dead, his warriors smashing through the dead with axe and sword. Orc were larger than human, heavier, and found it easier to land the kind of blows that shattered skeletons. The other side of that, which became visible soon enough, was that the Clans lacked the discipline of the Army of Callow. The line became uneven in moments, finer warriors digging deeper into enemy lines, and the disorders gave room for the dead to bite.

They would kill more of the enemy, Hakram thought, but more would die as well.

“The centre’s doing well,” Sigvin opined. “The Levantines aren’t pushing further than they should.”

They had pushed back the enemy some, the Warlord saw, but not much and their captains were holding back the men. It had blunted the head of the half circle but little more than that. Lord Yannu’s plan had been simple enough: since they were certain that what the dead had planned laid in the ruins, then to avoid the trap all they must do was avoid taking those grounds. The enemy centre would shatter itself on the Grand Alliance’s, and then the majority of the Dominion army could swing around to take from the side the flanks that Hakram’s warriors would have nailed down. And, in case a mistake had been made, a large reserve was being kept back.

Mitigated risk, Hakram had thought when he first heard it. A plan worthy of a man called Careful Yannu.

Movement drew his attention to the side. He and Troke had ordered their shield walls to be ten men deep, to stretch the line and prevent easy encirclement by the larger undead flanks, but it wasn’t the Bones that were worrying him. Against these, Hakram would send his warriors all day without a second thought. It was the constructs, which had been waiting patiently to the sides as the shield walls impacted and the troops committed to the clash. And now, the Warlord saw, they were beginning to move.

“Fuck,” Sigvin whispered, “but ghouls are quick.”

“Keter uses them as replacement for cavalry,” Hakram replied, eyes following the same curve as hers.

Thousands of flesh abominations ran on four legs, circling around the orcish shield wall to hit it from the side, but Hakram’s chiefs had been warned. They back lines pulled away and formed another shield wall facing the ghouls. It was the larger constructs that drew his eye, though. Beorns and Tusks, great bears with bellyfuls of dead and boar-like abominations instead filled with rocks. The enemy seemed to lack drakes, save for a few circling above as watchers, and there had been no swarm unleashed. There were no insects to kill and raise, out in the Ossuary: all life had been snuffed out centuries ago.

“There they go,” the Warlord grimly said as the larger constructs began to move.

The enemy’s plan became obvious soon enough. The ghouls were keeping the new, thin shield wall pinned while Beorns circled around towards it. Though Hakram’s warriors were holding the ghouls at bay handily, returning the favour in kind when throats were torn out by fang, the line was not steady. The Beorns would blow holes into it and then pour out skeletons in the holes. As for the Tusks, they slowly began to advance but their destination was not yet clear.

“Are you sure we can trust them?” Sigvin suddenly asked.

“Against the dead? Always,” the Warlord replied.

On Troke’s flank, the assembled shamans of the Clans unleashed their sorceries onto the approaching Beorns. Waves of fire and frost, withering curses that turned flesh to stone or exploded in waves of bronze sorcery. But there were only so many mages among Hakram’s kind, not enough for both flanks. So the Warlord had bargained for reinforcements: as the great abominations approached the line, small bands darted out of the orcish shield wall. A heartbeat later blinding flares burst as the lodges of Lanterns did what they did best: savage giant monsters with the most warlike applications of Light on all of Calernia.

Blinding beams and pale fire, spears and axes and javelins. The priests of Levant, singing the same war hymns they had for centuries, tore wildly into the Dead King’s monsters.

“Good priests,” Sigvin reluctantly conceded.

Hakram did not answer, eyes on the Tusks. They had yet to charge, still moving around without clear purpose. Held back for now? It would make sense. There were no better constructs in the arsenal of Keter to shatter shield walls, best to use them when they would strike the hardest. But that meant his use as a watcher had come to an end. The tall orc reached for his helm, pulling down on his head and tightening the clasp. The shamaness sent him a bright look.

“Into the fight?” she eagerly asked.

“It’s time,” the Warlord agreed. “I’ll lead my warband to-”

Hakram did not finish the sentence and came close to never finish anything ever again. The arrow had fallen down in utter silence, grey and unseen, only for the middle of the shaft to be hit by another arrow five feet away from his throat. He went very still, for a moment, but no other arrow came.

“I owe Indrani a drink,” Hakram Deadhand said, and reached for his axe.

There was no hiding where the arrow had come from.

“I have them,” the Grave Binder said.

Ishaq drew Pinon, the blade keening eagerly.

“We move,” he ordered.

Sidonia laughed, Aspasie moaned and the Stained Sister’s face hardened. With the collision of the lines they had been forced back behind the Alavan shield wall, but now the passed through it and into the thick of the dead. Ishaq and Sidonia took the lead, the Barrow Sword smashing through the shield raised in his way while the Vagrant Spear deftly leapt over another and scattered the dead into bones with a burst of Light. The two of them kept making room, clearing the dead in a storm as the rest of their band crossed the shield wall and it closed behind them. They had been quick, but they were fighting a sea and within moments the dead were pressing against them.

“Idris,” Ishaq called out.

“Eyes, ears, tongue,” the Grave Binder hurriedly chanted in Lunara. “I who hold dominion over the dead claim my tax: let none with eyes behold me.”

There were many among Bestowed who thought Idris worthy of mockery, for like other sorcerers of the Dominion his magic could not destroy swaths of foes like that of Praesi and Callowan mages. He was a maker of curses and a necromancer, which had only earned him further mockery as his skill proved inferior to the Dead King’s and he failed to steal control of undead from the Hidden Horror. That was missing, Ishaq had found, the true strength of his Bestowal. His mastery over death was not simple necromancy, it was a deeper power – and that truth was expressed by the way Idris, alone of all the sorcerers of Calernia, could wave curses that affected even undead.

Such as hiding from their eyes a band of five Bestowed as they snuck through an entire army of the dead.

The Barrow Sword had known from the beginning that fighting his way to the Scourges when they hid in the middle of an army would see his band spent by the time the clash began, so he’d ensured they wouldn’t need to fight at all. The Bestowed wove their way through the packed ranks of the enemy, elbowing skeletons and ducking the shadow of great abominations as they heeded Ishaq’s order not to destroy even a single one – lest the Dead King be able to find them through the destruction. They hurried as much as they could, the sensation of moving unseen oddly empowering after the Barrow Sword grew used to the vulnerability, and the Grave Binder guided them straight to the Revenants.

“The three Revenants are clustered together,” Idris whispered.

“What happened to the fourth?” Ishaq frowned.

“Suddenly destroyed while it was trying to join the others,” the Grave Binder replied.

The Barrow Sword traded a look with Sidonia.

“The Lady’s in fine form today,” she cheerfully said, openly pleased.

Was she ever not? Ishaq still remembered her methodically taking the Red Knight apart with knives, making a show of a woman capable of cracking stone walls with her bare hands. He knew well he would have lost that fight in her place, one of the many reasons it paid to remain on good terms with the Woe. The Warden required so little of her allies that Ishaq was frequently baffled she did not have more villains in her service – refraining from excesses was a cheap price for her friendship. Keeping to her rules had seen a cordial truced brokered between him and the rising force in Levant as reward.

The Black Queen hadn’t been subtle about making them work together, but then why bother when she had the authority to do as she wished? He’d have that too, one day. The power to give an order going against centuries of custom and rightly expected to be obeyed. Some mornings he woke up so hungry for it his belly ached.

“There,” Idris suddenly said. “Behind the beorn. Get ready.”

“Sidonia,” Ishaq called out.

“Honour the Blood,” the Vagrant Spear shouted back, leaping atop the massive bear.

She was gone in a moment as the Barrow Sword went around, Aspasie and the Stained Sister following closely. The Grave Binder was further behind, already whispering his next spell. Idris’ curses could not fool Revenants, who the Dead King empowered beyond his ability to trick, but he would keep all other undead away from them for as long as he could. They had until the Grave Binder faltered to make their kill and ready themselves for retreat. Ishaq turned the corner a moment later, watching as Sidonia struck at their enemies in the flash of Light, and counted three.

In the back, the Hawk was fleeing.

In front of them, two identical silhouettes in armour stood. Iron from head to toe, the helms shaped like the heads of wolfhounds. The Wolfhound, then, and a fake. The strongest defence of the Scourges, covering the Hawk’s retreat. Ishaq rolled his shoulder, Pinon singing as she cut through the air. The Hawk was for the Archer to handle anyhow, he would make do with this one.

“Honour to me,” Ishaq the Barrow Sword grinned, and stepped into the fight.

Yannu had taken the time to consider how he would do it, if he were Itima Ifriqui, and decided it would be a man from Tartessos.

Though the Lady of Vaccei was taking a black gamble by attempting Razin Tanja’s assassination during a battle, she was a fool. She was, he had mused, simply used to getting her way. How many dozens of times had she rid herself of foes using the cover an honour war or a hunting day? How many had she poisoned and ordered slain in the night? Itima Ifriqui had killed Blood before and gotten away with it. Her failure was that she had not grasped the danger courted by breaking the treaties of the Grand Alliance. Razin’s death would not be pursued by a few spies or a single Bestowed: the Warden herself would look into such a killing.

And there was no telling how far Catherine Foundling was able to reach for answers.

Still, Itima would know that if she were blamed for Lord Razin’s death she would be facing the bitter vengeance of a widowed Aquiline Osena and a furious Binder’s Blood, whose armies would both come for Vaccei to scour it as harshly as the Principate once had. So Itima must set Tartessos against Malaga in the aftermath, and there was opportunity for that. Several captains in Osena service had been bitterly disappointed by Aquiline’s betrothal, having hoped to win her hand through honour, and there were even more who had lost kin fighting against the Malagans over the rich lands between the two cities. A grudge would not be too difficult to forge as a reason for the killing.

As the two betrothed kept their warriors in blended companies, finding a hand to do the deed was as easy as finding a Tartessos warrior foolish enough to think they might get away with it and greedy enough to believe the riches promised would be given. No doubt Itima had given out some gold as proof she would pay the whole, using the coin to tie the killer to whichever Tartessos man she wanted blamed for the deed. Yannu’s first trouble was that there could be no telling who it was that the Bandit’s Blood had bent to their purpose. It could be any of hundreds, and Razin’s command in the reserves meant he was near too many warriors to count.

Yannu’s second trouble was that he did not want Itima Ifriqui to be caught.

The Lord of Malaga had no doubt she would follow through on the threat Moro had carried, that she would drag him down as well if she was to be killed. And even if she was not, recklessly as she was acting Itima was still his only ally in checking the rise of his enemies. She must then be stopped without being outed, else it all come down on both their heads. Fortunately, though there could be many assassins there was only one life they were after. There lay Yannu’s opportunity, and the way he could yet turn this to his advantage.

“I need you by Razin Tanja’s side,” Yannu told his cousin.

Rima blinked in dismay.

“Now?” she replied. “Yannu, we’re fighting a battle.”

Only half true. The two of them were well behind the lines, with his sworn swords, and not likely to fight until the enemy centre was broken and the Clans were to be reinforced.

“Now,” he agreed. “Itima’s being rash. She wants to kill Razin Tanja.”

His cousin let out a low whistle.

“That’s going to get a lot of people killed,” Rima said, sounding impressed in the worst way.

“Too many,” Yannu agreed. “So I’m sending you to him, as a veteran to help him decide when to send in the reserves.”

“But not to kill him,” she tried.

“Keep him alive at all costs,” the Lord of Alava replied. “I believe Itima’ll be using a Tartessos man to do the deed, so watch them closely.”

“So I’m to constantly keep my hand on my sword for an hour or two around a gaggle of jumpy Tanja armsmen,” Rima grimaced. “There’s a pleasant fucking time in the making.”

“Yes,” Yannu said, unapologetic. “But most important is that when the assassin is revealed, youmust seem them killed.”

Silencing the hand being used was crucial. With no tongue left to wag and no dead Tanja to prompt a deeper look by the likes of the Warden, the only trail left to follow would be the one Itima was sure to have laid pointing towards Tartessos. Rima might even win the Champion’s Blood some honour by saving Razin’s life, if she was quick enough.

“And when the armsmen ask why I looked at every Tartessos man twice all afternoon just before an assassin tried his luck?” Rima asked.

“I will settle that,” the Lord of Alava said. “Simply tell them I had heard there might be an attempt and sent you to make sure he would live.”

He’d have to create a believable way as to how he might have caught out a treacherous Tartessos captain, but it should not be impossible. Especially with Lady Itima’s help, which she would be forced to give him if she did not want to get caught out having had a hand in any of this. Rima slowly nodded.

“You’re sure?” she quietly asked.

“We still need the Brigand’s Blood,” Yannu admitted. “If we lose Vaccei, it is finished.”

Alava could not win alone. It could fight, and might even follow him into that fight to the bitter end, but that the end would be bitter there was no doubt. That meant Itima Ifriqui must live through her blunder, even if he had to cross her to see it done.

“Then it’s done,” Rima said, clasping his arm.

Yannu clasped it back, pulling her close before releasing her. He was not pleased to send her away, but there was no one else he would trust this two. She had trained her right hand to serve as captain of his sworn swords in her absence, should it come to a fight, knowing she might be sent away on duties such as this. As she left his sight, vanishing into the crowd of armed men, the Lord of Alava turned back to the unfolding battle. It was, to his eye, going well. The enemy centre was teetering on the brink of collapse, having spent itself on his people’s shield wall, and though the dead were mounting among the Clans they were holding strong.

The shield wall on the right flank was bending after having been thinned by the Beorns that had survived the sorcery of the orcs, but it looked in no danger of collapse. On both sides the ghouls were being thinned and it looked as if the Warlord had rallied warriors to go on the attack against them. He’s to curve around the shield wall after, Yannu saw. Using on the dead the very same manoeuvre they had wanted to use on him. The Bestowed’s very presence seemed to light a flame in the orcs, he saw, and not only the well-armoured ones he used as his sworn swords.

Wherever the Warlord stood vigor seemed to bleed back into tiring warriors, and they chewed up the dead like a closing maw.

It was worth keeping in- Yannu threw himself down from his horse, his armsmen closing around him with shields raised, but as he landed in the dust and his mount whinnied he saw there had been no need. The arrow he had glimpsed mere feet away from him had been shot out by another, taken in flight.

“Archer,” one of his sworn swords said, and there were murmurs of agreement.

That and respect. The shot that might have killed Yannu had been madness, but it was madder still to have shot it. The Lord of Alava declined help to climb back the saddle, more bruised in pride than body, and returned to watching the battle. The centre was slightly further forward than he would prefer, but it had been too much to expect a fighting line to be too strictly observed. He was more concerned by the Tusks that still waited behind the enemy’s flanks, not yet engaged even though on both sides the orcs were no longer losing grounds. When were they to strike, if not now? An instinct born of long experience had his eyes straying back to the centre, and there he saw it.

Just a moment too late.

The ground collapsed. The entire hollow he had been so wary of, the ruins under ground, had been nothing but a great sand trap. As the handful of dead the Warden had senses below brought down some pillar or another the entire cavern collapsed, turning into a massive pit. A few hundred of the warriors too far forward fell along with the entire enemy centre, though unlike the undead they would not be getting back up from that fall. And now he understood the trap the Enemy had laid, at long last. It’d been too obvious from the start, but that had been the trick: Yannu had never been meant to walk into the collapsing grounds.

He had been meant to keep his army in the wring place because of it.

Already he saw it laid out before him. Two flanks, the orcs holding but slowly losing to the dead on both. His centre, the Dominion forces, had been meant to reinforce the Clans by attacking the flanks once the enemy centre was broken. They would have gone both through the freed centre and through the back, preparing to encircle with the orc warriors as the anchor. Only now half the path was a pit Yannu’s warriors could not march through, and the back path meant circling all the way around the orc shield lines while most of the Dominion army was facing the wrong way.

And he couldn’t even do that, Yannu Marave realized, because behind him the reserves had yet to be committed and they were still in the way.

On the other side of the pit, the enemy reserve – which had stood right outside the edge of the fall – began to advance. On the flanks the Tusks turned as one, facing the shield walls of the Clans, and began to charge.

And over the entire army, for the first time since the battle had begun the Crab took a step forward.

“Hold,” Aquiline Osena shouted. “Hold.”

The shield wall wavered despite her screams, despite the way she had left the saddle and gone to stand with her warriors. And though Aquiline kept a face of calm, she was glad that the paint she wore from head to toe hid the sheen of her sweat. The fear that was seizing the shield wall was in her blood too, ice pooling in the belly. What else was she to feel, watching the Crab walking towards them one sickening step at a time? The great abomination’s spindly legs, as repulsive as the scuttling legs of some vermin for all that they were taller than towers, crossed the great pit with ease. All over the carapace of stone and bone the fire-eyes burned, spewing out ever-longer tongues of flame that kept burning on the ground after falling in droplets.

When the Crab got close enough, dozens would be incinerated in a heartbeat with every plume of liquid fire.

Yet it was not the fire that had her warriors inching back, bending away from the sharply inclined pit where hundreds of their comrades had fallen to their death mere moments ago. It was the husks of steel, the strident grinding sound they made as they unfolded and slammed down. The Crab was only hallway through the pit, but already the razor-length hung in the air before the shield wall. At head-height. What shield could possibly hope to turn back such a massive blade? It would pass through the shield wall like a knife through butter, making mist of men. Three hundred feet. Two hundred feet. One hundred feet.

“Hold,” Aquiline shouted again, but her voice wavered.

Her weight was leaning back as well, her body eager to flee even if her heart still hesitated. What had once been the enemy’s centre was digging itself out of the ash and dust, the dead crawling out as they began to climb the slope towards her warriors, but worse than them was the enemy’s reserve. It was proceeding down the slope of the pit in good order, staying in formation as it moved. The broken centre to hold us, the reserve to break us, she thought. All the while the dead tried to break the flanks and collapse the entire army. Dread seized her heart. A defeat, it would be a catastrophic- the sun was botted out by the beat of great wings.

Her shield wall split, like fish around a shark, and a form leapt down from her mount. The crow-horse let out an eerie cry before flying away, leaving the Warden standing alone in an empty circle of warriors. The Mantle of Woe flapped at her back, the many colours of the foes defeated by the Black Queen of Callow a warning against any who would defy her, while her dreadful staff of dead wood dimmed the sight of any who beheld it – as if stealing the light of the world from your eyes. Catherine Foundling cracked her neck, and the Lady of Tartessos did not begrudge the three dozen warriors who widened the circle by taking a wary step back.

But Aquiline Osena was Blood, and Blood did not flinch. She stepped into the circle, coming to stand by the Black Queen as no other dared. A coolly amused brown eye found her before flicking away.

“Aquiline,” the Warden greeted her. “Clever little plan Keter cooked up against us, isn’t it?”

“The Enemy’s wiles run deep,” the Lady of Tartessos replied, forcing calm.

Catherine Foundling was dangerous as a sword was dangerous: not to be feared, save when turned against you. Aquiline had learned much from her and the Army of Callow, enough to be grateful even knowing it was a boon the Grey Pilgrim had bargained for. But the fear would never entirely go away. The Warden was a graveyard made into a woman, her ghosts so many a second kingdom could be made of them for her to rule.

“Ours too,” Catherine Foundling grinned, all teeth and malice. “And the Dead King will need to do better than this if he wants to get the drop on me.”

The air cooled, the sun’s warmth chased away, and Aquiline realized with a start that behind them the Black Queen’s shadow had grown. Lengthened, broadened, until it was as a sea. Her warriors fled the spread of it, and not a moment too soon. From the shadow a massive hairy leg began to emerge, then another, as if some gargantuan creature was climbing out of the darkness.

“Ashen Gods,” Aquiline croaked. “What is this?”

“An old tyrant,” the Warden said, “ridden by a new god.”

Roiling darkness in a gargantuan spider’s shape, dripping rivulets of Night, rose to cast a shadow over them both.

“Keep your shield wall steady, Aquiline Osena,” the smiling madwoman ordered. “I’ll handle the rest.”

The Tusk passed through the shield wall like it wasn’t even there, turning orcs and steel alike to crumpled paste without even slowing. Light lashed out at the thick hide in a hook but though it burned through the flesh it scrabbled harmlessly against the stones below. They were just bloody stones, Hakram irritably thought. Nothing for Above to take offence to, so Light was about as useful against it as it would be against a real rock: not at all, unless a great deal of it was used. Skeletons in bronze and iron poured in the gap the Tusk had torn as it shook, turning around for another pass, but there would be none of that.

“Spears,” the Warlord shouted.

They were moving before he even gave the order, Lead pulsing with his heartbeat and whispering through their veins. It kept his warriors up, quickened them, strengthened them. And it left them exhausted to the point of collapse when he left. Nothing was without a price. Two dozen spears tore into the Tusk from the sides, scraping against stone as they found purchase and the screaming monster tried to shake them off. It would not. Hakram’s axe bit in the back of the beast and he used it to hoist himself up on its back, crawling through filth and rotten leather.

“I broke the gates of Okoro,” Hakram Deadhand recited.

He struck. The beast screamed.

“My name echoing three rivers,” he said.

And he struck. The beast’s knees bent.

“And though I died an age ago,” he sang through bared fangs.

And hestruck again, through bone and flesh, until his axe touched stone and stone cracked.

“I live still through your shivers,” the Warlord snarled, striking one last time with the might of his name in his hand

The stone split under his axe like dead wood, the Tusk’s hoarse scream ending abruptly as half its body was carved straight through. Hoarse shouts of approvals, almost howls, and Hakram slid down from the felled beast. He raised his hand in an unspoken order and Dag saw to it, leading champions into the breach to close it and restore the shield wall. It was like holding together a dike, the Warlord thought. Every holed he plugged was followed by another erupting. And still his flank was doing better than Troke’s, which had been so close to collapse that General Pallas had led all her kataphraktoi into a charge to stem the disaster.

Razin Tanja and Oghuz had led the foot behind them, as much because Troke needed the reinforcements as to get out of the way of the troops Yannu was shifting to support Hakram’s shield wall. Already the right edge of the wall was bolstered with Alava armsmen, but the rest would be here late. So fucking late. Hakram’s warriors were fighting like devils, but even with his aspect burning in his belly like a piece of coal he was not sure it would be enough. At least, though he was not the only one buried neck deep in a nightmare.

In the depths of the pit, Night warred with liquid fire and howling sorceries. Tenebrous, stolen from the ruins of Ater and granted to a lesser god as a mount, was fighting against the Crab as Catherine flew on her mount’s back and hammered at the great monster’s back with burning black flames. The heat of the fires was so great he could feel it on the wind even from a mile away and bursts of lightning blinded the unwary, but the smaller spider had cracked open the carapace of the larger Crab and it looked like it was trying to devour what its mandibles tore into.

Hakram was not sure what struck more horror in him: the chorus of screams that came from the Crab, or the demented screeches – which somehow echoed of a crow’s caws – coming from Tenebrous. Either way, he did not envy the Dominion shield wall left behind to hold the centre. They were close enough that eardrums must be bursting from the noise.

Setting aside the thought, the Warlord returned to the fray. His battle was here, holding back the sea lapping as his wall of shields, and he had no time to spare for anyone else. It was all a whirlwind of blood and screams, steel flashing as the dead ripped out shields and threw themselves at warriors. The crawled under, ripping at flesh, ghouls leapt above shields and tore into formations. The Warlord went where the line broke, where strength sagged, and breach by breach his warband dwindled to nothing. Dead or sent to plug holes, none of the faces around him the same he had begun fighting with.

But his mind was cool, clear. His body was dripping with sweat, muscles aching and his limbs itching where they had been cut, but so long as his mind knew clarity he could make himself move. Another cut, another backhand breaking a skull, another ghouls taken by the neck and crushed. There were always more enemies, and it was with utter surprise that Hakram suddenly stood with no one before him. He turned, seeing only awe in the eyes of the warriors behind him, and found he stood alone in a ring of death.

“Report,” Hakram Deadhand croaked, his voice raw from songs he did not remember singing.

“The Dominion has come, Warlord,” a woman with the colours of the Graven Bones on her mangled shield said. “We stand.”

The Warlord looked around. How many had died? Too many, he thought. Thousands on his flank alone. But wherever his gaze went he saw the dead losing ground, fresh Levantine armsmen tearing into them.

“Let Levant handle the rest,” he said. “Pull back in good order.”

The Clans had done enough bleeding for the day. From the corner of his eye he noted that the shield wall left to hold the edge of the pit had pulled back and sneered. They had not even held back that paltry amount of dead, while his own faced the sea and won?

“What happened in the centre?” he asked.

“Aquiline Osena was hit by an arrow,” the same woman told him. “They say she had to be pulled back and may die.”

Hakram grimaced. Well, she wouldn’t be the only one today.

Merciless Gods but the Wolfhound could take a beating.

The other Revenant had died in moments, fending off Sidonia’s assault but falling to a single blow of the Stained Sister. Barehanded, she crumpled the helmet and the head behind it. Pinon did not like the taste of her in the air, Ishaq had noticed, which meant it was likely true the Choir of Endurance had taken an interest. Regardless, that aspect of the Sisters’ that lent her such brute strength was proving well worth her attitude. If only the Scourge had proved as easy a prey as the other.

A simple iron shield should not have been able to take a blow from the Barrow Sword’s blade without a scar, but not a single one of them had yet to leave a mark on anything the Wolfhound wore. Ishaq had been told that the Scourge had the finest defence of all in the Dead King’s service, but he had not expected to be dealing with the Keter’s answer to the fucking Mirror Knight. At least, unlike Christophe de Pavanie, the Wolfhound did not strike as hard as he defended. That would have made this fight impossible instead of merely unlikely.

And Ishaq always trusted his luck to get him through unlikely, for good or ill.

“Pierce,” the Vagrant Spear snarled, lunging forward.

Slower than before, though. It was her third time using the aspect, and like the last two it skidded across the side of the iron shield. Ishaq had stepped to the side as Sidonia struck and he moved to flank the Wolfhound, but the Scourge calmly took a step back and kept his sword high. Ready for a parry. The both of them continued circling each other as Sidonia panted loudly, the Stained Sister coming up to take her place. The old woman in the stained priestess garb moved like the wind and leap, but not so quick that her attempt to smash down the shield with both hands was not taken on instead. Ishaq risked a strike, a quick lunge near the neck – he was getting frustrated at never having pierced deep enough for Pinon to drink of the soul – but the parry was waiting.

The surprise came when he saw the Harrowed Witch sent her brother’s ghost trailing behind the Sister and the specter threw himself at the Wolfhound’s legs.

“Go,” the Barrow Sword hissed. “Everyone.”

The Grave Binder was looking unsteady on his feet, which meant they were running out of time to finish this. From the corner of his eye Ishaq saw movement, an arrow, but the Archer once more shot it out of the air before it could get anywhere close. Three more shots followed in quick succession, the Hawk being forced on the run by her opponent for what had to be the fifth time since the fight had begun. Ishaq put it out of his mind, trusting the Archer to cover him, and struck at the Wolfhound’s back. The iron armour held but the blow broke the Scourge’s poise, allowing Sidonia to slap away his shield and the Sister to land a hard blow on his helmet. It bent, ever so slightly, but the Wolfhound himself was slammed down into the dust.

The Barrow Sword, eyes wild, stabbed through the eye and to his triumph felt flesh.

“Drink,” he snarled.

Pinon was every thirsty, but with his aspect behind her pull it was more than soft pulls taken from the soul. The Revenant imprisoned soul ebbed, pulled into his sword, but Ishaq’s eyes widened in utter surprise when he felt the slightest ripple. An aspect. A moment later he was flying, blown off his feet, and Sidonia had a cut across her face that bled red trails down her face paint. He landed on his back, letting out a pained gasp. Pinon did not leave his hand. She never did, unless he made the decision let her go.

Ishaq rose to his feet in time to see the Stained Sister take a shield smash in the face, breaking her nose. For all her strength, she was not a trained warrior. Not like he and Sidonia were. The Vagrant Spear quickly made the Mark of Mercy and struck, bare feet padding across the dust as she used her spear to vault herself above the Wolfhound and strike at his neck form the back. But the shield was in the way, once more, as the Scourge calmly pivoted.

“Ishaq,” the Grave Binder croaked out. “Not long now. Hurry.”

It was slipping out of his fingers, the Barrow Sword realized. It was all so very close, and he was going to end up with nothing because his aspects were a poor match for the Scourge’s. Because too many of his band had been brought for the talent that would get them out or in the fight instead of help during. The rage, the indignation, burned in his belly like acid.

“No,” he hissed, even as Sidonia burned another aspect to move quickly enough to avoid being skewered.

He took a step forward, then two.

“No,” Ishaq repeated, even as the halo of Light forming around the Sainted Sister was snuffed out by mere closeness to the iron armour.

Close now, close enough the Wolfhound was keeping him in sight.

“No,” the Barrow Sword bit out, as Aspasie’s brother was carved through and dispersed.

The spectre would reform, but not for some time. It did not matter, because now Ishaq was on his enemy and there would be no quarter. He took the shield bash on the face head on, his helm of bronze ringing, and though his nose broke he grinned through the blood and caught the Wolfhound’s shield arm. The Scourge began pulling away, its strength implacable, but Ishaq smashed his bloody head int the Revenant’s helm and broke the effort. He smashed Pinon’s pommel into the faceplate of the helm, rocking back his foe, and in the heartbeat that followed felt a blade slide into his guts.

“No,” the Barrow Sword spat into the Scourge’s face, spit red, and slammed his blade through the eyehole again.

Drink, he thought again, with all his greed and rage. The aspect bit deep, bit hard, and for a glorious instant the soul came loose. Only then there was that fucking ripple, and it was all going to – Ishaq felt a faint touch on his shoulder, light as feather. He could not look, could not move in this frozen moment, but if he turned he somehow knew he would see a crow.

The offer went unsaid, but it might as well have been screamed.

“I have sold more of me for lesser prizes,” Ishaq laughed, and saw in his mind’s eye a pair cold smiles under silver eyes. “Take all you want.”

Night flooded through his veins, blazing ice, and he tossed it blindly at the Scourge’s soul. The heartbeat passed, the ripple finished, and the Barrow Sword was once more thrown off his feet. He landed roughly, bleeding ad pained and well on his way to death, but he was laughing. Because the Wolfhound took a staggering step, then another, and then on the third that fucking helmet blew up in a burst of black flames. Still laughing wildly, Ishaq pulled himself up.

“How does it go again?” he said, wiping tears. “Ah, yes.”

The Barrow Sword raised his blade to the sky in a salute.

“Chno Sve Noc, my darlings,” Ishaq grinned though his bloodied beard.

Behind them, in the distance, one colossal monster finished ripping apart another. A great Crab reputed in a storm of flame that blotted out the sky, glassing the ground, while a gargantuan spider wreathed in Night let out victorious screeches.

“Best we get out of the army before the Warden starts stepping on it,” the Barrow Sword noted, smiling back in the face of the wary looks from the heroines. “Aspasie?”

“Oh Gods I would have left like an hour ago,” the Harrow Witch replied, and her sorcery snapped into place.

The same trick that had let her survive the dead, Ishaq thought with satisfaction, should be enough to get the five of them out of the army unseen before he finished bleeding out. It would be a poor end to his first deed in the Rolls, the Barrow Sword mused, to die.

Even if he got back up afterwards.

Lady Itima Ifriqui blinked at the messenger.

“You’re certain?” she carefully asked.

“Hundreds saw it, my lady,” the man replied. “It was too deep a wound for it to be cauterized by a Lantern, she had to pull back to get a healer.”

Itima’s mind raced. Was this Yannu’s doing? Cleaning up the other threat now that the battle was turning into a victory? It was not her that had given the order. It was Razin she had in her sights, having laid a trail to have a jealous Tartessos captain who wanted Aquiline’s hand blamed for it, but it should not yet have been carried out. Perhaps it was the Enemy’s work and not that of the Lord of Alava, she decided. The two of them slain in a single battle would be too obvious, certain to have the Warden taking a closer look at the matter. The Gods were having a laugh at their expense, it seemed.

“Will she live?” the Lady of Vaccei bluntly asked.

The messenger hesitated, coming closer, and Itima frowned as she leant in. There were only armsmen around her, trusted Ifriqui men, but it paid to be careful. Still, it felt like theatre to – the knife moved in a blur but Itima was of the Brigand’s Blood. She caught the wrist before it did more than scrape her cheek and she had a dagger sliding in the man’s belly before a heartbeat had passed, twisting to make the assassin gasp in pain.

“You fool,” she hissed. “You think you’re the first to try? I’ll keep you alive for days before you get the mercy of death.”

“Honour,” the man gasped, “to the Blood.”

Her stomach tightened and she dropped the assassin, taking a step back and touching her cheek. A single cut. Poison.

“Healer,” Lady Itima barked at her armsmen. “Get me a healer now.”

Thirty men and women stood around her, the tabards over their coats of mail in the colours of the Vengeful Brigand’s Blood. Loyal warriors, the finest in the service of the Ifriqui.

Not one of them moved.

Itima Ifriqui beheld the circle of steel around her which she had thought a shield a heartbeat ago but now recognized as a cage. She did not ask who, because there was only one man they would have betrayed her to: another Ifriqui. A spasm shuddered across her body, bringing her to her knees. A quick poison, Itima dimly thought. And almost painless.

Within thirty heartbeats she was dead.

The messenger whispered into Moro’s ear and Razin watched as the man’s scarred face convulsed with grief.

“Sad news?” the Lord of Malaga asked.

“It appears that my mother’s heart gave, Lord Razin,” Moro Ifriqui sadly said. “They think it was the hours in the heat wearing armour. Her health has been getting worse for years, but she insisted on taking the field today.”

The way he said it, it almost sounded true. The woman who had murdered three of Aquiline’s brothers was dead, the Lord of Malaga thought. A feud would be buried with her.

“She will have passed seeing us victorious, at least,” Razin gently said. “Take comfort in that.”

“There is no comfort to take in any of this, I think,” Moro said, tone too raw to be a lie.

It was not, Razin reminded himself, about good and bad.

“Then why?” he asked.

Why come to me, why take my deal, why refuse to return to the tower and close the door behind you.

“I told my brother,” Moro Ifriqui softly said, “that I get him home to his family.”

Razin met the other man’s eyes.

“We all want to go home, Razin Tanja,” the man who was to be Lord of Vaccei said. “And not to fight another fucking war. So I’ll do whatever’s needed to get us there.”

“Eyes like poison, heart like stone,” Razin softly quoted.

Moro finished the verse from the Anthem of Smoke, changing only a word.

“By my hand a thousand graves sown,” the Ifriqui murmured.

Silence held between them. Soon enough, a man that Itima Ifriqui had paid to kill Razin would try to do so. Rima Marave would silence him before he could speak. And when the coin was followed, it would be revealed that Careful Yannu had been the one to pay the assassin, that he had planned to kill an ally in the midst of a battle against the Dead King himself. But Razin would keep the secret, keep the Lord of Alava from being called a traitor by all of Calernia and the Valiant Champion’s Blood from being dishonoured beyond repair.

He would do this so long as, when they all returned to Levant, Yannu Marave did not take up arms.

Razin Tanja watched the distant line of horizon, sitting the saddle, and wondered about the nature of change.