Tom Lloyd: The Dusk Watchman

Legana paused only to hurl a gout of flame at the Aspect of Death and the Wither Queen vanished backwards into the tunnel again, mocking laughter echoing in her wake. Legana started to head off in pursuit, until King Emin shouted after her, ‘She’s leading us off the path! You can’t follow her.’

Legana’s blazing emerald eyes turned back to him. ‘ She will dog our path. I must stop her,’ she said into their minds.

‘What about Isak?’

‘ You are all connected to him; you can find him without me. I will meet you there.’ And with that she vanished into the darkness, her bloodied long-knives ready for the fight to come.

King Emin muttered a curse and looked around at his troops. Ardela stood poised to run after Legana, but then she realised she would only hinder her mistress.

Instead it was Leshi who moved first. The Farlan ranger was gripped by a murderous fury over Tiniq’s betrayal. ‘This way,’ he said. ‘We’re running out of time.’

Swords crashed down on both sides, hammering against Vesna’s black armour. The dead were piled high around the standing stones; though his men had been greatly thinned by the repeated assaults, they were refusing to be broken. White light whipped around the Mortal-Aspect as he turned aside an axe and punched the man who’d struck him. A Ghost threw himself forward and dragged down the Devoted who was trying to stab up under Vesna’s guard; a Menin moved to Vesna’s lee and chopped down another soldier.

The Ghost fought his way on top of the Devoted and hammered at his face with the pommel of his sword, smashing teeth and bone with repeated blows until the soldier was still. He scrambled back towards the line, his feet slipping on the blood-slicked corpses, but a spear got him first. Vesna saw his mouth fall open in shock and pain, but all he could do was behead the Ghost’s killer and drag the dying man back.

Behind him Amber knelt, bleeding from half-a-dozen wounds but refusing to submit to death. The Menin general forced himself upright again, and the remaining Menin roared their approval even as Amber was forced to use his scimitar to keep himself upright.

Vesna scanned the ground, then grabbed an abandoned spear. He handed it to Amber in exchange for the blunted scimitar, which he hurled at the last knot of Devoted soldiers still fighting. It caught one in the side of the head and sent him staggering into the man beside him, the distraction enough for both to be cut down.

He looked around at the bodies lying around the circle they had defended. Some were crying out in agony; others gasped like dying fish, but all of them were aware their time had come.

‘We can’t face much more of this,’ he said, to himself as much as Amber. ‘There’s too many of them.’

‘Look,’ Amber croaked, pointing to the foot of the hill, where the white daemons of Ruhen’s Children fought on against the few remaining Kingsguard and Menin. There would be no relief, Vesna realised: what few troops left on the hill were dying by the hundreds in that horrific slaughter below.

‘Cavalry,’ shouted someone, and Vesna saw the Dark Monks, Suzerain Torl’s command, fully engaged with the enemy, outnumbered but pressing forward towards the rear of Ruhen’s Children with no regard for their own lives.

‘Torl’s buying us time with his own life,’ Vesna moaned, ‘but for what? There’s no one left-’

Further off there were other fights going on as the Devoted forced the mercenaries and battle-clans further and further away from where they were needed.

‘Not them,’ the soldier shouted back. ‘Who the fuck’s that?’

Even the weariest heads lifted at the surprise in his voice. Everyone turned to look where he was pointing, and there, behind the rise, were several legions of cavalry, advancing in an ordered line.

‘They’re not ours,’ Vesna realised with a sinking feel. ‘How in the name of the Dark Place did they hide those reserves?’ A wave of helplessness washed over him and he dropped to his knees, the cold realisation that they were beaten draining his God-granted strength. They could not possibly survive this; even with Torl’s sacrifice, the heavy infantry could not slow Ruhen’s Children much longer. Thousands of the white monsters had died, perhaps ten thousand, but there were still enough left to wipe out the last few of King Emin’s men who were left defending this peak.

‘No, look! They’re not Devoted banners,’ shouted another, the golden eagle of a Swordmaster emblazoned on his armour. He forced his way to Vesna’s side. ‘They’re fucking Farlan!’

Vesna pulled himself to his feet again and scanned the battle-field. Farlan? How-?

‘It appears your people prefer to fight only at the very death,’ Amber grunted, his face twisted in pain. ‘May it prove as decisive as Moorview.’

Vesna had been straining to see who it was arriving at this late point. Suddenly animated, he shouted, ‘Look at all the colours! Look at them — they’re nobility — it’s Lord Fernal! It’s our fucking heavy cavalry!’

‘Sound the advance,’ Lord Fernal shouted in his deep, growling voice, ‘make all the noise you can: get them to turn our way!’

The buglers sounded their high repeating notes that cut through the air, the sounding order swiftly echoed by the hunting horns carried by many; after repeating the order again and again, they fell to just blaring loud and long, until the Devoted cavalry encircling Suzerain Torl’s troops broke off their attack and milled about the foot of the rise in a disordered, chaotic mass.

Their commanders desperately tried to regain some control, but the Devoted began to retreat, unwilling to stay in this confined spot to face heavy cavalry.

‘Now get out of the way, Torl,’ Duke Lomin muttered from behind his face-plate, a berserker’s raging face heavily engraved with runes of Karkarn and Kao, the berserker Aspect. ‘Give us a run.’

‘He will,’ Suzerain Fordan predicted, checking his warhammer was secure on his saddle. ‘Torl shamed us all by marching when we would not — he’ll see what we must do.’

Lord Fernal turned to look at a black-armoured figure on his right, the only other non-Farlan among them, but behind that black-whorled decoration he could see nothing. If the other outsider felt the same bemusement at the Farlan nobility, he made no sign; he merely adjusted the white tabard bearing Fernal’s crest he was wearing over his armour.

‘He sees,’ the black armoured knight said as the Dark Monks broke away.

The Farlan nobles continued forward at a steady pace, their anticipation almost palpable as the rearmost of Ruhen’s Children came into view.

They quickly closed the gap and were starting to ready themselves for the charge when two shapes dropped from the sky, landing with heavy thumps. It felt to Fernal like the wind had been punched from his men. The horses shied away from the monsters, while the men themselves faltered in the face of the figure riding the lead monster. Three figures hovered above the wyverns, their wings outstretched: Lord Gesh and two other Litse white-eyes. Gesh brandished a golden bow that glittered with magical light.

The Litse lord’s shot arched elegantly towards them, and three thousand men, nobles, hurscals and sworn swords alike, watched it fall inexorably — until, without warning, the air shimmered into surging eddies, twisting the arrow abruptly and sending it soaring up into the sky again. This time as it fell back down, its energy was spent and it clattered harmlessly against some distant nobleman’s armour.

Vorizh Vukotic urged his wyvern forward, the beast walking awkwardly with its wings half-unfurled for balance. Behind him were several score of Ruhen’s Children, peering in confusion at the wyverns, who hissed and roared their defiance at the advancing Farlan troops. Unafraid — or enchanted by their master — the monsters stood their ground as the Litse white-eyes circled above them, each readying his curved spear to slash at the knights below.