Year 942,

Almost a year had passed since the beginning of the crusade and, after countless and bloody battles, after months of waiting for the good season in that distant and inhospitable land, the decisive moment had finally come. The moment to take Surelekem back.

The sky was a vast light blue drape, completely free of clouds. Viryl looked down at the horizon, and the newly risen sun blinded him. The ground was reddish and compact, arid, covered with sparse succulents and dry shrubs up to the top of the hills that edged the immense esplanade. Behind him rose the colossal bastions of Surelekem, and on the field the two wings of the Crusader army crashed down on them like a tidal wave.

The knights of the Royal Order of Ferlonia had been deployed in the rear. Their task was to cover the charge of the rest of the army from the enemy attack that would surely come from the east. Viryl was a little sorry about this. After all the effort he had made to get there, he would not be among the protagonists of that historic day. The Avuelites and the Imperials would pocket all the glory.

Lyndabel was even more upset. She stood beside him with her arms folded, nervously tapping her boot on the ground, raising clouds of red dust. For her it was not just a wound to her pride, but a matter of faith. She wanted to earn her place in heaven by leaving a trail of corpses all the way to the gates of the temple of Surelekem.

In their group were also Calgara and Neugena. Calgara had been standing still for at least twenty minutes, statuesque and proud, with her giant sword planted in the ground between her feet. Neugena occasionally hopped on the spot and stretched, and then warmed up by doing exercises with her ethereal staff.

The thirty-three knights of Ferlonia were arranged in a line a couple of miles long, in units of four. In the center of the formation, at the head of all, was Alfredo Clarovante, the Roaring Lion, ready to send his men on a furious charge as soon as the Infidels came swarming down from the hills.

But a couple of hours had already passed since Alfredo Clarovante's speech, and still nothing had happened.

Viryl turned. The siege tower of the Imperials was almost touching the city’s northern wall, and a few fearless soldiers were struggling up precarious wooden ladders, while rocks, boiling oil, and small Ferenkelts rained down from the battlements. One of Toeteborg’s knights must have used a spell to quickly fill the moat.

Lyndabel, who had turned to look in the same direction as Viryl, snorted.

To try to cheer her up, Viryl said, “Come on, I’m sure things will heat up on this part of the battlefield soon enough.”

Lyndabel tilted her head, and Viryl could easily imagine her scowling face beneath the visor. “Sure, that’ll be a thrill. If I had to be here to squire our high masters at the decisive moment, I’d have preferred not to come here at all. Don’t you agree with me?”

Viryl was taken aback by Lyndabel’s outburst and couldn’t help but laugh. If she was going to the point of thinking about insubordination against the Avuelites, she must be furious. “Someone had to stay behind, right?”

“Do you think this is the time to start acting reasonable, Viryl?” Lyndabel snapped back, not understanding the reason for his laughter.

Viryl was about to reply, when Calgara signaled him to be quiet. “Do you hear that too?”

Listening, Viryl heard a series of hisses from above and raised his gaze to the sky. Four spherical objects, dark in the direct sunlight, streaked overhead and past them, crashing into the lines of archers. Each one knocked over at least a dozen. The spheres, the size of millstones, rolled for a few yards, then split into six parts: a head, four limbs, a tail.

They were Ferenkelt, Tombstone Armadillos. Their name was due to the thin, curved, stony outgrowths that covered their backs and forelimbs.

The beasts immediately began to unleash their fury on the defenseless soldiers and, before the damage was irreparable, the four knights rushed upon them with their weapons drawn.

Neugena was the first to reach the attackers. Using her staff as leverage, she leaped forward and in an acrobatic move she slammed into the head of one of the four armadillos, clubbing it with the end of the weapon. When the blow made contact with the beast's body, the weapon released its spell and an explosion crushed its head to the ground. The recoil made Neugena jump into the air again and, after charging the "Sonic Piercing" spell during her pirouette, she landed, impaling the monster's chest.

Viryl watched Neugena's choreography as he flew at top speed towards the second Armadillo, but before he could reach it a powerful voice thundered in his ears.

"The infidels have launched the attack! The four lookouts must immediately take to the sky and make reconnaissance to indicate the enemy's position!"

It was Alfredo Clarovante, who used the “Voice Amplification” spell to give his orders to the troops dispersed on the battlefield. And Viryl was one of the four lookouts.

Out of the corner of his eye, Viryl saw Lyndabel and Calgara push through the tumbling soldiers to get to the other armadillos, then he turned and continued toward the monster he had his sights set on. Using his “Rock Shaping” spell, he raised a spur of rock that impaled the monster's soft underbelly, then he veered upward.

As he climbed into the sky, Viryl saw four more Tombstone Armadillos swooping down. He ignored the Ferenkelts and continued to rise for a few hundred yards until he could identify the enemy army. It was in a trident formation, with the two flanking points on the verge of clearing the ridges of the last line of hills. In the front were Suljukian horsemen riding on giant, black, elephant-like Ferenkelts, and behind them were infantry, and mangonels and trebuchets and other men and beasts, and finally a flock of flying Ferenkelts dancing wildly overhead.

Viryl felt faint. There were about twenty thousand men and a few thousand Ferenkelts. The enemy numbers were at least forty times greater than the Ferlonian army.

The left tip of the enemy trident was heading straight for Lyndabel, Neugena and Calgara and was now less than half a mile away. Viryl had to go to them immediately and warn them, someone else would take care of reporting to Alfredo Clarovante.

As Viryl hurtled to the ground, the mangonels released a new volley of armadillos, and four more fell into the area his group was defending.

Without wasting a second, Viryl impaled two more with the “Rock Shaping” spell, and let Calgara and Neugena take care of the rest.

Then Viryl landed among the knights, in a clearing marked out by the pikemen who had advanced to cordon off the area where the armadillos were fighting, and shouted, “The enemy's left wing is bearing down on us! We must regroup immediately and return to the front lines!”

Lyndabel squirted monster blood off the blade of her dagger and asked him galvanically, “What units do they have?”

“Suljukian Cavalry! We have to think about that for now. They ride on Five-Legged Pachyderms. And they number more than twenty thousand infantry soldiers, and they have at least a few thousand Ferenkelts at their disposal, of more than five different breeds. I saw some Screaming Bats, some Silk Fur Lynxes, and then — "

“How far are they from us?” from the sudden way Neugena interrupted him, from the quaver in her voice, Viryl could tell she was nothing short of terrified.

“They’ll be pouring down the hill in a couple of minutes,” Viryl explained, gesturing.

Neugena bowed her head and dissolved her ethereal staff, then clenched her fists. “There are… too many.”

Calgara planted her sword on the ground and went to her. She took Neugena’s hands in her, and tried to reassure her with a tender voice, "My love, you know we can do it. There are many of them, but we are stronger. And then, never forget, I'm here to cover your back."

In response, Neugena turned away and let out a few strangled sobs.

Alfredo Clarovante's voice reverberated across the battlefield again, “I have just received the report from Lobrum of the Liquid Sky. They are advancing in trident, and the three points will make contact with me, with Sylphia's of the Whirling Flame’s squad and with Viryl's of the White Gale’s squad. At the signal, charge!"

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“They might throw more armadillos after us… Viryl, what do we do?” Lyndabel asked with some hesitation.

Viryl scanned the sky. “It doesn’t matter. If they come after us, we’ll figure something out. If they run for the walls, they won’t be our problem anymore. We’ve already taken out a dozen of them, let the knights of Avuel and Rokmar think of something, too.”

Lyndabel nodded: although it was quite a dishonor to let the Ferenkelts pass, she realized how dangerous it was to receive the enemy charge without having closed ranks.

Neugena stopped sobbing, raised her head and released Calgara's hand.

After exchanging nods, the four knights pushed their way through the line of pikemen to take the lead. All lined up, they summoned their ethereal weapons again and took up their guard positions.

The enemy drums, rapid and syncopated, began to beat and make the earth vibrate together with the elephants' steps.

Viryl held his breath, and then the first black elephant appeared on the hilltop in front of him. Nearly forty feet tall, it was two times larger than a normal Five-Legged Pachyderm, and it was ridden by a giant Suljukian leader, decked out in white and gold robes and a red turban. Those were the regalia of a Herosk.

Behind the first elephant appeared a handful of smaller ones, and four more Armadillos were hurled towards them.

Without waiting for the trumpeters' signal, Viryl shouted, “Charge!”

All two hundred crusaders in the platoon ran without looking back, and the armadillos crashed into clear ground. The crusaders had already run a hundred yards when the Ferlonian horns began to howl.

The Herosk spurred his mount, distancing himself from the pack, and in broken Classian proclaimed, his voice deep and foreign-accented, “Ashlem Al-Suleym is my name, Herosk of Elkabahl I am! I will trample you Infidels like cockroaches!”

Viryl, flying at the head of the group, laughed in the leader's face. “He's slow,” he shouted to his companions.

“Yeah, but his ride is big. We'd better take care of the others first,” Kalgara replied, running with steps as heavy as those of elephants.

Lyndabel, leaping forward with her “Hundred-fold Strength” spell, proposed, “Viryl and I will go right, you and Neugena take the ones on the left!”

The four knights rushed to the front of the Herosk, and as the muscular trunk of the elephant slithered along the ground preparing to charge at them, they split into two groups.

The Herosk had anticipated a frontal attack, so he reined in and the pachyderm reared up, landing with a small earthquake and a deep thud. When he looked down at the ground, the Herosk was not happy to find out that the knights had avoided a direct confrontation with him, and he poured out a shower of insults in Suljukian language.

Of the enemy’s ramblings, Viryl understood only the word “Faiscé,” the meaning of which he had learned by now. He was not flattered to be called a whore, but he ignored him. He attacked the fourth elephant in line to the right of the Herosk, and fired a piercing hemorrhagic round at it.

The elephant bellowed in pain, thrust its trunk up and struck Viryl in mid-flight, knocking him away. Its rider threw a chakram at Viryl and caught him in the head. Lyndabel took advantage of the elephant's distraction and struck him with a slash of light energy. The cut was so deep that it damaged one of the animal's carotid arteries, and it collapsed after a few moments, gushing blood.

“Forget the bullets, Viryl! We need heavier attacks to stop them!” Lyndabel shouted at her partner.

Viryl shook his sore muzzle and he repositioned his helmet that had slipped a bit. Then he loaded his spearguns with the “Cleaving Pulse” spell, and prepared to unleash two slashes into the back of another elephant to see if that tactic was more effective.

Before he could reach his new target, a terrifying screech tore through the air. It was close.

Viryl rose above the enemy column and looked across. A Screaming Bat flying over Calgara and Neugena had emitted powerful vibrations. The shockwave had hit Neugena squarely, knocking her face down. Calgara turned around and used a “Compressed Air Blade” to split the Screaming Bat in half.

Ashlem al-Sulyem had reversed his course to pursue the two knights, and now he was rushing on Neugena. Calgara, realizing a moment too late what was about to happen, held out her hand to pull her up, but she was too far away.

The pachyderm collapsed with its left forelimb, weighing several tons, right on Neugena's back.

It wasn't a pretty sight.

Neugena spat her pink entrails out of the slits in her helmet, and then her head was displaced up and forward, following a completely unnatural trajectory. Her legs bent back and up. For a moment Viryl felt like he was looking at a tube of paint pressed in the center, but then the muscles in Neugena's legs gave a couple of involuntary twitches and Viryl realized that the girl was done for.

Kalgara screamed, and without thinking twice leaped and plunged her broadsword into the elephant's neck, then with an arcing slash she severed its windpipe and blood vessels. Viryl lunged forward, aiming for Ashlem al-Sulyem to decapitate him with the cleavage pulses already loaded in his spears. He didn't realize it, but he was screaming too.

As the elephant collapsed on the ground due to Calgara’s blow, burying under its body Neugena’s remains, the Herosk sensed that he was about to receive a blow from behind, so he jumped down and ran for cover among the lines of his army. Viryl tried to turn and direct his blow, but ended up hitting the leg of another elephant, severing it clean off.

Calgara as well, without stopping for a moment her screams of despair, ran after the Herosk and sliced everything that her sword encountered. She looked like a mindless demon on a rampage.

“Viryl!” Lyndabel called to him from the other side of the enemy column. Before he went, Viryl stared at Calgara, who was slaughtering everything in her path. She clearly didn’t need his help right now.

Viryl rose into the air, and as he looked around he couldn’t help but notice that fights had begun to ignite all along the front line. The Crusader charge was holding up against the Infidel charge, but the enemy was too numerous and none of the parts was advancing. The only one making progress was Alfredo Clarovante, who had annihilated the center of the trident and was now blowing holes deep into the rear with his artillery-like attacks. Then Viryl looked down in front of him and saw Lyndabel panting, surrounded by half a dozen elephant corpses. He immediately flew to her side.

“Viryl! What’s happening on the other side?” Lyndabel screamed at him as he appeared above her.

“It’s going ugly to say the least, Lyndabel… Neugena is — ” Viryl began to tell her, his voice broken.

"She’s what?"

"She's dead. That son of a bitch Herosk of Elkabahl crushed her with his titanic elephant. He reduced her to a pulp."

"Dead? And Calgara? How is she?"

“She didn’t take it well,” Viryl replied, shrugging. “She went berserk. She’s killing everything.”

"Damn... at least for now we don't have to worry about her. No one can stop her when she loses her mind."

“Oh yeah? Well, I’ve never actually seen her so out of herself,” Viryl said dubiously.

“Listen, Viryl, we can’t go on like this, there are too many of them,” Lyndabel said, suddenly changing the subject. Then she took a vial of green liquid from the belt of her ethereal armor. Spitfire tonic. “We have to use our secret tactic, because if we can scare them, maybe they’ll rout and then — ”

“Lyndabel, no… what the fuck are you thinking?! You keep telling me not to waste my Fuligine Stone, and now you want to do it yourself?”

Without hesitation, Lyndabel raised her visor and downed the potion. “We have to try, Viryl. And besides, I’ll only use a little more than a third of my Exoplion’s coating, which isn’t a big deal.”

Viryl grunted. But yeah, there was no point in not even trying. Viryl held out his hand, and Lyndabel grabbed it. Then he rose into the sky, dragging her with him.

“There! Throw me toward that catapult!” Lyndabel pointed to a spot in the center of the enemy contingent, where nearly a hundred Ferenkelt were guarding the siege engines.

Good choice, Viryl thought to himself, and threw her in that direction.

Before she crashed Lyndabel released the “Blast” spell, her secret and most powerful technique. The explosion was tremendous. Its blinding light whitened the entire battlefield and the roar could be heard all the way to Surelekem Harbor. In an instant, all the infidels and monsters within a hundred yards were incinerated, and large Ferenkelts within three hundred yards were shaken by the shockwave. Even though he was a safe distance away, Viryl was also thrown back.

Lyndabel found herself in the center of a fiery crater about ten feet deep, and proudly raised her fist toward Viryl in victory.

Thirty-one years later, third day of Neviticus, 8:31 a.m., Meridania red light district,

Hammerless had woken up about ten minutes earlier and his face was swollen and painful. It had taken him a while to figure out where he was. It was his room in the inn in the red light district where his team had decided to keep the base of operations for that manhunt mission.

He got up heavily from the bed and went to the bathroom. He rinsed his face and every splash of cold water caused him new pangs of pain. He looked up at the mirror above the sink. He had a black eye and a few dark bumps above his temple. That bastard Jawbreaker had really turned him into a wreck.

Hammerless took a white, scented cotton towel and delicately wiped his face, then left the room.

He was on the stairs that led from the first floor to the ground floor when his Speculum rang. It was the Grand Master.

“Hello? Grand Master? How did your interrogation go last night?”

“Good morning, Hammerless. Not very well, unfortunately.”

Hammerless grinned in satisfaction. He had expected it, interrogating prisoners was no amateur thing.

The Grand Master continued, “While I was in the terrarium, the fallen knight ambushed me.”

Hammerless’ blood ran cold in his veins. “Oh… how could that be? I assure you, we didn’t stop our search and surveillance for a moment.”

“It wasn’t your fault. My man from the sewers betrayed me. See? You were right, Sir Hammerless, I didn’t have to trust him. I suppose a knight’s intuition is never wrong.”

The compliment was scant consolation. “And how did it end?”

“Badly, but I managed to get away with it. I killed him and disposed of his body.”

“I understand. Is there anything else we can do for you? Do you want us to deal with the man who betrayed you?”

“No, that is a matter I must resolve personally. You may consider your mission accomplished.”

“If there is nothing else I can do for you, sir, I wish you a good day.”

“You too, Sir Hammerless. As soon as I need your services again, I will contact you.”

Hammerless hung up and put his Speculum back in his uniform pocket. In a fit of anger, he kicked the wooden banister of the staircase, which creaked with a sharp sound. He was pissed, terribly, and he urgently needed to vent to someone.