“Yes,” Kyfer said grimly. “I hope we can.” They did not need much favor, he reminded himself. They had superior numbers— two thousand infantry, more than three times the tiellan foot soldiers, and almost one thousand cavalry. His infantry moved in one block at the center of his formation, while he split his cavalry to either flank. Standard turret positioning, and more than adequate for this battle.
As the infantry began crossing the river, Kyfer frowned. The water reached the waists of most men, and as they neared the center of the river, their chests. “This is the shallowest point you could find?”
“The river is deep,” Razzo said. “There’s no bridge. This was the best crossing point.”
Kyfer did not respond. It did not matter. All he had to do was get his regiment across the river, and then they would decimate the tiellan excuse for an army.
“Genio.”
The psimancer pulled his horse up alongside Kyfer’s. “Yes, General.”
“You are ready to counter their telenic?”
“Of course, General. No tiellan psimancer could stand against a trained Nazaniin warrior.”
Kyfer hoped that was true. He, at least, had never seen anyone best a Nazaniin fighter.
Soon it was the officers’ turn to cross, and Kyfer spurred his horse into the water. The moment his legs touched the water, the chill took his breath away. He looked at his men on the other side of the river, soaking, many of them visibly shivering, and experienced doubt for the briefest moment. Perhaps he had made the wrong choice. Perhaps he should have let his men eat, perhaps he should have been more cautious about the terrain.
But none of that mattered now. Victory was close. He would grasp it by the end of the day, he was sure of it.
The tiellans did not stand a chance.
* * *
Urstadt watched Winter silently. She had not expected what her mistress had done with the prisoners that morning; Urstadt still wondered whether it might have been better to coerce the Cracked Spear into fighting with them, instead of killing half of them and letting the rest go.
“Should we attack them now?” Winter asked. One hand clenched the hilt of her sword, while the other toyed gently with the pouch that contained her faltira.
“Do not let your nerves control you,” Urstadt said. “Nerves force you to react, when you must act.” She could understand Winter’s nervousness, but it was not acceptable. Not when Winter commanded the battlefield.
“It is tempting to deviate from a plan when a potential advantage presents itself,” Urstadt said. “Sometimes, this is the correct choice, but only when the advantage is clear, or when the only other option is certain defeat. Right now, we have our strategy. We have our forces hidden in the grove. I believe we should adhere to our plan.”
“Yes,” Winter said. She visibly calmed herself, taking deep breaths.
Soon, the last of the Regiment emerged from the river, dripping wet. A chill wind gusted by, and Urstadt thanked the gods—or the Goddess, or whoever was up there to listen— that their luck was coalescing this day. The chill of the river and the chill of the wind did not bode well for the Khalic forces.
“Now?” Winter asked.
A momentary thrill rushed through Urstadt. Much of her life had been spent protecting Daval and his household, and she had taken pride in that position. But she was a soldier at heart, always had been and always would be. As a Rodenese native, animosity towards Khale was in her blood, her bones. And here she was, about to do battle with the Khalic general, Publio Kyfer.
“Now,” Urstadt said.
Winter signaled to a pennant boy nearby, who raised a flag and waved it frantically back and forth. That same flag soon flew throughout Winter’s army. It was the signal for her cavalry to charge.
Urstadt had suggested Winter split her cavalry and place them on her flanks, following the Khalic formation. Ideally, Winter’s riders would make quick work of the Khalic cavalry, and then turn inward to flank the infantry bloc.
No sooner had the pennants begun to wave than the horns sounded. The shouts of over a thousand riders filled the air as Winter’s cavalry rushed to meet the Khalic horsemen.
“Infantry, forward,” Winter said.
“Infantry, forward!” Urstadt shouted. Winter had given her command of the infantry; while Winter would still be fighting, she would also be using psimancy, and had not been confident in her ability to both lead and fight at once. Urstadt understood the feeling. Such confidence came with time.
They were in the very middle of the infantry line, at the front. Urstadt was pleased Winter had made that decision. Many commanders chose to govern their forces from the back, and while this had its advantages, it was not the honorable thing to do, or the most effective in Urstadt’s opinion.
In order to lead most effectively, one had to fight. One’s forces had to see her fight.
I do not control myself, Urstadt began to recite to herself as she walked forward at Winter’s side.
I do not hold back, hoping my rage and power spare the deserving.
On the flanks, their riders collided with the Khalic cavalry amidst screams and clashing metal.
I do not weep through eternity, nor do I scrape my knees along the floors of time, atoning.
Urstadt looked to Winter, who slipped a frost crystal into her mouth.
The Khalic infantry broke into a run, rushing towards them.
Because I love what I love, and I love all things.
“Ready!” Urstadt shouted.
I destroy all things, just as I create them.
Urstadt fidgeted with the shaft of her glaive. It was a nervous tic, but there was nothing wrong with that. Her hand always steadied the moment she made contact with the enemy.
“Charge!” Urstadt screamed, and broke into a run. The rest of the infantry sprinted forward with her, and then they clashed with the Steel Regiment.
I could not destroy that which I did not first love.
Urstadt rammed her glaive into the nearest Khalic soldier, impaling him with such force that his body lifted up from the ground. She spun, slipping the weapon from the man’s corpse, flipping the butt of it around to ram into the face of another man.
And so the circle spirals onward.
The blood of her ancestors took over, and Urstadt was a whirlwind on the battlefield, reciting “Wild Calamity” to herself over and over again as men perished in a radius of death around her.
* * *
Winter’s tendra burst forth, forty at once, each seeking a hold on the armored Khalic infantry. She lifted them high into the air, almost as far as her tendra could extend, and then she released them.
The infantry of the Khalic Legion were infamous throughout the Sfaera. They were well-trained, efficient killers, capable of hitting hard and maneuvering swiftly. Winter’s force would not win this battle unless they could rout the Khalic infantry, so she directed all of her focus—psimantic and otherwise—towards that end.
She drew her sword as she sprinted behind Urstadt, and then she met the enemy. Winter cut one soldier down immediately, then moved behind Urstadt to stab another soldier who’d been trying to flank her captain. Urstadt wore every inch of her rose-gold armor, and her glaive blurred around her in deadly arcs.
Winter sent out her tendra again as she parried a soldier’s sword jab, but as she began to lift another group of soldiers into the air, something sliced through a half-dozen of the tendra that held them before they even left the ground. She parried another thrust from the soldier, then took bu-tine form and buried her blade between his neck and shoulder.
Another force cut through six more of her tendra, and the soldiers she’d been lifting only dropped a few rods or so to the ground. The iron taste of blood filled her mouth.
There was another psimancer at the battle.
Suddenly, Nash’s voice echoed in her mind. You must be in complete control of whatever you grip with your tendra.
She remembered practicing with Nash, how he would
attempt to break the grip her tendra had on an object. He had succeeded, at first, until she had learned to strengthen her control. But it had been so long since she had interacted with another psimancer, she had almost forgotten that lesson.
Nothing should interfere with your control. Complete and total mastery.
Winter dropped the remaining men she’d lifted, earlier than she’d anticipated, but she needed to reform her grip if she wanted it to be solid. At the same time, she continued to fight by Urstadt’s side, maneuvering around soldiers, dodging and parrying, and thrusting her blade through chainmail and flesh.
She sent out fewer tendra, gripping roughly half as many as she’d attempted previously, but this time she focused on control.
Once again, she felt a force—the other telenic’s tendra— attempt to slice through hers, but her own tendra held strong. The other telenic sent another attack, a huge force slamming into Winter’s tendra, but again she held firm.
Complete and total mastery, Nash had said.
Winter lifted the soldiers high into the air and dropped them into the river.
She took a step back to survey the battle. Despite her tendra, the Regiment’s infantry pushed her own back, away from the river. On the flanks, however, their riders were routing the Khalic cavalry; on the south side, the Khalic cavalry had already broken formation. On the north, the Khalic formation held, but had been pushed back to the river’s edge.
If her cavalry continued to dominate, they could eventually turn inward as planned and give aid to the outnumbered infantry.
But the taste of blood was still strong in Winter’s mouth, and suddenly she was aware of something in the distance, near the rear of the Steel Regiment. A prickling sensation, as if someone was just about to touch her, but had not yet done so.
Then, a large rock the size of a man’s torso rose up in the distance, and sailed directly towards Winter.
She leapt out of the way just in time, but the rock crashed into the Rangers behind her. Two soldiers of the Steel Regiment advanced on her, swords and shields brandished. They, apparently, were used to fighting with a telenic on their side; they hardly looked twice at the large stone and the carnage it had caused behind Winter.
She parried the first soldier’s attack, but the second bashed into her with his shield and Winter nearly lost her balance. She recovered just in time to parry another sword attack, but this time simultaneously reached out with a tendron and snatched one of the shields from her attacker’s arm, smashing it into the man’s helmet. She pummeled the shield into him again and again, the metal band around the wooden shield denting the helmet and smashing it inward as the shield splintered. She countered the other soldier’s attack with the bu-shu form, moving quickly into bu-fan to deliver a killing blow.
She’d lost her place in her infantry when she’d leapt forward to avoid the stone the other telenic had thrown, but there was no time to get back in line. Another stone of equal size rose from the Regiment’s rear lines—her enemy’s tendra would be there, lifting it up.
She slammed her tendra into the space beneath the rock, and the boulder fell to the ground.
Winter smiled grimly.
The boulder wobbled up again, but Winter stopped the telenic easily; she didn’t even have to look this time, finding that her tendra seemed able to sense the other telenic’s tendra of their own accord.
Her riders on the south had engaged the infantry on their southern flank. On the north, while the Khalic cavalry had been pushed to the river, they still held strong.
Time for her surprise.
“Reinforcements!” Winter called.
One of her standard-bearers lifted a blood-red banner. Within seconds, she heard shouting from the grove of trees where Selldor and Rorie had hidden their forces. Two hundred Rangers charged forward, crashing into the Khalic cavalry’s northern flank, sending them further into the river. The northern contingent of Khalic cavalry scattered almost immediately, and Winter’s reinforcements fell upon the Khalic infantry. Within moments, the Steel Regiment’s horns sounded the retreat, and they fled west, plunging back across the river.
Pride swelled within her as the Khalic Legion was routed. She had done it. The tiellans had found victory.
This is only the beginning.
28
Somewhere in Kirlan
AS KNOT TRIED TO sleep on the cold stone floor of his cell, his feet and hands both chained to the wall, he shifted and felt something hard between his hip and the stone floor.
With some maneuvering, he managed to reach a few fingers into the hidden pocket in his trousers, and withdrew a small object, roughly the size of his thumb, polished black with a bold blood-red rune carved on its face.
Astrid’s voidstone.
Knot stared at it for a long time, wondering if the thing was even real. He’d been unconscious since the moment they captured him in Kirlan until this, his first night in the cell. They’d taken everything from him: his weapons, his belongings, all of his clothing— except his now filthy trousers. Could they truly have overlooked this?
The thought crossed his mind that this was some trick of the Black Matron’s making. But it was Astrid’s same voidstone, the rune shaped exactly as Knot recalled. He remembered enough about psimancy to know that only two voidstones ever had the same rune, and when they did, they alternated colors—there would be a voidstone with a matching rune to Astrid’s, but it would be blood-red with a black rune. No other voidstone with the same rune would function.
Knot rubbed the stone with his thumb and forefinger. It could be a trick, but to what end? What purpose could the Black Matron have in directing Knot through Astrid’s memories? How could she possibly have known Knot would have it?
Whether here by the Black Matron’s design or by chance, there was only one way for Knot to find out. He twisted around, looking at his cell door. A small crack of light leaked from the hallway beyond, but there was no movement or sign of anyone visiting him anytime soon.
He took a breath and extended a miniscule tendron into the stone, and immediately was transported into the Void-like space—he wasn’t sure whether it was truly the Void or not, but he might as well call it that—and then further inward into Astrid’s voidstone, her memories spread all around him like little star-lights.
With one tendron still connected to the voidstone itself, he extended another towards a cluster of memories he had not yet explored.
* * *
Rain fell in heavy sheets, soaking the ground, the trees, and everything Knot could see.
He was on the outskirts of a town, standing outside a small clifftop manor. Knot could see a fjord far below, twisting out toward the ocean. Gray clouds blanketed the sky, casting a shadow over the house, the town, the fjord, and everything in sight.
Knot reached out, wishing he could feel the rain splash heavy on his hand, feel it soak through his clothes and hair, but he felt nothing. He was not a part of this world; he was only an observer.
A girl walked along the muddy dirt road, head hung low and shoulders sagging. Astrid. But she looked different, somehow. This was not the girl Knot was used to seeing, neither in life nor in these memories. Something about her seemed more tangible here, more real. As Astrid neared the house, she slipped in the mud and fell with a wet smack into the road.
Wearily, Astrid pushed herself up, covered in dark mud. Goddess, she looked so weak. But she finally got back to her feet again, now trudging from the road across the grassy field to the manor by which Knot stood. She pounded on the door, once, twice, and the third time it slid open and she collapsed inside.
Knot was immediately transported inside the house. A sharply dressed man in well-fitting dark trousers and overcoat stood in the entryway, frowning at Astrid.
“What in Oblivion is this?” the man demanded. “Who are…”
The man’s voice trailed off as his eyes swept over Astrid, and then he let out a sob.
“Lucia?”
The man rushed to
Astrid, heedless of the mud, and embraced her.
Lucia? Knot wondered. Astrid had used that name once or twice in his presence, always as an alias. But, as he watched the man hug her, he began to suspect it was not an alias at all.
“Papa?”
Knot’s breath caught in his throat at the sound of that word from Astrid’s lips.
“I’m here, Lucia. Goddess, are you all right? What happened to you?” The man turned his head. “Bannabus!” he called. “I need you!”
Astrid looked up at her father. “I… I don’t remember…”
Another man rushed into the room. “Lord Tarlen, what is—?” When he saw Astrid in her father’s arms, he gasped. “Miss… Miss Tarlen…”
“Don’t just stand there, Bannabus,” Lord Tarlen snapped, “help me with her!” His tone was not one of cruelty, but necessity. This was a man worried about his daughter, and nothing else.
Bannabus rushed to Astrid’s side, and together the two men lifted her from the anteroom into a sitting area, where they laid Astrid on a large cushioned couch. As they did, another figure blustered into the room, a woman wearing a servant’s apron.
“What is the meaning of all this ruckus?” she asked. “I hardly think—”
She stopped short when she saw Astrid on the couch, her face going pale.
“Goddess rising,” she whispered. “Miss Tarlen has returned?”
“Papa, is that you?” Astrid asked, her voice still painfully weak. Knot’s heart swelled again in his chest at the sound of the word.
“Yes, Lucia, yes, it’s me. It’s me! I’m here. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Astrid looked down at herself, covered in mud. “I do not believe so. But… but I feel a bit sick.”
A smile was slowly spreading across Tarlen’s face. “I’m not surprised. You’re filthy and you’ve been out in that terrible storm.” He turned to the serving woman.
“Agerta, fetch warm water and clean clothes. And water to drink. And something to eat.” Tarlen laughed then, tears streaming down his face. “My little girl is home! Bring everything, bring it all, anything she needs!”
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