The enemy shield wall disintegrated. Harried by sporadic fire from the flanking redoubts, the survivors fled. Tireless simarka pounced in pursuit. Viktor felt no guilt for the slaughter, only relief that the line had held. Guilt would come tomorrow, if he survived to see it.

“You, lad. Take my place.”

Viktor unslung his borrowed shield and thrust it into the young man’s hands. Drawing back from the line, he stared to the north. There, the line was badly bowed from the grunda’s impact. The creature’s corpse lay where it had fallen, a hill of steaming flesh among the shields. Sergeants’ voices rang out. The line flowed forward, past the leathery corpse to reform on the far side.

Viktor glanced away behind the lines, searching fruitlessly for Calenne. He noted the twin banners flying proud above the thin brotherhood of knights of Captain Lavirn’s reserve.

Horns rang out anew. To the east, golden scale gleamed.

The Immortals were coming again.

The bearded Hadari bellowed his last and toppled backwards off the low wall. Kurkas braced a weary shoulder against stone. Arrows whistled overhead. They clattered off stone or thunked into shields. Whimpers and screams marked where they found flesh.

“Seek cover!” bellowed Kurkas.

All along the wall, soldiers hastened to obey. Some sharpened blades blunted in the fight. Others drank from water skins or canteens and wolfed down scraps of food. The wounded hobbled to the comparative safety of the barn.

Kurkas laid his sword aside and popped a metal flask free of its belt-cradle. He closed his eyes in silent rapture. When he opened them, Major Keldrov stood a pace back from the wall. She stared out across the field, the left side of her uniform drenched in a Hadari axeman’s blood. He’d seen the strike – as precise a blow as any tutor could have taught.

“When I said, ‘take cover’,” he said, “that meant you too, major.”

A low chuckle rumbled up and down the wall. Keldrov flinched as if waking from a dream and dropped to her haunches.

“Yes. Sorry.”

“First time on the field?”

“Used to run the stores at Northgard. Posted here three weeks ago.”

A scream sounded away towards the courtyard gate. Someone hadn’t found cover quickly enough. Kurkas proffered his flask.

Keldrov took a sip and grimaced. “That’s not water.”

He snatched the flask back. “Of course not. Who wants water at a time like this? It’s Selanni brandy. The good stuff.”

“The good stuff? Reckon it’d strip the rust off a sword.”

Another ripple of laughter. This time directed more at Kurkas than her. He gave a half-shouldered shrug. “So it’s versatile. Nothing wrong with that.”

She bobbed up and down, restless.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She scowled. “Don’t like being penned in. I feel trapped.”

He nodded. Too much of soldiering was spent in dull anticipation of bloody excitement. “You want some advice, Keldrov?”

“Do I get a choice?”