Revin dismounted as he entered the camp. When he looked up, Kaiato was running toward him.

“How did it go?” Kaiato said, looking up at Omrai.

Omrai rode to the side, conferring with his generals, so Revin decided to address Kaiato’s question.

Revin shook his head. “Not good. Jebuthar had no desire to negotiate.”

Starting with the gallimais he had mastered, the saurians grew restless. Soon all the saurians in the camp were shifting, honking, or otherwise acting disturbed. Did they sense something the humans didn’t?

So, Revin reached out with his mind to understand what they were so nervous about. The saurians’ ears were far better, and through his saurians, he felt a deep rumbling in the earth. Revin’s eyes widened as he turned to the direction of the sound. Far in the distance, a handful of round… things floated in the air. Just specks in the distance, but somehow Revin knew they were getting closer.

“Omrai…” Revin said, frowning, “I- I think Jebuthar is coming.”

Revin pointed east.

Omrai followed Revin’s outstretched arm. His eyes widened, and he turned to his men.

“Soldiers, assemble!” he shouted.

Several of the generals looked at him, bewildered. “But I thought Jebuthar said he would wait?”

“He lied!” Omrai shouted, rage and disbelief in his wide, furious eyes. He looked to his men. “Now, get the refugees out and assemble the men!”

They looked at him, frozen.

“Move out!” he roared.

“Let me help you!” Kaiato said, stepping eagerly forward.

“No,” Omrai snapped, “I don’t have time to manage the both of you.”

“I can manage myself on a battlefield.”

“You will stay!” Omrai snapped, he pulled on the reins of his gallimai and moved off with his men. Shouting more orders.

Revin watched the army move. Swarms of men clumped together into squads. Once a squad had its men, it moved east, assembling in the field beyond. Saurian riders organized into ranks and regiments, and many saurians wore great plates of armor.

“Revin,” Omrai’s voice said in Revin’s mind. He realized he had just been standing and watching. “We’re moving into a practiced formation; I’ll need your help. Come with me.”

Revin looked to the east. Omrai was on his gallimai a distance away. He signaled Revin to follow.

Revin painfully mounted his gallimai and trotted to Omrai, watching the army move into formation, like rushing water flowing almost freeform from the camp and organizing into near-perfect blocks of men, all ready to fight. Swords, shields, spears, and muskets ready to kill.

Boy, you haven’t seen war. Death yes, but blood and carnage? Agony and suffering? No. Now, you will see and feel more than most. You will feel the death and torment of every dying beast you control. You will suffer death, and death again.

Revin remembered Narazoth’s words and looked at Omrai’s army. Men riding the three-horned things marched near the center, and squads of tyranno-riders moved at the flanks. Men stood on platforms on the backs of the long necked saurians, guns at the ready.

It was a mighty army. Revin managed a smile.

Bring it on.

✦✦✦

The three enormous somethings floated… just floated, as if the sky were a sea and he were hundreds of feet below the surface. Their shadows grew ever larger as they began to block out the sun. Revin’s head swayed as he realized how big those things must truly be. They made the saurians and soldiers below look like ants next to a boot.

Revin was near the middle of the army, next to Omrai. He had wanted Kaiato with them, but Omrai had denied that request. Said that Kaiato was needed for information, not combat. Revin felt an icy chill run down his arm, causing him to shiver. It wasn’t that cold today. He tried to ignore the tingling that began at the base of his neck, a slight tugging, pulling him away. He looked at the soldiers around him.

Many of the older soldiers bore thin-lipped scowls, a mixture of anger and resolve on their faces. Some of them checked weapons, others patted saurians and whispered calming words into their ears. A young soldier nearby breathed laboriously; his knuckles were white on the haft of his spear. The tip jittered like the teeth of a shivering child.

Revin closed his eyes, counting to ten, breathing in and out for every count. His breath ebbed and flowed, cool air in, warm air out. He tried to tell his stiff neck to loosen, but it refused his commands. His heart pounded and his mind raced despite every attempt to calm himself.

Unwilling to remain alone with his thoughts, Revin looked through his gallimais’ eyes, moving his mind between them as if slipping through a crowd. A wave of moving images met his mind, soldiers, hills, other saurians, even the advancing ships beyond. The gallimais regarded the things with a primal worry. A hazard yet unseen. Even they could see that they were nothing more than a small army marching against behemoths and nightmares.

He remembered eyes without feeling. Turquoise looking out from a skill of steel. Blades dripping blood.

Loud clanks echoed across the field. The massive ships had landed on the ground, an opening like a fish’s mouth dropped to the ground, releasing the army within. Thousands of metal monsters marched out the ships’ open maws. Revin hadn’t known what to expect, but the sheer number of monsters hurt his head to consider. He had seen an hourglass once, the sand falling in a rapid stream, thousands of individual particles dropping and falling into a widening hill. Each ship had their own stream, which fanned out over the green hills with a layer of grey monsters. How could Narazoth control so many? Revin struggled with fifty. Narazoth had thousands , maybe even hundreds of thousands. That was impossible! Who could handle that many minds? Even with a Lord?

He was hit with another sudden flashback.

A sharp pain in his chest. Blood. So much blood. Ismander’s blood. Frozen on his hands. Metal eyes staring. A moment away from ending his life. A blade through his skull, a bullet in his gut. He had gashed his thumb badly on one of his trips, the blood falling in thick drops. It was nothing like wine. Little light shone through blood. It darkened all that it touched.

“Are you ready?” Omrai said, turning to Revin.

Revin shook his head with painful pressure, focusing his eyes on the army before him.

“No. But we’re out of time.”

“Welcome to war,” Omrai said, his voice held no mirth. “Tell the commanders’ mounts to charge.”

On Revin’s thought, the gallimais honked twice. In a surge of movement, the army of Ateya marched. The enemy army was large, but not that much larger than Omrai’s, and Jebuthar’s forces contained not a single saurian. Revin looked frantically around. Massive saurians, some like Ismander’s but taller, others with three horns, and others with armored backs and clubbed tales.

If their force seemed so strong, then why was Revin still afraid?

Revin gripped his reins even tighter and looked to Omrai. He wondered what the man’s plan was. Omrai’s eyes passed over his army, back and forth, like a man reading a map. Looking beyond, the enemy army was arrayed on the hills. Silver caps to green mounds. Sunlight glistened off their metallic forms.

“On my mark, command our men to fire,” Omrai said to Revin without sparing him a glance watching as shields, pikes, and muskets bobbed in the air with the back and forth of marching feet.

They ascended the gradual slope toward the enemy army. Revin looked up at the great ships, looming high even after they had landed. He heard more echoes of clanking metal as small holes opened in the ships, large gray tubes sticking out of each by the dozens.

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Revin frowned and squinted. He couldn’t figure out what he was looking at.

He turned to Omrai, who had a spyglass to his eyes.

Revin felt a painful rattling inside his ribs almost before he heard the loud echoing booms. Like a roll of thunder.

Revin turned to the sound. A wave of… things streamed through the air towards their army.

Omrai growled. “Get the men to spread out, now!”

Revin panicked. The air vibrated with a low hum. “How?”

“Just have them run sideways!” Omrai shouted urgently.

Revin couldn’t look away. The very air around the stones rippled with mist. His mind blanked completely. It didn’t matter how many honks.

There was no more time.

With a thunderous crash and the sounds of ripping earth, cannonballs as big as a man’s chest pierced the Ateyan lines. Men torn, flesh broken, bodies crumpled, blood sprayed, armor and weapons shattered and tossed into the air. Men and armor alike crumpled as tin beneath a stone.

Immediately to Revin’s right, he watched in horror as a man held his side, an arm and half his chest destroyed. Blood and organs dripped out in sloshing chunks. His stomach lurched, bile rose, and his heart pounded in his temples. His vision began to dim.

“Revin-”

A spike of pain shot through his brain, and Revin snapped over, holding his cracking skull. He let out a scream. Terror and agony filled him. Gallimais were dying too, teir death throes reverberating through his skull. It was Blackfire all over again. Anguish of ripped flesh, the sensation of death. The fear of the end. But each death was only replaced with the pain of another saurian. He died a dozen deaths in a heartbeat.

“Revin!” Omrai’s voice called.

He saw blackness. Chains gripped his entire body with icy hooks, twisting, convulsing, pulling into itself. Every part of him twisted. His knuckles hurt as his fingers flexed. His arms pulled tight against his chest as his bowed back forced him forward.

“Pull yourself together!”

Something smacked the back of Revin’s head. His consciousness reasserted. Snot dripped from his nose, his eyes stung with tears, and he was soaked in sweat. He hunched over his mount, barely holding on, his hands white and red from gripping the reigns.

He shook his head again and wiped his face.

Omrai was shouting orders, but Revin couldn’t hear them. He looked around. What had hit them so hard?

Now he saw the grisly work of the cannons.

Any man or saurian standing within a dozen feet of the cannonballs lay splayed across the ground. Those far enough away limped away with difficulty. Those who were closest either didn’t move or grunted with a great effort.

Revin remembered a few deaths, those that hadn’t been struck straight on by a cannonball. The gallimai had struggled to breath, feeling a great weight pulling it to the earth, as if a thousand-pound net of metalweave lay over it. It had died in moments, the air squeezed out. Flattened to the earth.

“Now, Revin!” Omrai screamed. Revin looked, and Omrai looked to be in agony as well, his face contorted. Had he felt the saurian’s deaths too? With a rush of worry, he couldn’t remember what the command had been.

“What-do?” Revin said, the words failing to come.

“Divide!” Omrai shouted.

He felt primal terror as the gallimais fought his will, only wanting to flee. The army tried to spread, but some tumbled into the circles of death, and others struggled to navigate around them. Chaos and stumbling, weapons falling and flying. Men tripping and pushing past each other. What was once a strictly disciplined fighting force was now a maelstrom of chaos.

Revin heard thousands of low-pitched whistles. The army of metal monsters had moved down the slope, layer upon layer with lowered guns.

Firing at the scattering army.

✦✦✦

Omrai jerked away from the panicking Revin, regretting bringing him along. The enemy had fired, their weapons giving off that strange low whistle. With a squint of his eyes he estimated the distance. His own men would have to run another three hundred feet before they could fire.

A wave of projectiles struck his men in a wave. Most of his shieldmen had their shields still pointed towards the enemy, even in a changing formation. Omrai smiled as his men’s shields stopped many of the projectiles. They knew their job and did it well.

His shieldmen stumbled in a line, dropping their shields as if they were too weak to carry them. His smile disappeared.

He scanned his men, reaching into that sixth sense, the echoes of emotion that a mind sent into the world. His army was cracking. Despair spiked around the cannonballs as men were dragged down. Frustration and fear along the front lines shieldmen stumbled or wrestled with their shields, trying to maintain a solid line. Confusion as men tried to decide whether to continue charging, or to divide as their commanders shouted.

Their courage faltered, like a plain of grass under an oppressive wind.

The greatest army in the world had been halted in its charge before even reaching its enemy.

His hands tightened into knuckles. It was time for a new plan. The tyranno corps at the flanks could disrupt the enemy musketmen, plowing in before they had a chance to reload. That would give the rest of his men to form a new, solid front line. Ahead of the cannonballs and their destructive power. He could even send the tyrannos to the ships, take them out from behind. His ankylos would make quick work of the machinery inside. He opened his mouth to shout a new order, when he heard another series of low whistles, cut off.

His chest tightened. He turned to the front lines. Even more men fell. His shieldless shieldmen and many spearmen behind them. How can they reload so fast!? Omrai thought.

The growing dread of his men threatened to overcome him. The enemy army marched forward slowly. Soldiers tried to stumble away as their weight increased. His own marksmen, the ones on the long-necked saurians with the longest-range weapons, fired. Only a handful dropped in a horde of thousands.

He shook his head, trying to ignore his men’s fear and decide what to do next. This enemy was just so fast. The more he tried to ignore the fear, the more he realized he wasn’t feeling that from his men.

That dread was his own.

“Return fire!” Omrai shouted, desperate. “Get the tyrannos on the enemy flanks!”

He looked around; his messengers were separated from him. He gripped the reigns tightly. He looked for Revin, who just watched with widened eyes. He was about to shout another command when yet another volley came from the enemy.

His own men returned fire, but they were out of sync. Disorganized. They took out few.

He turned again to the enemy, expecting another volley. But none came. As one, the metal warriors placed their strange muskets on their backs and drew spears, swords, and shields. Their pace quickened from a slow march to a full charge.

He had seen battles like this before but had been on the other side. He knew how this would go. There would be no victory today. It was time to retreat. The enemy was too fast. Far too many men would die. Shieldmen, removed. Half his saurians navigating around circles of dark sorcery that sought to crush them with grasping hands.

Something inside of him argued. He could win this. He had won every battle before. He had fought larger armies and had defeated them through grit and brains.

But in looking at the enemy, he saw at least one grand difference.

He sensed nothing from them. No emotion. No rage. Neither trepidation nor hesitation. It was as if they fought an army of…

...machines…

He turned to Revin, “Get the commanders to fall back.”

Revin didn’t respond. Only held his reins to his chest.

“Do it now!”

Revin still didn’t reply.

“Fall back!” Omrai screamed, gripping his reins. Where were his nethered messengers?

The gallimais honked, and Omrai sighed in relief. The flags of his commanders were turning. Slowly, yet surely, the army began to turn.

But before much momentum could be gained, he heard the clash of steel on steel on flesh. The enemy had closed the distance, and his men, small before the enemy. Scattered like straw.

It was at this moment, that he realized what was happening. His men were breaking. Not only that, but the key point was in front of him. They would scatter and be trampled.

He had to rally them before this retreat turned into a rout.

“Revin!” Omrai yelled, “Run!”

Omrai drew his sword and his shortspear. It was up to him. The brave would follow him and would hold until the others could escape. As he scanned the battlefield, he prayed that enough would join him.