Landra stumbled two paces after Tobias. Stopped. Stared after him. Stared at the battle lines. She could feel Marith. Shining. He raised his sword again and the blade flashed. His voice cried out loud as the end of all things.

“Tobias!” Landra shouted desperately. “Come back!”

“Leave him,” said Raeta.

“He’ll be killed!”

Raeta said, “Why else do you think he came?”

“He came to kill Marith.”

“He came to die, Landra. Die thinking he’d done something of use with himself. You, however, came wanting to live. So come with me. Down there. Now.”

They began to walk down the slope of the hill. Heat was rushing off the battlefield towards them. The air tasted of ashes and salt spray.

The ruins of Ethalden clawed at the sky before them. Here, Landra thought. The house of my ancestor Amrath. The house of my god. We have to go in there, she thought. Inside the walls. Through the battlefield.

Marith’s soldiers were spreading out, heading for the fortress. She saw with a jolt people she knew in Marith’s lines: Lord Stansel on his high square saddle, Lord Erith, Osen Fiolt waving his sword. Their teeth were gritted, spittle dripped from their mouths, their faces yearned for blood. So many of them. They so far outnumbered the Illyian soldiers, as the dead outnumber those who now live.

If the Illyians had been wise, Landra thought, they would have dug themselves in behind the ruin’s walls.

Crouching, shaking, they drew nearer. Ethalden’s ruined towers shone in the sunlight. Running red as red rain began to fall. Shadows danced around the towers. It seemed to Landra that they were singing. The shadows and the ruins. Singing for joy.

The shadow of the towers fell on the Illyians fighting. Dark shadows. Cold. If the Illyians had been wise, Landra thought, they would have drawn up so that the ruins were not between them and the sun.

“Come,” hissed Raeta. Raeta’s face was white as dying. Clutching her shoulder to keep her body from breaking apart. Shimmering fading away to nothing, a thousand faces staring through her face, teeth horns claws roots flowers wings. Crouched and shuffled. Moving on the wrong number of legs. They circled wide around behind the line of the fighting. Forced therefore to walk close to the sea and the shore. The water still churned, wrestling with itself. Great sea beasts that had once swallowed up whole war ships were dying in the pounding waves. On the shore there were bodies everywhere. Already rotting. The cursed ash earth of Ethalden reclaiming its own. The Illyian corpses were drowned and bloated. Seawater pouring itself down their throats. Dead sea beasts gasping for water. Suffocated. Fish-scale skins all cracked. The men of the White Isles were smiling. Honey-sweet pleasure in them as they died.

A man ran down over the beach in front of them. He was naked. Covered in blood. He was holding another man’s severed head. Stopped, held up the head, kissed it. Set it down in the ashes, screamed “Death!” Ran back off away from them. Threw himself at two men with swords coming the other way.

Rolling in the dirt. Stabbing. Clawing. Bare hands against metal blades.

Groan of pleasure as he died.

Landra turned her head away. Tried very hard not to be sick.

Tobias smashed at them. The Army of Amrath, curse them, damn them, shatter them to bits! Hammered with his sword blades, hacking, slicing, hitting, stabbing, take them down take them apart this disease on the world fucking ruin fucking death. Plague. Maggot things. Sick evil filth that didn’t deserve to live.

The Army of Amrath wanted death? He’d give them death. Oh hell, yeah.

Sword in each hand. Never fought like that before. Crazy fighting. But way, way fun. Slaughter all of them. Stab them and bloody crush them to bloody bits. Filth and scum and pestilence. Sick fucks, all of them. Didn’t deserve to live. Killing and killing and killing and gods he’d missed this. He was a soldier. He’d so missed fighting and killing things.

The Illyians smashed themselves against the Army of Amrath. The Army of Amrath smashed itself back. Men on both side groaning climaxing as they killed and died fighting. Glorious battle lust! Thrill of it rushing through Tobias’s body. Panting in fervent killing sweat. Oh, it’s wonderful! Oh, it’s like nothing a man can imagine! And extra special this time in that it’s being on the right bloody goodness and virtue side of things. Sword in each hand. Crazy fighting. But so much fun. Kill every single one of the sick poisonous vile bastards. The Army of Amrath! Destroy it. Wipe it out. Kill! Kill! Kill!

People think they care about living. But people, somewhere deep down, what they really care about is killing and death.

Landra stumbled through the back of the fighting. Four Illyian soldiers running passed with their faces on fire. Black as midnight now. Black clouds boiling. Red rain hissing on their burns.

A blast of white light hit the Illyian soldiers.

Gone.

Just suddenly not there any more.

You trained with a swordsmaster, Landra thought. You killed a man outside Skerneheh. Your father feasted men in his halls to keep them loyal to go to war for him. To kill for him. To die.

To do this.

“This way! Come on!”

She followed Raeta running. Raeta’s body was shivering, changing. Throwing out branches and limbs. Raeta was vast like a giant. Raeta was limping barely able to walk. They almost fell over a group of soldiers, crouching in the shelter of a hollow to regroup. Marith’s soldiers, from their red badges. Raeta flared up golden and the whole lot of them were dead. Like the Illyians. Just gone.

“This way! This way!” Raeta was frantic. Foam clung to her lips. The ruins loomed before them. To their left an explosion roared across the battlefield. A ringing following thousand-voiced scream.

Raeta screamed. Pointed. Horror. Broken, despairing, endless grief.

The dragon shot overhead spouting fire. Pus and maggots raining off its wings. Roared out in pain. Roared out in triumph. Flew out wide over the sea, bent its head and the sea boiled up white.

“It was dead,” Raeta whispered. “It was dead.”

The dragon swept back over them. Overhead so close Landra could feel the heat of it. The rush of its wings. Dripping blood and pus from its belly. Her skin was burned where its blood fell. A jet of flame shot out upwards. Blood-red fire illuminating the boiling black sky.

“I really thought it was dead,” whispered Raeta.

Landra thought: fool.

“This way! This way!” They ran on across the battlefield. Had to shy away from a charging riderless horse. Landra’s heart felt as though it was bursting. Couldn’t go on. Couldn’t go on. She almost fell, Raeta had to grab her hand to steady her. The ground shook like an earthquake. The dragon crashed downwards. Came down like nightfall on the battlefield beneath it. Shrieks. Crash of metal. Bronze and iron and bones melted, smashed, shattered beneath its weight. It rolled and howled. Another jet of fire shooting upwards from its mouth. The walls of the fortress shuddered. The dragon’s mouth opened huge, feasted on the Illyian ranks.

“This way!” They stumbled forwards, running bent over, Raeta warded off a blood spattered swordsman with a blast of light.

The walls of Ethalden rose over them. They stopped gasping before the tumbled ruin of a vast gate.

Smashed, sliced, hacked, battered, hit, killed them. Kill the bastards! Sword in each hand. Blades dripping blood. Don’t leave any of them living! They don’t deserve to live! Swings and hits and misses and hits and cuts and kills them. A disease. They’re a disease to be wiped out. Run and hit and kill and hit and miss and kill them.

An Illyian swordsman lined up beside Tobias. Limping barely walking his right arm useless, clutching a sword in his left hand. Mad rolling eyes in his corpse face. Bits of someone’s brain matter dripping off him.

“We’re holding them,” the swordsman gasped at him. “We’re doing it. We must. We can do this thing.”

A horseman charged the two of them. Tobias threw himself sideways. His body screaming. The Illyian swordsman went down under a sword blade. The Illyian swordsman’s head rolled off and got trampled by a horse.

Hacked and slashed and spat and killed and injured. Kill them. Kill them. Kill them. Diseased plague things. Didn’t deserve to live.

Maggots. Filth. Poison. Kill them.

Ah, gods. Ah, gods.

So much fun.

Landra staggered as she approached the gateway. The house of her ancestor, her god. The force of the fortress’s power tore at her. Screaming at her. It beat against her, leering and hungry, filled with want and hate and need. She bent onto her knees, crawling, shaking, moaning in fear. One hand then another, trying to move. The stones of the gateway looking down at her. Such cruelty. Such hate. Such pain.

“Come on, Landra,” Raeta called to her.

“I can’t … I can’t … Eltheia … help me, be kind …”

“Don’t say that name here! You can and you will.”

“I can’t … please …”

“You can.” Raeta almost laughed at her. “His death or our death. What are you going to do otherwise, sit waiting there until his coronation day?”

Landra dragged herself forward on her belly. Her face pressed on the burned ground. Worming her way forward, the ruins above her, remorseless, beating down. Lie here. Lie here and die. Even with her eyes closed she saw the stones shining. So slowly, crushed against the ground. Keep going. Keep going. Come on. Stretched out a hand and tried to pull herself along by her fingertips. The ruins rocked again, a shower of dust coming down on her. The stones of the gatehouse swayed. Keep going. Keep going. Come on. Dragging herself, her body screaming from the weight on it, her skin tearing on the ground. Keep going. Keep going. Come on. Come on. The ruins rocked. A roar. Screaming. I can’t, she thought. I can’t. The air howled around her. Amrath’s house. Her ancestor. I can’t go in here. I can’t. He’s there. Amrath. He’s in there. His bones. His body. I can’t. I can’t.

Hacked and slashed and hit and missed and killed them. His whole body slick with blood.

“It’s not their fault they’re fighting for him,” Landra had said one night with the Army of Amrath’s campfires off in the distance. Stumbled on a pit of still-living writhing chopped-up Illyian bodies that day. “He orders them to do it. He’s their king. He rules them. They follow him. It’s not them we should be fighting. It’s him.”

“They could say no,” Tobias had answered. “They could put down their weapons. Walk off.”

“Could they?”

Hit and smashed and hacked with a sword in each hand and they fell dying. They could walk off. They could bloody walk off if they wanted to. They all knew what Marith was.

Hacked and killed and smashed and hit and missed and injured and killed.

Eyes gritted shut, seeing shadows. Rolling and twisting. Earth tearing her. Weak pathetic thing like a worm.

“Come on,” Raeta was begging her. “Come on. Please, Landra.”

Distant voice. Like dreaming. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t go on.

She dragged herself forwards. Hands pulling herself. Dragging herself with her fingers along the burned ash stone ground.

“Come on. Come on.”

The weight dropped away from her. Her eyes opened.

She was through the gateway. Inside the ruins of Ethalden.

The dragon crawled across the killing ground. Tearing the earth apart beneath it. Its blood consuming the stones beneath it. Pouring out fire. Killing everything it met. The sea boiled. Waves smashing the shoreline. Broken bones in their wake. Silver lights in the sky fading. Like stars as the dawn comes. Flickered out, slowly. Like a candle flame dying when the last living person leaves a death room. Fire and bronze and iron. Tobias killed and killed and killed and killed. Death. Murder. Carnage. Killing. Pleasure. Pain. Death. Love. Everything falling dying. Just ashes. Just dark. Dust. Bones. Blood. Bodies. Ruin.

Fun.

Hells, yeah.

You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?