“Savim?” Aedrun halted and stared up at her with obvious concern. His helmet was gone, his brow swollen and bloody above his right eye, but he stood tall. “What troubles you? The Tressians are desperate. Your father’s guard will make swift work of them.”

“But the shadow! Do you not see it? There – at the head of their advance.”

Aedrun frowned. “I see a man, Ashanal. A brave man who’ll earn a good death.”

Now Melanna looked – really looked – she made out a man’s form. But the shadow remained. Alive. Thrashing like strands of hungry mist. How could Aedrun not see it?

“He is a scion of the Dark.”

Melanna jumped at the suddenness of the words. So Sera saw it too?

“Like the Sceadotha?” Aedrun cast his eyes skyward in horror and traced the arc of the crescent moon across his chest.

The name sent ice rushing through Melanna’s veins. The Sceadotha. Malatriant. The Tyrant Queen.

The blood-spattered folds of Sera’s robes shifted as she nodded. Her chandirin stood motionless as a statue. “An echo only. But an echo is enough.”

A pair of kraikons broke free of the Tressian lines. Massive feet pounding the well-trampled soil, they lumbered headlong into the wall of golden shields. Fleet-legged lions loped in their wake. The line crumbled. Pennants dipped as bodies flew wide. Golden light crackled, bright against the shadow that came behind.

“This is your moment, Ashanal,” said Sera. “You bear the goddess’s flame. Drive back the shadow before it claims your father. The goddess is with you. We are with you.”

But the goddess had rejected her. The Huntsman had granted her the power she wielded. What if his favour alone wasn’t enough?

She swallowed. She’d thought her fear of battle conquered. But that was of ephemeral foes. If the teachings of her youth were anything to go by, the man-of-shadow was far different. But a leader had to lead, did she not? And was it not the duty of an empress to perceive threats others missed? To perceive them, and to bring about their obliteration?

Below, the Tressian line quickened pace.

“Warleader Aedrun . . .” Melanna heard the tremble in her voice. She gripped the moon-banner’s pole tight. “The heights are yours. I have business on the field below.”

He bowed. “As you command, Ashanal. Goddess ride with you.”

As Viktor had gambled, the kraikon charge succeeded where the Immortals had failed: it broke a line of shields. The Immortals responded with stoic precision. Golden shields crashed together, trapping the bronze giants within the formation and their flesh-and-blood masters without. War hammers crashed. Heavy spikes prised apart armoured plates to dissipate the magic within.

Viktor’s lowered shoulder struck the closing join between two shields. The impact jarred every bone in his body, but then he was through, and the claymore death in his hands. It flashed like bloodied silver, widening the corridor of the kraikons’ wake.