“Ashanal! Melanna Ashanal!” The bellowed reply echoed up and around her, voiced from two hundred throats and more. The song of the lunassera rose beneath. “Melanna Ashanal Brigantim!”

Melanna’s heart swelled. She was their warleader. Their battle cry. They begged her for victory.

But her fire dimmed as a new realisation struck home. They begged her for victory, not Ashana. She’d supplanted the goddess in their prayers. A goddess whose favour she’d falsely claimed.

Then the knights were but a spear’s-length away, and there was no time for doubts.

Melanna swerved her steed to avoid a lance-point and swept a vicious back-cut at the wielder’s head. Metal spat and seethed. A scream. A brief scent of seared flesh rose above the blood and sweat, and then the dying man was behind her.

“Ashanael Brigantim!”

“Melanna Ashanal!” roared the reply. “Brigantim! Brigantim!”

Choking back fresh unease, Melanna lost herself in the red fury of battle. There was only the fire in her hand, and the foe, and the one to be borne against the other.

She spurred towards the twin banners – the silver swan and the phoenix. Two Thrakkians, and a Tressian woman little older than herself.

White fire bit into chainmail, and the swan toppled with its bearer. Red hair splayed from beneath the woman’s helm as she struck the ground. Sightless eyes stared into the bright sun.

“Anliss!” The second Thrakkian howled and dug back his heels. “Brenæ væga tikyr!”

Melanna sent fire billowing into his face. His bellow rose in pitch, rage diluted by pain. His whirling axe split the moon-banner’s shaft and chimed Melanna’s armoured circlet like a hammer striking a bell. The world lurched. Black fog drowned her vision.

When it cleared, Melanna found herself on her knees beside the woman she’d slain. The second Thrakkian was gone, swept away by a tide of vengeful lunassera. His axe lay on the ground beside her, its haft split.

She clambered to her feet.

“Die, witch!”

Pain flared across her cheek. Steel shone like sunlight as the Tressian woman wheeled about. Melanna let the remnants of the moon-banner fall. She strove for balance on a field pitching beneath her feet.

The woman came about. Melanna’s vision cleared. She noted the slenderness of the Tressian’s sword. The poor fit of her armour. The pallor of skin from a life lived indoors. Was this Calenne Trelan? She’d heard Crovan speak of her as unfledged and flighty. Neither word suited the cold-eyed woman who dipped her sword to the kill.

Then again, Melanna knew the transformative power of bloodshed better than any.

The ground quivered. The slender sword thrust at Melanna’s throat. Numbed reflexes scraped a desperate parry. Knees buckled.