His free hand closed around the grips of Drannic’s unbroken blade. Rising, he held it aloft as a trophy. Immediately – impossibly – the Tressian cheer redoubled.

Viktor shook his head in wonder and cast the purloined sword aside. With one last glance at the impassive line of Immortals, he set Drannic’s horse to flight with a slap to its haunch.

He didn’t run. Didn’t look back. With every step, he challenged Kai Saran to break convention by loosing his cavalry to vengeance.

But the crown prince had no stomach for treachery that day. King’s blue shields parted. Viktor rejoined the exultant company of men and women who a week before would have cheered his death.

Calenne alone offered no word of congratulation. She merely slid from her saddle and held him tight with a strength Viktor had not known she possessed.

Across the trampled field, the drums sounded.

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Eight

Caparisoned hide bristling with spent quarrels, the grunda struck the shield wall a dozen paces to Viktor’s north. Shields shattered. Bodies cartwheeled away. Screams rent the air. Then the next wave of the lopsided charge slammed home, and Viktor had eyes only for the battle to his front.

Driven by the clamour of drums, the Hadari shield wall came on without hesitation. Willow-bound shields crashed home. Beast-icons daubed on taut leather fields seemed almost to leap forth alongside spear, sword and axe.

Viktor fought from the second rank, his overhand stance bolstered by his left hand tight around the claymore’s foregrip. He stabbed the blade low over the Hadari shield-rims. Hard, heavy work.

Halberds angled to catch a shield’s rim and drag it low enough to expose the warrior behind. Others stabbed through the gaps with the wicked point at the tip, rather than the heavy blade.

A Hadari screamed and slumped against the line of king’s blue. Then he was gone, replaced by another. Viktor’s blade took his throat.

Viktor didn’t cheer the death. Eyes stinging with sweat, he saved every breath for the strength it lent weary arms and a flagging heart. There was only the press of bodies. The dead and the dying trampled underfoot. And the determination to outlast the foe.

The woman to Viktor’s front fell, her head hacked half away. Viktor set his shoulder to the dead woman’s shield and grabbed the loops – her place in the line was now his.

Each impact on the shield set dark fire coursing along his wounded arm. His shadow clawed at the cage he’d made for it, seeking escape – seeking licence. Viktor kept a tight grip on both and lost himself in the wordless fury of desperate warriors.

The Hadari convulsed. The pressure on Viktor’s shield lessened. A primal bellow from the Hadari lines grew in pitch as alarm set in.