Thunder jostled my sight, and I lost track of him. The current of battle swept me south. Camjiata had deployed his artillery parallel to the road. It pounded into the Roman columns caught marching at double time, trying to reach their Coalition allies. Every time the Romans tried to break out they were met with a fierce attack from the general’s Iberian Lion Guard or his Amazon Corps. The Kena’ani skirmishers with their white sashes had moved miles down the column to hit the hapless rear guard, which was cut off from the front by the lumbering baggage train.

So small rats were, seen from the height. Their lives of no moment, not truly. So much death churns through the world that we look the other way lest we be overwhelmed by its weight. But I was my sire’s daughter. I had no heart whose conscience burdened my wings.

Separated from its Coalition allies by the tide of the battle, the Invictus Legion retreated step-by-bloody-step south, hoping to meet and join up with its brother legions. However much I had disliked the legate, he held the ranks together under merciless fire. The remnant hunkered down at last within the walls of a lord’s estate.

Farther south an eagle standard went down amid screams of angry victory shouted by jubilant Iberians. Pressed by an unrelenting stream of cannonade, the Romans broke and ran, all but the Ironclad Legion. Under the command of an unflappable young tribune, it worked its way along the river and, in a meeting of grim embraces, joined up with the Invictus.

Twilight reached its fingers out of the east as a front of cold air. The current of the past hauled me into the tower room where I had stalked hours ago.

The first two men have no warning. I am no cold mage, to kill with merely a cut, so I slice their throats open to bleed them out. Cold steel has a sharpness that tastes like finest wine. The others realize they are trapped in the room with a monster. They try to fight, even the old mansa of Two Gourds House tries to draw cold magic to stop me, so I incapacitate him next. The officer puts up the worst struggle, for he is a canny and experienced man who does not want to die. The pulse of his ebbing heart’s blood booms in my ears.

“Cat! Wake up!” Rory was shaking me. Everything was all blurred and smeary. He embraced me so tightly I couldn’t move. “Cat, you were having a nightmare.”

Thunder shuddered through the earth. Drops of icy rain spattered onto my forehead. Instead of blood-soaked clothing, I wore an Amazon’s uniform. Who was I? What had I become?

Rory pulled me to my feet. “We’re moving out. Look at those clouds! No one wants to be up on this hill in a storm.”