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They just kept swinging. Hacking away at whoever stood in their way that could bleed. And I watched in horror as thosefreshly killed tribesmen rose again and turned on their own. This was the most literal definition of a bloodbath I could ever have imagined.

“How…” Beolf was at an obvious loss for words. He brought his kisteral up to the right flank of mine, staring out at the massacre. “How can this even be possible? The amount of magic one would need to control all these is… impossible.”

“Obviously not impossible.” My voice shook, slightly muffled by my helmet. Behar stood at attention near my mount’s left front leg, ears perked and tail still with his eyes trained on the mass of bodies. His teeth were bared. “This is what a necromancer with limitless knowledge can do. Fucking Gennel!” If I ever found that conniving bitch again, I would lop her head off myself.

“It’s unlikely she will survive, if she’s out there at all. But I think I found your necromancer.”

Since she left that body with the charming little message for me, she wasn’t really the Haron we knew anymore. I wasn't entirely sure what name to call her now. There was definitely some kind of disturbance among the chaos of full-blown war. A small cluster of undead moved steadily through the battlefield from one side to the other, like a morbid entourage guarding someone in the middle. And that someone—I couldn't tell exactly who through the thick swarm of bodies—swung two wickedly curved blades each the length of my forearm and twice as wide. They flashed silver swiping through the air in-between the undead, slicing off any part of a body that came close enough. And above the whirling cyclone, high enough to be out of reach even if someone was thrown, floated a thick tome laid open as if it were innocently set on a desk. The cover was pitch black, a void against the bright noon light, with a blood-red gem easily the size of two fists inlaid with crisscrossing silver wires like a cage. Some kind of scrawling script spiraled out from it,pulsing deep indigo with the same tempo as the gem. The eerie glow covered the whole battlefield, and it seemed that wherever it touched, the dead rose. And right in the center of the back cover was the family crest of Hilj: a skull set atop crossed swords with wiranblood flowers circling its head like a crown.

“If you think she’s under the massive floating tome that looks like it came straight from a nightmare, you’d probably be right,” I answered solemnly as we watched her cut a path across the valley with my beast-sharpened eyes. “She’s not being very subtle, is she?”

Even in this morbid situation, Beolf snorted a bitter laugh. “When has she ever been subtle? Lucky for us, she isn’t, since she is probably leading us right to Gennel.”

He pointed to the northeast, where another large group of Hollows warriors tried desperately to defend their vantage point on another hill. They had no organized formation, but were clearly trying to protect someone at the top. From my limited studies on the savages from the Hollows, every tribe had a sort of hierarchy of their own with two leaders, a head chief and a shaman. Shamans typically wouldn’t fight, but they were believed to bear witness to whatever gods they worshiped now. It was impossible to think this was just one tribe, though. How Gennel had brought them together under one banner was a mind-blowing feat all on its own.

“I’m sure Gennel is hunkering down with their shaman, too afraid to fight in the war they started,” I snarled. “We would get slaughtered trying to enter that fray. I have half a mind to just turn around and fuck all the way off to the palace.”

“You would be satisfied with turning tail now, after seeing who could turn their eyes to the south? How would we get back to Gilamorst in time to rally the army, before these tribes came banging on our walls?”

Curse Beolf and his level-headed rationale. “Gods damn it,” I spit harshly. The kisteral beneath me skittered to the left with the unintentional squeeze of my legs and Behar shifted his stance to follow. My eyes stayed locked on the slow bubble of undead and their master as she continued her personal warpath to the adjacent hill on our right. “Fine, we can try to intercept her on the southern side. I’ll leave the strategizing to you.”

“Understood.” Beolf whirled around on his own mount and plucked a red and white striped flag from his saddlebag, raising it high in the air. Murmurs rippled through the formation, passing the message along for unit leaders to fall out and meet him at the front line.

We’d only remained undisturbed this long because of the utter chaos and bloodshed sprawled across the valley. The Hollows tribes didn’t seem to have any organization or structure in their own fighters, or if they did, it had been shattered against the dry bones of the risen dead. They didn’t even have suitable armor, clad in breastplates made of what appeared to be human rib bones and long loincloths stretching to their knees. At one point, they had been white, but most were now drenched in blood and torn apart.

Just as I turned to join Beolf and his commanders in their planning, a cacophony of war cries screamed from the eastern hill and rolled across the valley. Their violent yells sent a wave of cold shivers straight through to my bones. A massive wave of white-painted bodies waving bone clubs and spears sprinted down the steep slope to crash against the wall of violence. I watched in mortification as the undead turned on their new victims with brutal efficiency. Then, from the cluster of bodies beneath the hovering tome, one slung a tall shield across its back and bent low, facing the oncoming Hollow tribes as it hunched down and braced its bony hands against the ground.

Deep blue fabric fluttered in an elegant arc, following a body that launched itself in the air off the back of the soldier. A tall woman flew through the air like she had wings, swords raised high overhead, as she braced to land in the fray on a vicious downswing. From my vantage, only her profile was visible—and barely at that—but the wild grin that spread across her lips was unmistakable. And wrapped around her neck and shoulders was a very recognizable Julran collar, just like the one on the painting of Princept Morrette in the Necromancer’s Guild and my tomes. Wherever she had come from, she was obviously not dressed for war. Beyond the collar protecting her neck, there was no armor to speak of on her body. In fact, her clothes looked very ceremonial and not at all practical for mobility, with cuffs on her biceps attached to blue silk meant to drape around her back like a shawl. Even as I watched in jaw-slackened horror, she used that fabric to loop around a man’s throat and, with an intricate twist, flip him onto the ground before stabbing through his chest.

Gore sprayed with every swing, splattering across her face, and even then, that unhinged smile remained. Maybe it was the disbelief of seeing someone act like a total berserker excited to hack into people, or the mesmerizing grace in which she threw herself into the battle, but for a brief moment I truly feared Wira herself had descended from Genma to fight among us.

“Maybe shedoesn’tneed our help.” Beowulf had moved back to my side as his commanders dispersed to pass their message down the lines. “Looks like that hellion is having a good time dismembering people.”

“She may kill Gennel before we can get to her.”

A small group of Hollows cannibals at the base of our hill finally turned their attention to us, partially in an attempt to escape the horde hacking them to pieces. My kisteral snorted in fear and tried to rear its front two legs, pawing at the air withits massive cloven feet. We were stable enough balanced on its other two sets of legs, but I still gripped the reins tighter and attempted to turn its head to the side and back in control to keep Behar from getting kicked.

The unit to my left—fifty men strong—immediately shifted as one to form a wall three rows deep to block the oncoming savages. My kisteral shot off to the right and raced along the top of the hill and down the southern side of it straight into the valley. Colorful curses flowed freely from my lips and I struggled to loosen my feet from the saddle to jump if I needed. Behar easily kept abreast of the terrified beast, nipping at its front legs in an attempt to herd it. The kisteral snorted and threw its head again, but slowed down slightly from a full sprint.

Unfortunately, my mount had veered too close to the fighting.

A rogue arrow flew, silent and true, and buried itself just behind the front left shoulder, where the kisteral’s heart would be. Behar barely leapt out of the way as she bellowed and fell to the ground, skidding along it with my leg pinned between its heavy body and the ground. Armor covering the tops of my thighs and calves took the brunt of it, but my hip screamed from the strain put on my leg beneath the heavy, still body laying on top of it. Immediately Behar took a defensive position with his hackles raised and teeth bared, standing between me and whoever was stupid enough to come within reach of an angry rinhound half their size. No one else was close enough to help pull me up.

“Gods damn it!” The gods were definitely turning their eyes my way, with how much I was damning in their names. I knew what I had to do. I had to become the monster I bargained for.

Behar knew it, too. Keeping his body angled to pounce at the first enemy, he slowly crept back until his back haunches were within reach. I could usually tap into beastwalker magic on my own, but contact with the bonded animal made it much easierand faster to accomplish. With all the chaos of battle, even the best spellcaster would struggle to maintain focus enough to cast. Which made the fact Haron—or whoever was out there—was controlling a whole battlefield of undeadandfighting on her own even more impressive. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, trusting Behar to guard me long enough to make the bestial transformation. Just placing my palm on his hunched back grounded me immediately, sharpening my mind to the acute focus of a predator stalking its prey. The world fell away, taking the disconcerting screams and wails of the dying away with it.

The change took over quickly. Muscles in my biceps, shoulders, and chest expanded, straining against the leather straps of my armor painfully before snapping under the pressure. The cotton gambeson and leather pants beneath it fell away even faster as it was shredded apart, and black fur sprouted from every inch of skin. Bones shifted and cracked, the sound ricocheting in my skull when an elongated snout grew out. Long fangs pushed my human teeth from their gums and littered the ground along with droplets of blood that followed them. If I had taken more time to let the transformation settle, it wouldn’t have been as excruciating as it was now, hunching my back under the agony of twisting my body into this unnatural shape. The last of the spell stretched my hands and fingers, growing out black claws to replace the soft, useless nails.

My mind was still my own, but an instinctive howl ripped from my chest as I shifted entirely to my beastwalker form. Ears atop my own head swiveled to take in all the sounds, and I angrily shoved off the kisteral’s corpse to free myself. Behar joined in with his own howl, a duet of battle cries weaving through the clanging and pained screams. The weather here was miserable even on the eve of the Chill, but with the pumping heat my transformed body created a light cloud of steam now hovering around me. Toes tipped with wicked sharp claws flexed andspread on newly formed paws the size of dinner plates, digging into the hardened earth with every heavy step. It took a few moments to orient myself in this form—it felt unnatural walking on two legs in this form, but doable—and I lifted my nose to the wind to sniff for Gennel. It was already difficult enough with my limited exposure to any discerning scent, but at this point my sense of smell was the most reliable. There was no way to tell what form he, or she, took otherwise. At least, not that I knew of. Obviously Haron had her own way of hunting down that skittering pest.

“Prince Irin!” Beolf called from behind. He grunted heavily and shoved the body of a tribesman off his sword with the strong kick of a boot from atop his mount. “We will cover you. Go!”

The twenty or so men around us—staying as close as they dared after witnessing my beastly transition—formed a loose half-circle that came between Behar, myself, and the fighting. I didn’t bother concerning myself with their pace as I lowered onto all fours. It had been a while since I had run full speed in this form—the moment of exhilaration made my insides feel as if they sloshed around when I shot off. Bodies that should have been blurs remained in crisp focus with my heightened sight. The shocked faces of the Hollows warriors interspersed with the empty expressions of the dead passed us by as we wove around the edge of the battlefield. It would be foolish to cut straight through, but too much of a waste of time to avoid the valley altogether in favor of climbing up and down the other two hills on the perimeter.

One warrior was brave enough to swing his crudely sharpened dagger at my head, a terrified cry on his lips. I snapped out to latch onto his arm and give a violent shake. It was a joke how easily his forearm separated from the elbow. My teeth crushed the bone as easily as chewing on a jelly-filled roll. I tossed the arm aside, blood spattering along my muzzle as I did, and keptrunning toward the other hill. The rabid look seemed to be a boon, scaring off the more rational fighters.

Even then, I wasn’t fast enough to avoid a small group of men who broke from the perimeter to try to intercept me, their clubs and axes raised over their heads as they screamed war cries and sprinted toward me. It would be admirable that they took on a beast walker twice their sizes, but I was far too angry to do more than swipe at their bare chests with wickedly long claws. Two of them fell instantly, completely gutted, while another two barely dodged, receiving deep slashes across their chests and arms where they had tried to block the heavy blow. One more tried to circle behind and leap onto my back, only to receive a vicious bite from Behar on the leg that dropped him to a knee. I swung around with another powerful strike, catching the back of the man’s neck and sending his head rolling in a fantastic spray of blood. Behar’s mouth was bloody as he moved to stand closer to my side, crouched defensively while a continuous growl rumbled from his chest.