Michael looked ashen.

“Zac or Pavalo,” Gabriel said to his apprentice.

Michael looked back. “They are flaying us with magic!” he shouted at Mortirmir.

Gabriel took Michael’s shoulder. “It’s not his fault!” he said.

Michael looked at the emperor. “He’s always so cocksure,” he spat.

“Like other people I know,” Gabriel said gently. “Save it for the salamanders, Michael.”

Mortirmir looked as if he’d been struck, but he turned his head away. Gabriel saw the moment that the young man passed into his palace, and wondered if he had the ops left to act.

The new tide of monsters rolled up to the Galles, and a single flash showed that the enemy had a volley of fire left in them. Some crossbowmen shot back, but the Galles lost the exchange and did not await the onset; they were losing one man in five. They shuffled back, and the enemy right swung like a door as the Galles fled.

“Michael?” Gabriel said. “Tell Tom to charge. Right now.”

Michael waved a fist and dashed away.

“Clarissa,” Gabriel said. “Duchess of Venike. Charge, keep going.” He waved, she saluted, but he was already beckoning Mortirmir.

He rode along the back of the scarecrows, whose flank was now wide open. “Morgon!” he called. The magister’s face was slack, and his eyes were unfocused, but he turned his warhorse and followed.

From the hilltop he could see the dust on the road to his left rear; his heart beat faster. And he could see Du Corse’s banner waving again; behind the enemy right.

“On me!” he called to the Nordikaans.

Despite the weight of ankle-length maille and heavy axes, they sprinted along with him like hunting hounds, and he led them left, left, ever farther left, around the scarecrows waiting to die. Five hundred long paces to get clear of them. A race.

The salamanders had launched their third-order attack; their right and center were closing like a vise on the salamanders. Fires raged all along the front; in many cases the enemy came forward through fire, the flames licking around them.

He pointed down the hill at the rising tide of unbeaten salamanders coming into the left flank of his phalanx. “Stop them, Harald,” he said. About eight thousand salamanders.

About two hundred Nordikaans.

“Ave, Imperator!” Derkensun responded. He raised his axe.

“Cover the flanks of the Nordikaans for as long as you can,” Gabriel said to his magister.

Mortirmir’s face sharpened. His eyes focused.

“Hmm,” Mortirmir replied. He stood in his stirrups. A cruel smile danced across his face. “Let’s try this, shall we?”

His working came; Gabriel glanced at the mixture of ops, the gold and black. Black.

“Needs must when the devil drives,” Mortirmir said bitterly, and unleashed his working.

It was not fire.

It was ice, and a thousand salamanders screamed in agony as they were desiccated and frozen in a single, horrible emanation. It was an ugly magic, cruel and deadly.