“Chins up, lads!” roared Kell, striding forward to the head of the centre battalions. They had reformed, most with shields, all grasping their short swords in powerful hands. These were the veterans, the skilled soldiers, the hardcore. Hard to kill, thought Kell with a grim smile, and he bared his teeth at the men.
“Who’s going to kill some bastard albinos with me?” he roared, and a noise went up from the Falanor men.
“WE!” screamed the soldiers, blood-lust rising, and slammed swords on shields as behind Kell the albino battalions spread out into a straight line. Kell turned, and laughed at their advancing ranks.
“BRING IT ON, YOU HORSE-FUCKING NORTHERNERS!” he roared, and behind him the Falanor men cheered and roared and banged their swords, as Kell moved back and slipped neatly into the front ranks at the centre, taking up his position alongside other hardy men. He looked left, then looked right, and grinned at the soldiers. “Let’s kill us some albino,” he said, as the enemy broke into a charge in perfectly formed squares, their boots pounding across churned mud. They did not carry shields, only short black swords, and each had white hair, many wearing it long and tied back. None wore helmets, only ancient black armour inscribed with swirling runes.
The snow increased, filling the battlefield with thick flurries. I hope them extra divisions arrive soon, thought Kell sourly to himself; the snow would be superb cover to hit the enemy from behind, to crush them between sea and mountains, hammer and anvil. But then, nothing in life was ever that easy, or convenient; was it?
The albinos charged in eerie silence, and Kell again felt fear washing through the ranks. This was no normal battle, and every man could sense a swirling essence of underlying magick; as if the very ground was cursed.
Distant drums slammed out a complicated beat. Kell tried to remember his old military training, but realised it would be useless. They would change the codes before any battle in order to confuse the enemy, and hopefully negate any information passed on by spies. But Kell realised what was going to happen; Leanoric had explained. They were going to fight, then retreat; draw the albino army back into the ruined city of Old Skulkra, fake a panicked break of ranks and charge through the ancient abandoned streets where nearly a thousand archers waited, hidden in high buildings and towers to rain down slaughter from above.
Kell smiled, dark eyes locked to the charging albinos.
It was a good plan. It could work. At first, it had been a plan nearly devastated by the unexpected cankers and their attack. The panicked breaking of ranks had very nearly been a reality; if that had happened too early, before archers took their positions, the battle would have been lost…
Kell could see the charging men, now, and picked out his first four targets. His butterfly blades would soon taste blood, and he licked his lips, adrenaline and…something else pulsing through his veins. It was Ilanna, like an old drug, a bad disease, her essence flowing through his veins and mingling in his brain and heart and his sister of the soul, his bloodbond axe strengthened him beyond mortality and he laughed out loud, at the savage irony, for he would suffer for this betrayal of his own code.
A roar went up from the Falanor men, but still the Army of Iron charged in silence. Kell could see their eyes now, could see their bared teeth, the jewelled rings they wore on pale-flesh fingers, the shine of their boots, the gleam of their dark swords and he tensed, ready for the awesome massive impact which came from any slam of charging armies…
The albinos suddenly stopped, to a man, and dropped to one knee. The charging ranks of soldiers, in their entirety and with perfect clockwork precision, halted. A surge of warning sluiced through Kell’s system, and he realised with a sudden fast-rising horror that it was a trick; they had no intention of infantry attack, it was a stalling tactic to allow…
The ice-smoke.
It poured from the Harvesters in the midst of the albino ranks, and within seconds flooded out towards the Falanor army. “Back!” screamed Kell, “Back!” but the battalions were too tightly packed, their lack of understanding a hindrance, and they began to stumble, to turn and retreat but ice-smoke poured over the men, slowing them instantly, making many fall to knees choking as lungs froze and Kell roared, unable to retreat, and surged forward alone cleaving into the albino ranks who remained, immobile, eyes fixed with glowing red hate on the soldiers of Falanor as Kell’s axe thumped left and right, scattering bodies and limbs and heads, and he screamed at the albino soldiers, screamed at the Harvesters but ice-smoke flowed and froze swords to hands, shields to arms, sent crackling ice-hair in shards to the ground, and men toppled over in agony, many dying, but most locked in a dark magick embrace…
Kell’s axe slammed left, embedding in a soldier’s eyes. He tugged it free, sent another head rolling, and saw the Harvesters converging on him. “Come on, you bastards,” he roared with the surge of Ilanna through his veins and he realised, realised that Ilanna kept him pure from the dark magick, as she had done all those days ago during the attack on Jalder, and he revelled in the freedom and whirled, beard-flecked with crimson, blood-soaked snow, and stared in horror at the falling ranks of Falanor men. The ice-smoke had spread, through the main division and the reserves before the walls of Old Skulkra. Even as he watched, tendrils crept like oiled tentacles into the city. And Kell thought about Nienna. And his face curled into a snarl. He turned back as the Harvesters, heads tilted to one side, surrounded him and he blinked, saw General Graal marching towards him to smile, a knowing smile, as his eyes locked to Kell.
Kell placed the blades of his axe on the ground, surrounded by dismembered corpses, and leant on the haft, his dark eyes fixing on Graal. Graal stopped, and smiled a narrow smile without humour.
“We should stop meeting like this, Kell.”
Kell laughed, a brittle hollow sound. “Well well, Graal the Coward, Graal the Whoremaster, using his petty little magick to win the day. It’s nice to see some things will never change.”
“This is a means to an end,” said Graal, eyes locked.
“Remember what I said to you, laddie? Back in Jalder?” Graal said nothing, but his eyes glittered. “I told you to remember my name, because I was going to carve it on your arse. Well, it seems now’s a good time-”
He leapt into action so fast he was a blur and Graal stumbled back as Harvesters closed in, and a blast of concentrated ice-smoke smashed Kell and he was blinded in an instant and chill magick soaked his flesh and heart and bones and everything went bright white and he was stunned and falling, and he fell down an amazing sparkling white tunnel which seemed to go on…
Forever.
Nienna urged the horse on, hooves galloping across snow, steam rising from the beast’s flanks as it laboured uphill towards the woods where Saark, Styx and Jex waited. Myriam was close behind, her own horse lathered with sweat, and the two women flashed through early morning mist as snow swirled about them, obscuring the world.
Nienna reined her horse into a canter as she neared the woods, then stopped, stooping to stare under the trees. She could see nothing. “Saark?” she hissed, then louder, “Saark?”
A little way up, Styx emerged, smiled and waved. Nienna cantered over to him and dismounted, her eyes never leaving the mark of the Blacklipper, his stained dark lips.
“Where’s Saark?”
“Further in the woods. We’ve set up camp. Come on, before enemy scouts see you.”
Myriam dismounted behind, and they led their horses into the gloom of the Silver Fir forest. Pigeons cooed in the distance, then all was silent, their footfalls muffled by fallen pine needles.