‘Blend! Wait! How in Hood’s name can you tell?’

‘Not sure, but I can.’

The Seerdomin unleashed waves of grey sorcery that broke up over the legion, sent snaking roots down towards the eight demons.

‘That will have to knock them out,’ Blend said. ‘If Quick Ben ignored the attack, the Pannions will get suspicious – let’s see how – oh!’

The magic darted like plummeting nests of adders, enwreathed the roaring demons. Their death-throes were frenzied, lashing, killing and maiming yet more soldiers on all sides. But die they did, one by one.

The first legion’s formation was a shambles, torn bodies lying everywhere. Its onward climb had been shattered, and the reassertion of order was going to take a while.

‘Amazing what happens when you believe.’ Blend said after a time.

Picker shook her head. ‘If wizards can do that, why don’t we have illusionists in every damned squad?’

‘It only works, Lieutenant, because of its rarity. Besides, it takes serious mastery to manage faking even a lone demon – how Quick Ben pulled off eight of ‘em is—’

The Seerdomin mages counterattacked. A crackling, spinning wave rolled up the slope, chewing up the ground, exploding tree stumps.

‘That’s headed straight for him!’ Blend hissed, one hand clutching Picker’s shoulder, fingers digging in.

‘Ow! Let go!’

A thunderous concussion shook the ground and air.

‘Gods! He’s been killed! Blasted! Annihilated – Beru fend us all!’

Picker stared at the wailing soldier at her side, then forced her eyes once more to the scene on the ramp.

Another Seerdomin wizard appeared from the legion’s ranks, mounted on a huge dun charger. Sorcery danced over his armour, pale, dull, flickering on the double-bladed axe in his right hand.

‘Oh,’ Blend whispered. ‘That’s a sharp illusion.’

He rode to join one of his fellow mages.

Who turned.

The axe flew from the rider’s hand, its wake sparkling with suspended ice. Changed shape, blackening, twisting, reaching out clawed, midnight limbs.

The victim screamed as the wraith struck him. Death-magic punched through the protective weave of chaotic sorcery like a spearpoint through chain armour, plunged into the man’s chest.

The wraith reappeared even as the Seerdomin toppled – up through his helmed head in an explosion of iron, bone, blood and brains – clutching in its black, taloned hands the Seerdomin’s soul – a thing that flared, radiating terror. The wraith, hunched over its prize, flew a zigzag path towards the forest. Vanished into the gloom.

The rider, after throwing the ghastly weapon, had driven his heels into his horse’s flanks. The huge beast had veered, hooves pounding, to ride down a second Seerdomin in a flurry of stamping that, within moments, flung blood-soaked clumps of mud into the air.

Sorcery tumbled towards the rider.

Who drove his horse forward. A ragged tear parted before them, into which horse and rider vanished. The rent closed a moment before the chaotic magic arrived. The spinning sorcery thunderclapped, gouging a crater in the hillside.