Men fought and died at the breach. The Marshal tensed his fingers against his gilded gauntlets.

Form 3. Performing Warlord at Level 13.

“My lord?” prompted the page, proffering Peacebringer.

“He’ll say when, boy,” hissed Cordinus the Bannerman.

The midday heat had crushed the sound out of the battle. Blades thudded on shields, clanged on helms. Arrows crunched underfoot. The only human noises were the grunts of sudden effort and the wet whimpers of the dying. Beyond the ragged walls, Gronchard the Flayer’s advancing Myrmidons kicked up a dust cloud.

Again, the Marshal’s Demon spoke:

307 Medium Infantry. Standing Ground. Firm. Uncounted Gronchardian Medium Infantry. Assaulting.

It was Gronchard’s conjurers that had sent a Hell Troll to smash the ramparts of Yinkesia, ancient seat of the Yinksi Empire. There’d been no time to build barricades, so now a mere shieldwall of soldiers and militia struggled to postpone the moment when the enemy would clamber in over the debris and rampage through their city.

For three generations, the Myrmidons had smashed all resistance, leaving only smouldering cities and skull stacks in their wake.

Defeat was inevitable. Almost.

Once again his Demon made the puppets dance across the Marshal’s vision; ghostly figures flickering in triple time, playing out the counter-attack. It might even work. However, for now, the Marshal—he had a name, but only one person had used it in thirty years—could only watch from the portico of the Temple of Yin. He shifted his weight, surreptitiously loosened his leg muscles while the sweat trickled down his forehead. Beside him, the Queen looked on, golden mask impassive. They were both warlocks, but he knew he had seen her face for the last time in this or any life.

295 Medium Infantry. Standing Ground. Firm.

A dozen of Gronchard’s archers bobbed up onto the rubble itself, black figures in the glare and dust. Bow staves flickered.

“Arrows!” barked the Marshal.

The Royal Shieldman moved to protect Queen Zenobia. The Marshal ducked so that the peak of his helmet covered his eyes.

An arrow slammed into his cuirass. The impact bruised his ribs. Another glanced off his helmet. More arrows thudded into the Queen’s tower shield.

Now a return volley whirred down from the temple roof, swept the enemy archers away.

17 archers. 3 arrows left each. Standing Ground. Shaken.

“You should put on your armour, my Queen,” said the Marshal.

The skin of her neck tautened, and he could imagine her smiling behind the mask: lips quirked, crowsfeet furling around twinkling eyes. “I have perhaps one spell left in me,” she said. “Let it not be said it was unspent when my civilisation fell.”

The Marshal nodded. His queen, with her uncanny grasp of the future, did not believe in his plan.

The Marshal shrugged against the rattling weight of his armour. He could not be other than who he was. He glanced down the reserve line formed up before the ancient temple’s porch. The men of the Queen’s Guard fidgeted and shifted at their posts. They were all in heavy cataphract wargear—lamellar armour of overlapping plates, small shields strapped to their arms, and double-handed lances hacked down for infantry combat.

42 Heavy Infantry. Standing Ground. Eager.

The ideal moment would come when the attackers committed their reserve. There would confusion as unblooded troops breasted the breach. The three remaining Yinksi goeticists would expend their last spells while the archers on the temple roof emptied their quivers. Then and only then could he lead the decisive counter-attack.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He looked back to the defenders in the melee.

240 Medium Infantry. Wavering.

Sure enough, the Yinksi shieldwall bowed, split. Yelling in triumph, Gronchard’s men burst through. The melee became a whirl of duels and brawls, with the greater numbers of the attackers starting to tell.

235 Medium Infantry. Disordered. Fighting Desperately.

“Queen’s Guard!” barked the Marshal. “Advance! For the Queen!”

They took up the cry. Armour rattling, they trotted down the steps, leaving the Queen with just the Marshal, his page, and her Shieldman.

The Guard formed a wedge as they descended, slammed into the melee, imposed a lethal order on the chaos. Yinksi defenders let themselves be swept past and joined the rear. Attackers died where they stood or retreated to the hard-won breach.

39 Heavy Infantry. Fighting well. Confident. 213 Medium Infantry. Rallying.

Even so, Gronchard’s light troops were scrambling up the sides of the breach while—from the other side of the rubble—unseen magicians and archers kept down the heads of those defenders who perched on the remnants of the battlements.

47 Gronchardian Light Infantry. Eager.

Unlock Mason or Sculptor?

“Ha!” Sculpting, he answered. The knowledge of working stone into recognisable shapes flowed through his mind.

“What is it?” asked Queen Zenobia.

“Remember I’ve yet to pick an additional Vocation? I’ve spent so much time looking at fallen masonry, my demon now recalls a past life as a statue maker.”

“I can’t imagine you as that,” said the Queen.

“But I can now imagine capturing your grace in stone.”

“Don’t use the word capture,” she said.

A dozen enemy Conclave spearmen broke free of the melee and charged up the steps toward them.

13 Gronchardian Medium Infantry. Eager.

“Excuse me, My Queen,” said the Marshal. “Boy, my sword!” He took up Peacebringer and jogged down the five steps to the first landing where there was room for footwork. He dropped into an easy fighting stance—knees bent, sword cocked back over his right shoulder—and the aches and pains of two score years of warfare dropped away.

The Spearmen are level 5 challenges.

The Marshal grinned. Of course. Gronchard’s elite troops.

The spearmen could have simply evaded him, flowed around to get to the Queen. Her death curse might have accounted for most of them. However, the shieldman and bannerman were both too heavily armoured to deal with a swarm of lighter troops, and the page was just a boy. The Queen would have been killed or captured, or chased into the temple with the same eventual response.

But an old man in golden armour…how could they resist?

Form 3. Performing Warrior at level 25.

The Demon chattered away as the Marshal did his duty.

He stepped over the bodies on his way back to the Queen.

Zenobia did not speak. She caught his questioning look. “All these years,” she said, “and this is the first time I have seen you use a sword in anger.”

Not in anger, he thought guiltily. “It is not how I would have you remember me,” he said.

“There will not be a remembering, I think,” she said, and gestured at the breach.

The Marshal turned back to the fight. All order had been lost except where Yinksi soldiers formed knots of resistance.

21 Heavy Infantry. Disordered. Fighting desperately. 164 Medium Infantry. Disordered. Fighting desperately. Uncounted enemy Medium Infantry. Assaulting.

“Page, see that my pyre is lit,” said the Queen.

“It will not be necessary,” said the Marshal, but he did not call back the boy.

“Gronchard shall not take me to the Flying Tooth Garden for flaying,” said the Queen.

“Nor shall he,” said the Marshal.

Trumpets sounded beyond the wall. Sandals tramped.

“At last.” He clapped his Bannerman on the armoured shoulder. “Cordinus, my friend, I find I cannot order you to do this.”

“I’ve followed you in life, Marshal,” said Cordinus, “it is fit I should follow you in death.”

A great sadness settled in the pit of the Marshal’s stomach. His friend was no warlock. There would be no reunion of avatars. But since he had but one death to die, it would be wrong to try to take away his choosing of it.

“Stay a good few paces behind me,” said the Marshal, “so—”

Cordinus laughed. “So you can use your sword. It will be like old times.”

The Queen tore off her mask to reveal tear-bright eyes. She opened her mouth but no words came.

The Marshal flexed his shoulders against his armour. “It is how it is.”

Zenobia stood on tiptoe and kissed him with dry lips. “Perhaps in the next life we shall love as equals. Perhaps I shall bear you a child.”

The Marshal shook his head. “I am done with hurting and being hurt. The Grey Cortège will come for my body and you will give it to them.” He caught a whiff of burning pitch from the pyre. He turned away so as not to see her look of hurt.

Black pike shafts appeared above the breach.

Uncounted Multitudes of Gronchardian Medium Infantry. Assaulting. Eager.

“Forward the banner!” roared the Marshal. “For the Queen and for Yinkesia.”