Bitterness and betrayal stung sharp through his mind as Willem felt the waypath work its magic. The wave of memories struck him like a horde of skal, like a terrible cloud that swallowed out all other thoughts. He saw Norus, the brave, resolute soldier that had followed them from Gates to the Outlands. The man had a spine of steel, had been the pillar standing tall when Willem had been lost. And now he was dead. Poetic, really, in its irony. To have gone so far from the Gates, only for his last act to send me back.

It was a cruel thing that the demons had done, but then again it was in their nature. When had they never been cruel? When had they never been vicious? He had seen them passing time in the fields, churning the dirt into mud as they wrestled and fought with a terrible viciousness. He had seen their savagery first hand—when had he forgotten that those fangs could be pointed at him as well?

When had he forgotten what kind of a monster he had become?

The stabbing pains of reforming flesh were almost welcome, drawing his thoughts away from the mire of mourning that he had nearly drowned in. He felt the fog around him peel away with a wetness, like a membranous slime falling away from the skin. His muscles newly reforming, Willem fell to the ground underneath his feet with a gasp, his heart giving a sudden pump as it jolted back to life.

All around him, the legion had collapsed to the ground, disoriented from the waypath. They struggled to regain their senses, struggled to stir their thoughts out of the muck, and it was a moment before Willem realized why. It was the air; it was thick with poisonous miasma. There was a cloying weight that clung to the lungs, that stole away the life and vitality with every breath. It was as if he was carrying a massive weight on his shoulders whenever he tried to draw breath, the motions coming short and shallow.

And the source of that poison, he realized, was none other than the skal.

It was a moment before he saw it, although once he had, it was startled at how he could have ever missed such a sight. The Gates rose out of the ground, a towering wall of stone and magic that seemed to rise up to touch the heavens. Yet it was different from when he had last seen the leviathan walls, now long unmanned—its sides were now covered in black shadows.

Coiling clouds of insectoid skal’va writhed all along the stone, darting in and out of the gaps like so many serpents. From their bodies drifted that shadowy mist, that heavy miasma that so sickened the air with its presence. Ordinarily chilling and numbing, it seemed that in such heavy amounts the mist sapped life itself instead of merely heat. The skal ate away at the very foundations of the wall that they clung to, the runes and formations of the Gates, now lacking maintenance, crackling madly as they bled freely into the air.

The arrival of the legion did not go unnoticed by the skal’va, and the air was suddenly punctuated by a hideous staccato of screeching, keening shrieks. The legionaries, still struggling to rise to their feet, were now caught utterly off guard by this attack. This, Willem knew, was what Joy was afraid of: unproven, unblooded soldiers frozen in fear at the first sight of the skal.

He watched as fear descended on the faces of those men, as their arms went slack at the sight of pure death. He saw swords fall from helpless grips, saw shields tumble into the dirt. Why fight, those faces asked. How can we fight against this? It was an easy thing to make promises, Willem realized. But in the end, promises were still just words.

Rally them, some part of him commanded—the primal part that still wished to live. Rally the men. His heart thumping wildly, Willem reached deep inside the pit of his stomach, feeling the crackling mahji that eagerly leapt into his grasp. Revulsion washed over him at how this thing had been pulled out of Norus’ body, at how it had greedily fed the air while that corpse had fallen to the ground, but he shoved it aside. Time enough for platitudes later; now is the time for prayers. And pray he did, as the mahji surged through his limbs and erupted out of his fingertips. There was no control in his panic, no carefully thought out intentions—he merely wanted that cloud of skal’va driven away. The mahji heard him in the simplest of terms, the wind rushing forward with the unshackled urge to blow across the plains.

A conjured gale of mahji-fed wind crackled forward in a virtual wall of pure energy, one that struck the cloud of buzzing skal’va head-on. The insects were thrown wildly in the wind, blown apart and scattered into the air as they struggled to converge into a cloud once more. Crackling sparks of purple darted across their bodies, charring a few into dust that drifted to the ground. It was not enough, nowhere near enough to kill them, but it gave them time. Time enough for the men to gather their wits. Time enough for the demons to unleash hell.

The demons bucked madly, throwing off the chains and harnesses that bound them to the catapults as they roared loud enough to rattle the stones. The machines went careening into the dirt, some losing wood and limbs as they fell on their sides. Their demonic mounts went charging forward, howling with a wild bloodlust as the battle fever seized them. While the legionaries stood unmoving, a wave of demons surged forward, some on the ground, some on wings as they crashed against the stream of skal’va.

Gouts of flame abruptly erupted as they two sides met, the demons unleashing the runes that had been painstakingly carved into their bodies. The pups were the most enthusiastic, small bat-like forms that flitted through the air to smother groups of skal’va in tongues of fire. Willem felt a wild hope burst to life in his chest as he watched the demons shrug off wounds that would kill mortal men. He watched as the wave pushed into the skal’va—and drove them back.

“Legion, form rank!” a loud voice carried across the field, and the men suddenly snapped into motion with the mindless thought formed through hours of drilled repetition. Their eyes were still glassy from shock and fear, but their muscles knew the actions nevertheless as lines of men crashed into formation with shields at the ready.

“Second Spear Alass, get your men on those catapults! I want those bastards raining pitch.” Mors shouted to an eastward wing of soldiers, the men saluting after a brief hesitation. The rest of the legion gave out a low shout as the commands to march rang out, their boots ringing out like thunder as they struck the ground in cadence.

It is a bluff, Willem realized. Every man here wishes to run, but it is his neighbors that keeps him here. He saw the fear in their eyes, heard the hollowness of their shouts, felt the trembling in their steps. They cannot hold. It is impossible. Yet still the legion pressed forward, if on nothing more than bluster. Yet still they drew their runeblades, half of them forgetting how to use the swords in their panicked haste. Yet still they met the cloud of skal’va, joining the demons on the front ranks, and somehow that line held.

Willem felt the nervousness fill his chest—if the line breaks, if one man runs, then they will all shatter. And so he pressed forward where the line was weakest, where a poor fool had let his runeshield fall to the ground. Flames leapt from his hands, propelled by a raucous wind that blasted the skal’va away. The man was long dead, his body swiftly devoured by a descending cloud of shadows, but the pause was enough time for the next man to step forward, shield ready, eyes wild with fear and determination. There was no time for thanks, no time for words as Willem raced off to another spot in the line that threatened to cave.

Bodies began to fall from the skies, demons succumbing to their multitudinous wounds as the skal’va began to win the air. The corpses that fell were frozen into ice, shattering into dust as they struck the ground, but on occasion they also fell on the legion. Men gave hoarse shouts as they crumbled to the ground, some necks snapping from thirty stone of ice and muscle landing on their heads. Even as he watched, Willem saw the demons being driven back, unable to hold any longer against the neverending wave of shadows. Their limbs were greying from the touch of that black mist, their movements dulled by fatigue as they struggled.

Hold! They have to hold! Yet Willem could do nothing but watch as one by one, they fell. And as they did so, more of the skal’va pressed forward into the legion, and more of the line began to collapse. Time seemed to slow as he ran, as he watched, his heart beating wild with desperation. Yet it was not enough—they would break.

But there was a sudden whistle, a sudden crack of wood and leather, a sudden thud and shattering noise. His head snapped back in an instant, watching as the legion had finally righted some of the catapults. It was a pitiful affair, only half of the number in any form of working order, and even then many of them listing to the side or propped up by stones. Yet it was enough as the Swords gave the command and another volley of pitch flung out into the air. initially, Willem was confused at what they were doing—what use was pitch against buzzing skal’va? Yet it struck the walls of the Gates instead, the black oil invisible against the black shadow.

And then a stray gout of flame from a dying demon managed to reach the walls, managed to lick against that pitch. It caught in an instant, devouring the fuel in half a heartbeat, and suddenly the entire wall of the gates was lit up by fire.