CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE WOLF’S HOWL MADE BLAINE’S BLOOD RUN COLD. His horse, well trained for battle, hesitated, wary on an inborn level to heed the warning. “Damn Nagok!” Blaine muttered.

Thirty large wolves stared down a group of mounted soldiers, emboldened beyond nature and reason.

“Can you turn them away?” Blaine yelled to Mage Rikard, who rode close to Blaine and Kestel.

Rikard shook his head. “Not when they’re bewitched like this,” he said.

The wolves snarled and advanced, teeth bared, heads lowered for attack. “Ride!” Blaine shouted, rallying his troops.

Blaine rode toward the wolves, bow at the ready. His arrow grazed the shoulder of a large wolf. Kestel’s aim with a dagger was true, taking down a wolf with a blade to the neck. Two of Blaine’s soldiers gave chase to another wolf, while two more paired up against a fourth.

Dirt blasted into the air, surprising a charging wolf and bringing it to a sudden, skidding halt. A second explosion of dirt stopped another wolf in its tracks. It growled warily at the small hole left behind in the ground. All over the battlefield, dirt flew into the faces of the charging wolves, forcing them to change their course, slow their attack, and separate from their pack.

One glance revealed the source. Rikard and his fellow mage, Kulp, remained on the sidelines, but they held their hands outstretched toward the fighting, and every time one of the mages clenched his fist, another shower of dirt blasted from the ground, spooking the maddened wolves.

“Ride them down!” Blaine shouted, reining in his horse and going after the nearest wolf. Dirt sprayed up as several hits in succession made a line that cut off the wolves at every turn. Rattled by the explosions, the wolves shied away, giving Blaine and the soldiers an advantage.

Blaine swung his sword, beheading one wolf as another came bounding forward. His horse reared, kicking with enough force to smash in the head of the lead wolf. Kestel threw another dagger, hitting a third wolf in the hindquarters. Dirt sprayed into the air all around them, and Blaine realized the mages were making sure the wolves could not run in straight lines to attack, slowing their approach and giving the bowmen an advantage.

Blaine sheathed his sword and grabbed the crossbow from his back. It thudded as he sent a quarrel into the nearest wolf, stopping him in his tracks. His next shot went wide as one of the explosions kicked dirt into the air just as Blaine’s quarrel flew toward its target. Kestel dropped that wolf with a well-thrown knife.

Across the battlefield, one of Birgen Verner’s captains marshaled a phalanx of archers against ten more wolves. Blaine’s soldiers battled another six wolves, which left seven of the bewitched creatures prowling the battlefield.

In the distance, Niklas’s contingent of soldiers fought the human invaders, with help from Rinka Solveig and her troops. Rinka’s blood-red armor, sculpted to have the appearance of a dragon, was easy to spot, as if she dared her enemies to focus on her as their target.

Sweat and grime ran down Blaine’s face and soaked his shirt. They had been fighting hard since daybreak, and he was hungry and bone weary. The battlefield was an abattoir, covered in the bodies of the wild beasts Nagok had manipulated with his magic. Blaine was weary of killing, numb from the horrors of the battlefield, but there was much left to do. Donderath would not be secure until Nagok was defeated, and both armies knew the fate of the war hung in the balance.

And in the back of his mind, Blaine wondered how the strike against Thrane would go for Penhallow and Connor. Though he had been part of the planning and had endorsed the attack, he was well aware of the danger. Taking out Thrane could turn the course of the battle, but it was likely to come at a high price. Is this what it’s like to be king? Blaine wondered. The constant choice between life and death? Why would any sane man fight to gain such a burden?

Fresh troops from the former convicts of Edgeland brought new energy into the ranks of Blaine’s army. After fending for themselves in the arctic wastes and surviving Velant’s harsh discipline, the returned colonists knew how to fight and how to hunt, whether or not they had been soldiers before their exile. Three hundred had come north to fight alongside Blaine and Niklas, while one hundred had stayed in Castle Reach to help protect the harbor and the castle. The new soldiers fought like madmen, seeing for the first time what damage the Great Fire had brought to their homeland.

“Over there!” Kestel cried, pointing toward three wolves stalking them from behind, while four more closed in from the side.

Blaine wheeled his horse, readying his bow once more. The wolves were fast and tough, with razor-sharp teeth. Blaine let fly an arrow, and this time he hit his mark, striking the wolf just behind the shoulder and dropping it to the ground.

A second wolf circled Blaine, running for the horse and not the rider. Blaine pulled back hard on the reins, and his horse reared, kicking with its strong, iron-shod front hooves. The first kick struck a glancing blow, knocking the wolf from its feet. The wolf scrambled to its feet for another charge, and the horse’s hooves flew once more, smashing in the front of the wolf’s skull.

Kestel’s hand moved, sure and fast, and steel glinted as it flew toward its quarry, lodging in the eye of a maddened wolf that stopped in its tracks and toppled to the dirt.

A deep growl cut through the night. A huge gray wolf, nearly the size of a dire wolf, fixed the soldiers in its baleful glare, head lowered, bounding toward them. Blaine and Kestel held their ground.

The other soldiers backed away, clearing a large area. Blaine rode to one side, while Kestel rode to the other. Their horses shied and whinnied in alarm, and Blaine fought to keep his spooked mount under control. The wolf was massive, muscles rippling beneath the fur as it ran. It focused on Blaine and headed for him, taking a swipe with one huge paw that Blaine and his horse barely avoided.

“Hey! Over here!” Kestel shouted, trying to draw off the wolf. For the moment, the wolf was fixed on Blaine, and it lunged into the air with a deep growl, swatting at Blaine with its broad, powerful paw and its long, deadly claws.

Blaine’s horse shrieked in panic. The wolf’s teeth snicked shut inches from Blaine’s arm, and the paw raked his thigh with a glancing blow as he wheeled his horse at the last moment to avoid the full weight of the wolf slamming into his mount. Blaine aimed his crossbow, and the force of the quarrel at close range threw the wolf backward several feet, to lie dead on the pockmarked ground.

Kestel took up her bow, and her arrow struck one of the wolves in the hindquarters. The beast howled and dropped back as blood matted its thick, dark fur. Another wolf growled, circling Kestel, a throaty, primal sound that made the hair on the back of Blaine’s neck stand up. Kestel’s arrow hit the wolf in the chest as two more closed on her and the rest stalked Blaine and his horse.

Four soldiers rode toward them, shifting the odds away from the wolves. Blaine was grateful for the help, though Kestel looked as if she was enjoying the challenge.

Another wolf advanced on Kestel. The maddened creature growled, shaking its head and shoulders to look even more frightening. Blaine readied his bow, as did Kestel, unwilling to allow the wolf to get close enough to strike again.

The wolf snarled, ready to leap. Just as it was about to spring, it sat down heavily, with a glazed look on its face. It shook its head, sniffed at the air, turned, and loped away in the opposite direction. Across the battlefield, the remaining wolves broke off their attack as abruptly as they had started it, running for the foothills.

“Let them go!” Blaine shouted to his soldiers.

Rikard rode forward to meet him as Kestel joined. “Nagok’s compulsion runs deep,” Rikard said. “That’s the first time I’ve tried to distract the animals, and Kulp did his best to throw illusions to frighten them—bears, fire, that kind of thing.” He chuckled. “Fortunately, Kulp’s magic was invisible to our own troops.”

“The explosions helped,” Kestel said, slinging her bow over her shoulder. “Seemed to rattle their focus.” In the distance, Blaine heard shouting, evidence that the battle was heading their way.

Rikard nodded. “Glad we could help. Animal minds are quite alien, by the way. Nagok’s gift is a remarkable—and rare—type of magic. I wish he had been willing to do something constructive with it.” Rikard shrugged. “Still—I had the feeling, there for a moment, that Nagok was fighting us for control. I think the entire attack ended earlier than it was meant to.”

“So by pushing back and distracting the wolves, you may have weakened Nagok?” Kestel asked, intrigued.

“Not weakened permanently, but tired him out, so that he had to quit sooner,” Rikard replied. “Unfortunately, there’s no way to know for certain.”

Kulp looked down at Blaine’s leg, which was bleeding. “We need to get that bound,” he said. “It sounds like there’s more fighting coming this way.”

Blaine let Kulp call for a battlefield healer to speed the healing in his leg and bind it up with cloth as Rikard went to talk to the other commanders. The healer had barely finished his work and headed back behind the lines when the thunder of hoofbeats and the roar of the fight pushed toward them. Across the valley, Blaine glimpsed the half of his army led by Niklas. To the right, Rinka Solveig and her troops, along with several hundred Plainsmen. Birgen Verner and his soldiers flanked the Meroven troops, so that the allied warlords trapped Nagok’s forces between them.

“We need to be out there,” Blaine grated, swinging back up to his saddle.

“Did you get any more out of Geir about what’s pulling the Elders away from the fight?” Kestel asked. The need for utter secrecy had required Blaine to keep the plans from everyone, even Kestel.

Blaine nodded. “Penhallow and the Wraith Lord are attacking Thrane’s stronghold, with Tormod’s help.” He shrugged at her glare. “I swore to Penhallow I wouldn’t say anything to anyone. It wasn’t that he thought someone would tell. He was afraid it could be read from someone’s mind. So that ensures Nagok won’t have the rogue Elders’ help—and perhaps be without most of their broods, too,” he added, certain that later on, Kestel would have something to say about being excluded.

“You think the one they call Aubergine will actually leave Nagok in the middle of a battle?” Kestel asked.

Blaine shrugged. “Penhallow seemed to think so—I wouldn’t doubt that talishte politics trump other agreements.”

“So we lose ‘our’ Elders to the showdown, too?” Kestel surmised. Aldwin Carlisle, Garrick Dalton, and Malin Jarett were as difficult and demanding as any mortal aristocrats, but their help holding off Nagok’s army had reduced the toll of mortal lives and kept a balance of force against Nagok’s talishte fighters.

“That’s the plan,” Blaine replied. “Let’s just hope whatever’s going on plays out in our favor.”

“Does your bond to Penhallow tell you how it’s going?”

Blaine shook his head. “Just a vague impression of danger and battle. I don’t think it’s settled yet.” The images he received were often incomplete and jumbled. If this is what seers have to interpret, I don’t envy them their job.

Kestel leveled a look at him. “We’re going to talk about this later.”

“I rather suspected that would be the case.”

The next wave of attackers were soldiers, and as deadly with their swords and axes as the wolves had been. Blaine’s soldiers and the fighters under Niklas’s command swept back and forth together across the flatlands, gaining ground, falling back, and surging forward again. The corpses of men and horses fell alongside the bloodied remains of the wild animals, amid the trampled high grass.

Through it all, Blaine spotted Aron, Dagur, Kulp, Rikard, and Mevvin moving around the edges of the battle, using their magic to slow the enemy’s advance or distracting Nagok’s troops with blasts of fire and sudden explosions. He looked up, and saw a large eagle turning in wide, slow circles above the battlefield. In the next heartbeat, he felt a frisson of power as subtle magic slipped over him and his troops. Not hostile, but odd. Blaine thought he caught glimpses of strange shadows overhead, but he was too consumed with the battle to think too long about it.

Half a candlemark later, during a lull in the fighting, Blaine motioned Dagur over. “What’s going on?” he asked. “I thought I saw something strange overhead, between us and the clouds.”

Dagur nodded. “Illusions. That eagle belongs to Nagok, and he’s using it to scry for him. So we gave him something to look at of our own making that should mislead him about how the battle is actually going.” He glanced skyward, assuring himself the eagle was gone. “We’ve also been using our magic to drive the wild animals as far away as we can. With luck, that will put at least some of them—and hopefully the biggest predators—beyond Nagok’s reach.”

“If he can only control one type of beast at a time, then when he’s commanding the eagle, he can’t send other creatures against us,” Blaine replied. “At least that’s something.”

Nagok’s troops fought with such frenzy that Blaine wondered if the mages had been wrong about whether or not an entire army could be bewitched. The Meroven soldiers gave no quarter and asked for none, wielding broadswords and war axes without remorse. Some of the men looked old enough and fought well enough to have been part of the Meroven War. Others fought with the fury of men who dared not return if not victorious.

“We’ve got your back, Mick!” Sergei, one of the new fighters from Edgeland, shouted as he and a dozen others battled their way near where Blaine and Kestel were fighting.

“Glad to hear it!” Blaine shouted back, never taking his eyes from the Meroven fighter attacking him. The outlander fought with manic intensity, striking blow after blow that had little plan or skill but were dangerous in their sheer ferocity. What has Nagok threatened them with if they fail? Blaine wondered as the Meroven soldiers pressed forward. Death seemed to be the least of their concerns, and honor was unlikely to be motivating their mad advance.

The press of soldiers was too thick to use a bow, and so Blaine and Kestel set about with their swords, a long blade in one hand and a short sword in the other. Both were bloodied to the elbow and thigh, less with their own blood than that of their adversaries. The day was warm, and flies buzzed in black, shifting clouds over the battlefield, reveling in the feast of shit and dead meat.

“We’ve got to gain ground before Nagok can send his beasts on the offense again,” Blaine yelled to Kestel. “If he’s weakened, now’s the time to strike!”

Apparently the same thing had occurred to Niklas, who was galloping toward Blaine. Niklas was spattered with blood, and his uniform was cut and torn. His lip was split, and his bruised knuckles made it clear that he had recently fought hand-to-hand. “We’ve got to make a push,” Niklas said, reining in his horse as he approached. “Every time Nagok uses his beasts, he wears down our forces.”

“Agreed,” Blaine said, eyeing the shifting Meroven line. “And he should be weakest after he’s spent himself to control the beasts. Tonight may be our best chance if most of the talishte are otherwise occupied. Bayard should be joining us after dark, so we can split the Plainsmen from Rinka Solveig’s soldiers if we need two different strike forces.”

Niklas nodded. “We’ve set Nagok back on his heels with the reinforcements. I’m sure he thought he was just going up against me and my troops, and he got a lot more than he bargained for. But we need the mages to help us keep his soldiers off balance. They’ve been doing a good job catching things on fire and setting other traps and distractions. It helps.”

Despite the additional troops from Edgeland and nearly all of Blaine’s full army, the Meroven attackers presented a fearsome enemy. The outlanders fought like dark spirits from the Unseen Realms, tireless and pitiless. Blaine’s army was weary but resolute, determined to break the Meroven threat.

The last push had regained precious ground. But as the sun set, Blaine felt a shiver of foreboding. Torches lit the open plains, and the moon was dark. Niklas and Blaine shouted the order to charge forward, and the ranks of foot soldiers and men on horseback surged toward the Meroven army. Two armies met with a clash of swords and shields, and the sound of the battle rolled down the valley like thunder.

Nagok rode at the center of his army astride a huge black warhorse at least nineteen hands high. Beside him loped a large black wolf, easily keeping pace with the horse. Nagok’s steel helmet was forged to look like the skeletal head of a giant wolf. A breastplate of yellowed bones covered chain mail. Several dozen of Nagok’s fighters wore similar steel skull helmets. Those soldiers wore dark armor, and the champrons of their mounts had razor-sharp steel horns or antlers.

Blaine rode full tilt into the fray as the field became an open melee. Kestel was an excellent swordswoman, but for this strike, she rode with a bow and quivers full of arrows, riding at full speed so that the enemy soldiers were obliged to get out of her way or be ridden down, veering unpredictably to avoid being blocked in or cut down, sending arrow after arrow with deadly aim. Blaine’s gift of battle foresight served him well, helping him dodge at the last minute or rein in his horse mere breaths before a strike might have had his head.

Rikard, Dagur, and the rest of the mages had not yet made their move, but Blaine could feel power rising all around them on the darkened battlefield. It prickled at his senses, like a coming storm, intangible but very real. Another magic vied against the first, and Blaine guessed that his mages and Nagok’s mages were locked in their own arcane struggle. He was weary in every bone and sinew, bloodied and bleeding, but he was certain that before this night was through, their fate would be decided.

By morning, either he or Nagok would be dead.

More creatures bore down on them, monstrous beings with skeletal heads and elongated bodies. It took Blaine a moment to realize that what he saw were men riding standing up on their saddles, dressed in fearsome costumes with totem-like heads resembling the skulls of monsters, their horses similarly armored to inspire terror.

“They’re just men!” Blaine shouted to give courage to his soldiers. “They bleed like anyone else!”

A hideous keening cry echoed across the plains. Creatures coiled and slithered, charged and flew toward them, the stuff of nightmares and hallucinations. The monsters were opaque, shadows that glided rather than ran and disappeared when they turned, like a paper shown on edge. Soldiers struck at the creatures with their swords, but the blades went right through without doing harm.

“They’re illusions!” Dagur shouted, though his voice was lost above the chaos. Verner’s soldiers held their line, and the hideous creatures washed over them and past them without doing any damage. Dagur and the other mages took up positions behind the front line of the battle, trying to disrupt the powerful, overwhelming illusions cast by Nagok’s magic-users.

“Hold your positions!” Verner shouted. “They can’t hurt you!

Blaine raised his sword for the charge, and felt a wave of magic hit him like the incoming tide. The force was invisible, but potent, sweeping men from their saddles and knocking horses off their feet. Blaine felt as if he were drowning as the air was sucked from his lungs and his head grew light. He clung to the reins and used his knees to grip his mount to hold his seat. He was dimly aware of a sudden flare from the amulet inside his tunic—the one Rikard and his mages had made to deflect the worst of a magic strike—that warned him it was nearly spent.

The amulet flared once more and went dull as a force too strong to fight tore Blaine from his saddle and hurled him to the ground.

Kestel ran from the fray and helped Blaine to his feet. Nothing was broken, but every inch of him was sore, and he was winded from the fall. “My amulet won’t do me any good now,” he said. The cloud of nightmare creatures billowed toward them like a looming storm.

Kestel threw her arms around him as the storm clouds hit, and her null amulet shone brightly, driving back the darkness, carving out a circle of space around them through which the monsters could not pass. The illusions seemed real, and the snick of sharp teeth sounded so close behind Blaine that he flinched, but the amulet’s light held, giving Blaine and Kestel the ability to see that the monsters were nothing but cleverly shaped shadows.

“We’ve got to do something!” Blaine said, but Kestel clung to him fiercely.

“Do what? You’re not a mage. Neither am I. The monsters might not be real, but the power behind them is!”

They stood at the center of the maelstrom, as the wind that bore the nightmare beasts howled around them. The air grew freezing cold, and it smelled of blood and death. The light of Kestel’s null amulet was fading. Though the creatures were only illusion, it was an overwhelming hallucination, and it left Blaine and his allies open to attack.

A figure took shape amid the storm of magic that raged all around them, glowing and insubstantial. Carr McFadden’s ghost stood sentinel, holding gleaming, spectral swords in both hands, protecting Blaine and Kestel as the shadow monsters swarmed around them.

Night had fallen, and amid the dangerous illusions of Nagok’s shadow army, the talishte fought in no-man’s-land. The mortal fighters had fled, save for Blaine and Kestel, and the blood-soaked ground belonged to the dead and the undead. A dozen talishte of Penhallow’s get battled at least as many or more from the rogue Elders’ broods, and they, too, seemed to know that this night would decide their fate.

The talishte battled like warriors of legend, moving at impossible speeds, meting out and taking blows that would have snapped mortal spines and crushed mortal skulls. Geir’s blade slashed down along his opponent’s ribs, opening his chest to the bone, only to have the injury begin to heal as soon as the sword was removed. A broadsword skewered one of Penhallow’s get through the abdomen, but the injured talishte freed himself by moving backward at blinding speed, then brought his own sword across his opponent’s belly so that the entrails bulged from the raw wound, until it closed minutes later. Overhead, airborn talishte tumbled and dove like eagles fighting to the death, showering the ground with cold blood and bits of dead flesh.

Whether the two sides were so evenly matched that neither could gain the upper hand, or whether the stalemate was enabling long-overdue vengeance to play out, Blaine did not know, but the undead fighters battled with a primal savagery that made the wolves’ attack seem elegant by comparison. Blaine glimpsed Geir rising like a bloodied god, hair lank and matted, his clothing ragged and spattered with gore, a damaged warrior bent on utter devastation.

The ranks of the talishte had thinned, each side losing some of their fighters, when they rose to meet each other for a final reckoning. Two ranks of immortals, fighting in midair, finishing a centuries-old feud.

Geir’s fighters charged. Before they could strike at their opponents, Thrane’s talishte screamed and began to writhe, hung against the black night sky. The enemy talishte went still, then their bodies crumbled, spreading the dust of their ancient flesh and bones across the empty, bloody battlefield, until the last of their remains vanished on the wind.

“What in Raka just happened?” Kestel breathed, still holding Blaine tightly within the fading protection of the null amulet.

“Penhallow and Connor won,” Blaine replied, sensing a rush of relief and triumph through the kruvgaldur, tempered with loss and fear. “The Elgin Spike worked. But I’m afraid it’s come at a steep cost.” Blaine concentrated, trying to make sense of the jumbled, distant impressions he received through the kruvgaldur. At that instant, the last faint light of Kestel’s null amulet blinked out. Carr’s ghost turned slowly, gave Blaine a lopsided, sad smile and an ironic salute, and winked out of sight.

The mortal army had fallen back, leaving an empty swath of devastation where the two talishte forces had clashed. “Come on!” Blaine said, grabbing Kestel’s wrist and heading toward where he had last seen Nagok astride his warhorse. Niklas and a small group of soldiers fell in behind them as Geir and the surviving talishte swept on ahead.

Nagok was unmistakable astride his massive black warhorse. His huge black wolf stayed at his side, snarling and snapping at the advancing soldiers. The wolf sprang at one of the talishte soldiers, and the undead fighter caught the heavy animal easily. The talishte held the wolf at arm’s length by its throat, unfazed by its fangs and claws, then with a casual, violent shake of his wrist that broke the wolf’s neck, the talishte hurled the man-sized creature at three of Nagok’s soldiers, knocking them to the ground.

Nagok shouted for his predator protectors as Blaine’s talishte fighters bore down on him, but Rikard and the mages had driven the creatures out of range. A cadre of loyal supporters surrounded Nagok, but the talishte set on them with fury, ripping Nagok’s protectors limb from limb. The terrified warhorse reared, throwing Nagok from his saddle.

“Geir! Call them off!” Blaine shouted. “I’ve got to finish this!”

Geir shouted a command and the talishte drew back, forming a corridor to where Nagok struggled to regain his feet. The skeletal helmet had been ripped from his head, leaving deep, bloody gashes along his scalp and face. The rest of his armor looked as if it had been punctured by war axes or pikes, and deep cuts, spaced as wide as the fingers of a hand, clawed across the armor covering his torso and legs. Blaine wondered how much Thrane’s destruction damaged Nagok, and whether he could use that to his advantage in the fight.

Blaine advanced, sword drawn. “Pick up your weapon,” Blaine shouted to Nagok. “You wanted to loot Donderath to enrich your own kingdom. Your master intended to give Donderath’s throne to Pollard. What did he promise you? The crown of Meroven?” Blaine’s smile was bitter. “Did you really believe he would keep his word, even if you won?” He shook his head. “We will not allow that. Now face me, and die in fair battle, or the talishte will finish what they started.”

For the first time, Blaine got a good look at his mortal enemy. Nagok’s breastplate of human bones had been shattered. The long dark hair that framed his face was matted with blood and sweat. He might have been a few years older than Blaine, but the cold reckoning in Nagok’s dark eyes was bitter and reptilian.

Nagok gave a guttural growl and lunged. He brought his sword down two-handed in a brutal strike that forced Blaine back a pace and shook him to the bone. Blaine struck back with a war cry, drawing on his pain and rage and fear to deliver three pounding strikes.

Eyes blazing with sheer hatred, Nagok stalked toward Blaine, watching him like a starving wolf, looking for weakness. Without his magic, cut off from his predators, his talishte allies, and his mages, Nagok was left with nothing but his sword skill. He was a few inches shorter than Blaine but stockier, and what he lacked in reach he made up for in power. Blaine was fast, with longer arms that gave him an advantage. As they circled, with the fate of a kingdom in the balance, Blaine called on the stubborn will that had enabled him to survive Velant and Edgeland’s brutal cold.

“You’re defeated,” Blaine grated, his throat dry and raw from the fight. “Donderath is not for Meroven to plunder.”

“You think I’ll be the last you see of Meroven?” Nagok rasped. “You’re wrong. There will be others. You’ll never be rid of us.” He rallied, running toward Blaine with a mad howl, swinging his sword with all his might in powerful, killing blows.

Blaine let the fury and terror of the day fill him, let it find release in the strong, scything strikes of his broadsword, meeting Nagok’s swings with fierce determination. Their swords rang loud against each other, steel scraping against steel. Nagok lunged again, and Blaine blocked the blow, pushing Nagok’s blade out of the way and sinking his short sword between Nagok’s ribs.

Nagok opened his mouth to speak, but blood bubbled from his lips. He fixed Blaine with a killing glare, and as he sank to his knees, Blaine swung his sword again, severing Nagok’s head from his shoulders as his body tumbled to the side.

The allied armies and the talishte cheered, while Nagok’s troops knelt in surrender.

Kestel and Niklas hurried to Blaine’s side. “You did it!” Kestel said with a tired grin. Her face was streaked with blood and dirt, and her clothing was ripped and bloodied. Deep scratches marred her cuirass and vambraces. Niklas also looked worse for the wear, spattered with gore and grime. Blaine imagined he looked at least as bad himself.

“We’re not done yet,” Blaine said, tearing his gaze away from Nagok’s headless corpse. “Pollard and Hennoch are still out there, and they won’t rest until this is finished—one way or the other.”

Geir joined them, moving swiftly and silently as only talishte could. “Congratulations,” he said, inclining his head in acknowledgment.

“Penhallow’s strike was successful?” Blaine asked.

Geir nodded, and his wan smile was enigmatic. “Under the right circumstances, with the right tool in the right hands,” he replied. “Penhallow and the Wraith Lord—and Connor—have been busy tonight.”

“The other Elders?” Niklas asked.

“Those made by Thrane or his get are destroyed,” Geir replied. “The remaining Elders battled among themselves tonight, drawing Thrane’s allies into an ambush.” He glanced at Blaine. “What I can read through the kruvgaldur suggests victory for our side, but the price was dear.”

Blaine nodded. “That was my impression as well. I had hoped you might have gleaned more details.”

Geir shook his head. “Unless Penhallow intends to convey an explicit message, I receive impressions, images, bits and pieces, just like you do. I suspect he’s been too busy to attempt to contact us with more than that. We’ll know the specifics soon enough.”

“Tomorrow, you can take troops to go deal with Pollard at Rodestead House, and I’ll send men to handle Hennoch,” Niklas said, laying a hand on Blaine’s shoulder. “After we get this locked down tonight. Rikard and Aron are making sure there’s no funny stuff from the Meroven mages, while Dagur and Kulp and Mevvin are setting wardings and traps around the camp perimeter so we won’t be disturbed.”

Blaine started to turn away, but Niklas tightened his grasp for a moment, and Blaine looked back at him. “Rest tonight, and take plenty of soldiers with you. No one expects you to be a god. You’ve already proven that you’ll be quite a king.”