Nikias, bearer of the Bladestaff, ducked under a bolt of magic and leaped, the silvered blades of his weapon trailing streamers of blue flame. He landed close to the shadeleech and removed the man’s head and lower legs with a single twirl of his weapon. The shadeleech fell, his mouth still trying to utter a final word of power.

“Ha,” Nikias shouted, pumping his weapon overhead. “See if Drystan can top that!”

He glanced over the bridge and noticed the fighting on that side for the first time. Drystan was down there, and Blade Stalwarts.

Without hesitation, he ran for the bridge.

# # #

“Indira, look!” Ceren pulled the healer to her feet and pointed at the blazing forms of the Blade Stalwarts fighting on the other side of the river.

Kevlin fought alone against Dhanjal.

Seeing Dhanjal again brought back the terror of the morning in the clearing when he had first attacked. Even together, Kevlin and Terach hadn’t been able to beat him.

Terach. The image of him struck down by Dhanjal’s blade brought a fresh wave of devastating grief. He had been an honorable man, and Ceren had come to depend on him. His death still tore at her. Watching as Kevlin fought Dhanjal alone, fear nearly overwhelmed her.

She couldn’t lose him too. Kevlin was a complicated, difficult man, but she didn’t want him killed.

He was about to become a central player in the empire. His family connections and appointment as steward would open doors he could not yet fathom. Ceren planned to help, to guide him. As Cunning, she was best suited for it.

She clutched Indira’s arm. “You have to help him. Protect him like you did me.”

“I’ll try.”

# # #

Tanathos landed hard. The life force of the makrasha he’d sacrificed gave him the power to slow his descent, but not stop it altogether. How many souls would it take to fly? When he ruled the world, he would have to find out.

He turned back to the keep in time to see a blast of air shred his makrasha fighting atop the wall and hurl their shattered corpses away. The ragged knots of defenders cheered as if they had a chance at victory.

Fewer than two hundred makrasha remained of his host. Glancing down the valley, Tanathos ground his teeth in frustration. Both hordes were destroyed. At least the mercenaries had finally arrived to engage the king’s forces. That would slow the bulk of the enemy army.

Harafin was coming up the slope. The sentinel was more than halfway up the road from the upper town, and moving fast.

Tanathos snapped a mental command at the makrasha, recalling them back to surround him. The fools wanted to challenge him? They would suffer the same fate as everyone else he’d chosen for destruction. Casting out a wide net, he began sucking the lives of his slaves. A dark cloud descended over his force.

One makrasha died in writhing agony.

Then a second.

Then a third.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Tanathos exulted in the glory of their life forces sacrificed at his command, to fulfill his destiny. Drawing in the life of a fourth slave, he smiled.

Time to end this.

# # #

Wayra stepped to the edge of the parapet and surveyed the carnage. Corpses of men and makrasha littered the ground as far as she could see. Blood streaked the hills, and carrion birds circled overhead by the hundreds. Far down in the lower valley, soldiers still fought, but a menacing silence had settled over the upper slope.

Atop the wall, the few who remained standing cheered her arrival. Bloody, haggard villagers leaned on weapons familiar from desperate use. Only two of her kestrels survived, but they saluted her with pride.

Tanathos huddled on the eastern edge of the plateau, just above where the land fell away toward the river. His makrasha circled him, a last, desperate bodyguard.

Harafin spurred his horse up the road from the upper town. In a matter of minutes it would be over, and it looked like Tanathos realized it. His attempt to hide from Harafin was laughable.

As she watched, a dark cloud descended over the makrasha. One died screaming, then a second, and more. It looked like Tanathos was preparing to make a final, pitiful attempt at taking the keep.

I am ready.

Drawing upon the vast power at her command, Wayra raised impenetrable shields of shimmering light up the wall and higher still, until they reared a hundred feet over her head. Staring toward Tanathos through the rainbow hues, she smiled.

Let him come.

# # #

Lightning-like magic arced between Tanathos’ open palms. The energy of four lives surged through his body, straining his restraints. So few could ever enjoy that experience. It verged on the sacred.

He exulted in the exquisite joy, and spoke a single word.

Half a mile from the eastern wall of the keep, the mighty Ujutus falls thundered out of the face of the cliff. They plunged in an uncaring torrent over five hundred feet before dashing against the roots of the mountain in an eternal battle of primal forces.

Near the bottom of the cascade, the air shimmered. The glistening mist boiling around the falls began to dim and turn opaque.

The water tumbling out the bottom of the dark cloud slowed, then stopped altogether.

# # #

The air high above the keep shimmered and flexed, casting light in widening arcs like a shifting prism.

Wayra looked up and cursed.

Her shields were in the wrong place.

With the sound of a thousand linen sheets ripping in unison, the sky sundered and a torrent of water plunged out of the nothingness. On the wall, men and women had two or three heartbeats to comprehend the titanic wall of water cascading down on the enclave.

The waterfall struck the center of the keep, and the impact shook the entire slope. Smaller buildings disintegrated under the unimaginable pressure. Doors, windows, and entire sections of wall ripped from the keep. The water roared like a million lions, consuming everything in its path.

When the torrent struck the outer wall, the gates shattered and chunks of timber blasted all the way across the valley to rain down on the forest across the river. The magically enhanced stones held some of the wall together, but the water blasting through the breach ripped more stones free, shooting them hundreds of feet. Within seconds, the gap yawed fifty feet wide, and the wall to either side bowed out under the pressure of the flood.

Elsewhere, the wave crested up over the wall, rearing above the tallest tower before crashing back outside the wall and plunging down the slope in a roiling flood. The tide flung screaming townsfolk and sentinels alike off the wall.

Wayra alone withstood the first barrage. Drawing the shields around her in a tight column, she barely deflected the tidal wave. The water splashed up and over the upper rim of her shields. The conjured waterfall cut off, but the backsplash crashed into Wayra, knocked her off the wall and into the turbulent waters inside the enclave.

# # #

Tanathos shouted and raised a fist in triumph.

Water cascaded close by his small force, but he’d placed himself perfectly. The tidal wave blasted down the slope, scouring the ground to bare rock and wiping the road off the mountain. The churning flood tumbled directly toward Harafin, who stood a quarter of a mile downslope.

With arms outstretched, Tanathos commanded in a ringing voice, “Now, my slaves, release the power of my new name. Kill for me!”

A score of makrasha had been sacrificed to fuel the spell, but a hundred remained. More than enough to announce to the world the name of the man about to rule all things.

All the beasts, except the six tasked with guarding Antigonus, brandished weapons and chased the waters down the slope. As they ran, they raised their inhuman voices in unison and began chanting his new name, the battle cry that would sweep the entire world.

“Abaval! Abaval! Abaval!”