"I can’t do that! You must keep running!"
Miro took the resisting recruit by the hand. Resuming his own song, Miro began to drag Ronell forward.
Neither of them saw the silver orb leave the mortar and fly in a huge arc, glowing brighter and brighter as it fell towards the ground.
The explosion was like white fire, blinding Miro’s vision. It was directly above their heads, perfectly timed to detonate at its most lethal proximity.
Miro was the closer of the two. His body shielded Ronell slightly from the blast, throwing them both forward like dolls.
For a moment, all was white with pain. Miro’s vision slowly returned. He could hear the cries of the legionnaires behind him, drawing ever closer. Miro’s face was pressed against the dirt. He looked in front of him.
Ronell had been scorched to the bone. His left arm was just a stump below the elbow and his entire back was raw flesh. His hair had been burnt away, leaving a pink patch of bloody scalp.
He was still alive.
Miro could have cried at the pain Ronell must have been in.
Summoning strength he hadn’t known he had, Miro stood up, and though his song came hoarse and from dry lips, it came strong.
His armoursilk flared. He stooped, and picked Ronell up like a child in his arms. Miro started to run.
24
Never defend a city. Instead, move your army to a more offensive position. Let the angry citizens defend it for you.
— Memoirs of Emperor Xenovere I, 312-5, 381 Y.E.
AHEAD, the bladesingers were running in a rough vee pattern — glowing like fire, seemingly invincible. Miro’s strength eventually gave out but another bladesinger turned back, helping him lift Ronell over the last craggy rise out of the canyon. The whole skirmish had lasted perhaps ten minutes.
Behind the bladesingers, the legionnaires took the bait. They came storming out of the canyon, those in front lusting for blood, those behind pushed relentlessly by the force of Altura’s elite infantry.
The hills ahead were suddenly teeming with men. They rose over the ridges, poured out of the valleys — too many men to count, the numbers overwhelming. The bladesingers melted away as the great army encircled the legion in its mighty arms.
"Let go! I said, let go of him, man!"
Miro realised two men were trying to relieve him of his burden. His arms and legs were so stiff they had to pry the body from him. He fell onto his back as they took Ronell away. He couldn’t move a muscle, could only watch the scene below him, the hills and rocks lit up like daylight in the glow of the runes and the explosions of the orbs.
The imperial legion was caught between one overwhelming force and another. The Alturan veterans all glowed silver, their enchanted weapons devastating the weaker units they encountered. A mortar team in their midst launched salvo after salvo into the imperials, scattering bodies like dust before a wind.
The main army surged forward. Soldiers in Alturan green and Halrana brown were mingled together, becoming one living entity joined by rage.
There were simply too many soldiers for all to have a chance to combat the imperials. The hills were soon heaving as everyone tried to get their part of the action.
But there was still a part of the legion, a core that held together through the worst of the fighting. As Miro looked on, he saw a dozen Alturan soldiers who got too close to the core tossed into the air by some massive force — thrown hundreds of paces.
As the fighting surged and ebbed the core came closer. The mortar rounds of the green and brown soldiers started to find their mark, and a bright explosion lit up the scene, so that for the first time Miro had a glimpse of the Emperor’s deadliest. It was for moments only, and soon the scene went dark again.
There were perhaps half a dozen of them, with the shape of humans but warped by the unique arts of Tingara’s lore.
The closest had its face to Miro, a face of horror and flame, the eyes like slits, glowing with malice. It was some kind of monster, a creature of metal and cloth, glowing with purple runes. Its right arm had been warped, twisted into a thing part steel and part flesh — a black sword had been grafted to the arm, eight feet long, glowing vermillion. In its left hand it held a flail, the long twists of braided steel ending in spikes the size of a man’s hand.
It twisted and lurched, each movement sending its body through the army like a scythe through wheat. It impaled a man on its sword and flung his body into a soldier twenty paces away. The flail tore into the men, shredding them into pieces of meat.