The huge bear plunged into the back ranks of the infantry reinforcements running across the plain. He sank deep, deep into the heart of the infantry formation before they even saw him. They were jogging forward, the front lines already breaking into a run, so in moments it became utter chaos.

Men shrieking in fear, Lorcan roaring, and metal rending with every swipe of his big paws. Men were hurled bodily into the air. Commanders shouted unheard over the melee.

Meanwhile the charging cavalry hurtled across the killing ground. Not a single charge went off. But that side of the square was ready for them. A cloud of black smoke was vomited out into the air, streaked with green and golden lights and lit from within by streams of liquid fire.

The first rank of the cavalry didn’t even make it to the Nightbringers’ line, obliterated by hot lead and magic, and the second rank was appreciably thinned. The third rank hurtled past them and the fourth and fifth had to leap over the fallen.

But many made it through. They crashed into the luxin wall, lances extended.

They’d expected a shield wall, though, not an actual wall. Each section was not only physically linked to the others on each side, but also braced against the force of their charge with long diagonal supports.

Some few sections buckled, but most held.

Men flipped off horses brought to a dead halt, and toppled into the square, where the Nightbringers waited with axes and daggers.

Three red wights riding in the fourth rank of the cavalry leapt off their horses as they crashed into the mass of their friends and foes. Tumbling through the air, they blasted through the petty attempts to swat them aside—Kip had set the fastest drafters to knock grenadoes out of the air.

When the wights landed, they hurled death in every direction. But each wight was quickly brought down.

The last ranks of cavalry broke off the charge, seeing they’d only cripple and kill their own.

But that was when Kip and Tallach entered the fray.

They hit the cavalry from the rear quarter.

The men turned to see that their own infantry, which was supposed to support them, had melted behind them instead—and two giant grizzlies were tearing them apart. The other battalions’ cavalry had gone into the woods and not reappeared.

It was too many shocks at once for men trapped between a wall and a giant grizzly ridden by a man throwing fire down on their heads. Panic spread faster than the flames.

They broke in every direction.

Tallach gave a few more swipes at those nearest him, then halted at Kip’s signal, and, as quickly as it had begun, Kip’s fight was over. Now he was a general again. He began throwing flaming signals at once.

The tight square unfolded, pursuing the Blood Robes. Most of them headed toward the forest, where the night mares awaited. A few were headed too far east or west, but Kip’s men drove them as sheepdogs drive sheep: a little barking here, a little nipping at the heels there, and they turned back to where Kip wanted them, like mindless animals.

The other Blood Robes ran toward their own camp and the walls. Kip sent more than half his forces after those, under Derwyn Aleph. He knew what to do.

Lorcan was deep in their camp. It wasn’t where Kip wanted him, but he was beyond orders now.

Kip only hoped that in its rage, the great bear wouldn’t kill any Nightbringers.

He started toward the city walls himself, and the actual horses and ponies of the night mares fell in with him.

A rout had started from the Blood Robes’ camp. General Kamal’s staff, his bodyguards, their servants and families—these were the people who could see the noose dropping over their necks. They knew that if they got trapped against the river, they’d not stand a chance.

So they ran the other way. If they could make it past the hulking form of Greenwall and its archers, they could escape.

It became a race, Kip and the night mares trying to head them off before they cleared the walls.

But within half a minute, it became clear it wouldn’t be much of a contest. The archers lining the walls rained down shots on the fleeing Blood Robes, mostly missing, but killing a few and injuring more, slowing those who stopped to help them. The line elongated and separated completely.

Those with horses abandoned the others.

But Dúnbheo was vast, and Kip and the Mighty had the angle. They reached it a hundred paces before the end of the wall.

Now if those idiots up on the wall can just not shoot us.

It was a thought without rancor. Men long bored and suddenly excited who held weapons in their hands could get careless with whom they pointed them at.

On reaching the wall, Tallach wheeled and stood on his hind legs. He roared fury.

Tallach didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be with his brother. Musket fire and explosions from the camp—and the lack of Lorcan’s reappearance—didn’t bode well for how Conn Arthur’s brother was doing.

“Halt, halt!” the man mounted at the lead shouted to his bodyguards.

‘Man’ might have been generous. He was a blue wight, dressed in gaudy gold robes, skin sparkling with facets like snake scales.

“Lord Guile! Lord Kip Guile!” the wight shouted, holding his hand up.

Tallach dropped back to all fours and roared again. The Mighty thundered in to surround Kip even as Lord Kamal’s own bodyguards surrounded him in a sudden flood.

“Lord Guile! I, Amrit Kamal, Lord of the Air, do challenge you to a duel!”

His men were hurriedly reloading muskets they’d discharged in the fighting.

“Yeah. No,” Kip said.

The Mighty fired their muskets immediately, perforating the Lord of the Air in as many places as possible. Waves of fire and missiles followed before Lord Kamal’s bodyguards could counterattack.

That was enough for everyone else behind Lord Kamal. They doubled back and, fleeing, made easy prey for the Mighty. The Mighty hadn’t been able to do much fighting in this battle, and they were eager to make up for lost time.

Chapter 65

“This, finally, is a cruelty beyond me,” Andross Guile said. “You deserve it, but this is beyond what I am willing to do. You can’t be released, and I won’t punish you any longer. How do you wish to die?”

Gavin had felt a change in the air. It could mean only one thing. His cell opening.

He hadn’t spoken to the dead man in days. Didn’t want those cold comforts. And the days or weeks had blended together. Another thunk of bread falling, another slice of crust against black luxin. Another sleep. Nightmares passed to hallucinations, like paired dancers spinning a gciorcal. Gavin had no energy, couldn’t plan, couldn’t concentrate. The isolation was driving him slowly mad.