All of the giants were gone, including, most painfully for Leon, Lapis. His unit was down to a few dozen who had formed a defensive line around Lapis’ body, atop which Leon stood. The Barons were dead, most of the higher-ranking knights were dead, they were surrounded, and the approaching Legion were preparing their archers.

Leon stared out at all of this in disbelief, numb and wondering how everything had gone so wrong. But then, he caught a flash of white in his peripheral vision, and his eyes naturally followed it, landing upon the form of Anzu. His griffin was covered in blood, and from the gashes in his coat, Leon knew that not all of it was those he’d killed. Worse, Anzu seemed to be limping, and both of his wings were sagging with a lack of energy.

Fury exploded within Leon; fury, and fire, both filling his heart and feeding off the other. He’d lost Lapis, he wasn’t going to lose Anzu, too. In his last moment of lucidity, he noted that Marcus, Alcander, Valeria, and Alix were still alive, still fighting, though all but Valeria were sporting a collection of injuries.

And then Leon’s body moved almost on its own as instinct took over. His conscious mind seemed to recede, consumed by rage, and he leaped from Lapis’ body straight into the hordes of Octavian warriors that had surrounded them. Before he’d even landed, he’d already swung his blade, sending an arc of radiant orange flame to prepare the ground for his landing. When his boots hit the dirt, he found himself standing amidst the corpses of a dozen Octavian warriors, all of whom were dead from his fire.

But that barely registered in his mind. His fire magic coursed through his body, filling him with power that he’d never felt before, his rage feeding and strengthening it.

He swung his blade twice more in less than half a second, incinerating ten Octavian men-at-arms who had sought to exploit his momentary pause as he recovered from the landing. Then, acting purely on instinct, he held out his off-hand and let his fire magic pour out of him. His hand seemed to explode as the flames raced out, consuming all before him in a terrible inferno, but giving his comrades behind him just enough room to catch their breath, one of whom happened to be Valeria.

She watched in horror as dozens of people vanished within Leon’s fire. Their screams filled the air, rising above even the sound of clashing blades, the stench of burning meat filling her nose and blocking out all the other horrible malodors that filled the battlefield.

Valeria was no stranger to battlefield horror, not after so much fighting in the civil war, but seeing Leon like this paralyzed her. She stopped and stared as he reduced all who challenged him to ash, his blade an orange blur.

And, when Leon stopped for just a moment as the Octavian troops around him hesitated to charge, she saw it, the hint of black within the orange. Her eyes widened and her heart sank, for if she could see it, then anyone else could, including someone who might be connected with her father.

Instinctively, Valeria screamed, “LEON!!!” and thrust out her hand, a weak jet of water spraying from her fingers but vaporizing before reaching Leon’s flaming sword.

He turned, coolly regarding her with his golden eyes, which had once sparkled with life even when his expression seemed dead, but had now dulled and seemed unfocused, as if he were looking past her, as if her sudden use of magic had been completely lost on him.

Which wasn’t entirely untrue. Valeria’s cry had broken through Leon’s furious haze, and as he regained control over himself and the fire on his sword died down, he sensed something else, something familiar off in the distance over Valeria’s shoulder.

It was a magical aura he’d felt before; and yet, it was different, feeling like he’d gotten the attention of some terrifying monster in the forest, some otherworldly creature whose powers dwarfed those of all the rest around him. He’d noticed the attention of something in the woods watching him before but had suspected it to be nothing more than vampires—a threat, to be sure, but one that he hadn’t had time to investigate. Since that feeling had soon passed and other things had demanded his attention, he hadn’t put too much thought into it.

But now… now he felt that power rising as if its source was getting ready to make a move, to exert some horrific will upon all of them.

And then it vanished, almost as suddenly as it had come, and Leon felt a tremendous sense of loss. For some reason, that power had been quite comforting in its familiarity, as if it were something he had once known, but lost.

His time for deliberation quickly ended, though, as the distinct whistling of thousands of arrows in flight filled the air; the Legion had finally opened up on their position.

Or so Leon thought.

As soon as he heard it, he roared for his people, “TAKE COVER!!!”

Valeria, who’d been staring at him silently imploring him to return to his senses, hit the dirt. Most of the rest of Leon’s remaining unit followed suit, trusting Leon’s word and getting as low as they could.

A second later, the arrows began to fall.

Leon stayed crouched, placing his faith in his armor to block any arrows that might fall upon him, but as more and more of the deadly missiles came down, he realized something strange: none of them were hitting his people. In fact, the arrows fell so deep within the Octavian lines that there was no possible way the Legion soldiers had been aiming at Leon or his people.

Then horns began to sound and a magical flare was launched into the sky. Simultaneously, the Legion soldiers charged, crashing into the northern flank of the Octavian forces that had surrounded Leon’s position, while the great Octavian armies that had been held in reserve smashed into their own comrades from the south.

The troops that had surrounded Leon’s tattered unit were taken completely by surprise. With barely any time to react, dozens were cut down by those they had considered allies only moments before. Those further back—closer to Leon’s group in the center—were so taken aback that few of them moved to re-engage Leon’s unit.

Still, Leon quickly rose back up and shouted, “RECOVER!!!”

The tattered remnants of his unit immediately complied, pulling back into a tighter circle around Lapis’ broken shell.

A few Octavian warriors seemed like they were about to continue their battle, but the Legion and their former comrades were cleaving deeper into their lines, leading them to simply stand and stare at Leon’s unit, not willing to turn their backs upon their foe but also not wanting to provoke the wall they were thrust up against into making things even more difficult.

Leon, meanwhile, closely monitored what was happening with his magic senses. His unit was surrounded by what he estimated to be about fifteen hundred remaining Octavian warriors, but that number was constantly decreasing.

A few minutes later, Leon noticed something else: a blast of lightning amidst the violence that tore a huge hole in the enemy lines, into which rode Sertor Arellius and his retinue of light cavalry. With sword and spear they hewed their way through the Octavian lines, Arellius himself leading the way with a greatsword in hand that sparked with the power of lightning.

“What is this…” Leon heard Marcus whisper as the young nobleman stared in awe at what was happening before them. “Do they think that that unit is us? Is this a case of friendly fire?”

“Maybe they’re on our side…” Alix replied, though if she truly thought that might be the case, her exhausted tone didn’t sell it.

“Stay vigilant!” Leon ordered. “They’re still hostile until they prove otherwise! This could just be an internal dispute that they’re solving while their rivals are weak!”

“HAHA!” shouted a voice familiar to Leon, and as he refocused, he saw Sertor Arellius finally cut his way through the Octavian lines, arriving just before Leon, no more than thirty feet separating them. “A paranoid mindset, Sir Ursus, but I can hardly blame you for that!” the man eagerly shouted. “But fear not! We are here to reinforce Prince August, not to act against him!”

“Forgive me if I’m not convinced…” Leon replied, remembering just how fervently Arellius had accused him of being a traitor when last they had fought each other, when Arellius was trying to prevent their escape from the Central Territories.

“Am I not being convincing enough?” Arellius asked, gesturing around at how the 2nd Legion was massacring those that had surrounded and nearly killed Leon’s remaining people.

“No,” Leon simply replied.

“… OK…” Arellius seemed thrown off by Leon’s attitude, but he quickly regained his cheery demeanor and continued, “Let’s talk when these brigands and thieves have been dealt with!”

And like that, he and his horse charged back into the fray, his lightning magic making him easy to track as he cleaved his way through Octavian troops.

Alcander asked the question on everyone’s mind.

“What the fuck?!”

“Reserve judgment and be ready for anything!” Leon shouted, and the couple dozen of his people who remained straightened up, preparing to continue fighting for their lives.

But as their enemies were cut down by those who had once stood at their sides, things started becoming clearer. He could see many knights and men-at-arms wearing the identifying marks of the Duchy of Lentia, and he already knew that they had been trying to defect to August’s side, even if August’s acceptance hadn’t yet reached them.

After about twenty minutes, the last of the Octavian troops were mopped up. No quarter had been given, even when some of the enemy knights started throwing down their weapons. Once that was done, the Legion soldiers and noble retainers backed off from Leon’s unit, leaving them to stand alone, surrounded by nothing more than corpses. If Leon had to guess, then including those who had been killed before they fell back to the hill, at least fifteen thousand Octavian troops had been killed, probably more.

“What do we do? What’s the play?” Alix asked as they finally began to relax now that they had a few minutes to rest and think.

“We should at least hear them out,” Marcus replied as he applied a healing salve to a long gash on his waist that some lucky man-at-arms had put there. “If they did all this and yet refrain from finishing us off, then there has to be so—AH!”

“Careful with that, it’s not a good thing to make your wound worse when you’re trying to heal it,” Alcander said, applying a healing spell of his own to a burn on his shoulder.

Leon, meanwhile, was applying a stack of dozens of healing spells to Anzu. The griffin’s injuries were much worse than they had appeared; moderate blood loss from multiple lacerations, a broken leg, both wings were broken in several places, and his tail had been almost chopped off. Needless to say, Leon’s anger remained quite strong as he tended to his griffin, but Anzu himself seemed content to simply nuzzle Leon as he made the pain go away with his enchanted paper.

As he finished up with Anzu, he rubbed the griffin’s head and said, “I can’t sense any killing intent coming from them, for however much that’s… worth…” As he turned to speak, he noticed that Valeria had been staring at him, her expression one of abject concern, and, more importantly, her aura radiating the power of a fifth-tier mage. “You ascended?” he asked in shock.

“Really?! You made it to the fifth-tier already?” Marcus demanded, his tone mostly of amusement but with a few hints of jealousy leaking in.

“Nice! Good job!” Alcander congratulated her with a wide smile on his face while Alix gave Valeria a smile of encouragement.

All of it was lost on the woman herself, though, for she continued to silently stare at Leon.

“Something wrong?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Are you… all right?” she hesitantly asked, glancing meaningfully at his blade. “You were using some powerful magic… and you looked almost feral…”

“What do you mean?” Leon asked, barely even remembering the fugue he had been in following Lapis’ death and his duel with the sixth-tier mage.

“Nev… Nothing,” she sputtered, turning around to face the Legion soldiers. “Someone’s coming.”

Leon glanced over and saw that Sertor Arellius was riding toward them, though he maintained a slow pace and kept his hands free of weapons, which Leon appreciated.

“Sir Leon!” Arellius called out as he approached. “Have we proven ourselves? Will you now speak with us?”

“Who’s ‘us’?” Leon shot back.

“I believe he means us,” someone shouted from the other side of Lapis’ empty shell.

Leon cocked an eyebrow in annoyance, but it settled back down as a familiar knight rode around to join Arellius, another knightess at his side. The man was only of the third-tier, but the woman was sixth-tier easily. Both were heavily armored, preventing Leon from seeing their features, but from his voice and body language alone, he knew who the man was.

Gaius Caecilius Tullius.