The army of the Ansikanderakesis Amrakane awoke before dawn. Mist was rising from the river. The strange hushed silence of the world. The beating of birds’ wings making the branches of a tree rustle. In the village a cock crowed. A dog barking; the sound of water over rocks. A blackbird flew onto the eaves of the king’s house and sang. White flowers beneath the hedgerows. The smell of wood smoke and fresh bread.

Quietly the men began to gather themselves. Feed and water the horses, prepare porridge and mulled beer for themselves, ensure ration packs of dried meat and bread are stowed on their belts, their water skins were filled. A final girding of armour, unsheathing and sheathing of swords. Libations before a godstone found at the riverbank: water, beer, coins, scratched smears of blood. The sky turning pink and silver. The blackbird sang clear. Crows and rooks in the woods cawing. A skylark. A thrush tapping on a stone. In the far west, over the city, the red star of the Dragon’s Mouth was setting in a bank of pale cloud.

They lined up in the fields of the village, trampling the dark earth where the new corn was sown. Five hundred light horse. Three hundred heavy horse, armed with spear as well as sword, the horses armoured with red plumes on their heads. Three thousand sarrissmen in quilted and studded armour, wielding the jagged-tipped bronze spear. Six thousand swordsmen in bronze corselets. One hundred archers. Nine thousand nine hundred men. Slowly and carefully Marith led them down out of the village, an hour’s slow march to the flat plain of Geremela. He himself had the light horse; Yanis Stansel the heavy horse; Lord Bemann the sarriss. With some discomfort, he had given Osen the bulk of them, the archers and the swords. At the front of Osen’s lines a lone figure rode, his horse held by an armed man walking alongside. Selerie Calboride, maimed and rotting, his eyes kept whole so that he could see his soldiers die.

The Ithish were waiting. Their lines were longer, thicker, spear fighters ten, twenty deep, a mass of horses tossing plumed heads. The great Ithish warhorns, lower pitched than the trumpets of the White Isles, ringing with the music of bronze. Bells tinkling on the horses’ harnesses.

On both sides, the beat of drums.

The armies halted, as far apart as a man might run without being winded or a little more. Marith trotted to the front. Out into the dead land between them, the killing ground where the grass would soon be watered with men’s blood. The earth was already churned and pitted from the Ithish horses.

“Soldiers of Ith!” he shouted to the enemy. “Yield! Your king is mine! Your kingdom is mine!”

Osen rode up beside him, leading Selerie. Hardly recognizable, his wounds black with flies. But the Ithish army moaned like storm waves, seeing him. Marith drew his sword. “You see what I have done to him? So I shall do to you, and your children, and your cities, and your fields, unless you bow down to me and name me king and lord! Yield! Yield!”

A stir in the Ithish lines. The spears drew apart, opening like a door. A herald came forward with the blue and silver banner. His horse snorted, tossing its head, as it approached Marith. Its eyes were very wide. Blood flecked its bridle, where the bit had torn its mouth. It skittered and snorted and pawed the ground. Frightened. The herald wrestled with it in undignified panic to get it straight.

Another man rode up beside the herald. Leos Calboride. Selerie’s brother. Ith’s self-proclaimed new king.

“The soldiers of Ith will not speak with you, traitor and betrayer. Parricide, we name you, and false, and king of nothing but ruin and death! We outnumber you tenfold. We are the righteous, whose land you have invaded. The outraged. The betrayed. May the gods curse you.” Leos too drew his sword. “Death, we name you! Ruin and death! Go back to your accursed kingdom and leave us! Or die!”

Tenfold! The liars! It couldn’t be more than eight to one. And they were only ready and mustered at all because they’d been planning on helping him invade Illyr. The Illyians should be feeling pretty outraged themselves. The desire in Marith to ride out at them now, alone, cut them down. Death! Death and ruin! His hand itched on his sword hilt. The white horse reared. But he turned, rode back to his men.

A very long, aching silence, the banners snapping, the snorting of horses, the creak of leather, the tinkle of Ithish war bells. Metal moving on metal. Men coughing and shifting their feet. Neither side moving forward. The Ithish do not need to move. They can wait all day. Until the moon waxes and wanes and the seasons change and the seas rise to swallow the world. This pretty boy with a pretty sword who thinks he is the heir to a god. They outnumber him. Outflank him. They have more cavalry alone than he has men in his whole army. Heavy horsemen, thickly armoured, wielding long bronze spears.

The Ithish lines stretched almost a mile end to end. Horse in front, six or seven lines deep, a wall of infantry behind, sarriss points like the palisade of a town. And there, on a little knoll to the Ithish right, tucked back from the lines, scouts brought urgent word—some kind of defensive encampment, a screen of archers, heavy armoured swordsmen, a woman with a wooden staff. The whisper went down the White Isles’ lines in horror. A mage.

Marith’s lines were far shorter, interspersed blocks of infantry and cavalry, two corps of archers, one on either flank. A small line of sarriss dropped back behind his centre, in reserve. The Ithish flanks could easily encircle him, close on him like jaws. He therefore angled the flanks backward, his lines forming almost a square. The Ithish do not need to charge first. Marith cannot, for his men will be surrounded and overwhelmed. His whole battle plan must be defensive. And the Ithish have the mage. So they both wait. Drums and trumpets. The stamp of horses’ hooves.

Hold.

Hold.

Hold.

The White Isles men begin edging forwards. Slowly, crawling, beetle slow. The Ithish too begin moving. Not even clear if it’s in answer to an order: men lined up for battle must meet, and so they begin inexorably to move. All they have to do to live is refuse to go forward. Put down their spears. Nothing in the world and all the gods and demons and powers anyone could do to make them move and take up their arms and kill. But they move towards each other, slowly and inevitably, beyond any possibility of turning back. The secret hidden pleasure of every human heart, that it is waiting to die and to kill.

They are shifting sideways, also, as they move, drifting south-west, Marith’s right flank coming slightly forward with his lines angled back, the Ithish lines shifting to keep in check. Again, unclear if this is in answer to an order or just something that is happening, like water flowing one way or another when the floods come. Marith’s left are perhaps frightened of the mage, moving slightly more slowly. Or Marith himself holds the right and is too eager, his men moving slightly too fast. The Ithish right themselves move forward faster to keep their lines firm. Inexorable. Inevitable. Good sense. But because of this, the mage on the Ithish right flank is stranded further behind and away from the Ithish lines. Too far, and she will be useless: the Ithish need to keep in total control of the battlefield, keep her close enough to engage. And the Ithish are angry, confident of their numbers, sickened by this treacherous half-Ithish boy and what he has done to their king.

The Ithish lines break. The Ithish left charges Marith’s right.

The ground trembles. Like an earthquake: in Tarboran they worship the earthquake in the form of a running horse. A crash like thunder and voices screaming. Metal ringing against metal. Dust. The line wavers, thrashing back and forth like a boy cracking a rope. Marith’s right were going too fast, too eager: they have summoned the charge. But the Islanders hold. Don’t go forward. Don’t retreat. Just hold.

Hold.

Hold.

Hold.

The Ithish right, too, lighter cavalry, charge Marith’s left. Osen’s men. Swordsmen, banefire archers. Osen’s voice roars at the troops to stand firm even as blue flames leap over the charging Ithish horses towards them, burning the front line, ripping at them like claws. Like water breaking on the seashore, pulling all that bends beneath it down. The strong, pungent smell of burned metal and burned flesh. Magecraft.

Hold.

Men from the reserve move into the back of the flanking positions, left and right. The centre, sarrissmen under Lord Bemann, move forwards, meet the Ithish centre lines. Long spears warding off the horses. Just dig in. Hold them. Keep them from breaking through. No heroics. No charges. Don’t break them. Just hold.

Hold.

On both flanks, the Ithish pushing forwards, coming round to encircle. The last of the Islanders’ reserve troops split left and right. Marith’s lines now stretching backwards giving slowly backwards, closing in on themselves, the centre breaking apart, the Ithish shouting as they drive the Islanders back. Like a book being forced back against its spine. A crack appearing in the centre, like the spine breaking. The Ithish moving round to surround them. Close up. Cut them down. The crack in the centre of Marith’s lines widening. The Ithish battle lines becoming two lines moving inwards towards each other like jaws. Biting. Closing shut. The Islanders holding, but giving ground.

Hold.

Mage fire searing into the left flank, taking Osen’s men there apart. The left weakening. If they collapse it is over, the Ithish will cut through them and encircle the Islanders entirely, catching them as in a net, the mage burning them at will. A troop of archers crawling forwards on their bellies, edging round to try to shoot her down from behind. If the vials of banefire they carried on their belts should break … The Ithish don’t seem to have seen them, too focused on the main body of the troops where the line is wavering, too many men burning, Osen frantically shouting “Keep the lines! Keep the lines! Just hold them! Hold!”

Hold.

A gap in Marith’s centre, his whole army slowly moving apart into two. Not retreating, not breaking, but being forced back and sideways, curved round and rolled up. The pressure on his lines growing. Crushing down and down. Keep pressing. Just keep pressing. Hold. Dead men are kept upright by the press around them. If a man or horse slips and falls, they’re crushed. The ground churned to red liquid. Dust. Fire. Screams. Burning metal. Burning flesh.

A gap appearing too in the Ithish centre, the Ithish lines splitting apart to enfold the Islanders’ army, moving forwards right and left, leaving the centre weakened. All their forces bent on shattering the two struggling wings. The archers on Marith’s right crushed and annihilated. Osen’s left falling apart. The archers on the left crawling towards the mage, half of them down and dead, shot in the back as they crawl or burned by their own flasks of green flames. The Islanders’ centre, the sarriss under Lord Bemann, pushing hard but moving apart left and right, broken like a broken spine.

Hold.

Everything utter confusion, pressed so tight, everything shattering. Shredded. Choking. Drowning in each other. Crushing too tight to breathe. Eyes staring, swallowing each other’s sweat. Everywhere swords and spears and horses and metal grinding remorseless against metal and skin and bone. Push. Push. Hold. The lines wavering. Thrashing like a boy cracking a rope. Osen’s left burning. Osen’s left falling apart.

Just hold.

Hold.

Hold.

Hold.

Dying. Burning. Shattering. The lines giving. So far outnumbered. Lost.

The lines giving. The cracks widening. Breaking like a broken spine.

The lines giving. The cracks widening. Opening like a door.

A gap in the lines. A doorway. An entrance. Inviting something in.

“Amrath! Amrath and the Altrersyr! Death! Death! Death!”

Marith charged with the last hundred of his horsemen.

The darkness followed him. The shadows.

Teeth and claws.