41

South of the Eastmaw Mountains

CARRIERI NODDED TO HIS standard-bearer, who took a soaked black flag from his bundle and began waving it in the downpour.

Despite the unfavorable weather, the battle was going well. One of the tiellan cavalry flanks had already broken and fled. The other held strong, but soon the tiellan center would fall. The new psimancers the Denomination had brought continued to rain chaos down on the tiellan ranks. The Cantic psimancers were not nearly as effective as Nazaniin agents, but they got the job done. Winter’s abilities, on the other hand, were nowhere to be seen. Carrieri suspected she had run out of frost, but there was always the possibility the woman was saving her powers for something specific.

His feelings were mixed as he watched his combined force chip away at the remaining tiellans. Relief was foremost. Given time, given their current trajectory, if the tiellans had not been stopped, they could have eventually threatened the very foundations of the Circle City itself. Triah had not fallen to an enemy army in Ages, but this tiellan woman presented the first real threat to the Khalic republic Carrieri could remember. Skirmishes with Roden were one thing, but there had not been a significant conflict with Roden in centuries. Who would have known the greatest enemy of the republic would come from within its own borders?

He felt a certain sadness. He had met Urstadt once, at a formal dinner in Roden when the two nations were on slightly better terms, and she had been as taciturn then as she was now. He still itched to know why she had fallen in with the tiellans, and why in Oblivion they had let her.

His forces pressed inward, and soon the tiellans would either surrender and be taken prisoner, or die by the sword. Carrieri sincerely hoped it would be the former—while he mourned for the slaughter of the Canaian Fields, he was not fond of bloodshed in any form, even from his enemies. A victory was a victory, after all, and the fewer deaths the better.

He turned to face Kyfer, who looked out over the battlefield with a strange expression on his face. Carrieri could not tell whether the man was angry—his eyes certainly seemed to indicate as much, turned downward and so full of wrathful energy that they almost seemed to glow—or delighted at the destruction of the tiellan force, as his wide smile seemed to indicate.

“This should have happened months ago,” Carrieri said, frowning at his general. “You should have heeded my counsel, and never engaged them on the Setso.”

Kyfer turned, that exaggerated smile almost unmoving on his face.

“If I had not lost to them at the Setso,” he said, “you would not have been able to defeat them here.”

Carrieri snorted. “That is a foolish thing to say. Better to learn your lesson than to justify the deaths of so many with hindsight.”

“Forgive me, Grand Marshal.” Kyfer lowered his head.

Carrieri should have been pleased at the general’s show of humility, but something about the man was completely off.

When the man looked up, his eyes no longer had the illusion of glowing—they were glowing, a bright, shining red. The voice that emanated from his lips was not of anything in the Sfaera.

“I believe my time for lessons has come to an end.”

Instinctively, Carrieri nudged his horse further away. “Kyfer!” Carrieri called. “What is this?”

“I have done what any desperate man would do in my position,” Kyfer said, a low rumble somehow accompanying his speech. “I have given in to wrath, and wrath… now… becomes me…”

Kyfer threw back his head and roared, the sound so loud that it split through the cacophony of battle, the rain, and the thunder above. Tiellans and humans alike stopped fighting and turned to see what had made the sound.

As Kyfer roared, his mouth opened wider and wider, until it was no longer a human mouth at all. His limbs elongated, and he fell from his horse, writhing on the ground. The horse galloped away, mad with panic. Carrieri was of a mind to do the same thing, but could not tear his eyes away from the scene before him.

As Kyfer writhed and roared on the ground, beams of scarlet light broke through his skin, bursting from his eyes, his fingers, his chest.

Carrieri turned his head away, shielding his eyes from a burst of red light that bathed the entire battlefield. He blinked, blinded for a moment, as his eyes and ears readjusted. When his sight cleared, he saw standing before him a massive beast, twice the height of a man, with russet-red skin, the color of blood that had not quite dried. It stood on two massive, muscular legs. Huge claws protruded from its toes and feet, and a long tail swung lazily back and forth.

“Kyfer!” Carrieri called again. A devastating fear burst inside of his chest, and an overwhelming anger—at Kyfer for… for doing whatever it was he had done to become this beast, and at himself for not knowing what in Oblivion to do about it.

The Daemon looked down at him, eyes glowing scarlet red. Tendrils of luminous red smoke drifted sluggishly up from its eyes, its skin, everywhere on the monster. The largest muscles Carrieri had ever seen bulged and strained. Massive jaws, split with rows of fangs, moved as it spoke.

“Kyfer is no more,” the Daemon rumbled. “The last of us has claimed an avatar.” The thing stretched its arms out, looking at itself. “I can now take my true form,” it said, although Carrieri could swear he heard a hint of surprise in its voice.

Razzo, who had been mounted nearby, rode up to Carrieri. “What in Oblivion is going on, Grand Marshal? What is that?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Carrieri murmured.

High Cleric Butarian reined his horse up beside them.

“That,” Butarian said, “is one of the Nine Daemons.”

“Grand Marshal…” Razzo’s eyes were glowing red.

“Razzo,” Carrieri said, “not you, too.”

Razzo drew his sword. His burning eyes turned to Carrieri through the drenching rain. Then, he spurred his horse forward and attacked.

Carrieri directed his horse to sidestep as Razzo rode past him, parrying the man’s insane blows.

“Razzo!” Carrieri shouted. “I order you to stop, as your commander-in-chief!”

Razzo only turned his horse and charged again, screaming. Carrieri parried blow after blow. Razzo used his sword like a club, smashing it at Carrieri again and again. Carrieri spurred his horse around Razzo, deflecting as much as he could. Razzo had a reputation as a renowned swordsman, particularly for his strength, but this was beyond any human capacity. And Razzo showed no finesse or discipline now—only brawn and muscle. Carrieri soon found an opening, and disarmed his lieutenant with a flick of his sword.

“Stand down, Razzo,” Carrieri said, sword held ready to strike. “It’s over.”

Razzo glared at Carrieri, his eyes burning within his skull. Weaponless, he lunged at Carrieri from his saddle with a roar.

Carrieri struck, his sword plunging into Razzo’s chest, but Razzo did not stop. Instead, he slid forward on Carrieri’s sword, arms reaching forward.

Carrieri pulled his saddle dagger and rammed it into Razzo’s neck once, twice, then a third time, blood spurting out of each wound. Slowly, Razzo slumped forward, still impaled on Carrieri’s sword.

Carrieri withdrew the blade, breathing heavily. He was about to berate the soldiers around him for not jumping in to help their Grand Marshal, but he looked up to see the battlefield had completely changed.

It was chaos.

Whatever had affected Razzo had also affected hundreds of soldiers, from both sides—tiellans and humans, eyes burning red, attacked with berserk strength, heedless of who once might have fought by their side.

Nearby, the Daemon that had begun it all, the thing that had once been Kyfer, rumbled a low, rolling chuckle.

“Bloodlust,” the thing growled.

Carrieri spurred his horse away from the Daemon. He needed to regroup his men—the ones still in control of themselves—to rally them against this horrifying beast. Whatever it was, it was clearly an enemy to both the Khalic forces and the tiellans.

Above his head, black mist began to form.