“Neither,” Stefan answered. “Like you said, this is war. We fight and we die. Even outnumbered five to one. No need to talk them to death is there?”
Gaze focused on the Erastonian horde, Garrick shrugged.
Delicately, now. Stefan tilted his cup. “Can you bring me another flagon, please?”
Garrick strode over to the pitchers of kinai wine at the table’s far end.
“You should eat.” Stefan picked up a slice of deer and tossed it into his mouth, chewing but not tasting. “After all, we might die today.”
The look on the Knight General’s face gave a subtle shift to confusion before he smoothed his features. He plunked down the flagon next to Stefan. “I’m not hungry, sir. I just want to get on with the battle. Wipe these arrogant fools from the world.”
Stefan glanced out among his legions, noting the shift in Kasimir’s troops. He finished the last of his deer then wiped his hand on his tunic before responding to Garrick. “You know my policy, Garrick. No man under my command fights on an empty stomach. Should they fall, I will have them go the gods well fed. So, is it that you aren’t hungry or that you know you won’t die today?”
Knight General Garrick stiffened. “I’m always prepared to die.”
“Good. Then die.” Stefan drew his sword and struck.
Garrick barely managed a half-choked shriek.
Stefan’s blade, still vibrating, sliced through the Knight General’s neck with a faint hiss. Blood spurted in a black geyser. Mouth agape, Garrick’s head tumbled from his shoulders. The sword’s vibration abruptly died.
As the head spun through the air, the illusion shattered, and a transformation began. Elongated lupine jaws, rows of sharp fangs, a lolling tongue, and stiff, black fur replaced Garrick’s face.
The black-furred wraithwolf’s head landed on the ground with a thud.
CHAPTER 23
A tear trickling down his face, Stefan spat on the corpse. “Burn the body.” He gestured to Cadet Destin who stood with his mouth unhinged. “Now!”
Destin jumped before dropping his lance and running down the hill toward a line of torches at its base.
The clang of steel on steel followed by the cries and screams of the dying drew Stefan’s attention to his men. Surrounded, the legion Knight General Garrick had commanded struggled against the other Setian.
Divya blades rose and fell in flashes. Kasimir had been able to arm every Dagodin loyal to their cause with the weapons.
The battle raged on. Shields parried and blocked. Swords stabbed and sliced. All moving in synchronous motions as they’d been taught. At this distance, to an untrained eye, the melee appeared more like chaos.
Behind the milling mass of Garrick’s forward infantry, transformations took place. Green armor rippled and fell to the ground. In place of men were dark-furred wraithwolves, many reaching seven feet. They stood on two legs, threw their snouts to the sky, and released blood-chilling howls. Stefan wished he had scorpios.
Mingled between the beasts and those who were mere men was another sort of creature. These flowed like black smoke made flesh. Blades darker than their billowing countenances sliced through the attacking soldiers as if their armor was wrought from paper instead of steel and iron. Stefan’s eyes narrowed.
Darkwraiths. Gods be good.
Quickly, he dashed the kinai wine from the flagons onto the wraithwolf’s corpse. Where’s Destin with the blasted light? He whirled to the sound of approaching feet and snatched the torch from Destin’s outstretched hand. As he tossed the firebrand at the remains, Stefan stepped back. A whoosh followed, and the black-furred body burst into flames. Heat spilled forth in a shimmering wave. Stefan shielded his face from the conflagration.
A trumpet blared-part of the plan he and Kasimir had devised. The dirge repeated.
The remaining Setian infantry fell back from the two types of shadelings and the soldiers who stood with them. A lull passed across the battlefield for the barest of seconds as the two opposing forces split apart, a space a few feet wide between them. Then a wraithwolf screeched-a skin crawling, high-pitched sound like metal squealing on metal-and its counterparts echoed the cry.
Stefan covered his nose and mouth from the stench of burnt hair and cooking flesh and peered toward the crimson-garbed Ashishin who moments before had stood unmoving and silent. They strode forward, shoulder to shoulder, in perfect, unnerving symmetry.
Gigantic balls of fire formed in front of them as if they’d ripped several suns from the sky. A moment later, the fireballs shot forward, blazing a trail as they flew to explode into the shadelings with a roar. At the same time, the earth came alive in a rolling wave of stone, tossing the beasts from their feet. The wails among them became plaintive cries.
Looking glass to his eye, Stefan licked his lips as the Ashishin, their faces furrowed with concentration, halted, gazes riveted on the traitors and the shadelings. He craved to reach out and open his Matersense as they Forged the essences around them, but he knew better. The very thought brought a shiver to his bones with the memory of the ethereal voices that seemed to call to him when he’d been in training so long ago.
A deafening rumble jarred him back to the present.
Where once there had been a stretch of plains occupied by the shade’s minions, there was now a gaping rent in the earth like a mouth full of jagged teeth. Screams ensued. Above the lip of the gash, both darkwraiths and wraithwolves appeared in empty air, claws and shrouded hands grappling for purchase. They crashed into an unseen barrier before falling from sight.
Lightning flashed down from the ashen sky into the hole. First one, then two, then an incandescent flurry of bolts scoured the pit. No thunder followed, but there came another roar, this one muted. Flames spurted up from the crevasse, licking at its lips in hungry tongues. The blaze lit up the morning, burning away the earlier gloom.
Screeches and shrieks resounded in a cacophony of despair and death. Pillars of greasy smoke rose into the air, only to be swept away by a sudden gust of wind that also increased the pitch and length of the wails. The gale carried a stench akin to piles of cooking, rotten meat.
Then, all was silent.
AWOOOOOOOO! AWOOOOOOOOO!
The Erastonian war horns shattered the moment before a single Setian raised their sword in triumph or cheered. Out on the hilly plains, a full legion separated from the main enemy force. The obsidian line swept down the hill. Drums thudded in a beat to match the march of a few thousand booted feet.
Stefan’s legions turned their backs to the pyre blazing not far from them. A trumpet blared again. This time only once. The Setian answered the call by reforming into precise cohorts as they marched to meet the Erastonian threat. His new cavalry detached itself from the position it had maintained well to the rear and began to trot forward-four thousand sets of padded feet noiseless on the ground.
“Bring me my mount,” Stefan ordered without looking at Destin. “The new one.”
Slowly, the tempo of the drumbeats increased until they built into a fast-paced rhythm. The Erastonians disappeared below a dip in the land and moments later showed up at the crest. Stefan frowned at their numbers.
From this distance, they appeared to be advancing at a slow rate, but he knew better. Renowned for their stamina, the dark-skinned, sinewy Erastonians could run for miles nonstop, and under the influence of their divya armor, maintain a speed faster than any other race. These soldiers were doing just that, and from the ground they covered, they were charging in a dead sprint. What was Guban playing at?
The Setian cavalry’s pace increased. The soldiers in the saddles carved into the shells of the beasts were a mere blot against the massive, humped forms that belied the speed at which they traveled.