At dawn the sons of Righel marched from the dark shores of the river Ithen toward Hericlon. The mountain lay distant, its icy spears resting against the dark underbelly of the black whirlers that marked the coming of the armies of Du’ldu. The Nephilim of Righel set out in columns, many on high horses. Eryian rode at the head of the First Century, with Amathon on his right, and to his left, Cassium. The deeper into the vale they came, the more the mountain’s presence seemed to envelop them. Its foothills seemed to curl like waiting fingers about them, and the touch bristled against Eryian’s skin.
By midday the sky was a slate gray. The clouds were thick, and from a knoll of yellow grass, the sons of Righel descended into a wide plateau. Hericlon’s spurs now curled to either side. The battle once fought here, in times men no longer remembered, had left this ground named the Vale of Tears. Beyond, at the far end of the plateau, was an unkempt dirt road that wound a snaking path up through the glade into the passage that led to the gate of Hericlon.
Once the army had reached the plateau’s center, the sky rumbled quietly. Amathon lifted the reins, slowing his mount and pointed south. Shadows moved across the sky, driven by more than wind. At first they looked to be plumes of the coming storm, lifting out of the dark clouds above Hericlon, but then they took shape and Eryian watched as they passed overhead. Minions, winged. Their passage spooked many of the horses. Cassium’s mount lifted its front hooves, snorting, dancing a moment before she brought it in rein. The minions passed over without turning, as though they had no care of the warriors below, but Eryian noticed they were touching down in a pattern, some to the hillocks surrounding them, others vanishing without sound in the dark foliages that lined Hericlon’s spurs. Then the fog came. It rolled across the plateau in waves, like the tide slowly coming in, gathering strength, and thickening. Amathon finally raised his hand and his captains called a halt. The gray fog was blurred only dimly by daylight.
Amathon glanced aside to Eryian. “I believe, my lord, we are being offered an invitation to dance—and this is his chosen field, the Vale of Tears.”
Eryian searched, listening carefully. There were far sounds to the south, toward Hericlon, but soon they were also east, and west, until Eryian realized there was movement all around them; a shifting of sound, a low, steady rumble. There was no wind—the air had stilled, and the fog was carrying sound as though it were prisoner, as though they were in a great chamber.
“They have closed on our rear,” Amathon said. “Their numbers are many. They use the fog to surround us.” Amathon turned in the saddle, searching. “Take up weapons! Prepare your hearts for battle, my brothers!”
In a single motion, the sons of Righel drew weapon. Swords cleared their sheaths, and heavy shields lifted. The horsemen gathered inward, and the infantry began to circle outward to the flanks. Archers and spear throwers took up their positions.
A heavy, breathless silence hung a moment, and then a wind, low and chill, began to fall from Hericlon. It was winter wind, that kind that comes before a chilling frost, only this touched deeper, past armor and flesh, whispering against bone.
The fog was rolled back like skin peeling. Eryian knew they faced an army, but seeing them gathered, he still felt his breath taken.
As far as the eye could see, spanning the passage to Hericlon, lining the forest to either side, melting into trees and crawling dark about the far spurs and valleys, to the rear—in all directions—the land was thick with Unchurians and the dark red glints of their armor and weapons. The fog curling and falling away between them left the illusion they were materializing.
“Elyon’s Light grace us,” Amathon whispered, shifting in the saddle. “I suppose to guess their number is useless. It appears they have no number.”
Eryian tightened his jaw. They were high-blood, firstborn of the angel. Between the sons of Righel and the armies of Du’aul were no fodder, no giants or miscreants. Azazel had sent in his finest warriors, and they held themselves as did the legions of the Daath. Eryian curled his forearm through the leather grips of his buckler and lifted it from his back.
“Good lady,” Amathon said, “it would appear this trap has been well baited.”
“Yes. But he has laid no trap. Our coming has not been a secret; he knew when he saw the ships sail up the Ithen to Hericlon’s vale. It is not as if the angel has surprised us. We bear the surprise, Amathon. Azazel is out there, somewhere watching, and he senses something, the blade of aganon, perhaps, the sword of the Pleiades—he would smell that. But I have not felt his probe. He does not realize who waits here, who we are. He comes for the Daath, so perhaps he does not care. We are merely a puzzling inconvenience before he can move south for Terith-Aire.”
Amathon circled his horse. “There is still a weakness in their rear,” he said. He glanced at her. “If we broke for the river, I believe we could pierce through, but then I realize we have not come to prevail here; we have come to make the stand—as you have spoken all these years. The time has finally come. I will make the cost of our fall leave a mark upon this ground, my lady. Pray Elyon witnesses our sacrifice.”
Amathon paused a moment, lowering his head, and Eryian wondered if perhaps he were sending his thoughts to the Blue Stars, to the heavens. When he looked up, his face was steeled against what they faced.
“It is more than armies,” Cassium said. “It is time that has closed on us, Amathon. Sometimes a life is only answered in its final moments, in the clutch of last breath. We shall be what we have kept in our hearts. We shall die well, my son, more than that cannot be asked of us.”
The giant slowly pulled his mount closer to her. He raised his hand and spread his fingers in the sign of the word. “Mother,” he whispered.
Cassium met his hand, finger for finger. “Godspeed, my love,” she said. “Through your eyes and those of your brother’s, the light of Elyon shines once more in the Vale of Tears.”
Amathon then eased back in the saddle and latched down his cheek guards. His steel-dark eyes turned on Eryian. “My lord, I shall leave strength against the center as long as I am able. The last of us to move will be the horsemen. Braemacht and the queen’s guard, of course, will remain until the last with her.”
“As will I, Amathon,” Eryian promised. Still watching Eryian, Amathon reared his horse briefly and lifted a gauntleted fist into the air as a final salute; he did not intend to return to the center this day. He then turned the mount and began to move through his men toward the outer edge where he could command his troops. Eryian noticed that as Cassium watched Amathon pull away into the ranks, a mist crossed her eyes. She glanced at Eryian, noticing his gaze. “He was your firstborn son,” she told him, and though Eryian still held the veil against his flesh to fight this final battle, he was stirred as he watched Amathon push his way toward the front. “He has always been their leader, their teacher. He was well trained in the days of the beginning.”
As Amathon left them, the core of axemen tightened inward, surrounding their queen.
“This spawn before us,” Braemacht said, backing his horse into position beside Cassium. “They leave their course scattered before they reach you, my lady. They may number themselves like sand, but they have not guessed the cost they will bear this day.”
For a time the vale of Hericlon was quiet. In the center of the plateau, the circle of warriors with their white cloaks and silver armor shifted, making ready, their center tightening inward. The outer lines locked their massive shields into what looked a circular, impenetrable wall. The Unchurian were still, watching the movement below patiently. Many would wonder who these were, these warriors with their white armor and cloaks, their tall horses, if perhaps they had come of Etlantis, though nowhere was the red bull of the Mother City in evidence. Their shields bore a circle through which a silvered cross was emblazoned. It was a symbol they had never seen before, whose origin was a mystery to them.
For a moment, as though time had snagged, there was no sound in the vale of Hericlon. The quiet seemed an entity unto itself, as if offerings were being made from both sides. Then, a piercing cry shattered the stillness. From the north, toward the mountain, the Unchurians loosed a wall of arrows. It arched in a black shadow, curling. The shields of Righel angled to the sky. Eryian pulled his horse to the side and lifted his shield over both him and Cassium.
The arrows struck in savage rain, and though most of the bolts were warded off by iron shields and bucklers, many of the giants fell. Horses screamed, buckling. Any that dropped near the front were replaced quickly, bodies dragged back, and once more, silence danced.
Eryian glanced worriedly to Cassium. “They could do that all day; whittle us down hour by hour and never leave their hills and mountain spurs.”
“But they will not. Their king will send them in to test their mettle. Only then will they realize they clash against the firstborn of an angel, though they will never understand he was one who chose light over life.”
From all sides the Unchurians began a slow, steady beat of weapons against shields, their rhythm a heartbeat.
“Braemacht,” Eryian said, “make the center hard to find.”
“Aye,” Braemacht nodded and lifted in the saddle. “Axemen, dismount!”
They did so in unison. Eryian dropped beside Cassium. The horses were taken by warriors and led to the outer ranks, and the queen’s guard closed about her. From the hills, there would have been no sight of her in the center of the circle of warriors.
The heartbeat of the Unchurians began to increase, both in pace and strength.
“I do not know about you, my lord,” Braemacht said to Eryian, “but the biggest problem for me this day shall be the wait. Our brothers will not die quickly.”
Eryian glanced to the scabbard at his thigh. He had left the sword of Righel sheathed, but he saw light spill about the lip of the scabbard, a pulse of it, in rhythm with the beating of the shields of the Unchurians. Eryian knew then the sound was in time with the heart of Azazel. He remembered years ago, even in the beginnings, many of the other angels called him the Reaper. Of all the Star Walkers who swore upon the stone of Ammon, he was the most unpredictable; his blood, even though he had walked as a lord of the choir, had always been hot.
Eryian glanced aside to Cassium. “Have you thought, my lady, that with your knowledge you should be the one to wield this sword? I have not lifted its hilt in battle in seven hundred years, and never have I wielded it as a mortal.”
“Its touch would be acid against my skin, Eryian.”
“I do not understand; you virtually spill the light of heaven from your eyes.”
“No, Eryian. I seek the light, I seek that it will once more fill my heart, but I am still bound by the oath made upon the mountain of Etlantis that day long ago. I am unforgiven.”
“I cannot understand what wrong you could possibly bear.”
She paused. “Loving you,” she replied. “And I would drink from the cup again if offered.”
She stared back at him, her eyes attesting the truth of her promise. “Eryian, there is only one person who can light the blade of Righel, and that is Righel.”
“Do you think he knows? That Azazel realizes it is not merely aganon he smells below, but that it is Righel’s sword?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. You have hidden yourself too well—he is clever, but he has no reason to even dream that you have returned to the vale to face him. If I had not been summoned of the talisman, you may even have fooled me, warlord.”
“It seems by rumor that some of them have grown weaker over the centuries, that some have begun to age, their skin like mortals, like old men. But not him. They whisper he has grown even more powerful, turning all his arts to darkness and the mastery of death.”
“It is an illusion he casts. The star knowledge fails him as it does the others, but mortal seers do not realize. Since the day he broke his vows, as all of them, he has tried to hold to the light, grip it in his hand, but it spills between his fingers and seven centuries have passed. He is weaker than when last you knew him, far weaker. But for us, with you a mortal, his power is still beyond imagining. But I can promise, even Azazel is not immune, even for him the turning has begun. Your warriors, your king, have opened the eye of Daath and Aza-zel’s weakness began to burn in him like fire against his skin. He feels it now like pain. To fall from the light is a terrible pain, I am told. You spared me; you did not turn me as many of the angels did their Star Walker Queens, so I will not know this pain. And yourself, you surrendered your mantel that you would find your way back as a mortal; thus it is spared, you as well. But I have heard it spoken of others that the pain comes deep from within, a burning in their soul like mortals feel a burning of the flesh. He walks proud still, but he cannot escape the passage, though he was once Bene ba Elohim, he shall die as men shall die, with a belief he has had to sustain, to believe that with the Watchers he can stand against heaven itself in the days of Aeon’s End. Only a being as bright as the Light Bearer could ever have led him this far into denial.” “How long were you his?”
She turned, startled that he had asked. “You would want to know that?” “I still protect myself through the veil, remember?”
She half-smiled. “Of course. A year, perhaps more. It was not long before you came to take me. I have always wondered of it, you know. That from the heavens you saw me, and found in me something that drew you so strongly you stepped down from the stars to spare me my soul.”
“It seems not so hard to believe myself, seeing you again. Though I leave the memories fogged, I can understand why I came for you.”
Suddenly, from all sides a great roar went up, shouts and cries. Swords and axes lifted high. Eryian could barely make it out, but up high, near Hericlon’s passage, the Unchurians were parting to let a single rider through.
Near the edge of the southern front, Amathon took up ranks and remained mounted even though he became a prime target in the white cloak and the silvered armor. He would remain so for his men, to let his brothers know he was there, that his voice would guide them on. The horsemen were readied not far behind. They would choose carefully their moment.
Amathon circled his horse, watching the wall of men and shields from the ridge above lift and descend, like a wave breaking over the Earth. It seemed the air itself pressed against them, and Amathon heard more coming than the sound of their feet. He heard shrieks, whispered screams that passed through the ranks with cold slaps, and he could seem them, Uttuku, the dead of the giants. He and his brothers had not been born on Earth, and throughout his life, he had dedicated himself to the mothering light of the seventh star. Though they had never sung in the choirs of heaven, they still called themselves Seraphim, after their father. Yet still he wondered, if by fault of birth, there was no forgiveness, that his soul would be one those left wandering the Earth. He understood that Eryian had made a supreme sacrifice, that he had not turned their mother, as were most queens of the angels, into the walking undead of the Winternight. But they were Nephilim. Would even the sacrifice made by Righel be able to spare their souls? He felt heaven’s light and he would die this day believing, but the shrieks of the Uttuku left a sinister dread in the deep of his bones.
The wave coming against them left the Earth trembling in its quake; their weight alone could crush ramparts. The air trembled. The old one, the second of the three who was called Azazel by the men of Earth, had amassed thousands, hundreds of thousands … more. He had brought sons unnumbered and had launched them against the brotherhood of Righel at full run, a torrent. The sons were not giants as Amathon had heard all firstborn of Earth to be; they were smaller than he and his brothers, the size of men, with night-black hair and skin a reddish hue. Azazel’s blood must have been pure in the beginning, almost as filled with light as the archangel, for these Unchurians were much as the Daath. Of course, it would make no difference in battle; their numbers alone would eventually overwhelm the sons of Righel. Still, he wondered why they came, these pure-blood warriors, these first blood of Azazel, as if they had all been carefully selected.
The circle of white cloaks and silver armor facing them was left no more than a pebble, and the wave that surged came from all sides.
“Archers!” Amathon shouted. The archers of Righel readied themselves, but Amathon waited; he let the wave in closer. The arrows strained against their sinews. Amathon continued to wait. He could see the battle frenzy burning in their eyes as they charged. Many had streaks of silvered hair to one side, and he knew this was not cosmetic, that it was mark, like a mutation of skin.
“Fire!” Amathon finally screamed.
It was a brief shadow that passed. The missiles slammed into the charge and for a moment, the entire circle buckled, folding into the screams of those struck and of others trampled as the wave curled, broke, and continued forward.
“Load!” Amathon said, pausing this time only a second. “Fire!”
Again, from the Unchurian front, horses screamed, men crumpled, and a second wave broke over the bodies. The Unchurians grew excited, almost reaching their mark, almost to the wall of shields held before the giants.
“Spears!” shouted Amathon.
As the archers drew back, spearmen took a slight run and launched their weighted long spears in a straight drive that tore through the Unchurians heavier and more devastating against flesh than the arrows. A final circle of warriors crumpled as the spears slammed through them.
“Shieldbearers forward, lock shields, and brace!”
Thousands of them dead already, the Unchurians finally reached the front. Their timing was careful; they struck from all sides at once, the weight of the charge hammered into the Seraphim of Righel. The shields of Righel were staggered, in places were broken, but many of them held, lifting and throwing the Unchurians back, as if they had struck a wall of white stone. “Horsemen!” Amathon cried. “Attack!”
Like gates swinging open, in places the shield parted, and cavalry, in tight groups of sevens, became like missiles, as well. They drove forward, lances lowering, and bore into the frenzied attack of the Unchurians like carving deep wounds. Many of the lances were shattered, others lodged in their victims, and while some horses fell, many turned and vanished back behind the lines as the shield parted and let them through to regroup.
“Elyon’s Light, Elyon’s grace,” screamed Amathon. “Hold against them, my brothers!”
As many as they were, as mighty as the warriors of the Unchurians had been, the wall of white shields locked and for a time held. Between the shields, swords flickered like the tongues of serpents, taking flesh, dropping Unchurians on all sides in a slaughter.
Cassium touched Eryian’s arm—a furious scream of dying from all sides now, screams of terror, screams of fury, the blows and thundering crash of swords, hammers, and steel. From where they were, in the center, they could see nothing.
“It is coming hard against them,” Cassium said, listening. “Azazel has filled them with such fury, their hatred so raw it is like a living thing, as if their rage might rise up as a beast to fill the sky.”
Eryian shifted. His hand curled about the hilt of Righel’s sword, but her fingers touched his wrist.
“Not yet. Keep it sheathed.”
“I feel I should move forward, engage, Cassium.”
“I know, you are a warlord. It is your blood and your training, but for this once resist. What damage you would do would matter little. It is better we wait, Righel, hidden here in the center.” She had stopped calling him Eryian. “He searches, I can feel his mind probing, but he does not find us. You trained me well to hide. All that you taught me in the days of Dawnshroud, I have remembered it all. You call your elite Shadow Walkers, well, I am, as well, a Shadow Walker, Righel,” she said with a smile. “For you, in this world of yours, I suppose this is unlike any battle you have known. You wait. He smells the aganon of the sunblade and yet he cannot sense who bears it. It must be driving him mad.”
“Can it slay him? Righel’s sword?”
“If Righel wielded it, as he was when first he came, against the weakened being that is Azazel, yes, it would slay him, or at least it would destroy all but his soul. But you are human; I cannot predict what it will do. He is much stronger than you, warlord. Our greatest weapon will be surprise, but I doubt you can destroy him. Nor do I know what my magick will do against him. You taught me to hone one skill above all others, and I have done so, but this is Azazel, the Reaper, the lord of death. We can only wait and hope.” “And what is the most we can hope for?”
“To turn him, to destroy whatever flesh he walks and fling his spirit into the void. It would take him many counts of the moon to find his way back. If Gabriel were near, he could be bound, but we face him alone; I would feel the sword of Gabriel if it were close.
“He comes for your Angelslayers, for all of them, every drop of their blood, their scion, their sons and daughters, all of them. For if they are no more, how can the prophecies of Enoch be fulfilled? Elyon sent the Daath, and all these years the angels did not realize why they walked the Earth. But now, the eye of Daath has been opened, and they know that the Arsayalalyur is here, on the Earth, that Elyon’s wrath has already crossed the heavens. They have owned this world long enough to deceive themselves. They may believe they can defy even Elyon, destroy His Arsayalalyur. They are as fooled of this illusion as mankind. Even if somehow they were able to destroy the Arsayalalyur, do they not understand that the wave of Aeon’s End would swallow the Earth into time as if the whole of this universe never was? I would think they would know that, but the Light Bearer has blinded them all by now. I only know because you taught me in a time when you knew all things.”
Eryian tried to ignore the sounds of battle, to ignore that these were his own sons falling, but the feelings in him continued to build. They threatened to turn to tears of rage that Azazel was slaying them as if it were a feast.
“I can stand no more,” he said, gripping the hilt of Righel’s sword. It burned, stinging, tasting his blood. Cassium seized his shoulder and pulled him his hand from the hilt. He was surprised to see a stream of blood briefly cross from his palm to the hilt. There was a time in memory he had used this sword, but never had it taken his blood to do so.
“Your anger, Righel!” she said. “It is your weakness. Strike not in anger. If he is able to defeat you, all that you have done, laying down the mantle of your knowledge, returning in flesh to find your way back to heaven—if Azazel realizes that is what Righel has chosen, he will know the one weapon to use against you: that you strike in anger, that you let rage become what drives your blood. You could lose all if that happened. He would collect your soul like he has so many before you. You must remember. If you die, die valiantly. Do not strike in anger. Remember that, Eryian, Righel, remember it, keep my words close, for that is how he will try to destroy you.”
“They are being slaughtered, Cassium. How can I stand here and not let my blade join with them?”
“See your son,” she said, motioning toward Braemacht. Braemacht watched back, met Eryian’s eyes hearing his mother’s words. “He waits. You must do the same.”
“She is right, Father. He will come to us; we will answer him when that happens. Until then, though blood boils, we wait.”
“They have waited seven hundred years for your summoning; they die for you. It is their honor. They know what is at stake.”
At a roar, Eryian looked up. Wobbly, knitted calfskin sailed overhead, moments before the phosphorus powers ate through to the naphtha. The bags exploded, raining fire. Axemen screamed. Eryian pulled Cassium hard against him, covering them both with his shield as fire pelted in streaks. One axeman staggered past them, swearing, wrapped in curls of flame. The black smoke twisted with a thick smell. A horse was screaming, ablaze. His head was cloven by a blow of Braemacht’s axe. Braemacht then turned to crouch near them as a stream of fire spilled from the face of his shield like water.
“Lady, are you hurt?” he asked Cassium.
“Nom Braemacht, I am unharmed.”
Amathon stepped back from slaying, weary. He and a small knot of captains were surrounded by blood and bodies. The front had been lost; only the inner core still held. Knots of survivors were fighting, but they were being sectioned off and hewn down. The circle of death had grown smaller, but Amathon and his captains still held and behind them, Braemacht and the axemen of Righel were the last line. It was a line whose cost would be heavy to breach.
Amathon looked up, noticing that it was snowing—lazy, drifting flakes that seemed almost otherworldly as they floated downward to melt into the blood-darkened earth.
The Unchurians managed to clear the small ring of shields and leapt for him. He was still mounted, still visible, and they had sacrificed heavily to reach him. Amathon turned and slew with quick death thrusts. He warded off their attacks with the spiked face of his buckler while his sword opened flesh and dislodged heads.
The Unchurians were savage and fought well, but none could get past his sword. He and a handful of brothers were slaying all who reached them. And the cost of getting this close, of killing so many of Righel’s sons, had left the battlefield piled in bodies and awash in blood.
Finally Amathon sensed one of power coming, not a common warrior, but one of their lords. He turned to see a dark rider making his way through the ranks. The rider was not human. The body was blackened bone, and wings arched from the shoulders, folded back. He cleaved flesh with a spiked morning star in a steady hum, shearing through shield, armor, killing the last of the footmen guarding Amathon’s inner core of captains. This was a minion—one of Azazel’s dark chosen.
Amathon threw aside his shield and gripped his sword with both hands. He high-stepped forward and broke into a run against the Uttuku with a low growl in his throat.
Beside Eryian, Cassium suddenly turned away, staggered as though she had been struck. Eryian was instantly at her side.
She used his shoulder to steady herself, and took a breath.
“It is Amathon,” she whispered.
Braemacht stepped forward, watching. Cassium glanced at him. “Azazel sent a slayer for him,” she said. “Amathon has fallen.” Braemacht threw his head back and screamed. He shook his axe at the sky. Cassium stepped forward to touch his arm.
“Now,” he pleaded, “let me go out there, my lady. I will find the slayer! Let me avenge my brother!”
“No, Braemacht. Vengeance is not why we are here. We lay down our lives; it is not as other battles. We will not kill in anger. We will stand until the last, but our fight is valiant and cannot be otherwise, or the cause is lost us.”
Braemacht paused, his jaw tight. He gazed skyward a moment, his hand wrapped tight about the axe. “Home had better be worth this day, good lady.”
“It will be, Braemacht.”
The giant looked at her, tears falling into his beard beneath the silver helm. “Home is the heart of heaven,” she added.
The sounds of the battle were growing closer now. The stiff, steady drone of the dying was drawing near. They were boring inward. The day had been long, but slowly the Unchurians were reaching the center. It would be over within another degree of the sun.
Eryian glanced to Cassium. “When he comes, when he finds us—do you have a plan?”
“I can drop him—stun him at the very least. Let him see me first, then light the sword.”
Eryian glanced at the blade. The flange was no longer pulsing, but seemed to be waiting, resting. It was much as he remembered the sword of Uriel in battle with Argolis, a brilliant, white diamond, steeled through the center.
The sounds of battle were suddenly snuffed. It grew oddly quiet, a hush falling, odd, just like the snow that was lazily drifting from the sky.
Cassium drew close to Eryian’s side.
“They will soon breach the inner circle,” she said. “The last of us. But it seems they have stopped.”
“These are Unchurians. They will bring in their highborn for the final kill.”
The Unchurians had withdrawn, backing slowly into the trees, retreating to the hills encircling the vale. As the armies receded, the enormity of the death was left bare, and the ground could hardly been seen through the bodies that covered it. It was like a tide going out, leaving a mound of rich, red harvest.
The last of the sons of Righel tightened into a much smaller circle. All that was left was an outer core of shieldbearers, and toward the center, the queen’s guard, the axemen of Braemacht.
Eryian heard voices, soft and far from the hills, singing in clear, careful Unchurian. He understood little Unchurian, but this he recognized this. It was a prayer.
“We are being dedicated,” he said. “These are old words, the ancient words of Etlantis.”
“Yes,” she answered, “once the words of the choirs.”
“Song,” Braemacht swore. “Well, we can give them song, as well.” He circled, looking at the others. “Sing!” he commanded. “What?” an axeman beside him exclaimed. “By Elyon’s Light, give them a song in answer.” “What song, my lord?” “I don’t give a damn! Just sing!”
Braemacht banged his axe against his buckler began to sing in a high, loud voice.
Several more joined in, then all of them, banging their axes in rhythm and singing. Their voices echoed through the vale. But Braemacht had not chosen a prayer. Unlike Amathon and the others, the queen’s guards were axemen, and they had chosen a tavern song, a drinking song, and their deep voices carried above the prayers of the Unchurian priests and swelled across the valley.