Even as Bartolo fought legionnaires, avengers, templars and revenants, his mind took note of the carnage around him. Fallen Hazarans fought beside their dead horses, their honour forcing them to stay against all odds. Bartolo realised he stood directly between the great gates to the city of Seranthia. How close they had come.
Bartolo missed blocking a revenant's sword and felt fire in his arm as the blade tore into his fading armoursilk. Beside him he heard Shani's scream, a sound he never wanted to hear from the woman he loved. Turning, he saw her, high in the air in an avenger's grip. "No," he cried weakly. Tears ran down his cheeks as he saw the avenger's black sword rising.
Bartolo prepared to leap forward. He knew he wouldn't be quick enough, but he would destroy the creature that ended Shani's life.
Suddenly Bartolo heard a rumbling sound from all directions and felt the ground heaving beneath his feet. Were the walls falling down? What else could make such a sound?
Clarions sounded behind the enemy's lines. The avenger dropped Shani; she fell heavily to the earth, but she was alive.
"They're regrouping," Jehral gasped. "I don't know why."
As the enemy drew back into the gate and once more formed up ranks, the rumbling grew louder, and Bartolo turned around and looked at the hills surrounding the city.
It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
61
ROGAN Jarvish and seventy thousand men from Altura, Halaran, Loua Louna and Torakon had marched for two days and two nights. They were exhausted but they were determined, and they were ready to fight.
"Are you sure?" Marshal Beorn asked.
"I'm sure," Rogan said. "There's a time to lay plans, and there's a time to roll the dice and join the battle. The gate is open, but the Hazarans are nearly done for. Proper battle order will have to take second priority. Marshal Scola has the left flank, Beorn you have the right. I'll take the centre. Call the men to arms immediately."
Heralds ran along the lines and messengers dashed to and fro. Rogan had hardly finished speaking when he heard the clarions, and then the thumping of the colossi drowned all other noise as they took positions up front.
Down below the enemy were starting to realise their grave danger. Some astute commanders were pulling the warriors back and reforming ranks, but Rogan intended for them to be too late.
Rogan drew his zenblade as he faced down the hillside at the city of Seranthia. "Let it end here, today," he whispered.
To the left the Alturan heavy infantry were formed up with Torak spearmen and Halrana pikemen, and the thousand Dunfolk archers stood side-by-side with their taller allies. There wasn't time to separate the men into their divisions, and in a way Rogan found the idea of them all fighting together somehow fitting.
To the right were Halrana animators and the ironmen they controlled, mixed-up with Alturan archers armed with rail-bows and the youngest, newest of the recruits, most of them farmers who had never held a sword.
In the centre Rogan would command the men he had trained in Ralanast, along with the multitude of Halrana who had pledged to fight by his side since the liberation of Halaran. With them were the three Halrana colossi, and the animator Luca Angelo would control the largest of them all in front.
By Rogan's side were the last four bladesingers. These were men he had trained and led, in a brotherhood that had once consisted of more than seventy, yet whose numbers could now, at the war's end, be counted on one hand.
The call to arms had barely finished when Rogan ordered the signal to advance. Even mixed up as they were, the men ran forward together, tight and controlled. The soldiers in green and brown, blue and tan poured down the hillside, the ground trembling under the strides of the colossi. As the enemy drew back to reform, the Hazarans rode away to regroup, then joined the great mass of marching men, scimitars waving above their heads as they cheered wildly.
"The revenants are pulling back, leaving just the templars and the Tingarans," one of the bladesingers shouted above the din.
"Some of the legionnaires are trying to close the gate," another yelled.
"We need speed!" Rogan cried. "Attack!"
The cry was taken up by the men around him, passed to those further away, until seventy thousand soldiers were shouting with one voice.
"Attack!"
Ahead of Rogan the three colossi were the first to hit the gates. All three pushed against the closing gate on the left, while the ironmen under Beorn's control hit the right-hand gate. Inexorably the gates' halting motion ceased, and then with a mighty crash they were once more pushed wide.
Rogan was the first man through the portals of Seranthia, but once he was through he stopped, remembering Amelia's words, knowing he was a young man no longer. The soldiers passed him on both sides, pouring through the gates like a rushing river, unstoppable and inexorable. This was their moment. Let them go first.
Then he realised that he hadn't been the first man through after all. A warrior in the green of a bladesinger slumped against a wall, just inside the gate. A woman in a red robe leaned against him, and beside them both was a dark-skinned warrior in loose black clothing with a yellow sash.