Teeth grinding, she forced herself into a crouch. She still held her sword, glued to her hand now by streams of blood – she was cut somewhere – and she made herself close on the thrashing demon. Lunged.
The blunted, battered tip of the sword caught the Hound in the corner of its left eye. With an almost human scream, the beast lurched away, sending figures sprawling. It was scored with slashes from countless pike-thrusts, white hide streaming crimson, and more soldiers pressed in, pursuing. The Hound stumbled over a corpse, twisted round to face its attackers.
Its left eye was filled with blood.
Got you, you heap of dung!
Someone leapt close, swinging a wood-cutter’s axe. The impact on the beast’s skull drove it to its knees. The axe handle shattered, and Pithy saw the wedge blade fall away. The Hound’s skull gleamed, exposed across half its head, a torn flap of skin dangling down past its jaw.
One-handed Nithe flung the broken handle away, reached for a knife.
The Hound snapped out, jaws hammering into the man. Canines punched through chain, tore deep into his chest. As they ripped free, Nithe’s ribs seemed to explode outward in their wake. He spun, landed on his knees.
Pithy shrieked.
The Hound’s second bite tore Nithe’s face off – forehead, cheekbones, his upper jaw. His mandible dropped down, hanging like a bloody collar. Both his eyes were gone. He pitched forward.
Weaving drunkenly now, the Hound stumbled back. Behind it, Liosan warriors advanced in a bristling line, faces lit with desire.
‘
Drive them back!
’ Pithy screamed.
Pikes levelled, her Letherii pushed forward.
‘
The queen! The queen!
’
Shake warriors suddenly surrounded Yan Tovis. She heard the Hound somewhere behind her, snarls, weapons striking, shafts shattering, terrible cries of pain – a knot of madness tearing ever deeper through the ranks. But protecting her now, a score of her people, forming up to face the Liosan soldiers.
To defend their queen. No, please – don’t do this
—
There weren’t enough of them. They would die for nothing.
The Liosan arrived like the crest of a wave, and in moments rushed round to isolate Yan Tovis and her warriors.
Someone crouched to hand her a sword.
Her throat thick with nausea, she forced herself to her feet.
Seeing the Hound charging for his line on the left flank, Yedan Derryg ran to meet it. The Hust sword loosed a manic, ululating cry, and it seemed that the chilling sound checked the beast – for the briefest of instants – before it launched itself at the prince.
When its jaws reached for him, the head was driving down, anticipating that he would come in low. Instead, Yedan leapt high, twisted parallel with the ground, legs thrown out, and rolled in the air, over the Hound’s shoulders, and as he spun, down swung the sword.
The Hust blade shrieked as it bit, athwart the beast’s spine, driving down through vertebrae and then spinal cord.
He glanced off its hip coming down, and that hip fell one way and Yedan the other. Striking the ground, he rolled and came to his feet, eyes still on the Hound.
Watched as it toppled, body thumping on the sand, head following. Its eyes stared sightlessly. And beyond the dead beast, rows of faces. Letherii. Shake. Gape-mouthed like fools.
He pointed at Brevity. ‘Captain! Advance the flank – shallow wedge! Push into the Liosan and push hard!’
With that he turned and ran across the strand. He’d seen two more Hounds.
Ahead, a wedge formation of Liosan soldiers had closed with Pithy’s Letherii and neither side was yielding. Yedan could not see the Hound – had they killed it? No – there, trying to retreat to Lightfall’s wound. Should he let it go?
No
.
But to reach it, he would have to carve through a score of Liosan.
They saw him, and recoiled.
The Hust sword’s laugh was shrill.
Yedan cut the first two down and wounded another before he was temporarily slowed by the rest of them. Swords hacked at him, slashed for his face. Others thrust for his belly and thighs. He blocked, countered. Twisted, pushed forward.
Severed arms and hands spun, releasing the weapons they’d held. Blood sprayed and spat, bodies reeled. Flashes of wild expressions, mouths opening in pain and shock. And then he was past them all, in his wake carnage and horror.
The Hound was three strides from the breach, struggling to stay upright.
He saw its head turn, looked into its eyes, both of which wept blood. Torn lips formed ragged black lines as it snarled at him, heaving to meet him—
But not in time. A thrust. A slash. The Hound’s guts billowed out and spilled to the ground in a brown splash of fluids.
It sank down, howling.
Yedan leapt on to its back –
– in time to see a fourth Hound lunge through the gate.
The prince launched himself forward, through the air, sword’s point extended.
Into the Hound’s broad chest, the blade sliding in with gurgling mirth.
The beast’s countering bite hammered him to the ground, but he refused to let go of the sword, dragging it with him. The Hound coughed blood in thick, hot sprays, pitched forward, head lolling.
Yedan kicked it in the throat to free his sword, turned then, and found a mass of Liosan wheeling to face him. No quick way through – both flanks had closed up.
Slow work ahead
—
And then, from the wound behind him, a sudden presence that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. Looming, foul with chaotic sorcery.
Dragon
.
Swearing under his breath, Yedan Derryg swung round, and plunged into Lightfall’s wound.
Half her warriors had gone down, and Yan Tovis could feel herself weakening. She could barely lift her sword.
Gods, what is wrong with me? How badly was I injured? I ache – but … what else?
She staggered, sagged down on to one knee. The fighting closed in around her.
What
—
Concussions from beyond the Shake line. The Hound screaming in fury and pain.
Head spinning, she looked up.
A grey, miasmic wave of sorcery erupted from the edge of the flank closest to Lightfall, the spitting, crackling wave rushing close to strike the press of Liosan. Bodies erupted in red mist.
Shouting – someone had hold of Yan Tovis under each arm, was dragging her back to the re-formed Shake line – and there was Skwish, rushing to join them.
‘
Blood of the queen! Blood of the queen!
’ The witch looked ten years old, a child of shining gold. ‘Get her clear! The rest a you! Advance!’
And then, from the wound, a reverberation that sent them all to their knees.
Deafened by a sudden, thunderous
crack!
from the breach, Aparal Forge saw his Soletaken kin rearing back. Eldat Pressen, the youngest and boldest of them all, so eager to follow in the wake of the Hounds of Light, was pulling her head back from the wound, and in that recoiling motion blood fountained.
He stared, aghast, as brains and gore sprayed down from her shattered skull.
Her body shook in waves of savage trembling, her tail thrashing, claws digging into and then tearing up the ground. A blind sweep of her tail sent broken bodies flying.
Her huge torso collapsing with massive shudders, Eldat’s neck and head writhed, and Aparal could now see the terrible sword blow that had struck her head, splitting the skull open, destroying her and all that she had once been – a bright-eyed, laughing woman. He loosed a sob, but could not turn away.
Eldat. Playing in the garden, in another age. We were thinking only of peace then. But now I wonder, did it ever exist? That age? Or were we just holding our breath? Through all those years, those decades – she grew into a beautiful woman, we all saw that. We witnessed and it gave us pleasure
.
And oh how we all longed to bed her. But she’d set her heart upon the only one of us who would take no woman – or man – into his arms. Kadagar had no time for such things, and if he broke her heart again and again, well, that was the price of serving his people. As father to them all, he could be lover to none
.
Kadagar, you stand on the battlements once more
.
You look down upon her death, and there is no swift mercy here, no sudden stillness. Her mind is destroyed, but her body refuses to yield. Kadagar Fant, what meaning do you dare take from this?
He struggled to regain self-control. ‘Clear the area,’ he said to his officers, his voice breaking. He drew a deep breath, cleared his throat. ‘She will not die quickly. Not now.’
Ashen-faced, the soldiers set off to relay the commands.
Aparal looked back at the gate.
Hust. You came to meet her, before
she was across the threshold. Where, then, are my soldiers on the other side? Where – gods below – are the Hounds?
In cascading streams of light, Yedan Derryg groped blindly. His sword’s laughter was slowly dying away. This was the real danger. Getting lost within Lightfall. But he’d seen little choice, and now he needed to return. One Hound remained. How many of his soldiers were dying even now? Whilst he stumbled blindly in this infernal light?
He could feel the wound’s terrible pain, a vicious, biting thing, desperate to heal.
Yedan halted. A wrong step now could take him on to the Liosan plain, facing tens of thousands of the enemy. And more dragons.
Heavy, buffeting currents from behind him. He whirled.
Something, coming through—
The Hound exploded from the light.
He dropped low into a crouch, blade slashing. Cutting through both front legs. The beast stumbled – he twisted and chopped down on its neck. The Hust blade sliced through, leapt out from under its throat with a delighted yelp. The head slammed into the ground at Yedan’s feet.
He stood for a moment, staring down at it. Then he sheathed his sword, reached down. His back creaked as he strained to lift the head into his arms. He faced the direction the Hound had been heading and then, with a running start that spun him round, he heaved the head out into the light.
Facing the opposite direction, he set off for the wound.
Aparal’s eyes had been on the gate, and he was not alone in seeing the Hound’s severed head sailing out to thump and roll on the ground. Shouts of dismay and horror sounded on all sides.
He stared in horror.
It cannot be just one man. It cannot!
A Hust legion waits for us. Hundreds of the cursed slayers, each one driven mad by their weapons. Nothing will stop them, nothing can defeat them
.
We cannot win this
.
Unblinking, he stared at the huge head, the empty eyes, and then he turned to the dying dragon. It had lurched up against the corpse of Iparth Erule. Had bitten into his rotting flank. But now the motions were slowing, losing that frenzied strength.
Eldat, please die. Please
.
‘Not long now,’ he whispered.
Not long now
.
Waves of sorcery had pursued the Hound back to the wound, Pully and Skwish advancing behind them, clambering over corpses and torn-up
soldiers still in the process of dying. Pithy staggered in their wake. She’d taken a slash to her right shoulder and the bleeding wasn’t slowing. Her arm was sheathed in red, with thick threads draining from her fist. Colours were fast fading from the world.
She saw Brevity leading a solid wedge of Letherii, coming up from the left flank. Where was the prince?
And what was that thunder in the breach?
Nearby was the carcass of a Hound, and nearer the breach another one of the horrid, giant beasts, still alive, still kicking where it lay on its side. Soldiers were closing on it, readying their pikes. Killing it was going to take some time.
I’m so tired
. All at once the strength left her legs and she sat down.
Bad cut. A fang? A claw? I can’t remember – can’t twist round enough to see it. But at least the pain’s gone
.
‘Captain!’
Pithy looked down at the sword in her hand. Smiled.
You did all right. You didn’t fail me. Where’s that girl? Need to tell her
.
‘Someone get one of the witches! Quickly!’
That voice was loud, almost right next to her ear, but it seemed muffled all the same. She saw Brevity running towards her now, but it was hard work, getting over all those bodies, and Pithy wondered if she’d arrive in time.
In time for what? Oh. This
.
She settled, tried lying down, found herself cradled in someone’s arms.
‘Her back’s bitten half off!
Where are the witches?
’
‘Spent.’
‘We need—’
A roaring sound filling her head, Pithy looked down at her hand, the one holding the sword. She willed it to let go, but it refused. She frowned. But a moment later the frown faded.
I understand. I am a soldier. Not a thief. Not a criminal. A soldier. And a soldier never lets go of the sword. Ever. You see it in their eyes
.