Battle.

The armies thrashing together. At their centre, the heart of the fighting, like a forge, the two opposed ranks of sarriss. Smashing and grinding and holding. Dead men trampled underfoot. Kiana’s horses charging the Illyian swordsmen. Crash of banefire trying to break the Illyian counter charge. Mounted archers wheeling and circling, never still, never stopping, rushing and shooting and moving like little darting high-flying birds. Marith, on the far left, on the banks of the fast flowing Jaxertane, waiting, breathless, his maimed left hand on Thalia’s brooch. The sky was filled with fires, explosions brighter than the sunrise, flashes of darkness that made the air suddenly run cold. The shadows were just about holding. The silver lights squirmed around them trying to envelop them. The firebird god dived at his men and ripped at them with claws like hawks’ talons. Banefire arrows flew over the battlefield. The light was blinding. But still his lines just about held.

His right hand itched on his sword hilt. Death and ruin! Soon. Oh, soon.

Kiana’s charge had made a breach in the Illyian light armed infantry, pushed them back in confusion towards the hills. A good part of them cut up, cumbersome against the mounted archers and then the fast mounted swordsmen coming at them in waves. Kiana pulled her troops together, reformed for another charge. The Illyian heavy cavalry charged to meet her, checked her and beat her back. She pushed again, the archers bringing down several of the Illyian horses. A burst of mage fire. Several of her horse archers went down.

“The mage!” a voice shrieking. “Kill the mage!” An explosion of banefire. Green fire and white light. Another burst of mage fire. Another explosion of banefire. The mage went up in towers of green flame.

The sarriss lines wrestled each other. Stamp and creak of muscle. Shattered bronze spear points. Crack of wood breaking. Voices screaming orders, keeping the lines together, screaming at them to hold.

The shadows collapsed as the dragon had before the silver lights in the sky. Ripped into pieces. The few tattered remnants fled. Silver light exploded down over his army. Faces dissolving. Screaming. Beauty, wondrous to the eye. The firebird fell upon the shadows, consuming them. Still, heroically, his lines were just about holding. Voices screamed orders, moving to fill gaps emerging, howling at the men to stand firm. The right, the swordsmen under Osen, slowly beginning to be forced back. A shower of banefire struck the Illyian cavalry as they charged down Kiana’s horse again. Bones went flying up burning. Lumps of metal that might have been swords. Osen’s lines were moving backwards. Silver light melting over them. Dissolving them to nothing. Gaps, where man after man was torn down. Kiana charged again, her archers swerving off shooting high at the birds circling, Osen’s lines still just about holding but being edged slowly slowly back.

The Illyians moving forward faster, confident, their gods and magics driving off the army of the demon. Gaps opening. Osen’s men being forced back and back.

A clever man, Osen. Praise his good and thoughtful heart. Did exactly as he needed to without even needing to be told.

A gap opened too in the Illyian lines as they pressed eagerly forward.

Widened. Perfect ordered formations joyfully coming apart.

Marith charged at the head of his heavy cavalry.

The firebird saw him. Shot towards him.

As before, he killed it with one blow.

The sky roared. The silver lights came down at him. His charge punched through the Illyian right wing, skewed round, smashed into them again. The press at the centre suddenly slackened as the lines responded. The Ithish spears on Marith’s right moved up for a charge. The pressures of the battle shifting, changing, shattered lines trying to reform themselves, all the powers of magic loosed on the battlefield pulled off from the soldiers and directed solely and entirely against him. Silver light crashing over him again and again and again.

The lights were … women? Beasts? Gods? Swirling patterns of branches with animal-like bodies and human heads. Dimly, striking at them, hacking off things like antlers only to see them grow again, formless twisting things of light, dimly he thought of the gestmet Landra had brought to his tent in the mountains. Fighting it, wrestling with it, struggling to keep himself. The smell of flowers and bread and muddy water. The taste of grass and rot and thick green forest leaves. Life things.

Laid about him with his sword, cutting into them. Each time they seemed to rise up around him taller and brighter than before. As vast as the sky and as tiny as insects, and he was with them, huge as they were, tiny as they were, moving, falling, flowing, fighting around and around and around. Through them, the ghost of the battle: he saw it, felt it in his mind, the ranks of his soldiers holding, pushing, killing, Osen rallying them onwards, Kiana taking his position leading another charge of the heavy cavalry, they might even be winning, the sarriss men pushing and the Illyian centre was broken, ah, but they went forward too eagerly, he could see it before it happened, breaking formation, the Illyian horse came round to charge them, the line of spears wavered, he felt Nasis Jaeartes take a wound in the shoulder, stumble backwards, go down under a sword thrust, die. A flash of mage fire ripped towards Osen’s lines. No, not Osen! Not Osen! Not after Carin! Tried to wade towards him, locked in the silver light embrace of his enemies the powers of life. Hacked and cut and tore at them and they enveloped him, surrounded him, kept him from his soldiers. Things that tormented Thalia, refused to leave her be, tried to hurt her to hurt him. Killing his soldiers. Punish them. Mage fire rolled over him. His skin felt dry and hot. He hacked and cut and tore at the lights and they were unharmed. Like trying to fight a rushing wave of water. Fighting the night sky or the bottomless sea.

The sky roared. Marith hacked at the gods fighting him. Death is stronger than living. Stronger than all the powers of life. One sword stroke and life is over. Ended, nothing, just like that. He hacked and cut and tore at them. His sword burned silver. Rainbows flickering around him. More and more shadows pouring out from a crack in the sky. The gods fighting him began dying. He slashed at them and they fell apart. Punish them. Death will always triumph over life.

Osen rallied the soldiers, screaming them on. They cheered him almost as they cheered Marith himself. The sword the Calien Mal blazing. The Eagle Blade, carved of eagles’ bones. The sword dancing in Osen’s hand. The Army of Amrath surged forward, trampling the Illyian traitors beneath them. Froth of blood, bodies tangled hacked up in pieces, astonishing beautiful perfect stink of shit and piss and death. Oh joy! Oh wonder! Kill and kill and kill! Marith screamed in jubilation. The gods of life fell broken before him. The soldiers of Illyr fell broken five, ten, twenty to a stroke. The paean rang out in a thousand voices. For Amrath! For death! For ruin! For the destruction of the world!

“Why we march and why we die,

And what life means … it’s all a lie.

Death! Death! Death!”