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His question was quickly answered.

The corpses perceived the army riding down the hill and stopped in their tracks, shifting to face the hill with their eyeless skulls and broken blades. Swords and knives and spears rose to battle, a thousand pieces of rusted steel eager for flesh.

“Close ranks—ride as tightly as you can!” Oscovko shouted over his men.

They did as told, knotting together to form a wall of horseflesh and steel. The army bore down.

Dom leaned, and the horse reacted beneath him, gaining speed.

The world stank of blood and rot. The only sounds were the screams of men and Ashlanders. Overhead, the sky was clear blue, empty of clouds. Peaceful, even, but hell boiled beneath. Skeletons and corpses formed a macabre wall between the army and the temple. Dom kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. Corpses leered up, reaching with bony fingers and rotten hands.

His was the first sword to swing, but far from the last.

Domacridhan of Iona was an immortal, a son of Glorian Lost. He was not taught to fear death. He did not know what it was to be so fragile as a mortal. But even he knew to be terrified. The thought of it broke over his head like shattering glass.

Somehow, the mortals and their horses fought through without faltering. Oscovko’s war band kept up their demonic howling, even as the corpses fell upon them, tearing many from the saddle. Their screams of pain melded with shouts of exhilaration, even joy. Oscovko himself called out between bouts, raining down blows with his sword. His face was soon streaked with mud and gore, but he didn’t appear to mind. The Prince of Trec was a veteran of many battles, thrilled by each one.

Without Corayne to worry about, Dom tried to narrow his focus to only himself. It was the best way to survive. But try as he might, he could not let go of Sorasa, Andry, and Sigil. Even as the tide of battle tried to sweep them apart, he did all he could to stay with them, only a few yards away.

Sigil pulled them both along, better in the saddle than even Dom. She maneuvered with incredible skill, letting her horse fight with her, its hoofs crushing skulls and rib cages as her ax shattered a dozen spines. In her leathers, against the sky, she was a mountain, and the corpses a crashing sea.

Sorasa followed in her considerable wake, her bow twanging in every direction. Her reins slapped against the horse’s neck, forgotten. She did not need them, directing the horse with the grip of her thighs instead. Her arrows found home in many corpses, slowing most and felling a few.

The blue star flared at the edge of Dom’s vision, away to his left. Andry moved in graceful arcs, his sword sweeping from one side to the other as he rode through. The squire knew how to fight on horseback as well as any. His brown skin gleamed like a polished stone, the rising sun reflecting off him like a person blessed.If the gods protected anyone upon the battlefield, Dom hoped they would protect Andry Trelland.

The tide raged back and forth, the cavalry charge cutting through the churn of corpses. But the war band was vastly outnumbered, and they rode into spears and swords at every turn. Dom left dozens shattered behind him, but there were always more. They surged and stumbled, bones and flesh and rotting limbs in every direction. Worst of all, the Ashlanders had no fear. They did not tremble. They did not falter. Their resolve was absolute and unbreakable, driven by a will more vicious than any other.

Then Sorasa’s horse toppled, tossing its head as it fell, a terrible scream cutting through the air. Without thought, Dom whirled his own horse toward the sound, only to watch Sorasa Sarn disappear into a sea of bodies, her bow lost to the mud.

“Amhara,” Dom heard himself snarl. The rest of his body lost feeling, his limbs reacting without thought or care.

Sigil saw it too and howled out a call, her horse thundering through the press of bodies.

Then the whip curled, lashing through the air with a crack like thunder. It snared a corpse and with a violent tug severed skull from spine. The Ashlander fell to reveal Sorasa Sarn ankle-deep in muck, her whip in one hand, her dagger in the other.

“Stay alive!”Dom yelled across the battlefield, the words too familiar on his lips. They were his own language, he realized, the tongue of Glorian. Known to none of them.

Sorasa heard him anyway, her copper eyes finding him through the fray. She gave nothing in reply, her attention on the enemies all around her. She knew better than to break her focus. But he saw aprayer of her own slip from her lips, in her own language, even as she continued to level the corpses around her.

As she fought tooth and nail, her short hair whirled with every motion, worked free from her braids. This was not like her battle with the Amhara, an equal display of skill and cunning. This was all edges, all violence. Like the corpses, she showed no emotion and no regard.

For once, Dom was glad for her Amhara training. It would keep her alive.

Then his own horse screamed beneath him, rearing up on her hind legs. Dom jolted and a sick feeling came over him. He saw the spear, half broken, its head buried in his horse’s proud chest. Before the horse could fall, he leapt from the saddle, his greatsword in hand. His immortal senses flared and he swung his blade, cutting through the nearest corpses with the momentum of his fall. The horse thumped into the mud behind him, but Dom was already moving. He could not turn back, not even for a moment. Somewhere, he thought he heard Corayne cry out, but she was still on the hilltop, he knew, safe with Charlie in the trees.

Sigil rode the perimeter, her path like a noose around the corpses. She nodded to both Sorasa and Dom as she passed, the edge of her ax dripping blood. Overhead, clouds rolled through the blue heavens, filling the sky with iron gray.

As he had on the Wolf’s Way, Dom found himself standing back-to-back with Sorasa Sarn. But instead of Amhara, corpses ringed around them, too many to count.

She raised her blade, parrying the blow of a corpse sword. “Nice of you to join me, old man.”

“I’ve survived worse,” Dom said, the words more resolute than he felt.

Sorasa spared him a single withering glance. “I don’t think the kraken was quite so difficult.”

Even as his greatsword cut a corpse in two, Dom fought a manic grin. “I’m talking about you, Sarn.”

“I’m flattered,” she snapped back, leaping over an Ashlander with no legs. It dragged itself along on rotting fingers.