Brandishing the great sword, Phoria wheeled her horse and gave the signal. The battle trumpets blared out on both sides of the field and the armies began the dance of battle.

The two forces clashed like surf against the rocks. As the morning wore on, lines broke and pockets of little battles formed across the field. Outnumbered as they were, the Plenimarans fought with the fury and zeal of defenders. It went on through the morning and into the afternoon. Beka and Nyal stayed at Klia’s side, with Myrhini and most of Beka’s troop. So Beka was close enough to hear when Klia let out a ragged cry of dismay.

“The queen’s horse is down! To the queen!”

Just ahead of them, the queen’s standard, close by Danos’s pennant, wavered over a seething sea of battle for a moment, then went down. There was no sign of Phoria or her horse. Getting to the queen was nearly impossible but somehow they hacked their way through.

As they neared where they’d last seen her standard, Beka realized that Nyal was no longer beside her. In the crush of battle there was only an instant to look around, but there was no sign of him. Heart warring with duty, she had no choice but to press forward with Klia, who was still shouting, “To the queen!”

Suddenly the press gave way. Before them, Phoria lay over her dying stallion’s heaving withers with half a dozen dead or dying riders around her. Her horse’s hindquarters were badly hacked and its throat was slashed, Beka noted in an instant, but what filled her heart with ice was the sight of the queen’s headless body, and the laughing Plenimaran marine standing over her, holding her head by her pale hair in one hand and the bloody Sword of Gherilain in the other.

As voices in two languages shouted the news Klia let out a scream of pure rage and leapt over the horse. With a single swing she sliced the marine’s head from his shoulders, then caught her sister’s before it could strike the ground. She placed it reverently beside the body, then took up the queen’s sword and held it high, yelling “For the queen! Avenge Queen Phoria!”

The cry spread and the battle went on, the Skalans driven now by vengeance. The army loved her, the queen who led from the front, and the warriors fought beyond the edge of exhaustion, slaying every Plenimaran they came against or dying in the effort.

The lowering sun was painting the clouds a bloodstained red when word spread that the Overlord was wounded and suing for peace. Still at Klia’s side, Beka and her troop had to wade through the dead and dying to reach the place of parlay near the shore.