Zoe left the Sideris twins basking in their glory, instead considering the nature of what some Atalantian philosopher-priest had named the ‘dilemma of the sword’. If the song refused to leave him, then he would silence it. “And now my turn,” Masego murmured, robes stirring in the evening wind. The easy expression on the Black Queen’s face went up in smoke, revealing a face that was all hard iron. There was not a trace of the winds here, he realized, and even the screams of the storm were muted. “She will be coming personally, Your Majesty,” Ime quietly said. “Yet that perception may yet come back to haunt us,” Ime continued. “All he needs is my signal,” Hakram replied. Though Hye did not visibly play favorites among her pupils, she’d always favoured those who used bows slightly over the rest. “We’ll table that for the moment,” I said. The general had always admired the Black Queen’s almost alchemical knack for transmuting battles into loyalty, but the Boot had left scars in the Second. The mage that’d tossed a spell at the cloaked Revenant cursed loudly in High Tyrian, warning the two warriors by her side that they were going to have a fight. There really wasn’t any time to waste if Neshamah himself was making a play, so I stiffly swept my staff across the air and ripped open a gate down into Hainaut. “They cannot afford one,” the empress said. It was in the hands of the Gods, for a moment, but even through the melee the Lycaonese pressed until there was only room ahead once more. “The best revenge isn’t living well, it’s living to crucify all your enemies.” - Dread Emperor Malevolent III, the Pithy Nilin looked younger without his armour on. And Cordelia’s own uncle had died in some ill-fated last charge without the break between them ever having been mended, nothing but harsh words left to part on. “It’s the Pale Knight with the Archmage. And with a final wrench she severed the head clean. Worse, Prince Renato had sent some of his horse too unseasoned to campaigned against the dead at the border of the principalities and done some provocative forays into northeastern Valencis as a sharp warning. I had left my staff down there, beyond the bubble, but it still stood perfectly still as if untouched by the storm. They were disagreeing, Zola considered, because they were starting from entirely different premises even if neither had stated as much: Adnan considered this battle lost, and was now looking to mitigate, while Jendayi still believed victory achievable and so was willing to spend lives to reach that end. I could see Countess Marchford saying the demon killed the whole population of the city as well since no one but the Fifteenth knows it was emptied prior to leaving. He chuckled, the smile staying with him. Still, Malicia did mourn that such a talent had been stolen away from the Empire. “There is a choice that must be made,” Cordelia told her cousin. The Headhunter turned around, throwing an axe at him that cut through the javelin someone had very unkindly thrown at Roland’s chest. She’d lost control over her army. Hainaut was a ruin. His shoulders were trembling, I noticed only then. “Perhaps as far as the defence line to the south?”. Numb and exhausted, feeling as if she was somehow too tired to sleep. Special Tribune Robber of the Rock Breaker tribe threw himself to the side, landing in sprawl as the dead scrabbled at him. The other woman did not rise as Cordelia approached, remaining engrossed in a book as she cradled a steaming cup of chamomile. Mud nobles and cutthroats, peasants and shopkeepers, the leftovers of a great realm with blades in hand. “That is where the beorns will strike first.”. The Pilgrim made his way through the crowd, warriors respectfully parting for him, and though offering smiles and nods where appropriate his stride led directly to the Drake. As if Nilin’s death had stripped him of the last check on his recklessness. The hatred had been kept fresh in Callow by the multiple undead plagues unleashed on the kingdom by past Warlocks, while in Procer the Lycaonese had been warring with the Kingdom of the Dead since before the foundation of the Principate. There was always a doom over the horizon, taking its first newborn steps even as you buried the last. “It might have been Praesi crossbows used, but the Silver Letters got their hands on some stock after the Black Knight was captured,” the older man said. As if to make a rampart of bone and armour, a barricade of writhing dead. I would have had you poisoned beforehand otherwise, Mauricius.”, “Farewell, Merchant Prince,” the Dread Empress of Praes said. Chastened and wary, the Magisterium ruled that no appointed general would ever be allowed to hold the greater artifacts and created the position of Keepers of the Leashes. “Gate’s not closed, wizardling,” the Headhunter grunted. The Hierophant. During the battle he had not yet known would be called the Princes’ Graveyard, witnessing the Firstborn unleashed under cover of the dark. Let her try to disappear with that. “You’ll be one of the last to die when the Great Goblin Conspiracy finally takes the world,” Robber conceded. I grasped for a story that could turn this around, but what was there left? The last in particular was a shame. With steel and deeds they bound warriors to them, by oaths and debts and the hard companionship of those sharing battle, and inch by inch they had gained ground. Tariq went deeper still, finding the great wisps of the Bestowal shaping itself around the unconscious woman. The other Named pulsed with a stolen aspect coming from a head and tried to force the construct back, but Roland kept pushing sorcery into the gate and amplifying the flow with the human head. And without another word he strode down into the restless ash, leaving me behind as he moved into the shrinking darkness. Second, I appear to have found what remains of the Silver Spears’ leadership.”. We open the way for the handpicked sappers of the Black Queen, that they might destroy the enemy’s sorcery and free the Pilgrim to strike down evil.”. “It will be guaranteed by Cordelia Hasenbach, First Prince of Procer,” Zoe Ixioni smiled. Not so swift that one of the two warriors – boys, he now discerned – did not move between it and the mage with a raised shield, forcing it back with a measured swing of his sword. 61. pinned by moderators. And he fought on, but he could not win the war alone. Oh this is going to be bloody and so much fun. The hills surrounding Marchford were a natural defence that has served the city for centuries Merciful Heavens, Guillaume shivered. They can feel it approaching.”. “The Dead King is usurping the Night,” the Peregrine said. This was… Tariq had died for this, and a blighted Hainaut with a permanent hellgate in the middle was what would be achieved? The queen suddenly cocked her head to the side, as if she’d heard something he had not. Sighing, the old drow straightened its back and heard it crack as if someone were treading on twigs. Just a few soldiers of the Grey Legion, hulking masses of moving steel that they were, were enough to serve as a battering ram. His own bag had been filled, from the start of this waltz, purely with goblinfire. “Trust in ours, Sve Noc, should you overstep.”. Her attempt to sneak a blade into its back was met by a rippling circle of space that almost blew the longknife out of her hand. And so when the First Prince of Procer entered the Chamber of Assembly, her torso bandaged more for effect than out of need, it was to silence. “You have been a true friend to the House of Bragzanzo, Your Highness, and so I will take you to your word. I would not blame Masego for dreading the only family he had left might come to the same end. “That this civility may one day pass to all in service of Above and Bellow.”. Helikeans kataphraktoi harassed the retreating Spears of Stygia as they retreated, loosing arrows in the back of the phalanx, but after the day’s losses those were but a drop in the bucket. “Nothing more or less.”, “Death is our sole birthright, Peregrine,” Klaus Papenheim smiled. “We but tied a bandage over a gaping wound, but it is better than nothing,” the Peregrine quietly replied. The hinterlands of Aksum seemed perpetually doomed to being set aflame, Amadeus of the Green Stretch mused, since a mere few decades after he’d torched them on his way to besieging the city the High Lord of Wolof was now doing the same. Which of you wants to be known on every whisper as the Praesi hireling, as the turncoat that bickered with the First Prince of Procer while her breast was still bloodied? The last of the magic he’d fed the portal was absorbed at last, and with a loud keen the portal’s length began to extend. He laid hand on the Black Queen’s neck, grimacing at the sight of the fresh scar she’d earned tonight. They also filled with fear, when he approached, as they should. Night flared, moving into the First Under the Night’s body, and knowledge came to the rylleh. Which slowed in its flight, confused and worried. All that Arsene Odon would achieve was preventing the dead from hitting the back of the Army of Callow by the rampart, with the rest of the wall in the hands of Keter they were free to push into the city itself. Hard to tell, but I was ever inclined to blame the other villain for the messes I found myself in. And that, Hierophant decided, was a stalemate he could live with. The pain of talons was fading, replaced with a pleasant coolness instead. Starlight dimmed around them, as if shying away in fear. Slapping the head off the nearest skeleton, it walked back into the earth after closing the rest of the visible tunnel on the dead with a flick of its sword. “Do it,” Adjutant gravelled. Bending under the weight of the water’s strength, the great crow raked her talons against the third gate and there was an immediate eruption of power. Unfortunately, it seemed like the streets ahead were now swarming with dead and buzzards. It had seemed obscene to Cordelia that the Queen of Callow had spoken more to him than she had, this last year. “I’m looking for Poulain street,” the Special Tribune said, dusting off his shoulders. Akua Sahelian did not quite believe him, it seemed. “We’ve stabilized the flanks and are focusing on evacuating the wounded,” the orc replied. Even if they held, though, it would change nothing. Still stabilizing, Roland thought. Not only will Keter’s Due spread, it was made worse. It would represent too steep an increase in strength on his side of the scales. “I’ll have my revenge, I swear it.”. The Gigante glanced down at me, his short neck bending unnaturally. The first that struck toppled half the city in a streak of dust and white flame, scouring it clean of life, but the rain did not end there. She brought down her visor, lowered her lance. She had wondered at his lingering in the capital even after the Highest Assembly confirmed him as Prince of Cleves, but believed it to be mere courting of a place as one of Rozala Malanza’s followers through Princess Adeline. “She can take the vanguard.”, “Sahelian confirmed it,” Hakram’s voice spoke into her ear. Cordelia’s spies believed that everyone who could have a feasible claim to being an Isbili had died, around the time the Peregrine himself had died and brought down the pilgrim’s star on Hainaut. “All of them. They could have come through Aequitan instead. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nails ripped at his face before he bit the fingers off and spat out the fouled blood, wriggling through the hands and blades of the writhing mass of undead. Hot. The orc on the other side of the table chuckled. It might not be that Basilia would hold all of the Free Cities, as the Republic of Bellerophon at least would fight to the death over submission, but it seemed likely that a tributary empire centred on Helike would be emerging from the aftermath of that war. “You want us to begin a retreat,” he said. “The gates.”. Again and again the capital and the valley around it were struck until there was nothing there but barren glass, and still in the distance stars fell. The Grey Pilgrim took back to the streets, fleet of foot and clad in dusk. “We hold the field,” Magister Gorgion murmured, drawing her attention. They were a massive resource investment, and so jealously guarded that few had even been seen, but one had been seen earlier in this campaign. And when the Grey Legion reached the barricades, the lines wavered. The Mighty Akua finally turned towards it, her eyes like golden flames. They’d survived long enough to be the tallest dwarf, however, and to burnish their reputation in this time of danger to Stygia they had allied with the only real military party left in the city: the Herons. “Some passed through, including what remains of the cataphracts, but they’re all gone – into the hills, I’m told. It nodded, closing its eyes and breathing deep. We don’t have sappers or Chosen. Another credible candidate.”. He’d come here to take care of Levant, but Levant had taken care of itself. He was warning me that Keter’s Due would kill Archer and Hierophant if they stayed. Somehow dimly relieved, Guillaume risked a glace at the villainess. Back when Callow was a mess of petty kingdoms, the rulers of Marchford had fought most their battles at the ford the city was named for, only rarely facing siege in their seat of power – as a result they’d put their wealth into men and swords instead of the kind of walls Summerholm boasted. “Movement at the front gate,” she told him. Procer would fall because it was simply no longer capable of standing. Yes, transgression was threaded into it. On the other, it seemed like an assignment perfectly tailored to keep him away from the fighting. “It will not destroy the Revenant. There’s a demon on the loose.” Princess Adeline’s hospitality had been flawless, but it was still with some irritation that Cordelia left the grounds of her Salian estate. A shape formed before it, a drow with silver eyes and ornate robes. “Why even bother making a plan, if she was going to discard it?” Masego complained. I’d wager the Countess took all the men of soldiering age with her when she left for Vale.”. Did we have anything else that might destroy this? Trading with a broken land not yet recovered from the last civil war that’d ravaged it was not going to be sufficiently profitable in the immediate future, not when the only Free City whose coffers had swelled was Mercantis and it was hoarding the wealth. It flickered down the robes, grounding itself into the stone floor, and the Archmage began casting again. She set down the Baalite eye, choosing her words carefully as her staff tribune and senior mage awaited her opinion. The Balladeer’s song, a cheerful ditty from Salamans about a priest and the three goats outsmarting him, marked out every ensouled undead in hearing range for the Witch of the Woods to smash without needing line of sight. The author can be contacted at erraticerrata@gmail.com. Catherine hammered at the Pale Knight’s knee to hinder him, but a lesser Revenant was going after her again with a spear so…. Amadeus wasn’t exactly afraid of the outcome that would ensue, but it wouldn’t be subtle and that lack was a lot more dangerous than those raiders could ever hope to be. It was all Alamans that were being looked down on. The villainess hesitated, for though she was not a moral woman neither was she the manner of monster that bargained with devils for the lives of thousands. The Firstborn could see to themselves, then. Even now, after all these years… well, he was not as young as he’d once been, but she did not seem to mind so what did he care? “They keep breaking.”, “Prince Etienne croaking it did a number on them,” Reinald sympathetically said. It was a place precious to the Enemy this, and it mustered a worthy defence for the last hall barring entry to it. If the Gigantes had locked all three gates, perhaps the war was not yet lost. “Tell Mighty Jindrich that it is to begin attac-”. This was nothing like it. The Pale Knight was at hand, finally. The stranger obeyed, but it was not some dark-skinned homunculus that the Merchant Prince was gazing upon. The pieces were falling in place. Indrani saw that already undead were coming over the wall, the iron ladders steadily disgorging their lot, but it was the Archmage her gaze strayed to. “Already orders have been sent to Laure by the Black Queen to prepare the supplies for a campaign in the Wasteland.”. I could have gone and done it myself, but it felt like a mistake. It rose higher, and higher, and higher until all of us were clutching our ears in pain. Ashen Gods, how long had she been there? “It doesn’t have to be like this,” the young woman said, voice raw. The skirmishing was over at last, and the battle had begun in truth. “We are meant to handle the Axeman,” the Blessed Artificer regretfully said. “This should do the trick,” he announced, removing his hand from the portal at last. “You’ll have to go around.”. And something more, too. The blade was sheathed, a tacit permission, and Ivah approached the bedside. “My thanks for drawing it away,” Reinald said. Only the lapdogs of the Heavens had been gifted the ability to truly destroy a demon instead of merely jailing them or sending them back to the Upper Hells. Indrani moved to help him up. Yet Razin knew nothing but rain came from throwing curses at the sky, and so he used what he had at hand: the war. “There are reports from both the Hierophant and the Grave Binder that suggest the effects of the Due were purposefully worsened,” the First Prince evenly said. This had solved the dilemma of the sword, some argued, but in truth it had simply moved around the pieces. My fingers clenched as I remembered that while the Gigantes had sent people into Cleves there had been no bargain for the Pass, that – I stopped. Even if Masego had proved to have the capacity to Wrest the spell, he still would have failed – the scales were tipped in Neshamah’s favour for this to work, he had earned it. Night rewarded the knife that struck, not the knife that waited for the opening. “Of that, the Ophanim are certain. Razin Tanja had not become Lord of Malaga – the first ever elected away from ancient Tanja grounds, through a trick of procedure – without incurring debts and troubles, which now both had to be settled. “I will not let almost a hundred deaths go unanswered, Your Most Serene Highness,” the Prince of Salamans told her. The pressure winked out as suddenly as it had appeared, but something had changed. We die in droves while the demigods settle the score, little more than an afterthought for either side. You have word from the League?”. It also meant that Razin Tanja had been entirely aware, even if many of his captains had not been, that the warriors he had sent to guard the bastion were not being rewarded with hours by fires in a place where the wind did not bite too deep. Few saw him, for he did not care to be seen. There was always something new, wasn’t there? The spell was ending soon, then. That way of silencing almost all of their mind in order to focus on the opposition, though, was eerily similar. Night pulsed from it in weak waves, a feat of control considering the strength of the Secret being used. He was only a few mistakes away from dying, but wasn’t that where he did all his best work? “Amadeus has not returned to my side, but he has not raised a rebel flag beyond that unfortunate lapse at the Peace of Salia.”. “On my honour.”. Dawn rose, slowly, and with it came shadows. “Whatever it is, we can’t let it finish,” I said. “I’ve been enjoying laying low, Amadeus, but sometimes you just need to bite down on something you know?”, “I do,” he replied in a murmur. “Fifty-seven: the greatest of powers is not an enchanted sword or cataclysmic spell, it is simply to be in the right place at precisely the right time.”. Its Chantant when it spoke was eerily perfect, and Beatrice knew enough of drow to know such proficiency could only be gained by wholesale slaughter of her countrymen. Beatrice’s horse had died on the third pass, but she’d knocked her sister down from hers so it had evened out the affair. A thing of iron and bone, of stone and dead flesh, and the fumes it belched out billowed foul as the horsemen pressed through. Perhaps sensing he had made a misstep, the young prince followed the unspoken suggestion and left her to speak with Prince Renato a little longer. Is that a kingdom of undead, or an opening into a Hell? “We’ll hold,” Captain Borer said, sword in one hand and sharper in the other. No, it was a different sort of measure that Ime was arguing for. “We have personal letters of Princess Adeline specifying that she was not to be informed,” the spymaster said. Cordelia made for the back of the hall, the raised dais where her handpicked analysts were charged with sifting through a sea of ink and parchment so that they might find the catastrophes on the Principate’s horizon in time for them to be averted. Gods, what a wench. “Gods, Julienne, I swear. “Bastien,” she said, raising her voice as she addressed the captain of her bodyguard. You learned to recognize all sorts of stuff, if you spent enough summers in Ater. The situation was not favourable, to his knowledge, but it was not yet disastrous. Before the hour had passed Salia was a city-wide riot. “We were taken into Rat Company at the same time, you know,” Kilian eventually said. She’d been expecting trouble already. I kind of figured that necromancy would be inherently neutral but too scary for Good to use. ( Log Out / “And they’d heard that the Black Queen, out west, she’s headed our way.”, “To clarify,” he said, “was this helpful rumour shared before or after you started stabbing him?”, “Eh,” Hye said. And so it was the Black Queen’s brown eyes considering him, set in a hard and angular face that seemed like it had been shaped to keep a frown. Catherine was putting her back into it, if the reverberations from her working affected even active spellcraft in the area. “To sacrifice is to embrace end for the sake of beginning.”. Now there was little but a strip at the edge of the bastion left to fight over, and there the monstrous Bestowed the other had brought was still raging. That the Scourge immediately answered with light magics, cutting beams of glowing power that tore into the darkness, was yet another reason why the Revenant was utterly underserving of being called an archmage. But he was still green. It’d take more than a lightshow and a banner to turn this around. “This is Trismegistan, Catherine. The angle was wrong. The answer of the Gods came in the face of another weary old man in faded grey robes. Hakram looked him up and down, then cocked an eyebrow. “No southern song for your earNo pretty lass or merry cheerFor you only night and spear.”. The massive necromantic creatures were as moving small cities that the Dead King used to keep the armaments of his armies in fighting fit. Razin had never loved the binders, envious of the talent he had been born without, but he’d grown on the same grounds as them.
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