Antsy thumped Picker’s other shoulder. ‘Look! Further down! The legions at the back!’

She twisted. To see soldiers breaking formation, spreading out to disappear in the wooded hillside on either side of the ramp. ‘Damn, someone got smart.’

‘Smart ain’t all – they’re going to stumble right onto us!’

Paran saw Quick Ben reappear on the bank, stumbling from a warren, smoke streaming from his scorched leather armour. Moments earlier, the captain had thought the man annihilated, as a crackling wave of chaotic magic had hammered into the ridge of mounded earth that the wizard had chosen as his position. Grey-tongued fires still burned in the chewed-up soil around Quick Ben.

‘Captain!’

Paran turned to see a marine scrabbling up the entrenchment’s incline towards him.

‘Sir, we’ve had reports – the legions are coming up through the trees!’

‘Does the High Fist know?’

‘Yes sir! He’s sending you another company to hold this line.’

‘Very well, soldier. Go back to him and ask him to get the word passed through the ranks. I’ve got a squad down there somewhere – they’ll be coming up ahead of the enemy, likely at a run.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Paran watched the man hurry off. He then scanned his dug-in troops. They were hard to see – shadows played wildly over their positions, filled the pits and the trenches linking them. The captain’s head snapped round to Quick Ben. The wizard was hunched down, almost invisible beneath swirling shadows.

The ground below the embankment writhed and churned. Rocks and boulders were pushing up through the mulch, grinding and snapping against each other, the water on their surfaces sizzling into steam that cloaked the building mass of stone.

Two warrens unveiled – no, must be three – those boulders are red hot.

Shadows slipped down the bank, flowed between and beneath the gathering boulders.

He’s building a scree – one that the enemy won’t notice . . . until it’s too late.

Down among the trees Paran could now see movement, ragged lines of Pannions climbing towards them. No shield-lines, no turtles – the toll among the Beklites, once they closed to attack, would be fearful.

Damn, where in the Abyss is Picker and the squad, then?

On the ramp, the first legion had reformed and were doggedly marching upward once more, three Seerdomin mages in the lead. Webs of sorcery wove protective cloaks about them.

In rapid succession, three waves of magic roared up the ramp. The first clambered towards Quick Ben, building as it drew near. The other two rolled straight at the lead trench – in front of which stood Captain Paran.

Paran wheeled. ‘Everyone down!’ he bellowed, then threw himself flat. There was little point, he well knew. Neither his shouted warning nor his lying low would make any difference. Twisting round through the damp mulch, he was able to watch the tumbling wave approach.

The first one, aimed at Quick Ben, should have struck by now, but there was no sound, no dreadful explosion—