I admit, I was impressed. However, it didn’t make me any less furious.

“Damn it, Emma, I’m supposed to be protecting you!”

The young aristo still refused to take her eyes from the silent Scorchknight, who watched her with passive stillness as she drew to a stop about twenty feet away. She spoke to me without meeting my eyes.

“That is not why she sent you, and you know it as well as I do.”

I blinked, confused. What was she talking about? Nath had sent me to defend her from Orley, to keep the novice warlock safe — protecting an investment, I’d assumed.

But, I realized, Nath had never explicitly said that, had she? What had she said?

“You will go, speak in my name, act as my arm, and do as my disciple commands. Do this to my satisfaction, and I shall be well pleased.”

Had Nath wanted me to back Emma, just as she would as the girl’s dark patron? Had I only assumed my job was solely to fight her battle for her, because it seemed the sort of thing I’d normally be tasked with? No, because it seemed the knightly thing to do.

I kept making the same damn mistakes.

Even still, this went beyond the bounds of reasonable. I stepped forward, tightening my grip on the transformed Faen Orgis, which still subtly changed. The pain in my hand had evolved from merely terrible to a throbbing agony. I could feel it sucking my blood away through the burs dug into my palm, a nauseating sensation. At least when Catrin had done it, there’d been an element of fascination. This just hurt.

I ignored the discomfort, focusing on Jon Orley. The sound of grinding metal cut the air as he turned his half melted helm from Emma to me, as though trying to keep both of us in his vision. He still hadn’t moved, as though deciding which threat to focus on.

The skirmish still raged around us between the bannermen of House Hunting and the hounds of Orkael. Both sides had taken losses, and smoldering beasts lay beside dismembered, fire-blackened riders and their chimera. Behind the infernal cavalier, Renuart Kross slid from his saddle and placed a hand to the side of his lionhound’s neck. The great gray creature had already died of the wound Orley had given it, though the way it had sunk to its haunches and closed its eyes made it look as though it simply rested.

Ser Kross whispered something to his slain companion, perhaps a prayer, then turned to face Jon Orley with his old bastard sword in hand. His weathered face had a stoic calm, but I sensed a subtle tension from him — he burned his aura, and he was angry.

Three on one, then. Would it be enough?

It only needed to give me time. My weapon’s Art needed time to fully form. Time, and blood. I only hoped it would be ready before I expired from exsanguination.

Orley’s masked gaze passed slowly across the three of us, the gorget protecting his neck creaking ominously as its deformed mass twisted. He spread his legs out, one sabaton scorching the ground as it stomped down, and he swept his over-long weapon in a flourish.

I got the message. Come at me.

Ser Kross took his bastard sword in a two-handed grip, aiming its tip at the sky. Its dull, battle-scarred steel begin to emit a very faint shine. Emma bared her teeth like a young she-wolf, flourishing her single-edged sword before adopting a low guard, her off hand raising with fingers clawed as though she intended to swipe at the revenant with her nails.

I simply tightened my grip on my halberd, letting its butt rest on the ground. The sound of stretching bark ripped the air as the weapon grew two more inches.

Orley made the first move. In an impossibly fast motion he brandished his pike — it seemed more a pike then, since he’d been knocked from his horse — then stepped forward to ram it through Ser Kross’s skull.

Sound travels faster even than devil knights. I opened my mouth into a perfect O, as though about to break into song, and shot Orley with an auratic arrow carried by my voice.

“Stop.”

He did. I hadn’t been sure, but the Scorchknight had used an incredible amount of power early in the fight, during the bane he’d set on the whole company and his deadly charge, not to mention the summoning he’d performed. No matter how mighty, no being has infinite power, and he’d used much.

Orley froze, and instead of skewering the knight-exorcist through he found himself assailed by a sudden, furious assault. Kross came at him like a storm, batting the spear aside and swiping out in a two-handed blow in the same motion. His form was excellent, his aggression unbridled. He wasted no energy on flashy movements, instead opting to go for the kill as efficiently as possible.

Kross lunged forward in a brutal jab, aiming at the very narrow slit in Orley’s visor — the sword would be too thick for that gap, but the blow could crush the metal, break the skull beneath.

Orley broke my cant almost the same instant it had struck him, but even that briefest instant of hesitation threw him into the defensive. Impossibly dextrous mounted, his towering spear proved less versatile at such intimate range, especially with only the one working arm I’d left him. He stepped back into a parry, batting Kross’s sword aside. Sparks scarred the air.

Kross didn’t so much as flinch this time. He carried into another cut, flowing his motions into a set — twice, three times, six he battered at Orley, forcing the undead nobleman back across the thin snow. Preternaturally quick and strong he might have been, Orley’s spear proved more a hindrance in that dance.

I saw the killing blow three motions before it came. Orley must have as well, because in an instant he flared with heat, transforming into a human bonfire. The stench of sulfur, hot iron, and charring flesh beat at the air. Kross snarled, flinching back and swiping out in a blind cut his opponent easily knocked aside.

The sudden flash of heat and light only lasted a moment, but it gave Orley time to recover his stance. Again he prepared to run the Church paladin through—

Only to have a scarlet pike pierce him beneath the left armpit, where the armor is especially weak, with a dull cracking sound. Pinned, he turned his gaze on Emma. She held one of her magically formed blood-iron spears in hand, a smaller and brighter version of his own weapon, tucked under one arm like a couched lance. She had rushed forward to ram it into him while he’d been distracted.

Reckless and proud she might have been, but it turned out Emma Carreon could also be ruthless. She bared her teeth in a savage snarl as she glared at the fire-blackened visor above her.

Again, Orley flared with heat, but Emma had been prepared. She leapt back, throwing her now empty left hand up to shield her face from the conflagration. She left the pike jammed into the Scorchknight’s side, bringing her gently curved sword up in a guard as she took a low stance.

Orley stepped forward to strike at her, but she swiped out with her off-hand — the one with fingers curled into an oddly stiff arrangement — and a cluster of red aurespears burst up from the ground between them, forcing Orley back lest he be pincushioned. Again I marveled at how real they looked, hardly distinguishable as phantasm save for their subtle shimmer. I’d seen Blood Art before, but the young lady had real talent.

Orley slashed with his lance, shattering the wall of pikes like glass, but Emma no longer stood where she’d been a moment before. She rolled aside, out of his reach, and thrust out her hand again. A single long pike screamed forth with its eerie wail from the snow at a sharp angle, grinding against the Scorchknight’s neck guard, nearly punching through his jugular.

He started to flare with fiery force, preparing to erupt again. Ser Kross only pointed at him with his sword, his face serene. The world filled with the sound of unfurling wings and the sensation of gentle feathers brushing the air, then a terrible, deathly cold blew out from the knight-exorcist — not at all the sort of bright, warm magic I might have expected. It had the endless winter that exists at the tops of mountains in it, the immortal chill of ancient glaciers.

Not all angels wield fire, or dwell in warm places. In fact, that is true of very few of them.

The hellish light rising from Jon Orley died, replaced by a crawling layer of frost. A low growl, very much like the sound a hot furnace might make, escaped from the Burnt Rider. His armor turned a dull shade of red, melting away the ice, and I felt the air grow sharply warmer. In a dramatic move he swept his spear around in a wide whirlwind above his head. It cut the grass near Emma’s feet, revealed by melting snow, which immediately burst into flame. She yelped, falling back. Kross tried to block the swing, unable to move back in time, and the sword got knocked out of his hand. Its steel blade steamed where it landed and he let out a pained cry, stumbling to one side.

Orley didn’t stop the motion, carrying it through into a second great swing. The entire length of his iron lance glowed with heat, even where he held it.

I caught it on the bronze bit of Faen Orgis before it finished that lethal second round. The force of impact might have knocked the weapon from my hand as well, if it hadn’t been held to me by those piercing branches. Even still, I grit my teeth against the bone-shaking shock of impact. With a shout, I swept my halberd around in a tight spiral, forcing the burning head of the long-spear down into the steaming snow.

Once done, I planted the butt of my own weapon back down and remained where I stood.

Emma, seeing the opportunity, rushed in for an overhead swing of her sword. She used a strange stance I didn’t recognize, taking the hilt in both hands and chopping down, almost like I would with my axe, a lumberjack motion. It should have looked awkward with such an elegant sword — I would have thought the blade more for fencing. But somehow, it seemed to match the shape of the weapon, which blurred through the air with eye-blink speed.

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Orley drew his sword and blocked it. He used his left hand.

Emma fell back — the force of Orley’s parry had been inhuman. She lost her balance and landed on her side, crying out with pain. Her sword, red-hot, fell to the ground.

Orley’s masked gaze tilted toward me, and I sensed — perhaps just a natural insight or some passing emotion through our mutually boiling aura — that he gloated beneath the voiceless iron of his face. I understood, then, that I’d never maimed him. He’d lured us into a false sense of advantage. Or had he healed from the injury?

He kicked me square in the gut with one sabaton. My hauberk took the blow, but plenty of force carried into me. I slid back, keeling over as a lightning bolt of breath-snatching pain shot through me. The shadow-steel links of my maille smoked where I’d been struck. The Scorchknight planted his sword in the ground, gripped the length of blood-red metal in his side, and ripped it out. He squeezed, shattering Emma’s magic like brittle crystal, tiny motes of hazy red swirling into nothingness.

It was, after all, just a phantasm, no matter how much blood magic had been poured into it.

Orley didn’t give me time to recover. He took his sword up again, twirled his lance overhead, then stabbed it viper-fast directly at my right eye. I flinched, dodging aside by the width of hairs, feeling the blistering wind of its passing bite my ear. He brought it back, then stabbed again. This time I had to block, letting the spear skid off the elf-bronze blade of my own weapon. The infernal pike’s iron body bent from its own weight as it moved with skull-cracking momentum.

Four more times he tried to plug my skull with the barbed head of the spear, and each time I only barely avoided death. It took every ounce of concentration and reflex I had, and my skin beaded with sweat from effort and that evil arm’s heat. I didn’t have time to retaliate, or shape an Art.

I would have liked to call it cheating, using ten feet of solid iron as easily as if it were a rapier, but it’s always like that with monstrous opponents. Bastards.

On the fifth jab, he got me. I reacted a millisecond too slow, and the sharp tip of the lance sank several inches into my left shoulder — revenge for earlier, no doubt. Of sorcerous craft my armor might have been, but against the more potent metal it gave way. Iron links broke, and I felt that branding iron of a weapon grind against my shoulder bone. Orley left it there, letting me feel it.

I am not immune to pain, not by any stretch. I let out a shout, grabbing at the weapon’s handle — stupid, I only managed to burn my hand too. The smell of my own cooking flesh filled my nostrils.

In my right hand, the axe grew another inch. I felt dizzy, from blood loss as much as pain. Just a bit longer. Just another minute. Take root, damn you.

“Orley!”

Through my blurring vision, I saw Emma stand tall. She’d grabbed her sword, though it must have burned her hand. Sweating, obviously in pain, she bared her teeth as she drew the Scorchknight’s attention. Her amber eyes were very wide, almost hellish in their own way as the revenant.

“I’m the one you want, right?” She took a step forward. “For what my family did to you?” She pressed a hand to her chest, showing the signet ring on her forefinger, a perfect match to the design on her sword’s guard — a horned hawk grasping a red stone.

The hand dripped blood. In the Aura, I felt each droplet striking the ground, as though they sent out little ripples of power. Did Orley sense it? If not, I’d have to act fast before he did, give the girl a chance to do whatever she was preparing.

Orley only stared, keeping his weapon stuck into me. My eyes went to Kross. He’d found his sword in the snow, but held it in his left. He cradled his right arm. Broken, I realized. He caught my eye and I shook my head, hoping he’d get the message — stay back.

“That was a hundred years ago, you bastard.” Emma took another step forward, wincing. “Our Houses were at war. Stop being such a sore bloody loser.”

Not helping, I thought. I tried pulling myself off Orley’s spear, but some of its barbs had gotten into me — caught like a fish on a hook.

And we will be at war, always.

Your dynasty made this choice.

Now abide it.

The words pressed themselves into the soft matter of my brain, branding themselves there. The voice I heard was surprisingly young, and very, very tired.

By Emma’s widening eyes, I guessed she’d heard the voice in her own mind. She shook the uncanny feeling off after a moment and took another step forward, raising her sword. “Then kill me, and have done with it.”

No.

Emma blinked. “But…”

We will be at war, always. That is our curse.

I am not here for you.

Before any of us could respond to that, or process it, a voice thundered across the battlefield.

“EMMA!”

Astride his war chimera, an antler-helmed knight barreled through the morass of snapping, barking hellhounds directly toward us. He held a broad-bladed spear in one hand, a round shield in the other. He’d taken wounds, but nothing immediately lethal. Soot blackened his armor, and the plume on his helm had been reduced to smoldering remnants.

Hendry Hunting came on like a graceful storm, every bit as huge and imposing as his lord father in that moment. He lifted his spear, and I saw — and felt — that it had been imbued with magic. Nothing so potent as his father’s arm, but it would fly fast and true as any scorpion bolt, if only once.

Distracted by that sight, I was taken off guard when Orley ripped his lance from my shoulder. Chunks of flesh and pieces of broken chainmail went with it, and I stumbled to one knee, staying upright only thanks to my weapon’s end pressed to the ground. Twice I’d been forced to lift it — I couldn’t afford any more.

The Scorchknight calmly watched the approaching young lord, as though judging range. He lifted his fell armament, and I understood.

I’m not here for you.

He was here to wage war. To take from his enemy.

“Hendry, no!” Emma screamed. “Stay back!”

I could have stopped him. Fouled his aim, tackled him, swung my weapon to turn his attention — every instinct in me, martial and human, screamed at me to do it.

All gods help me, I did not. I let Orley throw.

Hendry threw. Orley threw at the same time. The Hunting spear struck the Scorchknight in the breastplate with thunderous force, causing him to stumble back. But he did not fall, and I knew he couldn’t be killed that easily.

His weapon, on the other hand, went directly through Hendry Hunting’s collar bone. It broke through his breastplate, broke the bone beneath, then came out the other end. It made a sound like a tree branch cracking in the winter, giving in to the weight of too much ice. The boy flew from his saddle, and the way the snow muffled his fall made for a cruel anticlimax.

Emma stared at the fallen boy with a look of dull shock. She didn’t scream, or rage, or weep. All the anger seemed to drain out of her, replaced by something hollow.

Sword still in hand, Jon Orley turned to face her. His breastplate smoked where the enchanted spear had struck him, and I could make out a very small dent. His voice didn’t emanate from his warped, shadowed visage, so not a word was lost to the tumult of the violence around us.

Do not pretend to grieve for him, Impaler Scion.

You had no desire to bind yourself to his family.

Emma squeezed her eyes shut, but a tear fell before she could trap it. She looked more frustrated than aggrieved. “He didn’t deserve to get caught up in this. He was kind. Kinder than I deserve.”

This is your legacy, Daughter of Shrikes.

Emma Carreon’s eyes opened, and a scarlet light flickered in them. “No.” She turned to face the Rider of Orkael. “This is just your vendetta. Spit all the wicked names at me you want — you’re the one who ended up in Hell.”

Orley pointed his blackened sword at her. Fire ran down its length.

Soon enough, you will join me in the flames with the rest of them.

“I’ve made different arrangements,” Emma hissed. She lifted her own sword. My eyes followed the little pools of miasmic light beginning to appear across the half-melted snow and trampled grass — she was preparing something big, had been preparing it through the whole fight, letting little droplets of her arcane blood drop here and there.

Orley noticed it too.

Your bloodstained sorcery cannot kill me.

“That’s true,” I said. “But you’re missing something, Jon.”

The Scorchknight only turned his helm slightly in my direction.

My task does not involve you, mercenary. Do not interfere.

I brushed off the unsubtle press of Command in those psychic words as easily as he’d dismissed mine earlier. “I’m afraid that ship has sailed.”

You are weak. You will fail.

That hit closer to home. I had to focus to keep the Scorchknight out of my inner thoughts, to stop his aura from melding with my own, his thoughts from becoming mine. “Not today,” I growled. “I’ve beaten worse than you. You’ve got some skill at arms, I’ll admit, but you’re not so clever when it comes to sorcery.” Faen Orgis grew another several inches with a series of audible, boney cracks.

Emma glanced at me, frowning. She didn’t understand what I meant — she didn’t have much experience in this kind of combat. And, I felt certain, neither did Jon Orley. He’d been given preternatural might by whatever fell powers had sent him out of the Iron Realm, gifted hellfire and a few other tricks. But none of that was really his.

If he had more experience fighting against adepts, he would have killed me, rather than just trying to wound and disable.

“When two sorcerers fight,” I said, showing him my teeth, “the more refined Art has the advantage.”

I struggled for breath, making my words come quick and gasping. My skin crawled with cold sweat, and I felt terribly dizzy. The pain from burns, bruises, and my mangled right hand had grown strangely distant. I’d lost too much blood.

Perhaps sensing the danger, Orley turned to face me fully. He took a step forward, his sword flickering with angry red fire. I would have enjoyed testing myself against him, on another day, in another life — but ten years fighting Recusants and worse had taught me to be ruthless, even underhanded when I needed to be. I’d known I couldn’t kill him, not truly, and I’d had only one alternative at hand. I’d gambled, risking anemia and slowed reflexes, giving up my martial edge.

Emma and Kross had bought me the time I needed to make it worth that risk.

“This is Faen Orgis,” I said, tightening my grip on the gnarled haft of the cursed arm. “The Axe of Hithlen, the Doomsman’s Arm. It goes by another name, too — the Executioner’s Tree.”

I hadn’t bothered dueling Orley for a reason. And I hadn’t moved from where I stood for a good reason, either.

Beneath me, the handle of Faen Orgis had rooted itself in the ground. Dark, slithering tendrils dug into the cold soil, sinking deep. From the weapon’s head, where the gilded bronze of the blade had been grafted to wood, coiling branches sprouted to twist around the metal. They curled around my arm as well, two still punched through my palm.

Orley must have understood, at least in part. Perhaps he didn’t know what I intended, but even still he lunged forward, trying to lash out at me with his burning blade.

He should have attacked my weapon. It was the real danger he faced. Either way, he never reached me. Emma knelt, stabbing her sword into the ground with a furious scream. More than thirty scarlet spears burst from the ground all around the Scorchknight with a horrendous cacophony, the sound indescribable. Each one emitted that ear-splitting scream of metal and wind, and they all came at once.

Several went through Orley. He broke them, heedless of what should have been mortal or at least maiming injuries, but there were just too many. Those that didn’t impale him formed barriers, keeping him from moving his arms, his legs. He burned with rage, trying to reach me.

I unclenched my fist, and the wooden tendrils receded from my flesh. They left two gaping wounds in my palm, which produced disturbingly little blood.

“Jon of House Orley,” I said, my voice weakened to nearly a whisper. “Rider of Orkael. I bind you, by my authority as Headsman of Seydis, until your doom is passed.”

Roots burst from the ground at Orley’s feet. Their sharp points pierced him, stabbing through solid steel easily as Emma’s pikes did. Those that didn’t stab wrapped about his limbs, trapping him, pulling…

Orley struggled, smoldering with heat, but the evil roots seemed to drink that fire as hungrily as they had my own life. They pulled him toward the body of the axe, which was no longer an axe, or a halberd, or anything made by human hand. Stretching twelve feet tall, it had grown into a living tree of deeply dark wood, sickly, gnarled, and bare of any leaf.

Orley turned, twisted, fought with everything he had. He roared, and that sound did come from within the helm, and was no human sound. But you can’t brute force your way through a spell like that, not with just muscle.

I’d tried before. I knew.

Finally, the twisting branches and hungering roots hugged the Scorchknight to the trunk of the tree. They continued to encircle him, until they crushed him against the cancerous bark. One tendril wrapped about his neck, more around his arms, much like manacles.

When it was done, I could only see his head and shoulders. The rest had become little more than a nest of coiling branches. Orley’s flame flickered out, leaving him a charred shadow barely distinguishable from the tree itself. His head slumped, and he grew still.

The Burnt Rider had been bound.