Midnight tides

‘The wraiths will charge first,’ Moroch predicted, ‘with the demons behind them seeking to break our lines. And there, signal flags from the Grass Jackets. They have no doubt sighted their own enemy ranks.’

‘Were you the Edur commander,’ Quillas said, ‘what would you do? The attack cannot be as straightforward as it now seems, can it?’

‘If the commander is a fool, it can,’ Janall said.

‘The sorcery will prove mutually negating, as it always does. Thus, the battle shall be blade against blade.’ Moroch thought for a moment, then said, ‘I would make use of the Dry Gully. And seek a sudden charge against your mage cadre, Prince.’

‘They would become visible – and vulnerable – for the last fifty or sixty paces of the charge, Finadd. The bastions will slaughter them, and if not them, then the westernmost company of the Grass Jackets can mount a downslope charge into their flank.’

‘Thus leaving their rampart under-defended. Use the Dry Gully as a feint, and a reserve force to then rush the rampart and seize it.’

‘That rampart crouches in the shadow of High Fort’s largest bastion tower, Finadd. The Edur would be slaughtered by the answering enfilade.’

After a moment, Moroch nodded. ‘It is as you say, Prince. I admit, I see nothing advantageous to the Tiste Edur.’

‘I agree,’ Prince Quillas said.

‘Strangely quiet,’ Moroch mused after a time as the enemy forces assembled.

‘It’s the wraiths and demons, Finadd. No soldiers like thinking of those.’

‘The mages will annihilate them,’ Janall pronounced. She was dressed in elaborate armour, her helm filigreed in silver and gold. Her sword was the finest Letherii steel, but the grip was bound gold wire and the pommel a cluster of pearls set in silver. Beadwork covered her tabard. Beneath, Moroch knew, was steel scale. He did not think she would find need to draw her sword. Even so… The Finadd swung about and gestured to an aide, whom he then drew to one side. ‘Ready the queen’s horses, in the south lee of the west bastion.’

‘Yes sir.’

Something was wrong. Moroch felt it as he watched the aide hurry off. He scanned the sky. Grey. Either the sun would burn through or there would be rain. He returned to his original position and studied the distant ranks. ‘They’re in position. Where are the chants? The exhortations? The ritual curses?’

‘They see the doom awaiting them,’ Quillas said, ‘and are silenced by terror.’

A sudden stirring among the queen’s mages. Alertness. Janall noticed and said, ‘Prepare the lines. The Edur have begun sorcery.’

‘What kind?’ Moroch asked.

The queen shook her head.

‘Betrayer’s balls,’ the Finadd muttered. It felt wrong. Terribly wrong.

Ahlrada Ahn had drawn his cutlass and was grinning. ‘I never understood you spear-wielders. This will be close fighting, Trull Sengar. They will hack the shaft from your hands-’

‘They will try. Blackwood will not shatter, as you know. Nor shall my grip.’

Standing behind the wedge of demons was a K’risnan. The warlock’s comrade was with the other force, also positioned behind a demon cohort. Hanradi Khalag commanded there, and the K’risnan in his charge was his son.

B’nagga and a thousand of his Jheck were just visible in a basin to the west. Another thousand were moving down the gully, whilst the third thousand accompanied the easternmost force along with wraiths and demons.

It occurred to Trull that he knew almost nothing of the huge, armoured demons bound to this war by the K’risnan. Not even the name by which they called themselves.

Warriors of the Arapay and Hiroth were massed along the forest line, less than a third of their total numbers visible to the enemy. Outwardly, the dominant Edur army would appear to be the central one, Hanradi Khalag’s eighteen thousand Hiroth and Merude, but in truth Fear’s force here in the forest amounted to almost twenty-three thousand Edur warriors. And arrayed among them were wraiths in numbers beyond counting.

Tendrils of grey mist swirled round the nearest K’risnan, forming a fluid web that began to thicken, then rise. Thread-thin strands snaked out, entwining the nearest ranks of Edur. Flowing out like roots, embracing all within sight barring the wraiths and the demons. In a billowing, grey wall, the sorcery burgeoned. Trull felt it playing over him, and its touch triggered a surge of nausea that he barely defeated. From the Letherii cadre, a wave of raging fire rose in answer, building with a roar directly in front of the rampart, then plunging swift and savage across the killing field.

As suddenly as that, the battle was begun.

Trull stared as the massive wall of flame rushed towards them. At the last moment the grey skein rushed out, colliding with the wave and lifting it straight up in explosive columns, pillars that spiralled with silver fire.

And Trull saw, within the flames, the gleam of bones. Thousands, then hundreds of thousands, as if the fire’s very fuel had been transformed. Towering higher, fifty man-heights, then a hundred, two hundred, filling the sky.