You want to break through the middle. Rust’s voice was like a growl in his head.

“Yes. Kill that marshall.”

That’s mad, Ragna commented. Not that she sounded like that was a bad thing. Rust was looking over his shoulder, towards where the main forces of the Valoise were gathered thoughtfully.

“Lea smuggles out Rust and Fox. They do their magic thing, we attack with the main force at the same time,” David said.

Ragna bared all her teeth at him. I like it.

Rust nodded slowly. Let’s find Lea, he said. Before more of them arrive.

Ragna took the lead, trotting off towards where Fox and Lea were accepting food from two human girls. Lea and Fox were less enthusiastic, but accepted David’s orders.

It all happened very quickly then. The convicts who had run formed the first line—for deserting the rest of them, they would fight first, this time. Behind them came the veterans and the rest of the convicts, and the tested elders. And finally, forming the final rank, the ones the Red had brought.

Not a single one of them was younger than five years old.

You know we’re not going to run on you, right?, Ennis said. He was one of the triplets, as David thought of them—three hunters bitten on the same night, by the same wolf, twenty-five years ago. Brandon and Lucian were the other two.

David tried to smile back reassuringly. He did trust them to fight. At the very least, he trusted them to run with the rest of the army, and once they got close enough, would it even matter if they ran?

What he didn’t really know was what powers they might be hiding. Morgulon was the best example that just because he had asked them nicely didn’t mean they had told him exactly what they were capable of. If they saw their fellow werewolves fighting for their lives, maybe some of the elders would be more willing to use the full extent of their powers?

He wasn’t eager to explain any of that, though, and there was no time anyway: Ragna was signalling him that Fox and Rust were in position.

So he took his own place in the first rank. Breathing hard before the fight had even started. No longer wondering if the werewolves would do as he said. That made it so much worse.

He glanced at Ragna, wondering if he would see her again, once the dust settled. Nodded towards her. Her eyes glowed blue, and he could only pray that the magic would be enough. Enough to keep her alive. Her and the rest of them.

But if he thought about how many of them he would never see again after today, he would never give the order. So he pushed it all away. The fear. The friendship. The guilt.

Not people. Soldiers. Werewolves.

“Get ready!” he yelled. The Valoise certainly were, up on their hills. There had been no way to hide the wolves gathering at the village edge, so they were lined up, just like the werewolves. Ready to come at them, with the advantage of the high-ground.

David wondered if he should say something. Make a speech, or at least give them some kind of encouragement. But then he just yelled the order:

“Charge!”

He urged his own horse forwards, into a trot first, then a canter. The werewolves moved with him, overtaking him quickly.

Maybe Ragna feared for him, too.

On the other side, three thousand horses came down the slope in three big waves, ready to meet teeth with steel. David spotted the marshall in the second rank, right behind the regimental flag, no doubt yelling at his soldiers, urging them forwards. Three thousand riders against less than three hundred werewolves.

They had to feel extremely confident.

The pisscoats moved at a trot first, like the wolves, then at a canter, then a gallop—rolling down the hill, while David’s own gelding was already panting hard moving up. And then, at the last moment, right before riders and wolves met, when David could see the smiles on their faces, their bared teeth—Rust howled his magic howl.

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Sending the horses into a blind panic. Some threw their riders, some reared, others broke away from the giant wolves coming for them, crashing into each other. Forcing their riders to focus on their mounts, just as the wolves closed the distance.

Teeth met flesh, not steel. Except in David’s case, who swung his sabre with all the force he could muster. The first pisscoat he killed must have dropped his own weapon when his horse baulked. David ran him through with the point of the sabre. He killed another man, then the trumpet called the Valoise to disengage.

As soon as they did, Fox howled, interrupting their formation for a second time.

“Go, go,” David yelled. “Push!”

Not that the werewolves needed his order. They kept up with the fleeing horses, pulling the men out of the saddles, ripping them apart with cursed teeth.

Then the wolves reached the high ground. One sharp bark and they slowed, halted, gathering around those who needed time to heal. Along the slope, too, naked men and women rose, shook themselves and became wolves again, catching up with the main body of the army.

But not all the wounds healed. The pisscoats had silver, alchemy and magic to spare. A dozen or so wolves didn’t rise at all—their hearts pierced, their skulls shattered by ironshod hooves—possibly just unconscious. There was no way to tell from the distance.

Injured pisscoats slowly rose, too. One of them reached for his sabre and started hacking at the wolf’s body next to him. For a moment, the man’s screams and the blood rushing in his ears were all David could hear.

Hacking the dead wolf apart wouldn’t save that soldier from turning into a werewolf himself with the next full moon. David wondered if the injured soldiers walking towards their own army had realised that yet. That they would all be killed by their own people once this battle was over.

If they survived that long. The marshall was gathering his troops for the next round on the closest of the rolling hills.

For one second, David hesitated. They had a clear way to flee now. An open line of escape towards the river.

Far, far in the distance waved the banners of the Valoisian reinforcement. If he let them join up, who knew when they would get another chance at killing the marshall?

“Get ready,” David called out.

Ragna took position to his right. Boris took his left. It felt wrong, but Rust was still somewhere out there, hidden by Lea’s magic. Same as Fox. Hopefully ready to use his magic again.

But the Valoise were more careful now. Instead of a full charge, they only moved at a trot, parting into two wings, trying to take the werewolves in a pincer. Maybe hoping to avoid at least part of the magic effect. Or to make it easier to stay in the saddle if the horses didn’t bolt in a full gallop. Or maybe they just wanted to spare their horses, given that the werewolves hadn’t moved, forcing them to go down into the swale and then up the other side.

David waited until they were fully committed to going up again before he gave the signal to charge.

He had expected Rust to use his magic again, but it never came. Instead, a hidden force attacked the riders from the side, just before the two main armies met. Lea only managed to keep the twenty or so werewolves invisible for all of three seconds of mad fighting. But for three seconds they raged amongst the enemy unseen.

The stragglers, who hadn’t made it into the village, David guessed. They were cut down viciously by Valoisian sabres, but they drove a wedge into their formation that David followed. He wanted that marshall. Even the Empire didn’t have that many of them. He had to be hard to replace, right?

David swung his sabre furiously, parried a thrust on the blade, ran the soldier through. There was no time to breathe—the next one already came at him. Boris stuck with him, guarding his other side, but the Valoise were just as intent on slowing him down as he was on getting the bastard with the fancy hat.

He had to hand it to them, though—they didn’t run. They held even under the onslaught of the werewolves, even knowing that they’d have to kill every single one of their survivors. Spurred on by their marshall, they held, waiting for their reinforcements.

Something brushed right past David, through the narrow gap between him and Boris. Someone unseen.

There was no gap in the line of Valoise shielding the marshall, though. Lea tried. David could guess where she was, where the horses shied and men fell, screaming, from the saddle. And the pisscoats didn’t need to see her, either.

One of them whipped out a pistol and shot her. David didn’t need to see the bullet to know it was silver. Lea reappeared, her whole body convulsing—but not transforming—and she threw her head back to howl in agony.

For a moment, the battlefield seemed to pause. Then the other werewolves picked up the cry of pain. All of them howling together, like a monstrous choir.

Magic surged, a fire springing from wolf to wolf. Fox’s whole coat of fur burned blue as he stepped over Lea’s crumpled form, Rust and Ragna likewise were bright like torches. And so did even the youngest of the werewolves. Even Alvin’s ghost seemed more solid suddenly.

Burning up, like Lenny in his last moments.

David didn’t think it was deliberate. It absolutely couldn’t be sustainable. It didn’t matter: for the moment, swords bounced off the werewolves like from armour. Even silver failed.

He swung his sabre and killed a stunned enemy soldier. Boris tore down another two. The cavalry horses which so bravely had faced the giant wolves trembled and shied away from the magic flames. All except for the silver armoured destrier of the marshall.

David had to hand it to the man, he didn’t freeze or run even as the formation around him crumbled. He parried David’s first thrust, then pointed with his marshall’s staff. A jet of red hot fire sprung at David. The silver sheath George Louis had given him screamed, grounding the spell. David never stopped his blade. It cut the marshall between the ribs first, then the neck. Then the marshall toppled out of the saddle. David followed him, hacking at the neck again, until the head rolled away.