Southwealders flooded in behind. The air filled with screams and the scrape of metal on metal. Viktor’s shadow snarled to be free. He kept it caged, tamped deep in his soul, and strode on into the slaughter. Each stab and thrust of his sword brought him closer to the owl-banner and to his prey.

Viktor caught a war hammer’s haft across his claymore’s hilt and its wielder by the cloak. A twist, a heave, and the attacker was behind him, hurled to the mob following in his wake.

Two more Immortals pressed in. Too close to swing his claymore, Viktor backed away. Another kraikon, come late to the charge, battered its way through the formation. The first Immortal vanished screaming beneath its steel-shod feet. The second dived clear and found Viktor’s sword at his throat. A cut. A gurgle. Viktor strode on into the battle’s din, the screams of his victims herald to his coming.

“Saran!”

The Hadari prince spun about. His sword arced to block the claymore’s strike.

Viktor grunted and leaned into the blade. Saran twisted aside. Claymore skittered across an armoured sleeve. A golden buckler slammed into Viktor’s upper arm. He staggered back, scrambling for footing among the corpses. He’d forgotten the man’s strength.

“Nowhere to run this time, my prince,” he snarled.

Saran bellowed in the Hadari tongue and closed the gap.

A swipe of the shield drove Viktor’s claymore aside. A thrust of his sword stopped short of disembowelment only because Viktor twisted away.

Viktor drove his elbow into the sculpted helm. His vambrace clanged against gilded steel. Emeralds scattered. Saran stepped drunkenly back, arms wide. Viktor pressed forward. The claymore blurred as it sought Saran’s head.

The golden buckler blocked the first blow. It split under the second. Saran hurled it away. Viktor ducked too slowly. The heavy rim gashed his brow. His shadow screamed for release. Dark spots danced behind his eyes. When they cleared, Saran was on him once more. With a shriek of tortured metal, the sword-point punched clean through Viktor’s lower breastplate.

Hot, searing fire crackled through his veins. A bellow of pain choked off as Saran’s free hand closed around his throat and forced him to his knees.

The prince grunted and twisted his sword free. “My thanks, Lord Akadra, for your head,” he said, the words rendered all the more mocking by his hallowsider’s accent. “It will make quite the gift for the Golden Court.”

The sword came about. Teeth gleamed beneath the battered helm. Viktor’s shadow screamed to be freed.

With death the only alternative, he complied.

Saran grunted as the shadow flooded beneath his eyes. His fingers slipped from Viktor’s throat and he staggered back, lurching as if caught in the teeth of a gale.

Roaring to numb the pain, Viktor rose up and smote him in the face.