The fiercest clashes raged in the northeast of the plain, where the strongest pirate detachments had locked in battle with Telorand’s best regiments, and at the gates of Mainor, where the enemies attacked with the greatest fury. The pirates shielded themselves from flanking attacks behind fortifications and unleashed ferocious cannon and arquebus fire from there. The field was blanketed in smoke; through it, tongues of flame flickered, choking soldiers wheezed, and those near exploding shells screamed. Telorand’s forces had thinned, he could no longer hold the bridge. And at that moment, following their officers' orders, the pirates eased their assault, allowing Aktida’s army to drive into the field’s center—and the deadly ring closed around them.

  ***

  "What? What’s going on?"

  Ringus jumped up. Through the open doors of small barracks near the gates ran a cornet in light, dirty armor, pale with fear, the heraldic symbols on his battered shield almost worn away.

  "Telorand requests aid," he gasped, bent double. "He’s trapped at the bridge with a thousand pikemen, they’re being crushed… We need to reposition our forces, break the encirclement…"

  "Captain Reggel!" Geonar responded instantly. "Go with the cornet, have the fifth, sixth, and seventh withdraw from the left bank and move to the right, toward the Asternians. The left bank must hold, give them the tenth and thirteenth from the gates… And the twelfth? Are they still alive?"

  "They're in the center, breaking through to the Second Asternian Cavalry Division, to Cassander’s main headquarters, along with the ninth…"

  "Tell Himlaf to send them to the gates. They’ll be more useful when it comes time to stand to the last… They’re volunteers, right? All the better, it’ll be easier for them…"

  "Lord Geonar!" Another messenger burst into the room. The general turned, annoyed.

  "What now?... Reggel, move out!"

  "The mages! They’ve left the Institute, all with staves, a whole group… They’re heading this way. Romenford asked me to tell you we can count on them today. He’ll help."

  King Emerlun let out a relieved breath.

  "Praise Aktos! Romenford will help!"

  "Now we must succeed," Maclevirr said quietly.

  ***

  The enemies attacked and fell back again, a tiny patch of field at one moment was empty, and the next it was filled with men wildly swinging weapons. Viggo shouted, spinning his axe, barely managing to wipe away the sweat pouring down his cheeks and forehead. Remiz stood beside him, back to back, fending off the pressing foes. Nearby fought Jeremy, Zargel, and Folle Conenti, holding the left flank with the rest of the Twelfth Regiment. And hold it they must. The pirates were pressing hard, breaking toward the gates, scattering the first assembled Alven regiments, getting bogged down in tight ranks, snapping cutlasses, and falling into pits, ravines, and ditches, skewered on stakes—yet elsewhere, they broke through and were already assaulting the city garrison’s central forces. Telorand was still far away, the armies could not reunite, and the pirates were doing everything to prevent it, steadily wiping out the main pockets of resistance, encircling the most active units and annihilating them with relentless force. That was the threat now facing the Twelfth Regiment. Several had already fallen. Some of those who came to help from other divisions died too. But they still held on. And they waited. They were ready to wait even after all the rest had fallen.

  Himlaf was waiting too. He had noticed the standards of the Thirteenth Battalion from afar, and now he was riding his horse among countless corpses and those whom medicine still had a chance of saving. He slashed with his sword, fending off a particularly persistent pirate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another pirate already about to behead his horse... They had surrounded him, making it hard to maneuver, when suddenly a crossbow bolt, fired from the thick of the battle, buried itself in the forehead of the nearest enemy. Several more riders charged in with wild cries, breaking through the ragged ranks of the attacking pirates like hawks. Several horses fell with deafening neighs, and everything turned into a chaotic pile, from which blood splashed, gut-wrenching screams echoed, and death cries rose. Himlaf froze for only a few seconds. Captain Reggel rode up to him, breathing heavily.

  "Himlaf… We must retreat… Hold the gates. They can manage without you here."

  "Really?" the commandant panted. "What’s going on there? We’re trying to link up with the Asternians, we need to strike simultaneously, with combined forces, and they’re pulling us back to the gates? Do you want a second Nalvin?"

  "Nobody wants that! That’s why we have to retreat and hold, while the others break through!"

  Himlaf turned around. Archers and crossbowmen had taken up positions, shooting from their knees at approaching pirates. Viggo, Remiz, and the others were catching their breath, wiping sweat and blood from their battered armor.

  "Who else will be at the gate?"

  "No one. Just you."

  "Are you insane? Fifty men against twenty thousand?"

  "The archers will support you…" Reggel exhaled. "You’ll be the cork that jams the bottle’s neck tight! You have to hold, do you understand? At any cost! One unit’s life doesn’t matter!"

  "I see," said the commandant after a short pause. "Someone has to play the cannon fodder. Someone has to hold while the others break through. Did I get that right?"

  Reggel just nodded. Tears were running down his dirt-smeared cheeks. Himlaf turned back.

  "To the gates, boys!" he barked, trying to keep his voice from trembling. "Come on! Organize the retreat!"

  The cannon thunder sounded like a march. Gradually turning into a requiem.

  Archers moved in short dashes, covering the infantry. They were met with return fire—lead death mowed down soldiers one by one. The rest no longer walked, they ran, lunging at random enemies along the way. Mainor was barely visible through the columns of smoke.

  ***

  Kairu had lost count of his strikes when he saw familiar faces ahead…

  They had passed the hills where the officers’ tents stood. In the heat of battle, they hadn’t noticed how they were pushed up against Houlred, now moving along the shore, fighting off swarming enemies. There were only about a hundred of them. People constantly fell behind, tangled in enemy ranks, eventually collapsing under someone’s blade. The rest pressed forward. The battle raged on, compressed into a square mile of ceaseless bloodshed.

  Ahead were the gates, and under the cover of friendly archers, they managed to break through to the very walls, pockmarked by impacts. The terrain here was uneven, mounds and parapets of earth and filthy clumps of snow rose in the road. On one side were the Alvens, on the other, pirates attacking. People were digging trenches near the gate. There were very few of them, no more than fifty, mostly monks and medics, gripping shovel handles and gnawing at the frozen ground.

  Kairu saw Viggo shouting something with such a terrified expression, it looked like he had seen a ghost. Dalid was crossing himself, pale as a sheet. Jeremy and Folle were yelling, and then a pirate wave split them apart, and they threw themselves at the enemy, smashing through, making their way to the parapets. Some fell, some leapt from horses and crawled, leaving behind crimson trails. Kairu slashed blindly with his sword, barely holding on, clutching the Hellsteed’s neck as it reared and kicked enemies with its hooves. Seizing a brief moment, he tumbled from the horseback and crouched behind a cover. The Hellsteed, sensing its master’s intent, instantly galloped away into the gunpowder-laden smoke.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Kairu!!!" That scream sounded almost inhuman. Viggo rushed toward him, but a fresh wave of pirates split them again. Kairu gasped for air, panting from the heat and fatigue, his legs numb, but he still charged forward, swinging his sword. The enemies were attacking, each soldier was taking blows head-on. From the walls, whatever was left of the artillery offered cover, and they fought like every second might be their last.

  "Kairu!.."

  "Kill the bastards! Come on, boys! Let’s send them straight to hell!"

  "MAINOR!.."

  Cries came from every direction. The ground trembled beneath their feet, Kairu’s head spun. For a moment, he couldn’t understand why, and then he realized: in the heat of battle, he hadn’t even noticed he’d been shot. His left arm was numb, blood flowing down his body, and he crouched slightly, shaking his head, trying to assess the wound’s seriousness. The delay cost him: someone lunged at him, he barely blocked with his shield, parried the thrust, performed a familiar feint... The battle swirled again, a gray-red carousel, and he could feel himself weakening. There were too many enemies. Here at the gates of Mainor, among the corpses soaked in boiling blood and sweat, it felt like every cutlass strike was aimed just at him.

  Familiar faces again. Viggo. Remiz. Woody, trying to crawl from under a dying horse. Kairu turned away, wiped grime from his face, eyes stinging, peering into the smoke-filled field. Nothing was visible, just the dark silhouettes of a horde climbing the fortifications and leaping into trenches.

  "Hold the line!" Himlaf bellowed. "Hold, damn you! Not one soul gets past the gates of Mainor!"

  "Kairu!"

  He inhaled deeply. Viggo hugged him as if still not believing his eyes. Remiz, already understanding the truth, turned and looked at the city walls.

  "Damn it all! You… But… How did you survive? Where have you been? Oh, Aktos, what’s going on here? Am I dreaming? Woody, you’re here too? Woe to me! Ghosts are fighting on my side!"

  "Shut up and get to the fortifications!" Remiz snapped. "Kairu, Woody, hold on!"

  "Kairu…"

  That voice he could never mistake. Rita was very close, watching with a mix of horror, joy, and confusion, frozen under a rain of lead. Then she recovered, darted aside, and disappeared behind a row of bodies. Kairu rushed to her. He slashed blindly, Alaskrit gleamed, and another head rolled. He no longer knew whose blood soaked him—his or others’. Probably both.

  "Rita!" He bent down, helping her lift a wounded soldier and drag him away from the parapets. "Oh, Aktos! Are you okay?"

  "Great timing!" she yelled back, and then he saw that Rita was crying. From pain? Exhaustion? Something else? The soldier groaned in his arms, Kairu tried to carry him as gently as possible, flinching at the whistle of bullets and the boom of a cannonball exploding nearby.

  "You couldn’t have picked a worse moment to come back and explain how you avoided the noose and managed to escape the city!"

  "It’s a long story…"

  "I know! Oh hell, you’re wounded…"

  "It’s nothing."

  "No, it’s not nothing… Girls, take a new one! Collarbone, hip, and a gash on the stomach… You’ll have to stitch it up…"

  Clouds of arrows soared into the air as the archers loosed another volley from the gates. Ballistae and catapults were also firing, something was always flying overhead, threatening to come crashing down on them. Opposite the ramparts and mounds where the dwindling forces of the Twelfth Regiment had taken position, cannons were already thundering. Another cannonball struck with deadly precision, spraying fountains of clay and sand, and fragments of what, just moments ago, had been people. Kairu shielded himself from the flying muck, staggered back, and caught, out of the corner of his eye, the way Rita looked at him as she hoisted another mutilated, wounded man, the fear in her eyes plain to see.

  Soldiers were falling into the trenches one after another, the enemy surging forward in ever-larger waves, crushing and grinding them down. Several dozen broke through and ran toward the gates, where a fresh volley from the archers met them. There was nowhere to step on the field—corpses lay everywhere, or soldiers still alive, trying to crawl out from under the mountain of bodies. A deadly shard of metal struck Kairu in the shoulder; another pierced his leg as he tried to rise. Something snapped, he lost his balance, and collapsed to his knees. He tried again to get up but couldn’t: a searing pain shot through his leg. Emboldened pirates surged forward, supported by chaotic gunfire. One of them lunged at Kairu’s position. Kairu blocked the strike, but the blade slashed across his forehead. Blood poured into his eyes, and Kairu struck blindly with his left hand…

  Something exploded. A blinding flash briefly swallowed the world. Kairu wiped the dark red liquid from his face with his sleeve. The pirates were slowly retreating. The soldiers of the Twelfth Regiment spread out behind the fortifications. And behind them, at the gates, stood about a hundred people in bright robes and carrying staffs. Professors, lecturers, and students from the Mainor Institute come to fight their final battle.

  ***

  From above, it looked like the end of the world. Dozens of multicolored flashes and magical flares tore through the smoke clouds, sowing panic among the pirates. Geonar and Ringus squinted and froze whenever cannons or arquebuses answered the spells. They plugged their ears—the cacophony of sound merging into one monstrous roar was unbearable. But they kept watching, unafraid even as bullets reached the walls. They saw how the main forces were slowly but surely joining with the Asternians, breaking through the encirclement, and together pressing the pirates toward the riverbanks. And they also saw, at the gates where the fiercest fighting was happening, the mages stepping forward, waving their arms, shouting incantations, hurling bolts of white lightning and massive fireballs at the enemy, only to fall immediately, gunned down on the threshold of Mainor.

  The sky caught fire, blazing with hundreds of lights. The pirates fired in all directions in answer to the mages. The gates were nearly deserted. A mound of dead bodies lay on the threshold. No magic could help them now. It was too late.

  "Aktos, help us…" Geonar whispered. "How could this happen? All the mages are dead, Ringus! Every last one!"

  "And Romenford?"

  "He’s there… He’s dead too… How could this happen?"

  The pirates, fired up, charged toward the city, swords swinging. Dalid rose to his full height and raised his blade. There was nothing left to lose. Viggo gave a grim smile, rising beside him. The enemy surged forward.

  From their high vantage point, Ringus and Geonar saw the armies of Telorand and Mainor vanishing in the endless tide of the enemy. They saw the last units being cut off from their own. And at the gates, preparing to stand against an army of many thousands, only twenty wounded soldiers remained. And at that very moment, while Telorand was desperately defending the center of the field, a new battle flared up beneath the walls.

  Choking on smoke, Kairu leapt from the trench and crossed blades with the first enemy he met. The number of foes kept growing. Blades reached for him from all sides. His armor bent under the crushing blows. When the crowd finally pushed him back into the trench, for a second, he saw a spear above him, blocking out the noonday sun. The next moment, another sword intercepted the thrust, and Rita dropped to her knees beside him, and then suddenly there was silence, broken only by the clear sound of a trumpet call.

  The pirates froze and faltered. The war machine ground to a halt again. Then, ragged voices began calling from all across the field, and the pirates, turning away from the trenches, started rushing north.

  Kairu struggled to his feet and offered a hand to Rita. Together, they peered over the edge of their cover. On the distant northwestern hills, a massive army was racing toward them. Their banners were too far to make out, but it was already clear: help had arrived.

  "The Vaimarites!" Viggo gasped and rubbed his eyes. "I’ll be damned!"

  "It’s Yuf! It’s Lainter!" Kairu shouted, then doubled over coughing—his lungs were starved for air. "He came back! We’re saved, everyone!"

  He turned to Rita. She was right beside him, yet he saw her as if through a fog. He staggered and might have fallen, had she not caught him and begun clumsily removing his shredded chainmail. While the others jumped to their feet, shouting with joy and racing north to join their comrades, Rita pulled out bandages and quickly got to work patching him up. Kairu closed his eyes. Her voice, her ragged breathing, the feel of her hands—that alone was the greatest reward he could imagine.

  "So I wasn’t wrong about something," he thought blissfully.

  "Hold on… Everything’s going to be alright."

  "Rita…"

  "Hang on, for Aktos’ sake… I believed you were dead once. I won’t let you die again. Not ever."

  The bleeding slowed. His strength began to return. He sat up. She leaned against him to rest. Her gaze hadn’t changed. She looked at him just as she had that day in Petista, even though Kairu knew the Rita of then and the Rita of now were two different people. Too much had changed in the past year and a half.

  Kairu rose. He leaned on the sword he had never dropped from his hand. He looked north, toward the new heart of the battle. It was time to go.

  "I’ve grown stronger," he thought. "Yes, without a doubt. I’m strong enough now. Orwell Cassander, wait for me. I will finish the argument we started last fall."

  He looked only forward. He knew exactly where to go now. And from this moment on, he needed no one’s help. He thought only of the pleasure he would feel when he finally killed Orwell Cassander. But if he had looked up into the pale blue sky, where the smoke was slowly clearing, he would have seen two birds, two ravens flying southwest and southeast from the pirate generals’ tents.