Chapter XXXIX

In Xane, the Savages saw the Nihilite army approaching, and raised a white flag to get their attention. Lorna saw the flag and through her spyglass also saw the weapons these bestial men and women carried with them. She pointed them out and handed the spyglass to Cory.

“It's a trap,” he concluded upon seeing them.

“A trap?” Lorna repeated, incredulously. “Why would people trying to spring a trap for us keep weapons out where we could see them?”

“One more way of luring us into a false sense of security?” Cory suggested.

“It's a terrible trap if it is one, the sort of trap amateurs might attempt, and they hardly look like amateurs,” Lorna said.

“Very well, then you can go out and see what they want. I'm not riding into an ambush.”

Lorna wanted to say, “Fine, if you're too much a coward, I will go and talk to them,” but she held her tongue. She simply signaled for a few cavaliers to follow her and rode out to meet the Savages.

Lucio stood at the head of the group, waving the white flag. When Lorna rode closer he handed the flag off to one of the others and gave a bow. “Greetings. I must say, I'm pleased to see they sent the most beautiful general I've ever seen to parley.”

“Stop flattering and get to the point,” Lorna demanded.

“Very well, plenty of time to whisper sweet nothings into your ear later, eh? We are the Savages, a mercenary troop hired by the Grand Duke of Arx to help him in defending this land against...well you all.”

“Not very good at that, are you?”

“Well, that's because he has yet to actually make use of our skills. You see, he was keeping us in reserve, which is all well and good strategically speaking, but for us...well, we like a little more action! We were getting bored just waiting around in his castle for him to decide it was time to bring us out and tell us to fight, so we killed everyone in his castle and came seeking you out instead. We thought that as an employer you'd offer far more action than he was, and even if the pay is nowhere near as good we'd prefer to do some actual fighting.”

“So you betrayed the Grand Duke and expect me to hire you?” Lorna scoffed. “Can I expect the same degree of loyalty? You just get bored one day and start killing my men?”

“I suppose our track record doesn't seem the best, does it? But you see, while I was in that castle I heard much about your enemies' tactics, so in addition to everything we have to offer as warriors I also have Intel for sale. To a general, as I'm oft told, information is more precious than gold.”

Lorna rolled her eyes at his impromptu rhyme, but he had a point. If he and the others had indeed overheard any of the conversations in which the Arxians had talked strategy she couldn't pass up that kind of opportunity.

“Very well, consider yourself hired, but we'll be keeping an eye on you.”

“Wonderful!”

Much to Cory's protest, Lorna ordered the Nihilites to make camp where they were so she could discuss strategy with the Savages. The Grand Duke's men, who had been trailing the Nihilites, saw them stop to make camp in the middle of the day and found this truly perplexing.

“What are they doing?”

“Why are they stopping?”

“Something's not right here.”

“Don't move in any closer,” the Grand Duke ordered. “We can't fight them like this, not even while they're making camp. We have to wait until they get to Dead-River Pass before attempting anything, or we'll just be slaughtered.”

Lucio, in the Nihilite camp, rolled out the maps he'd brought along to point out what he'd learned to Lorna, the two of them meeting in her tent. “The best pass to move your people through is Dead-River,” Lucio said. “There are many other passes that lead through the mountains, but none of them would be prudent for moving an army this size. However, Dead-River Pass will be heavily guarded. The Grand Duke has been organizing a force to defend the pass. He hopes to end the war there. Most importantly, you should know that King Hadar himself will be fighting alongside his people there.”

“The King will be at Dead-River Pass?”

“And why not? He's a paladin, after all, and one of the vows he swore when he took the crown was to stand by his soldiers, to match their bravery.”

“That's a golden opportunity! If we can kill the King...”

“The Arxians will crumble! I see you're already ahead of me, general.”

“I can't imagine he'll be fighting on the front lines, though,” Lorna said.

“That's where my information can help. You see, I've been studying these maps for a good, long while, and all of the markings the Grand Duke made on them indicating different mountain passes, a few tunnels, and that sort of thing. While the rest of the Savages should probably fight with the main force, I can lead a small group of archers and assassins through one of these tunnels to hit them by surprise; maybe see if we can kill the King for you.”

“It sounds unlikely,” Lorna said. “But it's probably our best chance at pulling it off, and if we kill him we've won the war, I'm sure!”

“Pays to trust a random stranger and his band of crazy-eyed misfits, doesn't it?” Lucio said, laughing.

“Occasionally,” Lorna conceded. After the meeting in Lorna's tent there were a few last preparations to be made, and then the Nihilite army marched again. Lorna made it clear that they would not be resting again until after they made it through Dead-River Pass.

Rumors spread throughout the Nihilite legions that this battle was going to be the bloodiest one yet, and that high casualties were expected. With almost certain death looming over them, the Nihilite soldiers asked all of the warlocks to pray for their immortal souls. They feared that they would be caught up in the Agalmite God's so-called Heaven, or stuck wandering the world as ghosts, when they died. Though even in their belief system such a thing was rare, every one of them prayed that they would somehow be snatched out of this world and taken to the Void to be free. They may as well have all been praying to win at gambling, for any one of them whose wish was granted would cost another his wish.

As the Arxian commoners fled before the Nihilite army, those whom Lorna had sent to infiltrate the villages of Xane came to greet them, bolstering their ranks, especially with daemon thralls. They had managed to turn the entire populations of many small villages into thralls, which simply added to the Nihilites' military might.

. . .

Scouts reported to the Arxians in Dead-River Pass that the Nihilite army had continued their march, and they were expected to reach the pass by dawn. Similarly, the Arxians began to ask the paladins and priests present at the camp to pray with them for their souls and for their families to be alright without them, should they not survive the battle. So many soldiers were asking for Hadar's blessing too. They asked him to bless them with strength, with success, with glory, to pray for the forgiveness of their sins. All the while no one asked Hadar how he felt, how he was handling the fact that they were about to face a terrible battle with the Nihilite hoards. No one tried to comfort him, to set his fears to rest. No one spoke encouraging words to him, whether about this life or about Heaven. After a while, it got to be far too much for him, and he left the camp, heading further up into the mountains, and ordering that no one follow him.

There's always one who cannot follow orders amongst any group, at least one. In this case it was Grigori. He left Hadar to himself for an hour, feeling that he probably needed some time to himself, and then decided to follow to see if something more was wrong. He regretted his decision to follow Hadar, at first, because he had never really climbed mountains before, and found the rocky, uneven terrain hard to traverse. With many a blister on his feet and cuts on his hands from catching himself on the rocks when he'd slip or fall, he finally made it up to the area where Hadarsat, contemplatively looking out at the capital province.

Grigori could see how such a view would be soothing to one's soul. Stretching out below them were green, grassy fields, with the occasional patches of heavily wooded areas. The villages were all surrounded with wheat fields, which looked like they were made of gold from such a height and shimmering in the sunlight as the wind passed through them. Then, at the center of it all, like a great jewel at the forehead of a rich sultan's turban, sat Aius. Up close it was beautiful too, but from a distance this beauty was so much more awe-inspiring. The many colors all contrasting with each other, all the rooftops of houses and stores, the smoke rising from chimneys, and the castle, surrounded by running water. It stood in the very middle, taller than any of the stores and houses. Its flags and banners blew in the wind. Grigori felt like he'd been a fool all of his life for not having seen sooner what a beautiful world this really was.

And yet, Grigori felt the need to break the contemplative silence. “Hadar?”

There was silence for three seconds. Just as Grigori was about to assume that Hadar hadn't heard him and try again, Hadar said, “What's on your mind?”

“Actually, I was coming here to ask you that.”

Hadar turned his head and gave Grigori a sweet and appreciative smile, but Grigori could tell from the glistening in his eyes that he'd been crying. “You're a good man, Grigori, you know that, right?”

“I do now,” Grigori said as he walked over and took a seat next to him. “Tell me, what's troubling you?”

“You heard about what happened during the last battle where I was in charge, yes?”

“You won.”

“Won?” Hadar shook his head. “I hardly consider that a win. Half of the people under my command died, and in large part because I insisted on mercy. Even most of those we'd come to save in the first place ended up dying. It was a disaster. Only a truly cynical man could look at what I saw there and call it a victory.”

“Oh...and you're worried that this battle might be...”

“The same thing,” Hadar finished the sentence. “Yes, and think about what that implies. Last time I led anyone into battle there were only a few of us and half died. How many thousands of soldiers are gathered here? If we lose half of those under my command here, in Dead-River Pass...”

“That won't happen.”

“How do you know?” Hadar asked.

“Well, your options are a bit different this time, for one thing. If the battle starts going horribly wrong you can order a retreat, make your soldiers fall back to Aius, where you'll have the advantage of a fortress, and the whole city guard backing you up.”

“So it might be alright because we can run away this time? Thanks for the confidence.”

“Just listen! Second of all, last time you were trying to take a fortress with a handful of paladins, and the problem with that is that those already in the fortress have the advantage most of the time. That you managed to liberate the castle at all is a miracle!”

“I guess...”

“You guess? Hadar, usually in sieges the army already holding the fortress is capable of defeating an army many times its size. Your force was but a small fraction of what you faced inside, and you were victorious!”

“True.”

“Third of all, the Grand Duke is helping you, and his job is war. He's supposed to spend all of his time studying it, learning about it, preparing to fight it. Nothing more is expected of him, not worrying about taxes and economics, not studying religion or theology, his whole life is preparing for war!” Grigori said. “Surely his influence will count for something!”

“Maybe he should be King instead of me...”

“Don't even say that! You're a better King than he could ever be!”

“You're just saying that to get me to sleep with you again.”

“I don't need to say that to get you to sleep with me again,” Grigori said, with a light chuckle. “I'm serious, though. You know what a king truly needs? A king needs wisdom, understanding, and most important of all compassion. A man who dedicates his whole life to war tends…well…not to have all of these things. The professors at Caelum didn't know it, but when they trained you, they trained the greatest paladin and the greatest king that Arx would ever see!”

Hadar half-smiled and shrugged. “I'm glad you think that, though I could never believe it myself.”

“Too often history judges kings by whether or not they were strong rulers, but strong rulers are also not uncommonly tyrannical. History ought to judge kings based on how just they were. That's the kind of king you are, Hadar.”

“Wise words.”

“You want me to leave you to your quiet contemplation, then?”

“No,” Hadar reached out and held Grigori's hand. “Stay with me. Enjoy the view with me. Hopefully we'll be able to look on the kingdom from this mountaintop over and over again for many years to come, but just in case...”

The two of them stayed up there together, just staring out into the distance in silence, for a little over an hour, and then both headed off to their own tents to rest for the night. Grigori wished he could have spent that night with Hadar. Not just because of his desire for intimacy with him, but also because he wanted to be there to comfort him before the upcoming battle. It was true what Hadar said, hundreds, if not thousands, would die in the upcoming battle, and there was little they could do to stop that.

A small part of Hadar just wanted to have his people abandon Arx. They could flee West, start new lives in the city-states out there. He didn’t care that he’d never get to be their king again, honestly he didn’t even want the crown. He just wanted his people to live. It had occurred to him, though, that he wanted his people to live, not just survive. Retreating from every enemy who means to do you harm is no way to live. The Nihilites wanted to kill them because of their faith. A life of constant fear, being constantly forced to hide your beliefs was no life at all. No, the people of Arx would stand their ground here. They would not be driven from their homeland, and Hadar would see to it personally that those who meant to do them harm would fail.

Just before dawn the trumpets sounded and awakened the Arxian soldiers. The trumpets were the signal that the lookouts had spotted the Nihilite army marching towards them from the horizon. And there they were, with the rising sun behind them, as if that golden circle itself were a part of their army. At the sound of the trumpet the Arxian soldiers all rose up and took their positions, ready for the battle ahead. Archers took their places on the cliff-sides, overlooking the pass, with no idea that Lucio and a few of the Nihilite archers had sneaked in during the night, stolen Arxian military uniforms, and now stood amongst them. Some of them wanted to try to kill the King in his sleep, but Lucio advised them that timing was everything. If they killed him while he was sleeping then by the time the Nihilites arrived the Arxians would be angry enough to want revenge, but if he died in the battle they'd be crushed by grief. The golems took their positions in the middle of the pass, forming a virtual wall between them, with the infantry forming a shield wall behind them.

The Nihilite army was arranged just perfectly to Lorna's specifications. At the vanguard of the assault, the first expected to die, she had the Damned Legion, about whose lives the Nihilites didn't truly care. She had everybody march just far enough apart so that when they were bombarded with boulders from the trebuchet above they wouldn't be grouped together. This was done just in case the saboteurs hadn't managed to do their part. At the center of the Nihilite ranks was Cory's armored carriage, driven by a well-armored footman and pulled by four horses.

From within the pass Hadar could see the army spread out before him, and the glint of the rising sunlight on the metal of Cory's armored carriage caught his eye. He didn't know who or what was in there, word hadn't yet reached the soldiers at Dead-River Pass about the warlock capable of summoning demon legions, but he knew on a glance that the carriage was important. They had to be transporting something in there that they thought would make a tremendous difference.

Hadar called up to the men manning the trebuchet, “Everyone, aim at that iron carriage down there! Smash it to pieces!”

“Yes, sire!” the soldiers immediately got to work on loading the trebuchet, making the calculations, and setting their aim upon Cory's carriage. Cory, down below, was blissfully unaware that he was being targeted. Now, the previous night Lucio had managed to sneak some of the Nihilite saboteurs into the camp via the tunnels, and they did their work on the trebuchet. Sabotaging trebuchet was not terribly hard work, all they did was pull out a few pins and file part-way through some important parts. The damage they did was unnoticeable on a glance, but when the trebuchet went to fire and crumbled to pieces the sabotage became obvious. The soldiers operating them fell and scrambled to get out of the way as the force of the trebuchet attempting to lurch their great stones forward sent pieces of wood flying everywhere. Splinters filled the air. The soldiers forming the phalanx down below broke formation and ran as the boulders intended for their enemies now fell down upon them.

With her spyglass, from down below, General Lorna could see the trebuchet up on the mountains falling to pieces. She smiled, knowing that they would not be crushed before even reaching the pass like Magdiel's army was back at Ten-Red Pass. Things were already going smoothly, and with the enemy losing their siege weapon Lorna felt comfortable in calling out, “CHARGE!”

The Nihilite army broke into a run, in spite of their exhaustion from walking all night. Like Lorna, they too wanted to see the war end quickly, and they ran as if they were running back into the arms of their husbands and wives, their children and parents, their brothers and sisters. They knew, though, that many of them were running full speed towards their own deaths. Many would never see their loved ones again. That day, as the Nihilite and Arxian armies were closing the distance between them at Dead-River Pass, thousands of funerals, with teary-eyed loved ones, were being arranged. For the Arxians thousands of graves would be dug, so much so that the dead would almost have their own underground city. For the Nihilites so many funeral pyres would burn that the smoke would black out the sun for hours, and the rising ashes would fall again like a blizzard.

The golem wall began to march towards the Nihilite army, moving in perfect unison. They could not run, for the stones that made up their own bodies would grind against each other, reducing the golems to gravel in minutes if they did. Instead it was a steady walk, matching step for step. Just as the demon thralls clashed with the golems, Hadar called out to the archers, “LOOSE!” The archers let out a volley of arrows, filling the air and bringing down the ranks of the thralls. Many of the arrows missed their mark and struck the golems below, but since the golems' bodies were made of stone the arrows were of no real consequence. The golems swung their great stone arms and smashed the Damned Legion thralls as they arrived, crushing them into oblivion. The diamonds in the knuckles of their fists broke through armor and shields. The thralls were all armed with the heaviest, strongest, maces and war-hammers that Lorna could give them, and they chipped and cracked away at the golems' solid bodies.

As the archers loosed volley after volley on the thralls below, Lucio, who had long been standing amongst them, saw his chance to murder Hadar and escape in the confusion. Just as another volley wasloosed, Lucio released his arrow at Hadar, aiming straight for his head. He hadn't taken the time, though, to account for the change in wind that the volley would create, and so the arrow fell a bit short of its target, and instead hit Hadar in the chest. It pierced the breast-plate and threw him back onto the ground. The arrow was poison-tipped, and in spite of it not hitting Hadar in the eye as Lucio had intended, it would still be sure to kill him if it had broken his skin at all. Lucio turned his attention back to pretending he was one of the Arxian archers, firing down at the thralls, and tried to hide his confident smirk.

Grigori had heard Hadar's cry as the arrow knocked him down. He would recognize that man's voice anywhere, even drowned out in the shouts of the army. He stopped firing his bow to look over and see what had happened. A priest on the scene had rushed over to Hadar and pulled him off to the side so that he could remove the breast-plate and see what the damage was. The priest hadn't even conceived of the arrow coming from their own people, so he only bothered about shielding him from potential enemy fire. He'd not seen any archers amongst the attacking thralls, but that didn't mean there weren't some there. Even from a distance Grigori could tell the general direction that the arrow had come from, one of the archers on the cliffs had loosed it. Scanning the faces of the archers nearby, he saw Lucio, who continually glanced back at Hadar, as if watching for something. Lucio was waiting for the priest to remove Hadar's breast-plate so that he could fire another arrow, try again, just to make sure. Grigori noticed that this man was firing arrow after arrow directly into the backs of the golems rather than at the thralls. It wasn't uncommon for an archer to miss his mark, especially since many of the archers were peasant militia, but Lucio seemed pretty consistent at hitting the same golem. The look he was giving Hadar was a predator's, giving away his true intent.

Grigori had gotten to be a fairly good archer, but nowhere near good enough to fire a shot at Hadar's assailant and be confident that he'd hit him on the first shot. In fact he'd be more likely to hit one of the other archers nearby. So Grigori put up his bow, drew his short-sword, and charged at Lucio. The priest took off Hadar's breast-plate to reveal that it had stopped just short of Hadar's skin. Both Hadar and the priest were relieved, and Lucio was furious, though this also meant he had another shot. He turned his bow at Hadar. He took aim at his chest, and this time took into account the way that the other archers were changing the winds. Now, the problem with a predator's eyes is that they are on the front of his skull. They help him to stay focused on his prey, and not let them escape, but prey animals usually have their eyes on the sides of their skulls, so they can see predators coming up behind them. In his careful focus and aim, Lucio did not see Grigori coming up behind him with his short-sword, which he drove into Lucio's lung from behind. Lucio tried to scream, but he had no breath, and instead he just fell onto the ground. Many many wives would find themselves heartbroken that their husband never came home to them again, though most would be all the better for it.

Heroic as this was, it was easily misinterpreted by the commander in charge of the archers. He'd not seen Lucio take aim at Hadar. Lucio had been subtle enough to evade his perception, but the commander was perceptive enough to see Grigori run up and stab Lucio in the back. Now, the Grand Duke had warned the commanding officers of his army about Grigori. “I don't trust him, he's an inquisitor, and from what I know of them they'd likely want us all hanged or burned alive for our 'blasphemy.' He's only here because the King trusts him, for some reason, but if he does anything suspicious, anything at all, do not hesitate to kill him!”

The commander signaled a few of his soldiers to go after Grigori, and as Grigori saw them advancing towards him he realized how this must look. With the battle still raging on, Grigori slid down the cliff side and ran, heading for the nearest tunnels to escape, with a handful Arxian soldiers on his heels.

Down below, Cory could see that the thralls had made no progress against the golems that held the pass, and decided that he'd have to intervene here, again. Speaking into his ring he said, “Malkira, help us clear the way.”

Daemons twice the height of men appeared around the armored carriage, daemons with the heads of goats, bodies of men, and wings of hawks. It was a modest force, but it would do the trick. Dust flew off the ground into the air as the daemons flapped their wings and flew to the front lines. They descended on the golems from above and tossed them aside like they were no heavier than burlap sacks. The priests and paladins on the scene, upon seeing the demons, began chanting immediately, and the demons, who were now ransacking the phalanx at the front, soon turned to stone and then crumbled to dust. Still, the intended damage had been done, and the thralls could charge into the next line of defense.

Hadar re-dressed in his armor. He hadn’t seen Grigori run off with soldiers following, and was totally unaware of the traitor whom Grigori had just killed in his defense. With the hole now right in the middle of his breast-plate he'd have to be far more cautious from that moment on.

In war often those with the most courage have a great advantage. If your enemy fears death, then you can expect them to avoid harm to some degree, and thus keep them from harming you in turn. The thralls attacking the phalanx did not offer this advantage, since their will was not their own and the Nihilites didn't care about their lives anyway. When they attacked the phalanxes they threw themselves onto the shields and spears of the Arxian soldiers. The sheer weight of their bodies weighed them down until they collapsed onto the ground. Suddenly the Arxian soldiers making up the phalanx were vulnerable to other thralls, still standing, who stabbed them or crushed their heads while they were defenseless.

Swordsmen and paladins rushed into the fight in defense of the fallen soldiers and slew the thralls as they approached. With such a gathering in one place Cory couldn't help but conjure up more daemons to join in the fray, and daemons of all sorts of different breeds began to appear, turning the tide in the Nihilites' favor. As the number of Thralls in the pass diminished due to the arrows above and the enemy soldiers on the ground, the main force of Nihilites began to march in. Crossbowmen fired their arrows up at the archers on the cliffs and swordsmen clashed with the Arxian soldiers.

Hadar rushed into the fray. His diamond long-sword cut through the Nihilite weapons and armor. His shield struck them in the chest and knocked them to the ground. Seeing their king fighting beside them strengthened the Arxians' resolve, and they fought with even greater courage. Arxian geomancers pelted the Nihilite soldiers and demons on the field with tiny diamonds that tore through them like they were nothing more than paper, and Nihilite warlocks continued to bolster their forces by conjuring daemons to aid them. Just when Arxian archers were about to run out of arrows in their quivers squires would come by and resupply them, giving them more arrows for the constant volleys raining down on the Nihilite soldiers below.

The fight went on like this for hours, turning the whole pass crimson. The bodies from both sides, and the dust from the demons exorcised, piled up, forcing those who entered the fight to climb higher to reach their enemies. Hadar wondered if it was really the right thing to do, keeping all of these men fighting, here in this pass, as they died in droves, but at the same time he feared what would happen should the enemy soldiers make it to the capital. Was the capital really any more defensible than Dead-River Pass? Even if it was there would be all of the people who would lose their homes, or their lives, in such a battle. All he could do was focus on fighting the battle of Dead-River Pass to the bitter end, if need be. He'd steeled his resolve, after much contemplation on the mountain. If he needed to die here just to weaken the Nihilite army enough for them to fail at the capital city or retreat back to their own land then he was ready to do it.

From such a great distance it was difficult for Cory to get daemons into the pass to help his soldiers, but he remembered again that in such a narrow space numbers mattered very little anyway. Lorna watched the battle and began to wonder at the morality of it too. She felt no true sympathy for the Arxians, and why should she? They were misled idiots defending their own prison cells, fighting tooth and nail to stay chained because their chains were all they'd ever known. They'd fallen for the tricks and deceptions of the greatest traitor of all time. What gave her pause was seeing all of the soldiers she was sacrificing just to take this one pass. She'd known some of them for years. She watched through her spyglass as young people she'd seen begin their training as children march into the battle to be killed. She watched as men who had introduced her to their loving wives and children were shot full of arrows, or stabbed. She knew, though, that even if she ordered her soldiers to withdraw that Cory would order his forces to stay, to keep fighting to take this dried up river-bed, and if they failed to take that same river-bed then they may as well retreat home, for they'd never reach the capital in such numbers otherwise, and even with Malkira's help she was convinced they'd need such numbers to take the capital.

The battle took a sharp turn when the Grand Duke and his forces arrived on the horizon on the other side of the Nihilites, the cavalry riding in first. Lorna was so focused on the battle in the pass that she barely saw the Grand Duke and his cavaliers in time to give the order for her soldiers to turn and defend themselves. They scrambled to form ranks and put up spears and pikes, but it was too late, the cavalry was upon them. The Arxian cavalry cut through their ranks like a razor through cheddar cheese. Chaos ensued, and Lorna and Cory's armies both fell into total disarray, now attempting to fight a battle on two fronts. Cory conjured more daemons onto the battlefield to aid his soldiers, but the Grand Duke had already made sure that all of his soldiers knew to evade the demons as best as they could, and focus on killing as many human enemies as possible. The paladins were able to focus on the demons, and they cut them down with surprising efficiency. Lorna ordered a retreat, and the Nihilite army split in two, fleeing in two very different directions.

Cory was becoming increasingly furious that his daemon army was doing so little to stop the onslaught, that so many Nihilites were dying or fleeing. “Is this the best you can do?” he shouted at the ring. “This is not a joke, damn you!” It was unclear the exact reason why, perhaps a more positive reaction to verbal abuse than to Cory's begging, perhaps a reward for his arrogance, which Malkira found so endearing, or perhaps it was simply that the arch-daemon realized that the battle was not going well when he heard Cory's words.

Malkira himself appeared on the battlefield, as huge and terrifying as before, with a gargantuan sword in his hand and so many flying daemons above him that they blocked out the sun and darkness fell over the battlefield. The Nihilites still fled, even as such support came for them, in spite of Cory leaning his head out of the carriage to shout. “Stay and fight, cowards!”

With one swing of his mighty sword, Malkira slaughtered dozens of Arxian cavaliers, and sent their bodies and parts of them sprawling all over the battlefield, painting the ground and all who could not get out of the way red. The other flying daemons attacked the pass. They descended down on the Arxian soldiers and tore them apart. Hadar was struck with a horror too terrible for words as he saw this army, one far more powerful than he feared even all of the paladins in Arx or anywhere in the world could face. Geomancers focused all of their spells on flinging their tiny diamonds at Malkira, but as much as they managed to wound him, those wounds were only like the tiniest of bug bites. No, weaker than bug bites, for even bug bites tend to leave some venom behind.

With all of the noise of the soldiers retreating from the battlefield and the horrible howls, growls, and roars of the daemonic legions the horses pulling Cory's armored carriage were understandably terrified, and began running off to the south, eager to escape the madness they'd been dragged into. Soldiers could be trained to face death without fear, horses could not. Yes, animals were too dumb for anyone to be able to convince them to die. With the sudden jolt of the horses' running away, Cory fell over backwards in the carriage and hit his head hard on its floor.

Once the carriage had ridden out of range, the daemons no longer had their doorway through the Firmament, and all of them began to disappear from the battlefield, even Malkira. Just as suddenly as they'd appeared they were gone again, and sunlight filled the site of the battle once more.

Hadar would have ordered a retreat when he first saw Malkira's unending legions if he'd remembered the words, but now that the battle was over he wanted to know what had happened and how they could stop it from happening again.

As Hadar was trying to collect his thoughts on all of the madness they'd just seen, the commander who had chased off Grigori approached him. “Sire, there was a traitor in our midst, we observed him killing one of our archers. We gave chase, but he escaped into the tunnels.”

“Really? Could you describe this traitor? Maybe he's the same archer who shot me earlier.”

“It was the inquisitor, sire. We're sorry, but it seems he was not the friend you believed he was.”

“You twits! Grigori would never betray me!”

“It seems he has.”

“No! Think about it! If he was still loyal to the Inquisition the last thing he'd want is for the Nihilites to win this war! The Inquisition hates us, to be sure, but they hate the demon-worshipers far more! The archer he killed...that was probably the traitor who shot me!”

“We can only report what we saw...”

“I'm King and I say he's innocent,” Hadar said. “Now, you had better find him, peacefully, and bring him back to Aius. I'm going to need his special...talents soon.”

“his talents, sire?”

“There's bound to be a few surviving Nihilite soldiers out there, too wounded to escape. I intend to find out exactly how it is that the Nihilites can summon so many demons at once, and I'm at the point where I don't care how badly we have to torture them to get answers.”