CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BREAKING POINT

 

 

Caelir had heard that at the moment of death, a person’s life would flash before their eyes, but as Issyk Kul’s sword swept towards him, he knew that was a lie. It was not the deeds of the life about to end that paraded through a mind, but the life unlived and the roads not taken.

He saw himself as lord of Ellyr-Charoi with Rhianna at his side, and children playing in the meadows beyond. Horses filled the stables and summer’s calm lay upon the hillsides. In the space of a single heartbeat, Caelir saw the joys, the tears and the absurdities of existence that make up the rich pageant of lives intertwined. Eldain was there too, his brother sat astride Lotharin as he rode the endless plains of Ellyrion with a song in his heart.

It was fiction, a dream of a future that never was and never could be; but it gave him a moment’s comfort in this last breath of life left to him. Caelir closed his eyes but instead of death, he heard an earthy sound like a Chracian’s axe biting fresh wood.

Standing before him was a glistening tree trunk, and embedded in the wood was Issyk Kul’s monstrous sword. Ice and water ran from its branches, and the sweet smell of new sap filled Caelir’s nostrils as it poured like amber blood from where Kul’s blade had hacked into it. The ground creaked beneath Caelir, and he saw the splintered hole in the ice where the tree had burst through the ice covering the river’s surface.

Kul wrenched his sword from the softwood, and Caelir sprang away as the ice bucked and heaved beneath him. Jagged black cracks split the ice, racing away in zigzag courses from the new roots and branches pushing their way up from below. An entire forest was rising from the depths of the river, growing with incredible ferocity.

“Life magic!” hissed Kul, as though the presence of such things were anathema to him.

Caelir was astounded, and scrambled away from this burgeoning forest as the ice heaved and split apart. This was no passive greenery, but aggressive growth like the ancient forest trees said to dwell within the forgotten heart of Athel Loren. Jagged roots speared up into the tribesmen, piercing their flesh and growing up through their bodies.

He lost sight of Issyk Kul as spreading branches ensnared terrified warriors and looped around limbs to tear them off with wrenching heaves of growth. Scores of armoured tribesmen were lifted from the ground and impaled upon sharp, new-grown wood or ripped in two by spreading branches. Within moments, a thick forest of dripping trees had arisen from the river, and hundreds of torn bodies hung from their branches like corpses in gibbets.

Nor was the threat of the forest the only danger.

As roots burst the ice, a measure of the sorcery holding the water in its frozen state was unravelled, and screaming warriors dropped through into the river. In the midst of this rampant fecundity strode a mage in emerald robes that swirled in the billowing streams of magic that spiralled around him like a caged whirlwind.

“Anurion!” cried Caelir.

The mage ignored him and strode into the howling mass of tribesmen. His arms wove complex patterns, and where he gestured new life erupted from the ground to entangle, to stab and to tear. The river became a thick forest, dense with dark trees and overhanging boughs of thorny wood. So complete was Anurion’s mastery of life-giving magic that it mattered not that thick sheet ice lay between him and the touch of earth.

Baying and blooded tribesmen who had escaped the slaughter of the rampaging forest threaded a path through the trees towards the mage. A throwing axe was turned aside by the swaying branches of a willow, and a hurled spear changed in flight to become a twisting sapling that spun harmlessly away. A raven-fletched arrow sliced into Anurion’s thigh, and blood stained his robes with vivid scarlet.

A tribesman in a wolf-faced mask hurled himself at Anurion. The mage pointed a finger at him, and the branch of a tree lashed out to take his head off with the precision of a rapier. More closed in, and the forest defended its creator, grasping roots dragging men beneath the river and long saplings slashing like razor-edged whips to open throats and remove limbs.

Yet it had cost Anurion dear to raise a forest from the depths of the river, and already its rapid growth was slowing. Caelir took up a fallen spear from the body of a slain Reaver Knight and half ran, half slipped towards Anurion.

The mage saw him and shook his head.

A wall of thorns and thick, grasping briars arose, completely blocking Caelir’s path towards Anurion.

“No!” shouted Caelir. “Anurion! Come back!”

Caelir’s voice was lost in the bellows of the mortal warriors, and tears stung his eyes at the thought of the line of Anurion the Green being ended forever. No sooner had the thought arisen, than a spectral voice sounded in his mind.

So long as one blade of grass or flower blooms in Ulthuan, I will live on.

Caelir tore at the jagged coils of briars. The thorns, recognising one of their own, turned their barbs from his skin.

“Anurion, no!” he yelled. “Please! Come back to us!”

Make them pay, Caelir. That is all I ask, make them pay…

Caelir nodded and turned from the sheets of briars, weeping and stumbling over the disintegrating ice towards the riverbank. Reaver Knights rode back to solid ground as yet more of the ice cracked and came away from the riverbank. He leapt as the ice beneath him retuned to water, breathless and grief-struck at the loss of Anurion.

He took a heaving breath and reasserted a measure of control. Anurion was gone, and that was a grievous loss, but the battle had yet to be won. Caelir turned and ran to where his Reaver Knights awaited him. Around sixty still lived, and he vaulted onto the back of a bay mare with a silver mane and midnight black tail.

“I am Caelir Éadaoin of Ellyr-Charoi, and I grieve with you for the loss of your rider,” said Caelir, “but if you will have me, I will be your brother in this fight. What say you?”

The mare tossed her mane and stamped the ground in assent, and Caelir rubbed a hand over her neck as a name appeared in his thoughts.

Liannar.

“I will be a loyal companion, Liannar,” he promised as his knights formed up around him.

The northern flank of Lord Swiftwing’s army was still holding. Remorseless spear hosts drove the bestial monsters that had first crossed the river back to the water’s edge. A combination of unending arrows dropping from above and elven stoicism had prevailed, and the beasts were being slaughtered in ever greater numbers.

The mist was clearing, and Caelir saw the summit of the rounded hill and its marble crown of waystones. As the conjured mist dissipated still further, the bolt throwers unleashed a hail of arrows into the druchii forces massing on the far bank of the river. Caelir wheeled Liannar southwards, shielding his eyes from the low sun to gauge how the rest of the army fared.

The ground to the north of Tor Elyr sloped gently down towards the bay, levelling out to a wide plain to the south, and Caelir’s jaw clenched as he saw the druchii had crossed the river south of the city. The army’s centre was bending back like a bowyer testing the strength of a bow stave, but Galadrien Stormweaver’s Silver Helms were fighting hard to give the infantry time to rally and reform the battle line.

The Reavers around him saw what he saw, and he sensed their dismay at the ring of blades closing in on Tor Elyr like a hangman’s noose. If the centre broke, then this battle was as good as over. He saw that same realisation on every face around him, and knew that the courage of his warriors hung by a thread.

Caelir rode out before the Reavers around him, and turned his horse to face them. More scattered horsemen rallied around his warriors, until hundreds were ready to listen.

“This battle is not lost,” he shouted. “The druchii have crossed the river, but the centre still holds and Stormweaver’s Silver Helms are fighting to keep it so. We hold the north, and Anurion the Green gave his life that we might continue to do so! The enemy will attempt another crossing, and it is up to us to stop them. Either we stop them or Tor Elyr is lost. We fight here, or we die elsewhere. It is that simple.”

He lifted his spear and Liannar reared up on her hind legs.

“We are Ellyrians, and this is our land!” yelled Caelir. “Are you ready to fight for it?”

Hundreds of spears stabbed the air, and a wordless Ellyrian war cry echoed across the water and corpse-thronged forest to their enemies. Caelir turned Liannar back to the riverbank as the icy mist once again crept across the water to freeze its surface.

A war horn sounded from the opposite side of the river.

Far to the north a glittering curtain of light shimmered on the horizon, and a sparkling rain fell beneath a rainbow’s arch like diamond tears.

“Isha be with us,” said Caelir.

 

Tyrion dived beneath a slashing line of iron barbs loosed from a bolt thrower situated on a craggy bluff of the black ark and rolled to his feet with Sunfang held out before him. The entire length of the Sapphire Gate was swathed in the shadow of the vast, seaborne fortress, its monstrous bulk finally wedged deep in the rocks of the straits some thirty yards from the sea portal. Heavy iron corvus ramps slammed down on the ornamented battlements, and druchii swordsmen poured from inside the hellish mountain.

Asur warriors stood frozen in death alongside him, their bodies turned to glassy ice by the bleak sorceries of the druchii magickers. One body lay shattered into crystalline fragments beneath the spiked end of a boarding ramp, like a marble statue struck by a sledgehammer. Tyrion leapt onto the iron ramp bridging the gap between the black ark and the Sapphire Gate as warriors in scaled cloaks like dragonhide charged at him with curved sabres and cutlass daggers unsheathed. Tyrion ran to meet them, his golden-bladed sword cleaving through the first three attackers in as many strokes. Crossbowmen took shots at him from rocky bluffs high above the ramp, but Tyrion was always in motion, ducking, spinning, leaping and lunging.

Many of their bolts hit their fellow druchii, sending them falling thousands of feet to the churning waters below. The ramp swayed and bounced with the weight of bodies upon it, and Tyrion used its motion to help him dodge the clumsy blows of his enemies. Yet he was only a single warrior, while the druchii were many, and time and time again, he found himself having to take a backwards step to avoid being flanked.

“Asur!” he yelled, vaulting back onto the battlements of the Sapphire Gate.

“Ho!” came the shouted reply, and a score of goose-feathered shafts sliced home into the attacking druchii. He watched as warriors were pitched from the ramp, falling like flower seeds blown from a gardener’s hand. Elven warriors took up position at the end of the ramp, hacking at the stonework with heavy hammers and axes to dislodge the penetrating spikes.

Belarien was at his side a heartbeat later, a bent bow in his hand as he pulled the string taut. He loosed and another druchii was punched from the ramp.

“Must you always run off on your own?” hissed Belarien. “It makes it much harder to keep you safe.”

Tyrion gave a wry smile. “You must be getting old, my friend. You never had any trouble keeping up with me at Finuval.”

“I was young and foolish back then,” said Belarien. “Now I am just foolish.”

“We are all foolish, else we would not be warriors, but poets and dreamers.”

“If only life gave us the chance, eh?”

“If only,” agreed Tyrion, as the ramp was broken loose from the ramparts. It dropped from the walls, but heavy chains looped around iron rings stopped it from falling too far. A grinding windlass mechanism within the ark started turning, and the ramp began to rise, ready for more druchii to pour across it in yet another attack. A dozen ramps disgorged hundreds of druchii onto the Sapphire Gate, and the fighting on its glittering structure was fierce indeed. Flights of arrows and swarms of bolts cut the air back and forth, and streams of magical fire lit up the unnatural darkness as Belannaer’s mages burned the rock of the black ark to glass.

In return, freezing winds swept the Sapphire Gate as the Witch King’s sorceries sucked the life from the elven defenders, and writhing tendrils of darkness snaked up over the walls to drag screaming warriors to their doom. The vast brazier atop the black ark bathed the battle in a hellish orange glow, and each battle was fought in its leaping shadows.

Like a single colossal siege tower, the black ark unleashed thousands of druchii onto the Sapphire Gate in an onrushing tide. Finubar’s warriors had fought off every attack thus far, but all it would take was one boarding ramp to capture its part of the ramparts for the defenders to lose control of the gate.

Tyrion scanned the fighting, looking for any weaknesses the druchii could exploit.

At the meeting point of the two halves of the sea gate, he saw Finubar’s crimson armour amid a brutal swirl of daggers, axes and barbed shields. Korhil fought beside the Phoenix King, his enormous axe cleaving druchii in two with every blow. Those he could not strike with his axe, he picked up and hurled from the battlements.

A pair of ramps hammered down on the ramparts to either side of the Phoenix King, and Tyrion immediately saw the danger.

“Belarien, with me!” he yelled and ran towards the centre.

Tyrion sprinted through the morass of struggling warriors, ignoring all but the most pressing dangers. He cut and slashed as he ran, killing the enemy even as his attention was focussed on the Phoenix King. Druchii warriors poured down these new ramps, cutting the king off from his warriors.

Tyrion felt his sword grow hot in his hands and swept it around in a wide arc, holding it two-handed and unleashing a brilliant ray of fiery sunlight from its blade. It cut through the druchii, setting light to their dragonscale cloaks and melting the flesh from their bones. Burning warriors screamed in agony and hurled themselves from the sea gate to the waters below, while others sagged on heat-softened bones to fall in pools of molten skin and liquefied organs.

The screaming was terrible, and the stench even worse, but Tyrion felt nothing for the warriors he killed. They were his enemies. They had attacked his homeland and his people, and deserved no more. Tyrion ran through the flame, and blackened lumps of crackling meat, Sunfang now cold in his grip. The heat of his sword’s fire hazed the air, and a druchii warrior appeared before him, his skin blackened and his armour fused to his skin in glossy black runnels. Tyrion took his head off without missing a step and ran to where he heard the bellows of the White Lions.

A sharp metallic flavour bit the air, and Tyrion tasted the taint of sorcery. Heat gave way to cold in an instant, and Tyrion pulled up short at the shock of it. It billowed out like debris from a falling star, and Tyrion dropped to one knee as it blew over him. Freezing fog enveloped the centre of the sea gate, and flash-formed icicles hung like ice dragon teeth from the overhanging machicolations.

The sounds of battle faded to silence, and Tyrion forced himself to run into the icy mist. The marble flagstones were slippery with ice, and as Tyrion came upon the fighting, it was akin to entering the winter gardens of Lothern at festival time. The mages of Saphery would amaze visitors to their gardens with startlingly lifelike creations fashioned from ice that could move and interact with the patrons.

Except the figures that populated the ramparts were not simple creations of water, they were living beings.

Or they had been…

The White Lions stood frozen in place, layers of frost coating their thick pelts like icing on a feast cake. Their skin was translucent and ghostly, their veins vivid red and blue against the white. Frozen arcs of crimson curved from the edges of weapons and wounds spilled blood in a frozen tableau.

In the centre of the frozen scene was Finubar, the brilliant red of the Phoenix King’s armour ice-dusted white and blue. Before the king, frozen in mid-leap, was Korhil, his powerful frame draped in icicles and crackling webs of frost like spider webs.

“Isha’s mercy!” cried Tyrion, weaving a path through the frozen figures towards the king.

Beyond the icy figures, Tyrion saw druchii hacking a path towards the king with heavy-bladed felling axes. The targets of their axes shattered and fell to the ramparts with glassy cracks, and Tyrion felt his smouldering anger turn to incandescent rage.

A druchii axeman smashed a frozen White Lion aside, but died a heartbeat later as Tyrion buried his sword in his chest. Tyrion kicked the axeman from his blade and leapt to intercept the others. He could hear shouted voices behind him, but dared not take his eyes from the druchii warriors facing him. Cold-eyed and thin-lipped, they wielded their heavy executioner’s blades as easily as a child would swing a wooden sword.

An axe swung past him, missing his ear by a hair’s breadth, and he jumped back, almost losing his footing on the ice. He turned that slip into a spin, bringing Sunfang up into his attacker’s midriff. The warrior grunted and dropped to his knees, his glistening entrails steaming in the cold air.

Arrows whickered through the frozen statues of the White Lions, carefully aimed and lethally accurate. Tyrion knew Belarien’s warriors would no sooner hit him than they would the Phoenix King, and fought the druchii as arrows passed fingerbreadths from his body.

“Come on and die!” he yelled, when the axemen hesitated.

Tyrion saw their cruel smiles and, in that moment, knew their attack had been but a diversion. He turned and ran back towards the Phoenix King in time to see a black-cloaked figure land on the ramparts with finesse that spoke of only one possible profession.

“Assassin!” yelled Tyrion.

The hooded figure drew a black dagger from an iron sheath and ran towards the Phoenix King. Arrows sliced by him as he moved like liquid; twisting, swaying and leaping over every incoming shaft. Tyrion sprinted towards the assassin, though he was too far away to save the Phoenix King. The black dagger came up and Tyrion screamed Finubar’s name.

As the weapon plunged down, another warrior leapt in front of the Phoenix King. Mail links parted before the blade, and blood squirted as it twisted in the wound. Tyrion screamed as he saw Belarien fall at the Phoenix King’s feet, his heart pierced by the assassin’s dagger. The black hood fell away from the killer’s face, a wholly unremarkable face that would pass unnoticed in a crowd and leave no impression upon anyone who saw him.

The assassin wrenched the dagger free of Belarien’s chest and turned back to the Phoenix King. Tyrion drew back his arm, ready to hurl Sunfang in a last ditch attempt to prevent the assassin from carrying out his mission.

Before he could throw, a cracking sound like a gallery of windows breaking echoed over the gate, and a mighty, frost-hardened fist swung around to slam into the assassin’s shoulder. Korhil of the White Lions shrugged off the last of the ice encasing him in an expanding mist of ice shards, his fury like that of the beast whose pelt he wore upon his shoulders. The black-cloaked killer twisted at the last moment to rob the blow of its power, and spun around Korhil. The black dagger stabbed out again, and Korhil grunted as it was withdrawn bloody.

The White Lion staggered against the parapet as the assassin moved in to finish him. Before the dagger could stab home again, Korhil surged forward and wrapped his arms around the assassin, dragging him into a crushing bear hug. The killer fought to free his arms, but the champion of the White Lions kept them pinned at his sides and exerted every ounce of his legendary strength.

Tyrion heard something give way with a sickening crack, and the assassin went limp in Korhil’s arms. The White Lion released the assassin, who fell to the ground like a limp marionette. Korhil picked him up by the scruff of the neck and swung the corpse around to dangle it over the edge of the sea gate.

“You nearly made me fail,” he growled. “And I never fail.”

With those words, Korhil hurled the assassin out to sea, watching as the body bounced and flopped down the craggy sides of the black ark to the hungry waters below.

Tyrion ran past Korhil, and skidded to a halt beside Belarien’s limp form.

His friend was dead, of that there could be no doubt. Whatever venom had coated the assassin’s blade had been deadly enough to slay him a dozen times over. Belarien’s face was slack, his limbs already cold, and Tyrion felt a lifetime’s rage coalesce in his heart.

A crushing hand gripped his shoulder and pulled Tyrion to his feet.

He lashed out, but a wide palm caught his fist.

“Grieve later, young prince,” said Korhil, releasing Tyrion’s hand and shaking the last of the icy sorcery from his limbs. “We have greater enemies to face now.”

Tyrion looked at the White Lion through a mask of tears. Korhil’s face was ashen from the after-effects of sorcery and the assassin’s venom, and how he had not succumbed to their effects was beyond Tyrion’s ability to understand.

“He saved Finubar’s life,” said Tyrion.

“Aye, that he did,” agreed Korhil. “And he will be remembered for his sacrifice. But this fight isn’t over yet, not by a long way. Look!”

Tyrion followed Korhil’s outstretched axe, and saw the midnight black form of a mighty dragon swooping overhead. Its scaled body glistened like obsidian, and the warrior astride its neck was encased in armour of curved black plates, spines and barbed horns. Flares of dark magic slicked the air around the Witch King, and he threw searing purple lighting from his hands as he flew over the sea gate. Explosions of actinic light swept the sea gate, and elven warriors were hurled to their deaths or burned to cinders where they stood.

“Malekith,” hissed Tyrion, but Korhil gripped his arm before he could charge off to face the Witch King.

“Unhand me, Korhil,” demanded Tyrion.

“We’ll get to the traitor king in good time, young prince,” said Korhil, turning him around as an adult might turn a child. “We have other druchii to gut first.”

The druchii axemen were surging forward in the wake of the assassin’s failure, hacking a path through the frozen figures of Korhil’s White Lions. The sorcery that had frozen them in place was wearing off, and these warriors screamed as the axe blades cleaved them. Tyrion forced his grief at Belarien’s passing aside, and distilled the fury raging within him down to a diamond hard core of utter clarity of purpose.

He swept Sunfang up to his shoulder, and nodded to Korhil.

Before they could charge to meet the axemen, a flurry of arrows arced down from the rocks on the eastern side of the gate. Each one found its mark with uncanny accuracy, dropping an axeman with a single arrow to the throat. A single volley of arrows had felled two score armoured warriors.

“Blood of Aenarion!” swore Korhil. “Where did those arrows come from?”

Tyrion squinted through the gloom to see who had loosed these incredible arrows, but could see nothing. It was as though the cliff itself had let fly.

Then he glimpsed movement, but it was movement he saw only because the warrior making it wanted him to see it. Almost invisible against the rocks of the straits, Tyrion saw an archer clad in slate grey and gorse green, with a dun cloak pulled tightly around his body. He wore a conical, face-concealing helm of burnished bronze and silver, and Tyrion knew of only one group of warriors who went to war so attired.

“The rangers of Tor Yvresse!”

“But how can they be here?” said Korhil. “Unless…”

From the darkened sky came a screeching roar, and a powerful beast with the hindquarters of a jungle cat and the upper body of a ferocious beast of prey stooped from the storm clouds wreathing the upper reaches of the black ark. Its wide wings were feathered gold and brown, and its powerful beak was the colour of ebony and mahogany. Sat in a heavy leather saddle on the griffon’s back was an elven warrior clad in golden, gem-encrusted armour and a winged helm of white and blue feathers. He unsheathed a rune-encrusted longsword that broke the darkness like a fang of silver light, and even over so great a distance Tyrion could see the grim set to the warrior’s features.

“Eltharion has come!” shouted Tyrion.

 

Korhandir’s leap was slick with blood. Druchii spearmen shouted with every thrust of their spears, pushing the bridge’s defenders back with every step. Barbed spears bit flesh and tore armour, and even a touch of their blades was agony, for they snagged skin and ripped wounds wider.

A thin line of elven warriors was all that stood before the druchii, and Eldain could sense their despair as they took yet another step backwards. The rippling blood banner writhed upon its cross pole, as though feeding on the carnage being wrought in its shadow. Ghostly laughter drifted at the edge of hearing, and Eldain tasted bile in the back of his throat as he rode through the terrible sprawl of ruptured bodies.

The bodies of slain elves lay together in death; but for their armour it would have been impossible to tell asur from druchii. That thought alone made Eldain want to weep, for what had divided them all those thousands of years ago but one individual’s arrogance and lust for power? Could such a sin be worth thousands of years of war and death? That his race, so proud and aloof and superior had allowed themselves to be caught up in such a terrible cycle of hatred astounded Eldain.

We make lofty claims to be an elder race, greater than any other, yet we hold to ancient wrongs like spoiled children…

Ahead, Mitherion Silverfawn strode to the centre of the bridge, streamers of raw magic feathering the air with translucent fire. The mage walked with purposeful steps, and the cloaks of the dead flapped and billowed in his wake. Eldain felt the build up of powerful magic, and urged Lotharin to greater speed.

The line of elven spearmen finally broke, and they turned to flee before the triumphant druchii. The hideous banner cackled gleefully as black-bladed spears stabbed and spilled yet more blood. A host of druchii warriors broke from the ranks and ran towards Mitherion Silverfawn, eager to claim so valuable a trophy. Yvraine’s four Sword Masters stepped to meet them with their great, silver blades looping around them in shimmering arcs. Trained and schooled by the Loremasters of the White Tower, the Sword Masters fought with a grace and precision the likes of which even legendary heroes like Laerial Sureblade or Nagan of Chrace would have struggled to match.

Yvraine and her fellow warriors wove a silver path of destruction through the druchii, slaying any who came near Mitherion Silverfawn with graceful strokes of their blades. They wielded their mighty swords with an ease that only decades of training could provide, ducking, swaying and leaping over the weapons of their enemies like acrobats. In less than a minute two score druchii lay dead, cut to pieces with contemptuous ease.

Seeing that the Sword Masters would not be taken by such futile heroics, the druchii line advanced en masse with their barbed spears lowered. But the Sword Masters had no intention of fighting an entire battle line of spears. Without any command being spoken, Yvraine moved her warriors behind Mitherion Silverfawn as he unleashed the full power of his magic.

A coruscating stream of blue fire poured from his outstretched hands to engulf the druchii. Iron weapons melted, flesh boiled from bones and the screams of the enemy warriors were mercifully brief. Shrieking bodies tumbled from the bridge, blazing fireballs that not even the waters of the river could extinguish. The banner of writhing blood went up like an oil-soaked rag, an incandescent plume of fire that screamed like a child as it died.

The druchii line collapsed as the dozens of warriors disintegrated like ashen statues, and the cries of terror that came from those who saw their comrades immolated was music to Eldain’s ears. The druchii reeled as the cackling blue flames danced over the crystalline structure of the bridge, and Eldain spun his spear up to point at the druchii.

“Now, Starchaser!” he yelled. “With me! For Ulthuan and the Everqueen!”

Lotharin leapt forwards, and Eldain clung tight to the reins as his faithful mount carried him over the smouldering, blackened ruin of the druchii. Starchaser’s Reavers followed him, a thundering wedge of vengeful horsemen with lowered spears. The druchii saw them coming, but their line was scattered and broken, easy meat for cavalry.

The Reavers punched into the reeling druchii, spears thrusting and swords slashing. Eldain stabbed his spear through the neck of a warrior whose armour and cloak smouldered with blue flame. Even before the druchii fell, Eldain was moving on, plunging the leaf-shaped blade into the panicked mass of enemy warriors. A sword sliced up at him, but Lotharin sidestepped and lashed out with his hooves, hurling the druchii champion from the bridge.

The druchii fled from the blades of the Reavers, but there was no mercy to be had, and no way to escape the speed of an Ellyrian steed. None survived to reach the end of the bridge. Eldain circled his horse as Mitherion Silverfawn waved to him. The mage’s skin was pallid and his features drawn by the expenditure of such powerful magic. Unleashing the fiery conflagration had cost him dear.

“Eldain, you should not be here!” said Mitherion.

“And yet I am,” countered Eldain. “You still think the bridge will fall?”

“I know it will,” said Mitherion in exasperation. “Do you think something as obvious as a charge of the Reaver Knights would prevent it? Look, the druchii are already gathering crossbows and swordsmen.”

Eldain swore as he saw the truth of Mitherion’s words. Hundreds of druchii were moving towards Korhandir’s Leap, bearing spears, crossbows, and swords. Too many for their small Reaver band to fight.

“Our charge was glorious,” said Laurena Starchaser, riding alongside and voicing Eldain’s fear, “but we will not hold against so many without more warriors.”

Eldain turned to Mitherion Silverfawn. “Is your magic spent?”

“Not yet, but what power I have left will not keep the druchii from crossing.”

“More warriors will come,” said Eldain. “We will hold the druchii here until they do.”

Mitherion shook his head. “If you stay on this bridge you will die. You must ride!”

“Retreat?” said Eldain. “After we fought to drive the druchii away?”

“I did not say retreat,” said Mitherion. “I said ride. Ride on, Eldain, it is the only way!”

“Ride on? Into the druchii army? Have you lost your mind?”

Mitherion gripped Eldain’s hand, and he felt the coruscating heat of the magic fire within the mage. Eldain saw the desperation in Mitherion’s eyes, the aching need to be believed.

“Trust me, Eldain, you must cross the river and destroy the red giant,” said Mitherion. “It is the only way you live.”

“Red giant? What are you talking about?” said Eldain, snatching his hand back and turning Lotharin towards the druchii. At least five hundred warriors were marching towards the bridge, a force many times beyond what he would ever think of riding straight towards. He saw no red giant among them, and wondered what foolishness had taken hold of the mage.

He caught Starchaser’s eye, and she gave an almost imperceptible nod of acceptance. Whatever he ordered, she and her riders would obey.

“Death surrounds us,” she said. “One way to face it is as good as another.”

“Better to face it head on then,” said Eldain.

 

Ithilmar-tipped lances split the Executioners apart. Caparisoned in blue and white and gold, the Silver Helms of Galadrien Stormweaver smashed through the close packed ranks of the heavily-armoured druchii. Bravest of all the riders in Ulthuan, the Silver Helms were called headstrong by some, reckless by others, but all agreed that they were the most magnificent warriors of the land. Only the Dragon Princes of Caledor could lay claim to superiority, but such was the arrogance of those riders that their boast was largely discounted, save by those who had seen them in battle.

Stormweaver leaned hard into the stirrups and drove his lance through the breastplate of a druchii warrior. The blade tore free of his victim and he lined up another target. The druchii swept his unwieldy sword around in an effort to smash the head from Stormweaver’s lance, but it was a move of desperation. He looped the lance tip around the draich and its tip plunged into the warrior’s belly. Stormweaver lifted the screaming warrior off the ground, letting his own weight tear him from the blade, and enjoying the sound of his scream.

The Silver Helms bludgeoned their way through rank after rank of druchii, and Stormweaver saw a banner go down, trampled into the mud beneath his clarion’s horse. The white mounts of the Silver Helms were bred to be stronger than almost any other horse in Ulthuan, and fought with as much pride and power as their riders.

The Executioners fought back, and Stormweaver had to grudgingly admit that they were not without skill. He saw Irindia plucked from his horse by a well-aimed strike to the belly, and Yeledra thrown to the ground as her horse was beheaded in a single stroke. These were just the last gasps of hate, not real courage, and they were far too late to alter the outcome of this charge. Scores of druchii were ground to smashed bone and ground meat beneath the hooves of the Silver Helms’ mounts, and those few that remained were aghast at such swift slaughter.

Onwards the Silver Helms plunged into the druchii, killing with every yard gained from the lofty heights of their saddles. Gods of the battlefield, the Silver Helms slew and crushed all before them, revelling in their preeminent power and skill. The noise was incredible, like a drunken mortal hammering every plate of metal in a smith’s forge with clumsy missteps.

An Executioner leapt to meet him, sword swinging low for his horse’s legs. His steed leapt over the blow, lashing out with its hind legs to shatter the druchii’s skull with a sharp blow from its hooves. Another cloaked druchii stabbed his murderous blade towards Stormweaver’s chest, but a jink of the reins stepped him away from the blow. Too close for a lance strike, Stormweaver released the reins and drew his sword in one, fluid motion. Stormweaver wheeled his horse in around the Executioner and slashed his blade down onto his neck, hacking down past the druchii’s collarbone and into his lungs.

The Executioners could take no more and turned to flee from the silver horsemen in their midst. Some threw down their weapons to aid their escape; others clung to them in the mistaken belief that they would live to fight with them again.

What had, moments before, been a desperate struggle of blades now became a slaughter as the Executioners fled from the storm of blades and lances. But their flight only brought more doom down upon their heads. Dozens were hacked down in the first moments of their panic, others run down beneath the heavy horses of the Silver Helms, yet more skewered on the tips of still-sharp lances.

As much as he loved the moment of the charge, this was the moment Stormweaver relished the most; riding down a defeated foe. Every horseman dreamed of the enemy broken and fleeing before him, easy prey to the glorious rider with fire in his heart. The Silver Helms ran amok, slaying and laughing and singing as they unleashed furious wrath upon their dark kin.

Stormweaver pictured his warriors pursuing the druchii all the way back to Eagle Gate and beyond. Riding over them until only a handful remained alive to reach their black ships on the coast.

“No mercy!” shouted Stormweaver. “Drive them into the river!”

The Silver Helms followed his lead and broke apart into hunting groups as they slew the druchii with wild abandon. Stormweaver led the massacre, riding for the river and plunging his lance into unprotected backs. This was joy! This was vengeance!

He heard heavy cracks of splintering ice and splashes from up ahead, and imagined the Executioners’ desperate struggles as the weight of their armour dragged them under the water. As his lance sliced clear of another dead druchii, he looked up to see how few remained.

His elation turned to horror as he saw the titanic scaled beasts climbing from the river.

“Hydra,” he said, as the nearest monster spread wide its jaws and unleashed a burning stream of volcanic ichor.

It was the last thing he ever said.