There was a hole between Redmede’s position and Exrech’s—and the foe began to flood it, pushing more and more creatures, boglins and sprites and Rukh and some shambling things Harmodius had never before seen, and they began to push forward even as Redmede’s longbows wreaked havoc across a carefully chosen beaver meadow on a larger force of shambling things and Rukh who tried—four times, with bloody persistence—to cross the sodden open ground until, led by a pair of red-crested wardens, they went around the meadow to the east—and into the Dulwar ambush.

There was suddenly no front and no rear.

Harmodius found himself alone facing a rush on the back of the Jacks, and he spared not, passing an ankle-high sheet of white lightning and following with five massive fire concoctions that exploded into incandescence and left only the smell of cooked meat.

The Dulwar, stung by something from their own left, crowded into a stand of ancient beech trees with the Jacks. The Dulwar war chief was old—his eyes were already haggard.

Redmede called, “Two bows behind every tree!” and the Jacks closed into a ring, covering the Dulwar and then sorting them into the circle.

Boglins struck them some time later, and they fought them off. A Dulwar warrior was carried out of the circle—and three Jacks rose, charged out, and stripped the monsters of their prey. Fitzalan had been first, and his act of reckless daring put heart into them all—the more as it had been done for an ally.

Redmede looked to Harmodius. “Never seen anything like yon,” he said. “But my sense is—if’n we sit here, we ain’t helpin’.”

Harmodius considered that bit of wisdom. “Too true,” he said. “Bill, push off to the right and find Exrech, if he’s still in the fight.”

“Where are you going?” Redmede asked.

“Hunting,” Harmodius said. “I understand this better now. I need to go hunt my own kind. That’s what predators do, in this war.”

Harmodius dismounted, sat cross-legged, and reached out into the aethereal. It only took him a moment to find everything he wanted—there was Exrech, still spraying ops like a damaged cask sprays water, and there was the Faery Knight, cold and closed, waiting for something. And there—north and east, but not very far—two twin suns of green optimism and potential, burning hot.

They were his natural prey. There were other users of potentia and ops scattered for six miles through the woods in a riot of aethereal combat, but none of them were anywhere near his level of puissance except those two.