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‘We agreed we’d work as a unit,’ Torj argued.

‘Neither the wraiths nor the reapers will attack as a single unit. We need to be able to meet them from as many angles as we can.’ He looked to Torj. ‘Similar tactic to when we were attacked in the woods. Gather a small unit of the best Guardians, and our apprentices. They can bring the wraiths down and we’ll slay them. The regular forces from Harenth, Tver and Aveum can handle the ordinary soldiers.’

The sound of war drums began to echo across the valley and the dark mass of soldiers crept closer.

‘Fuck it,’ Torj said. ‘Let’s do it your way, Hawthorne.’

Vernich at last grunted his agreement and the three Warswords split up. Torj was to lead the main archers and defend them from the initial skybound attacks; Vernich was to take the northern wall and Wilder to command from the south.

As he walked the perimeter, checking on the commanders and their units, Wilder could feel King Artos’ magic sweeping through their forces, boosting the morale of their own soldiers. It was both a clever and dangerous tactic, but one he didn’t question at this late stage. He only hoped it didn’t result in warriors trying to be stupidly heroic in the face of their newfound fearlessness. Sometimes, fear was an asset.

A glance at the land before them told him there wasn’t much time until impact. While the fortified castle was protected to the west by forest and mountains, it was all that stood between the enemy and the villages that lay beyond.

Screams for mercy sounded at the gate – townsfolk threw themselves at the reinforced timber, begging to be let in. But the deadline had passed. The sun was down and now they had to take their chances with the monsters.

It was a part of war that Wilder had never grown accustomed to: that in the mess of it all, it was always the innocents who suffered most, those who’d never asked for the fight.

There was nothing he could do for them now, so he checked that the gates had been reinforced. A wave of conflicted emotion washed over him again as he saw Malik there, helping another man place a final thick timber plank across the breadth of the secondary gates.

Malik shouldn’t be here. He had given enough, had suffered enough, and what awaited them beyond the thick stone walls was more than Wilder wanted his brother to bear.

Glory in death, immortality in legendhad been Malik’s motto once.

Wilder couldn’t linger. His brother had made his choice, and now Wilder had to make his.

He ran to the heart of the southern wall, where his own unit of Guardians waited. A third of them manned several catapults along the length of the wall, while the rest made up two rows of archers at the ready.

Thea waited, her own bow and arrow in hand.

His heartbeat faltered.

She had lined her eyes with kohl, as the women warriors of distant realms did for battle. Her beautiful face was a veil of calm, hiding the storm beneath.

But he couldn’t think of her now.

Instead, he accepted a longbow from a nearby Guardian and looked out onto what would become their battlefield.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, bathing the land in a midnight-blue hue. Across the expanse of enemy forces, torches dotted their ranks.

Wilder scanned their own legion, poised for attack. Along the wall their own torches blazed, as well as fire pits to light their arrows, oil barrels and projectiles.

The noise of their adversaries’ march drew nearer, the rhythm of heavy footfalls and the clink of armour sounding more and more like war drums, the promise of violence and death and suffering.

Wilder gathered himself and looked to the enemy.

There was always a moment like this: the intake of breath before the battle, the calm before the storm. The stilling of time where the two sides waited to see who dared to draw first blood.

Wilder’s forces looked to him expectantly. Now was the time for heroic words and rallying cries. He fucking hated war speeches. But they were not for him, but for the men, to steel them against the terror that threatened to loosen their bladders and see them flee.

‘Warriors of Thezmarr, soldiers of Tver, Aveum and Harenth, hear me. We have prepared for this, all day here in Notos, and before that – for all our lives. We have done the work. We have endured the training, fought the faces of darkness… Now, here we stand, and that all falls away. Now, it is far more simple. Us, or them.’

He paused, letting his words sink in, knowing they had just as much power as any sword.

‘So I ask you: what is the measure of a Guardian? A warrior of the midrealms? I say it is to taste death and stand tall in the face of it. To defend those who cannot defend themselves. The measure of a true warrior is that they fight when others will not. And that they fight until the end.’

Wilder drew a sharp breath, lifting his bow, noting the heavy silence that had settled across his forces. ‘Death finds us all in the end,’ he called. ‘And whether it’s today, tomorrow, or fifty years from now, ask yourself: what will your death mean?’

‘The Hand of Death guides us,’ someone shouted, a bow lifting at the back of the unit. ‘Until the end!’