“See how my son is distressed by this creature’s proximity,” she went on. “For creature she is, friends. This is no mere woman. No mere witch. This, make no mistake, is a Malecite made flesh. My son, born from the divine light of the Seraphile, senses this creature’s malice, her desire to do him harm. For that is her mission here, friends. That was why, with carnal lust and whispered deceit, did she lure my most trusted captain to her side.”

  Another hungry murmur swept through the throng as all eyes turned upon me. Surprisingly, I saw more hatred in their collective gaze than that shown to the Sack Witch. Perhaps, as a merely human agent of the Malecite’s evil, I was easier to hate. But I felt it owed more to my status as traitor. Many of these folk had drilled at my direction; some had followed me into battle. I had been the architect of the Anointed Lady’s victories, at her side throughout all the tribulations that marked her ascendancy. A betrayal is always worse when delivered by a trusted soul.

  “Yes, this man is degraded in the eyes of the Seraphile,” Evadine continued. “And I know many would see it as simple justice were I to place him atop the fire along with his seducer. But, as both queen and Risen Martyr, I must be above the pettiness of revenge. It has been revealed unto me that this man can be saved, turned from the darkness to the light. It will be the work of years, a labour of tears, pain and sweat, but I will not shirk it. And the road to his redemption begins here and now. Supplicant Ildette, to your duty.”

  Ildette bowed to her queen then extended a hand to one of the guards who passed her an unlit torch. She held it under one arm as she struck a flint, the oil-soaked rags covering one end sparking to fiery life at the first strike. Without thinking, I lunged towards her, intending to dislodge the torch from her grip. But the guards to my rear were quick to grab my arms, holding me in place. I expected Ildette to cast the torch on to the bonfire, but she turned to me instead, moving to push it into my confined grip.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind,” I told her, immediately dropping the flaming implement.

  At a barked order from Ildette, the guards holding my arms forced me to my knees. “Our queen, in her mercy, offers you a chance at absolution, traitor,” the Supplicant said, voice pitched low so that the crowd couldn’t hear. “I suggest you take it.”

  Raising my head, I glared into her smiling face. She was certainly enjoying the moment. “Your brother died easy,” I told her. “Like sticking a pig. How easy will you die, I wonder?”

  Her smile dissolved, replaced by the livid features of one desperate to do me harm but constrained by her queen’s word. “Pick it up,” she commanded, voice hoarse with repressed violence. “Light the fire.”

  “You pick it up,” I replied, putting as much volume into the words as I could. I doubted the crowd would be moved by my defiance, but I was determined not to allow this grotesque performance to play out as intended. “And fuck yourself with it.”

  Ildette shook with the effort of keeping her hand from the handle of her sword while an angry growl rose from the Ascendant Queen’s congregants.

  “And fuck all of you too!” I railed at them, summoning the strength to lurch to my feet. “You pitiful idiots! Can’t you see the madness of this? That woman is no queen.” I jerked my bound hands in Evadine’s direction before the guards managed to reassert their grip. “She was not raised from death by the Seraphile! Nor was her child born of union with their divinity…”

  This was too much for my guards. With wordless, enraged grunts they forced me to the ground, strong hands pressing my head into the dry mud with crushing weight. It was then that I felt it: a tremor in the earth, dim and distant, but undeniable and growing. I wasn’t enough of a tracker to gauge the distance but knew the source of this disturbance couldn’t be far off.

  “Alwyn!” I thought it would be Evadine’s voice that cut through the burgeoning discord among the Covenant Host, but this was far less strident, if no less commanding.

  The pressure on my head eased, allowing me to look up and see the Sack Witch regarding me from atop the bonfire. Her face was not lacking in fear, and I saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes, but neither did I see the slightest flicker of uncertainty.

  “Pick up the torch,” she told me. “Light the fire.”

  The guards dragged me to my feet and Ildette once again thrust the torch into my hands. I gripped it hard, feeling sorely tempted to swing its flaming end into her face. I could still feel the tremor under my feet and hoped these mindless fanatics couldn’t. I moved to the bonfire in a hesitant stumble, hoping the tumult would erupt before I reached it, but it didn’t. Looking again at the Sack Witch I found her face tense, but still absent of any doubt. When I raised my brows in hopeless entreaty she nodded.

  So, with trembling hands, I lowered the torch to the timber and touched its flame to the kindling.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The fire caught quickly, the oil-soaked kindling flaring bright and birthing an instant pall of smoke. Timbers crackled and tongues of flame licked over the untidy mound of the bonfire. The conflagration swept from base to summit in the space of the few choking breaths I gasped amid the burgeoning, acrid miasma. A sudden blast of heat had me reeling back, along with Ildette and the soldiers of the Lady’s Shield. I peered through the fumes with desperate eyes, hoping to find that the Sack Witch had vanished amid the swirling confusion. But, I saw, with dismay, there she stood, a dim but unmoving silhouette, her straight-backed, resolute stance unchanging even as the flames licked around her feet. If she had screamed, I doubt I would have heard it above the increasing roar of the flames, but I knew she hadn’t.

  “Witness this, traitor! Witness the end of your Caerith whore!”

  I turned at the sound of the gleeful screech, finding Ildette advancing towards me through the billowing grey-black clouds. The smoke was so thick it concealed much of the congregation and completely obscured Evadine from my sight, meaning we were also hidden from hers. Glancing back at Ildette, I saw that she had her sword drawn and moved with hunched, predatory intent.

  “Your queen’s commands mean so little, then?” I asked as she came closer, sword drawn back in readiness.

  “Her compassion blinds her.” Ildette let out a guttural gasp that was almost carnal in its need. “She must be protected from it. I will do what she cannot.”

  The vibration in the earth was unmistakable now, heralding an eruption of alarm among the assembled soldiery. Above the sudden chorus of cries and panicked orders I could hear the thunder of a great many hooves. I was familiar with the sound of cavalry at the charge, but this was of a different order, more discordant but also more ominous in the sheer weight of horseflesh it portended.

  “Then you’d best be quick about it,” I advised Ildette. “For I fancy your queen is about to fall.”

  The Supplicant was too fixated on her vengeance to be distracted by the thunder, letting out an ugly yell of triumph, she lunged at me. I knew this woman had some skill with arms, but her experience of real combat must have been minimal. Her thrust was clumsy and overextended, easily evaded and countered even by a man with bound hands. I arced my body to avoid the blade, allowing Ildette’s sword to lance into the gap between my bound arms. Clamping my wrists together, I snared her sword arm and spun, pushing my hip into her midriff. We spun together in an untidy pirouette before I bore her to the ground beneath me. She thrashed under my weight, trying to buck me off. My attention, however, was fixed on dislodging the sword from her grip. I jabbed an elbow into her face, stunning her, then slammed my bulk on to her sword arm, once, then twice. The sword came free and I rolled off her, scooping up the weapon and whirling in time to parry an overhead slash from one of the guards. He was even less expert than Ildette, overreacting to the thrust I feinted at his face and then failing to block the slash I delivered to his left leg. His armour was thick enough to prevent a dismembering injury but not smashed bones. Screaming, he fell to one knee and I finished him with a skull-opening blow to the crown of his bare head.

  Casting around, I saw that all was chaos now. The congregation a roiling mass of bodies in the smoke while less distinct figures appeared beyond them. A brief change in the wind banished the pall long enough to reveal the expected but still impressive sight of a long wall of Paelith charging headlong at the Covenant Host. Looking to either side, I saw more streaming from the forest, the sound of paelah hooves now a roaring storm.

  A snarl from my left sent me into a crouch, avoiding the dagger that jabbed the air above my head. Undaunted, Ildette came at me again, slashing at my face in a hissing frenzy. Incoherent hate gibbered from her lips in a cloud of spittle, eyes wide and unblinking, a soul lost to the madness of all-consuming vengeance. When my sword point pierced her throat, splitting her through the neck much as I had her brother, I felt it to be a mercy, for her if not the world.

  I kicked Ildette’s still twitching body off the blade and turned back to the bonfire, finding it now a fiery mound. The flames reached high, wreathing the summit in smoke. Compelled beyond reason to seek some way of saving the Sack Witch, I started towards it, managing only a few paces before being forced back. Somewhere inside the bonfire, an as yet untouched portion of fuel caught a spark and erupted, sending forth a yellow-red blossom that sent me sprawling in a mass of cinders.

  Hearing a concordance of angry voices not far off, I rose to my knees, planting the sword in the earth and working my bonds along the blade. The remaining soldiers of the Lady’s Shield came for me just as the cord fell away. Dragging the sword from the ground, I ducked a swinging halberd, parried a sword, and slashed open the face of its wielder. The guardsmen drew back a little, forming a circle around me, weapons levelled and faces alive with hate. I would have laughed at them but for a fresh outpouring of flame from the bonfire. Glancing at the still obscured summit, I knew with a plummeting heart that nothing could have survived such a maelstrom of heat.

  I do expect you to watch me burn, she had said. “Why?” I asked aloud, my sword arm wilting as despair claimed me. If she had intended to ignite some form of battle rage in me, she had failed. In that moment I felt only the utter weariness of grief and guilt.

  A collective shout came from the encircling guards as they braced for the killing thrusts that would end my traitorous life. But before they could drive their blades home a fresh gust of wind swept a blizzard of embers across the field, causing them to retreat a pace or two, arms thrown over their faces. Another, stronger gust descended, sending a hot rush of air across the field and dispelling much of the smoke. I crouched low, hissing at the pinprick sting of sparks upon my skin as a loud, high-pitched scream sounded nearby. Lowering my arm from my face, I saw that the sound came from one of the guards. A broad, stocky man with the grizzled, scarred features of a veteran, he stared upwards with a face rendered childlike by unreasoning, quivering terror. His halberd dropped from his grip and he fell to his knees, screams continuing and tears streaming down his face. To either side, his comrades were backing away, some displaying a similar pitch of fear, others in white-faced shock.

  Another gust swept us, chunky pieces of half-burnt timber joining the hail of embers, which was enough to send these previously murderous soldiers of the Lady’s Shield into flight, apart from the screamer. He was disinclined to halt his wailing, still staring upwards with unblinking eyes. When I turned to follow his gaze and beheld the object of his terrorised fascination, I didn’t join in his screaming, but nor did I fault him for it.

  “Wings,” I recall myself saying, mostly for want of anything else that came to mind in that moment of utter astonishment. “She has wings.”

  They blossomed from her in twin arcs of flame, rising twenty or more feet into the air before sweeping down to banish yet more smoke and reveal her in full. The ropes that bound her had been burned away, along with her robe and her hair, but otherwise the Sack Witch appeared utterly unharmed. Another beat of her wings bore her higher, so that she hovered over the scene. I saw twin beads of white light where her eyes should have been, the gaze that she cast over the panicking multitude below that of a hawk seeking prey. For a second, the glowing orbs alighted on me, and I felt the warmth of her regard, like a soft touch upon my heart, one that brought understanding. The shape of those wings was familiar, for I had seen it before, in ancient, twisted bone rather than flame.

  “The Malecite’s spirit found a vessel,” I murmured, transfixed by the being hovering above. “So did the Seraphile.”

  The fiery gleam of her gaze dimmed once, then shifted, the pitch of her wings altering so that she angled her body towards the disordered mass of the Covenant Host. Many were screaming, others stood frozen in shock while yet more fled. Some, apparently ignorant of the profound shift in their fortunes, found the resolve to try and form themselves into companies to resist the fast-approaching charge of the Paelith. It was when the wall of onrushing horses and warriors met the outer edge of the host that the being above folded its wings and plummeted down.

  The ugly, wrenching sound of the Paelith charge striking home was instantly swallowed by the roar of newborn fire as the Sack Witch’s wings flared. She swept low over the writhing throng of Covenant soldiery, a river of flame erupting in her wake. Faced with the fury of the Paelith to their front and an inferno to their rear, the nascent battle line of the Ascendant Queen’s army disintegrated. Paelith warriors hacked and stabbed as their mounts reared to pound their hooves into the mass of soldiers before them, cutting deep channels through what remained of their enemies’ ranks.

  Soldiers fled past me as I strove to discern Evadine among the chaos of it all, hurrying towards the rise where she had perched herself. Soon, however, the tide of fleeing or maddened folk became too thick and I was obliged to hack my way through. Still, there were too many and I found myself enveloped in a dense mob, some burnt, some patently driven beyond reason, all screaming and thrashing at each other and at me. I slashed down at the hand that dug fingers into my thigh, severing it at the wrist, punched a leering, gibbering face repeatedly until it disappeared from view. The crush closed in as I stabbed at a blistered, smoking chest, finding myself jammed in a heaving swirl, the air being forced from my lungs as my feet lost purchase on the ground.

  Release came with shocking suddenness, the press of bodies forced apart amid a flurry of choked screams and wet thuds. Gasping, I went to my knees, convulsing until the red mist clouding my vision faded. Something both hard and wet landed close by, spattering me with warm liquid, some of which invaded my mouth with a familiar, iron sting. Spitting the blood out, I raised my gaze to behold a monster.

  A red, flesh-speckled slick covered the Eithlisch’s bared torso from head to waist. He had swollen to a far greater size than I had seen before, obscenely enlarged muscles laced with corded veins I thought would surely burst at any second. Looking at his face, I expected to see the snarling rictus of battle-born madness. Instead, I beheld narrow, dark calculation. He’s going to kill you, the spectral boy had warned me in the petrified forest. Now, once again, I was confronted with stark evidence of the truthfulness inherent in the dead.

  “Is it just jealousy?” I asked him. “Or something more worthy?” Turning, I cast a pointed glance at the fire-winged creature once again hovering above. “Whatever love you think she owes you, she does not. If you’ve always known what she is, then you know that too.”

  His eyes narrowed further, and I knew that if he were to kill me now it would forever be a secret crime witnessed only by the mad, for the eyes of the Doenlisch were elsewhere. Then, with a growl, he reached down to clamp a massive hand on my shoulder and haul me to my feet.

  “Your dread woman, Alwyn Scribe,” he demanded. “Where is she?”

  Finding to my surprise that I still held my stolen sword, I pointed it in the direction of the rise. The crowd was thinned around us, the ground littered by bodies in varied states of fractured disorder or dismemberment. However, the Covenant Host appeared to be attempting to rally around Evadine. I could just glimpse her tall armoured form above the thicket of halberds and pikes, my stomach clenching in nauseous distress at the sight of the babe still clutched in her arms.

  “Follow close,” the Eithlisch grunted, his voice now possessed of a bestial, inhuman quality. Lowering his massive shoulders, he hurled himself into the stiffening ranks before us. Understandably, those soldiers who had begun to recover some vestige of courage quickly lost it again when faced with such a creature. The wise and the terror-stricken scattered before him, while the foolishly brave attempted to stand, and died for it. The monster swatted a dozen aside in as many paces, armour buckling and bones cracking as he forged a path. I kept as close to his back as I dared, wary of catching a skull-crushing backswing from one of his arms. A few cunning souls, smart enough to make way for the murderous giant but still keen on spilling a traitor’s blood, came at me in his wake and I was obliged to do some killing of my own.

  By the time we began to ascend the slope, I could see Evadine clearly. She had her sword raised high, calling out exhortations to those deluded souls still willing to cleave to her.

  “Steel your hearts against the witch’s illusions! Know that the Seraphile’s blessing resides only in me!”

  Her words still retained much of their power, for the Eithlisch’s progress slowed then, the number of assailants to either side swelling. I found myself fending off a thicket of jabbing halberds and pikes. Others were so enthused by their queen’s invective that they threw themselves at the monster. Their blades made little impression on his skin, leaving shallow scratches rather than cuts while he responded with blurring swipes of his arms. Soldiers tumbled like skittles or were cast into the air by the strength of his blows, yet, undaunted, still they sought to bar his path. Screaming, wild-eyed congregants swarmed at him, and at me as I pressed myself against his wall-like back, hacking wildly with my sword.

  I slashed at one leering, yelling face after another while the Eithlisch crushed skulls and pounded bodies, our progress now halted. Possessed of the strength of the desperate, my sword arm kept up its bloody work until frenzied hands grabbed hold of the blade, heedless of the fingers it cost them. Vainly, I tried to tug the weapon free, kicking and punching the howling mob. One wiry figure consented to loosen his grip on the blade, but only so he could launch himself at me. He bore no weapon but clawed at my face with his bloodied hands, jaw snapping as he lunged closer, trying to fix his teeth upon my flesh. I clamped a hand to his neck, forcing him back and up, then felt him shudder as the steel head of a crossbow bolt erupted from the bridge of his nose.