“Hold the line!” Viktor bellowed above the rising drums. Veterans of Zanya echoed his words. Timber and metal rattled as the line closed up. “If the shields hold, we live!”

He thrust the point of his claymore into the ground and glanced along the line of trampled wheat. There’d been a simple truth to his words. With the line anchored north and south by the redoubts – and further reinforced by kraikons, no less – it could not be outflanked, only breached.

And it would be. There were too many whispered prayers and furtive eyes among the militia. Viktor had seen that same doubt countless times on the border. Recruits saw only the gilded glory of the Hadari armour. Never the vulnerable flesh beneath.

“My lord . . . You need a shield. Begging your pardon, but the buggers’ll ride you down.”

Calmly, deliberately, Viktor set his back to the onrushing Hadari. The speaker was a weather-beaten man in a sea-grey tabard not seen in the Southshires for fifteen years.

“What’s your name?”

Eyes narrowed beneath salt-and-pepper brows. “Zhastov. Corporal Zhastov, used to be.”

The hoof-beats quickened in tempo and volume. Viktor ignored them. “Were you at Zanya?”

“I was.”

“You see me use a shield there?”

“. . . no, my lord.”

“Who won that battle?”

Zhastov’s lip curled in the echo of a snarl. “You did, my lord.”

Viktor nodded. He blotted out the sound of the approaching cataphracts. Instead, he gauged their closeness by the horrified expressions of the southwealder militia. Behind, he glimpsed Calenne beneath the twin banners. Their eyes met. Hers tightened in concern.

Time for a little bombast.

“And do you know why?” He roared, addressing every man and woman within earshot. “Because I am Lord Viktor Akadra! While the Republic stands, so do I! And so do you! You hold this line, and we’ll claim victory together! Now give me a damn cheer! Let the shadowthorns know they’re riding to their deaths!”

They gave him a damn cheer.

It echoed across the plain, vying for dominion with the thunder of the charge. The fire of defiance caught and blood roused to the boil.

“But you’re right, corporal.” Viktor laid a hand on his claymore’s pommel and toyed with the trailing end of Calenne’s ribbon. She’d never forgive him for this. “I’ve no place on the line without a shield. So close up.”

A frown. “Beg pardon, my lord?”

“Close up!” snapped Viktor. “Must I repeat myself?”

A woman in the second rank shuffled forward. Her shield thudded into place alongside Zhastov’s. The rippling, churning rumble of hooves reached a crescendo. The shadow seethed within Viktor’s soul, sensing it would soon be loosed.

He counted to three. And then to another three, until the clamour of hooves drowned out all else save his thoughts. Then, with a cheer of his own, he wrenched the claymore from the ground and faced the golden thunderbolt.