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HE HEARD THE BELLS AGAIN FROM WHERE HIS CAVALRY stood at the lip of the valley, facing the oncoming enemy.

Bells and drums, bells and drums. He wondered what Kissen must feel at the sound of them.

Did it scare her as it scared him? He could see Benjen’s face as he turned towards the flame, hear the screaming of Legs as his tail and mane caught fire.

He could smell the burning of flesh and wood, the steam of water.

He could see gold and red, the bellow of the god of war.

The terror was still there, it still shook his hands.

Pain shot down his back, curdling in his belly.

But he knew it, he felt it, he lived it.

He drew his sword as the Talician army crested the hill ahead of them, the sun at their backs. They were in red, the first of the flame, with white priests dotting the ranks.

Then, at the edges he saw cavalry, with armour of dark leather: Restish.

The Irisians Elo’s mother had sent had been split between the land and ships, supplementing their ranks and given to the defence of the coast. They were practised archers, masters of the heavy longbow, and he had arranged a strong line of them behind the Middrenite cavalry.

He wished he could see his mother again, thank her, and apologise for every hurt he had caused her.

The Talicians let out a cry, and a bell rang. They had seen their shining line of riders, the morning sun gleaming on their armour as they stood arrayed. The warfront. The rhythm of the bells and drums grew louder, booming over the warm wind as the incoming army picked up pace to meet them.

‘Steady,’ said Elo, as he felt the shifting of his own cavalry, the stamping of hooves.

The Talicians spilled over the hills and down, thousands of them in a great mass turning the green to red.

At the same time, clouds were rolling in on the swift winds of the south, bringing shadows from the sea.

Elo breathed in, tasting the rain on his tongue.

The storm was ready to break.

Me or them. Death or survival. The lion on his chest, the sword in his hand. Warrior. Lion. Irisian. Middrenite. Commander, baker, lover, lost.

He smiled. The hills he had grown up on were gilded now in stormlight, and he felt it warm him, the distant mountains, the wild forests, the fallen cities, the people who made homes for gods.

Little hopes, all for this green land, this centre of trade.

Middren. Fear? It served him, quickening his breath, beating his heart and lending strength to his muscles, clarity to his thoughts.

Hope? It took root in him, shoring up his spine, tightening his fists.

At last, as the enemy flooded closer, he saw plumes of smoke rising around glimmers of brass. It gusted black at first, then grew into hot tremors in the air, barely visible against the darkening sky. Not one shrine to Hseth, many of them, already being lit with hot coals.

Good.

‘Perin,’ said Elo, looking to the sergeant who was seated on a horse beside him. ‘Get word to the king: they will have war weapons that can move down the slopes. Deepen the ditches if they can, move the blockades further up.’

Perin nodded once, his eyes hollow, his jaw set, then dismounted and went to find one of the battle birds to send the message down to the king. The more they were prepared, the better.

Elo could see cavalry more clearly now in the Talician lines, picking their way across the fields in between the groundsfolk.

They were cautious, with all the light on Elo’s command, they wouldn’t be able to tell if they were a hundred or a thousand lined up together.

Nor would they be able to see what they hid behind them.

‘Archers!’ cried Elo. ‘Test their mettle!’

The order was passed on by horn, in Elseber’s hands this time.

Though she was still healing from her hip wound, she had refused to be left behind.

From where they sheltered behind great wooden shields held by squires, the Irisian archers flamed their arrows, two for each bow, and drew.

Elo could almost hear the stretch of the gut, the bend of the wood.

Then, the hiss of the shafts being released, the smell of hot pitch and cloth as they broached the air above them, over them.

A hundred or more, flying over the grass of the field and hitting down, perhaps fifty strides shy of the encroaching army, further than any standard bow, still blazing.

Flames roared up from the dry bales they had placed there, set with stags’ antlers from the previous shedding season in a long line along the fields. It spread along the field, roaring up, and the breeze that carried the storm swept it around towards the Talician front, obscuring their vision.

They weren’t the only ones who could use fire for their god.

Perin returned, leaping back up onto his horse, ready to fight. Return fire skittered far short of them, confused by the fire and smoke. Perin looked over at Elo. ‘For our loves,’ he said. ‘My life, my blood, my heart.’

Elo nodded, and put on his helm. ‘For hearth and home,’ he said. ‘My life, my blood, my heart.’

Time to move.

‘Forward!’ Elo called. ‘For Sunbringer! For Middren!’

‘For Middren!’

Their cavalry began their march as the fire burned brighter along the field, fierce and wild. Forward, veiled by thick smoke, each House, all their guards, together for a final cause.

The flames were burning low. Just enough, just a little more. Elo blinked the smoke-sting from his eyes.

There.

They could see the Talicians, closer now, clear through the haze in their red. Elo could just glimpse their expressions, the horror at how near they had come.

‘Now!’

The mounted Middrenite archers had already been aiming, ready for his command, and they released.

The arrows flew, unlit this time, into the Talician ranks.

Few of them were knights in helms; few had shields or the protections they needed.

Those who still had crossbows fired them haphazardly, glancing off their plate armour and chain mail.

‘Charge!’ Elo cried.

Their cavalry leapt over the dwindling flames.

They did not hit the enemy head on, instead charging southwards first, then swooping around and targeting the edges of their army with spears, halberds, longswords, and scattering the foot soldiers with the thundering of their horses, the whirling death in their hands.

They inflicted as much pain as possible, as much fear as they passed through.

‘Break!’

The Middrenite charge broke away before the Talicians could rally, following up with the far strikes of the Irisian longbows, confusing the enemy as the horses raced away, making a large circle before looping around to the north, and beginning another charge.

Finally, an order came with the ringing of a bell. The Talician ranks exploded, and Restish and Talician riders came out to meet Elo’s force and head off their assault. They rode chaotically, the only thing binding them was trajectory. And lack of awareness.

They did not expect the second charge of the Middrenites.

Captain Graiis led his riders around from west to east, slamming into the enemy riders, splitting their force, while Elo’s command swung back for their next assault.

Elo gritted his teeth to keep them from rattling, holding on to his horse with his legs as tightly as he could to keep from being shaken in his armour from its back His eyes were streaming with the black smoke, arms already aching from the first assault.

‘Break!’ Elo heard.

The Graiis riders had not come off well in their clash with the Restish cavalry, who were fast and strong, bred on the Usican plains, but they were now close enough to be hammered by arrows.

‘Cover fire!’ Elo commanded. ‘Charge!’

The Graiis charge retreated, while Elo’s own riders re-formed into a spearhead strike.

The mounted and Irisian archers aimed to support the Graiis, giving them a chance to escape as Elo’s horses thundered past them.

Hooves pounded on the burned grass, sending sparks up into the storm-heavy air.

Elo lifted his sword, yelling out his fury, as they slammed once more into the Talician army.

Elo was at the forefront. He hacked down a spear that tried to fell him, then sliced his sword across a snarling face, thrust it into another chest and felt their ribs crack with its weight.

Flame was reflected in his blade, blood flew up into the air.

Gold and red. The colours of the dead god of war.

The terror had him, but he was the terror.

He twisted his shoulder and struck through the throat of one of the mounted Restish who had fled back to pursue them, then wrenched his sword free and hacked once, twice, through the point of a halberd that nearly struck him off his horse.

He was in a knot of screams and bodies, heat and sweat and fury.

‘Break!’

His turn now to command a retreat before they became swallowed and taken down by sheer numbers.

His voice was rough with smoke, his head swimming, but he was too embroiled in innocent horses and guilty bodies to be able to extract himself.

With the next strike, he ripped through the arm of a Talician woman, and an arrow glanced off his helm, another off his pauldron, a sword sliding over his back.

His horse was trying to buck and whinny, to push out, push back, animal instincts kicking in. Danger! Away!

At last, the pressure around them released as the rest of Elo’s cavalry heeded his order. He reined his horse free, peeling away once more as thunder rolled across the sky.