A Practical Guide to Evil

Chapter Book 7 14: Nock

The two of us reined in our horses a prudent hundred feet away from the bottom of the slope.

A fortified camp looked down at us from the heights of the Moule Hills, raised grounds with a palisade and a dry moat. There were artillery platforms looming beyond the wooden rampart, at least two that I saw, and more than a dozen scorpions glaring down at the Army of Callow’s vanguard from atop the palisade. My lips thinned as I took into consideration the steep slope leading up and the length of it going up – at least a few hundred feet – and how bloody taking that camp was likely to get should we try. I’d lose a hundred men for every foot, I darkly thought, the moment Marshal Nim brought out her crossbows.

“That wasn’t there yesterday,” Archer muttered. “I didn’t come too close, Cat, but I would have seen it in the distance.”

“They did it overnight, maybe?” I guessed. “Goblins can work during the dark, we’ve pulled that trick before. Then they bring in orc and humans after sunup when the foundations are laid.”

That might mean they’d not finished the works too long before we arrived. And possibly that the defences weren’t as thorough as it would seem from down here. Archer was visibly itching to ditch the horse and go have a closer look on foot but she restrained herself. Instead I felt the world shiver ever-so-slightly as she drew on an aspect, leaning forward on her horse.

“Moat’s not even,” Archer said, eyes distant. “And there’s still goblins working on the side of the camp to make it go fully around.”

I wouldn’t be able to match her sight without drawing on Night and I’d rather not draw on that frivolously under the afternoon sun, so I simply took her word for it.

“Definitely overnight, then,” I mused.

That made what they’d gotten up in time even more impressive. Much as it stung to admit it, the Army of Callow wouldn’t have been able to manage the same. We lacked the sappers and the expertise: a lot of my legionaries had spent no more than six months in training camps before being considered ready for war. The Legions regularly trained and drilled their soldiers in ways the war against Keter had simply not afforded me the time to do. My people were veterans, but they were veterans of a very particular kind of war.

“Your rider will get to Juniper soon,” Indrani noted. “We waiting for her orders or heading out to tickle the devils up early?”

I grimaced. Taking light foot up a hill into a hardened Legion position wasn’t going to achieve much except corpses. She’d not meant taking the Malaga troops, though, but the two of us. Thing was, I wasn’t sure we should. Not when the Marshal Nim would have a bunch of high-class mage cadres waiting and Akua Sahelian leading them. The odds of something nasty waiting for us up there were about the same as those of the sun rising tomorrow.

Might be it wouldn’t, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

“I’m not touching that camp without a bigger crew than just the two of us,” I said. “And I’ll let you loose to scout, since I know it’s a lost cause to stop you, but I want you to promise to keep your distance.”

Indrani considered me a moment.

“Worried about the mages?” she finally asked.

“They know which Named we field now,” I reminded her. “Nim and Malicia aren’t idiots, they’ll have spent time and coin figuring out how to kill all of you.”

“I’ll be a good girl, then,” Indrani drawled. “Promised.”

I rolled my eye at her, feeling a pang of discomfort when I realized I was facing the wrong way for her to be able to see it. All she had to look at was an eye cloth over a hollow socket. It was the little things that distressed me the most, somehow. Wounds I knew, had learned to live with. Limp along with. Losing an eye had been… more than that, in a lot of little ways. Archer waited until we’d returned to the ranks of the vanguard before passing off her horse, wandering off to find a way to sidle into the Ways. Though it was still dangerous to travel those and it’d still remain that way for the better part of two weeks, it was the sort of environment she thrived in.

A broken-down patch of the Ways where a single misstep might see her falling through the sky? Archer would take to that like a fish to water. It was when she’d be back in Creation that worried me.

Not that I had a lot of time to spare on that. The Levantine warriors that made up the vanguard of the Army of Callow had been advancing in a broad column until we’d caught sight of the enemy camp, going down the half-road, but when I’d called a halt Razin had pulled them out of marching order and begun ordering them into warbands. It was the right instinct, because right now the army behind was spread out along that road like a snake. Juniper would put the column into battle order soon enough, I thought, and I didn’t think that the Black Knight would have staked out that position in the heights to then abandon it at the first opportunity.

But there were troops Marshal Nim could throw at us without abandoning her position, and sure enough as I rode through the throng of Levantine warbands I heard exclamations of surprise from the ranks. From the eastern face of Moule Hills horsemen were pouring out in neat ranks, though where they’d emerged from was hidden by a large fold of rock. Hundreds, I counted, then more than a thousand. Fuck, was Nim throwing her entire horse at us? If so, we were in deep shit. The last reports had her at three thousand light horse to our vanguard of two thousand and a half-thousand of heavy horse from the Thirteenth to throw in should she feel like it.

“Razin,” I shouted over the din, forcing people away with my staff. “Razin.”

The sound of my voice caught his attention over the din, drawing his eyes to me and away from his advising captains.

“Shield wall now,” I called out. “Pack it tight or we’re all dead.”

If Nim had sent goblin skirmishers I would have advised we retreat instead, but we wouldn’t outrun cavalry on flat grounds. To Razin’s honour, he wasted in time in following through. Shouting in Ceseo he got his captains moving, the quick-footed Levantine warbands gathering into a fat uneven circle. I dismounted, heading for the front as shields were raised. In the distance, across the grounds, the enemy horse advanced at a brisk trot and formed into four slender wedges. They were long and thin, so it was hard to tell how many riders there were. More than a thousand, at least, but how many more? I found good solid ground to stand on, slightly away from the shields up front, and after making sure the warriors around were giving me a wide berth I closed my eyes and began to pray to the Sisters.

“Wake up,” I murmured in Crepuscular. “We have a war on our hands and I need a miracle to teach the enemy to fear me again. Wake up, carrion crows. There’s blood in the air.”

As I continued to murmur the Night began to move, lazily slithering into my veins, reluctant to brave the heavy sun. I kept drawing it in, murmurs flowing freely as the power began to accrue. There were shouts in Ceseo as the Levantine captains whose men had slingers among them – a lot of Dominion warriors had picked up the habit of carrying slings as well as their usual arms in Hainaut, since they were so useful against the dead – told them to get ready. A few heartbeats later the enemy closed the distance, Taghreb and Soninke in vividly coloured scale and cloth. War cries sounded on both sides, and though a few stones split open heads it was nothing to what we suffered in return.

Our shield wall was tight and packed, which I’d asked of Razin to discourage the enemy charging us. Light horse wouldn’t want to get mired in our ranks, it’d be like a mud pit for them. The downside was the same as the upside, unfortunately: the shield wall was tight and packed. So when the enemy cavalry began throwing javelins with all the strength of a charge behind them, those steel-tipped killers found their marks and then some. Shields splintered and broke, men fell with screams and I got my first good look at well-trained Wasteland horse making war. All four of the wedges that’d threatened a charge stopped well shy of our ranks, instead splitting to the sides and riding backwards smoothly.

The riders at the front threw their javelin and then retreated, making room for a fresh horseman to toss their own. The impact was… bloody. Worse than arrow fire would have been, if not as sustained.

I’d gathered power enough to give an answer, though. Night flared up, wreathing me in shadow, and above the enemy horse I began to gather specks of black flame. I wasn’t going to bother with subtle here: if I could burn through a chunk of their cavalry today the Loyalist Legions would be significantly easier to handle going forward. To my surprise the horsemen did not disperse at the sight, continuing their deadly javelin fire, and I saw why a moment later. There was a great surge of sorcery up on the heights, two transparent but roiling rings beginning to form. I stole away a sliver of the Night running through me, sharpening my eyes, and almost cursed. That was raw kinetic power they were gathering; I’d seen the likes of it before.

If that hit the ranks of the vanguard javelins would be the least of our problems. With the shield wall broken, we’d just get run down by the cavalry like animals.

Whoever had designed that trap had an uncomfortably good read on my abilities. I couldn’t abandon my working with the Night and rustle up another to handle this, not at this time of the day, which meant I’d have to break it apart and remake it. Gritting my teeth, I did. The black flames gutted out into smoke, the power instead expanding those puffs into great tendrils of dark mist. The kinetic rings flew out, the sound they made comically wobbly, but I moved the mist in the way. The working devoured the sorcery as it went through, leaving little more than a short burst of wind to reach our ranks. That wasn’t a victory, though, when the horsemen had been hammering at us all the while.

At this rate they’d run out of javelins before we gave an answer.

The Levantines were itching to ditch the shield wall and charge, given how close the riders were – another trap – but discipline held. Razin went through the ranks giving encouragement even as I began gathering Night again, his captains forcefully pulling back warriors that began to break the ranks. I’d have to let the Levantines take the hit, I realized. We could probably survive the magical bombardment, but if I didn’t hit the horsemen they were definitely going to overrun our position the moment they got done softening us up with javelins. It was a shitty choice to make, but I didn’t have a better one on the table. Best make my miracle count, then.

I had an idea or two in mind and I took to weaving even as power began rising atop the heights again – only to suddenly fall apart. I blinked in surprise, confused, only to then let out a sharp laugh. Archer. Archer had put an arrow into whoever had been leading that ritual. This was as close to an opening as I’d get.

Then the ground behind us began trembling. Yet it was not cries of dismay that greeted the change. I glanced back, finding the banner of the Broken Bells flying tall in the wind as they rode hard to relieve us. Juniper must have sent them out before we even caught sight of the enemy cavalry, for them to get her so quickly. The arrival of other horsemen saw the Legion auxiliaries lose their taste for the skirmish, unloading another few javelins our way spitefully and then smoothly pulling away. My knights began pursuit, passing by our position at a gallop, but they weren’t going to catch up to light horse and they knew it.

Brandon Talbot pulled the Order back when the enemy was driven most of the way back to their camp. I kept an eye on the heights all the while, waiting for magic to erupt again, but no ritual followed. I released the Night, feeling a wave of exhaustion, and the bloodied vanguard began its retreat back to the rest of the army. We’d survived, I told myself. Marshal Nim had given us a black eye, but we’d survived.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“The best we can say is that it stopped shy of being a disaster,” Juniper bluntly assessed.

Three hundred and sixty-three dead, almost twice that wounded. Over half of our two thousand strong vanguard had been shredded over the course of a skirmish that’d lasted maybe half an hour. There would have been a lot more corpses on the ground if we’d not been able to retreat to healers, but that was cold comfort considering we were unlikely to have all the wounded back on their feet before nightfall.

“The Black Knight caught us with our trousers down,” Aisha admitted. “Our scouts had no idea the Legions were here, much less camped above the only road. It is a major failure of our forward elements.”

That was a very polite way of phrasing ‘we stumbled in blind and got spanked’, but the lovely Taghreb did have a way of doing that.

“We turtled up after we got hit in the Ways,” I said. “And it cost us. Now two ways about it.”

I wouldn’t pretend otherwise.

“But now we know Nim’s here, so she’s shot her arrow,” I reminded them. “She won’t catch us out like this again.”

It’d been less than an hour since the enemy cavalry had retreated. We’d used that time to form up the Army of Callow and its auxiliaries in a battle line across the half-road, facing the fortified camp in the hills, but the Legions of Terror showed no inclination of coming down to fight us. It was just Juniper and Aisha here with me here in the field tent, General Zola being charged with handling affairs on the front, so none of us bothered to put a better face than was true on our current situation.

“We can’t attack that camp,” Aisha said, voicing an opinion we all shared. “It would be throwing an egg at a wall.”

“We need to turn her position,” I said. “Either to the east or west. So long she’s the one sitting on top of the half-road she can keep bringing up fresh supplies and water to her camp while we’ll be eating into our own reserves.”

“That’s the trap, Catherine,” the Hellhound growled. “She’s making it seem like she’s ceding us the initiative by staying up in her camp, but she hasn’t. We can’t leave through the Ways and we’ll slow to a crawl if we leave the road.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her.

“The grounds are too rocky west of Moule Hills,” Aisha told me in her stead. “Unless we put the sappers to making a path for us, we’d just be wrecking the wheels we just got done putting back on.”

Might still be possible to do it if we moved really slow, but if we did we’d get hit. She’d harass us with skirmishers and cavalry from a safe distance, bleeding my army out one cut at a time. And while it would be possible for the Army of Callow to advance ahead of its supplies at a quicker pace, it would be a very bad idea. We were tethered to those wagons, because the alternative was the Black Knight’s three thousand cavalry sallying out and torching the wagons carrying all our food and water. Marshal Nim was living up to her reputation as one of the three most decorated officers in all of Praes: she’d found a way to hem us in without even setting foot outside her fortified camp.

“That leaves only the half-road,” I said, openly unenthused.

It’d mean marching down the valley between Moule Hills and Kala Hills with a larger enemy force on our flank that was set up in entrenched high grounds. We’d be doing that on open grounds all the while, while the enemy had their war engines pointed at us from above. It had disaster written all over it.

“It might be possible to keep close to the bottom of the Kala Hills and make it south without a battle ensuing,” Aisha argued. “It’d be a risk for her to try us: in an enclosed space like the valley we could maneuver to negate her advantage in numbers.”

“And on tight grounds the Order would punch much harder than her own horse,” Juniper grunted. “But it won’t work, Aisha. She’ll just decamp and use the road to outpace us going south. Then she’ll set up at Kala Fortress with stone walls to defend from and her supply line still safe at her back.”

Which would just be moving the problem a few hours south, assuming it even worked. Which I was significantly less inclined to believe than Aisha was.

“We could march back north,” I suggested. “Go around this entire region, find another way through.”

“We’d be rolling dice,” Aisha grimaced. “We can’t go back into the Ways and if the Gale Ribbon spits out a storm at us the results could be almost as bad as a defeat.”

She wasn’t wrong, though it might honestly still be better than engaging the Black Knight on her chosen grounds. Unlike the Legions of Terror, after mauling us the storm wouldn’t pursue.

“North is right,” Juniper gravelled. “But into Kala Hills. Northeast.”

“Those are a dead end,” I frowned. “Even if we set up a camp on those heights facing hers, all we do is run out our supplies while she watches us.”

Nim wouldn’t be any more eager to attack our camp than we were to attack hers, we wouldn’t bait her into making that mistake. Especially not when Malicia and her Black Knight were well aware that I could only spend so long settling affairs in Praes. It was to their advantage to wait me out without even giving battle, since without a decisive victory against the Tower my bargaining position was weak.

“Are they a dead end?” Juniper replied, clicking her teeth thoughtfully.

She went looking through her papers, eventually taking out a parchment sheath she pressed into my hands. It was a report, I saw, from the captain that’d overseen the detachment that had gone to Nioqe Lake to fill water barrels. A significant chunk of it was spent going over the freshwater squid attack and praising the two young heroes that’d killed the creature. I glanced at Juniper, unsure why she’d hand me this. I’d already told the kids they’d done well.

“What am I looking for?” I asked.

“Captain Henry mentions seeing locals on the opposite shore,” Juniper said. “Fishermen, as is to be expected of a lakeside town, but also those bringing cattle to drink.”

I scanned for the line, eye narrowing when I found it. The officer had mentioned seeing sheep, specifically, and I finally found my marshal’s line of thought.

“Goats they could feed on scraps, but they’d need grazing lands for sheep,” I muttered. “And we haven’t seen any suitable grounds on the other side, so you think they’re-”

“In the Kala Hills,” Juniper finished. “And that means shepherd paths, maybe all the way through.”

Even if we found those paths they wouldn’t be broad enough to let our army cross, but that was why we had sappers. Should we cross the hills and march south it was almost certain that the Legions would still beat us to Kala Fortress, but it wouldn’t matter as much. We wouldn’t be bottled up in the valley anymore, we could swing wide to the east and go through the rainlands until we eventually found another stretch of the half-road to march on. Marshal Nim would have to come and fight us on our terms; otherwise we’d cut her supply lines and have freedom to march on a lightly defended Ater even as Sepulchral caught up to the Loyalist Legions.

“It is already too late in the afternoon for giving battle to be anything but risky, regardless,” Aisha noted.

No one argued with that. The Black Knight had the Eighth Legion with her, the Trailblazers, and General Wheeler’s ranks were heavy on both goblins and skirmishers. If fighting continued after dark we’d be at a stark disadvantage.

“Kala Hills, then,” I agreed.

The slopes weren’t as steep here as they were on the Moule Hills to the south, but the stone was softer. Easier to use as foundations. The Kala Hills were also covered with brushlands and Pickler assured me having local wood to cut made building the camp much easier. The work only began midafternoon, which was uncomfortably late, but the Black Knight hadn’t just sat in her camp looking pretty as we moved. Skirmishers were out and about with the hour’s turn, harassing our retreat as we marched away. Juniper sent out the Levantines and our own Army skirmishers to match them, but the Order stayed put. We needed the knights ready in case Nim sent out her own cavalry, we had nothing else that’d be swift enough to stop her from chewing up our light foot.

This once the fight went our way, at least. I was done fucking around after the mauling we’d taken, so I sent out Named in force. The Silver Huntress was like a thresher in a wheat field, fighting skirmishers, and she had a lot of anger to work out. The Squire got himself two crossbow bolts in the stomach after getting cocky but with the Apprentice at his side it was far from enough to kill him. He’d eat only broth for a week, I thought, and be a wiser man for it. Just because goblins were half his size didn’t mean that charging crossbowmen on foot was any less foolish. The Empire had designed those things to punch through plate, knight-killers.

The enemy broke off shortly before nightfall, their cavalry having never come out. Another hundred dead on our side, but we’d inflicted easily twice that. Nim would think twice about testing us like this in the future and the Malaga warriors raised their heads for having avenged their honour in the rematch.

I stayed back to level hilltops with Night so our sappers would make progress quicker but it was still frustratingly slow-going. There’d be no dry moat for us and the palisade was patchy in places: we’d put a priority on getting the wards in place, since the last thing we wanted was to suffer magic bombardment in the middle of the night. Nightfall saw the Army of Callow retreating into its half-done camp, tents raised and fires roaring. Come morning I’d take Archer and the Silver Huntress out in the hills, looking for paths, but after the exhausting day I just wanted to sleep. My head barely hit the pillow before I blacked out.

Cruelly, I was awakened what felt like a single heartbeat later.

Alarm wards were pounding away at the night air. I dragged myself into trousers and hastily put on my armour, snatching my sword and staff as I exited only to almost stumble into a large orc sergeant.

“Report,” I ordered, tightening my sword belt.

“Under attack ma’am,” he gravelled.

I rolled my eye. Yes, I’d deduced as much somehow.

“Who, where?” I pressed.

“They came from the hills, behind the camp,” the sergeant said. “Staff Tribune Bishara claims it’s the Eleventh Legion.”

It took me a moment to place that. Cognomen ‘Tenebrous’, led by General Lucretia. The sole officer that’d been a general in the Legions before the Reforms and stayed one after. Also a vampire, some sort of flesh-eating undead. Her legion had been under Grem One-Eye during the Conquest, attacking the Wall, but I couldn’t remember anything in particular that’d distinguished it. The Eleventh stayed in the Wasteland ever since, so I’d never had to deal with any part of it. My belt was comfortably set, so I laid a hand on the pommel of my sword and straightened my back.

“All right, sergeant,” I said. “What’s the situation?”

“Marshal Juniper requests that you head to the breach,” he said.

“Let’s get to it, then.”

The camp was in decent order, considering we’d gotten attacked right after Midnight Bell. My legionaries were gathering briskly for a counter push, the element of surprise having passed. It was only when we got to the breach that I winced. The Eleventh hadn’t hit the Army of Callow, I saw, but the Levantines. The chunk of the patchy palisade that’d been broken through with now-abandoned rams had led straight to where the day’s wounded were kept. The same warriors that’d bled down on the plains. Legionaries with shields painted in green and black had overwhelmed the tents and slaughtered the surprised Dominion force, but by the look of the bodies and scorch marks a force of Lanterns and Osena slayers had stopped them in their tracks. By the time I got here, the Legion incursion – a mere five companies, by the looks of it – was being driven back even if most of the Dominion warriors were only half-dressed.

The trouble came from further back: deadly crossbow volleys were being poured into the shield wall from a hill in the distance. We’d stemmed the tide, the camp was in no danger of being overwhelmed, but bodies would keep piling up until we cleared out that fucking hill. That’d be my job, looked like. Razin and Aquiline were easy to pick out from the throng, just by the way their people rallied to them, and I saw that both the Silver Huntress and the Barrow Sword were with them. Deciding I could use the help, I limped my way to them. I quickly exchanged greetings with the lordlings, then the Named.

“Black Queen,” Ishaq greeted me, grinning. “Nice night, isn’t it?”

“They disturbed my beauty sleep,” I flatly replied. “Someone’s going to die for that.”

Some chuckles, but Alexis was grimly serious.

“Orders?” the Silver Huntress asked.

“I want you two and a good line of twenty killers,” I said. “We’re going to silence those crossbows.”

“It would help,” Razin admitted. “Marshal Juniper is sending crossbowmen of our own but they have yet to arrive.”

“I’ll go,” Aquiline said. “My retinue will serve.”

I wanted to argue, but that glint in her eye told me she was going to be obstinate and we didn’t have the time.

“Fine,” I grunted. “Lord Razin, you have the command.”

He nodded, then snuck a kiss to his fiancée.

“Do try not to get another scar,” he teased her. “You know how jealous I get.”

“No promises,” Aquiline grinned.

Ugh, young love. I shared a disgruntled look with Alexis, though for some reason the Barrow Sword was looking rather fondly at the pair. I didn’t want to take slayers with us, I made clear to Aquiline, so she drew twenty sword and board men from her retinue instead and we circled the melee at the gap. The Barrow Sword opened a path through a weak patch of the palisade with a mule kick, large enough for us to make it out onto the hills. All three of us Named could see in the dark at least decently, so we guided the Levantines through the sloping brushlands. Several times we had to outright climb up, so I had to kill the pain in my bad leg with Night, but we made good pace anyway.

The enemy had chosen a tall, flat-topped hill to position their crossbowmen so they weren’t difficult to spot. Two hundred of them, firing in rotation to obscure their numbers. They were probably hoping to bait legionaries into exposing themselves before unleashing proper volleys, I thought. I was not much enjoying fighting the Legions of Terrors. I’d much preferred having that particular war machine on my side. Still, the reason I grimaced and gestured for our warband to crouch into the bushes wasn’t the crossbowmen: it was the few skulking shapes at the bottom of that same hill. Goblins. Sappers.

“We have to hit the hill from here,” I whispered.

I got odd looks for it.

“There’s sappers afoot,” I flatly stated. “Every approach to that hill will be mined to the Hells and back. We try to walk through a field they set up and maybe two of us will make it there.”

Maybe. If the sappers were having an off night. Names helped you against a lot of things but stepping into a gout of goblinfire wasn’t one of them. We found defensible grounds, a dip between to hills that had just low enough a rim that I could look at the enemy crossbowmen and aim, and Aquiline’s men spread out around me in a loose circle. I silently gestured for Ishaq to keep an eye on the Lady of Tartessos when she wasn’t looking but kept the Silver Huntress close. She had sharp reflexes and I’d not be able to move much while weaving Night. I breathed out, looking at the sky, and struck my staff against the rocky ground.

“Sun’s gone, Sisters,” I spoke in Crepuscular. “Let’s play, yeah?”

The power came eagerly when I called, as if to make up for its sluggishness during the day. In a low murmur I spoke my prayers, shaping the working as I drew more and more Night into myself. I’d expected the enemy to catch on to our presence sooner or later, but that wasn’t exactly what we got. Suddenly – when I had gathered enough Night into one place, I guessed – there was a ripple of magic in the air and a red circle of light formed about two hundred feet above our position. You know, revealing it to anyone looking. I paused in my incantation.

“Fuck you,” I feelingly told the sky, and also Akua Sahelian.

The enemy must have been expecting us because it couldn’t have been longer than a hundred heartbeats before they struck. They came out of the night like ghosts, a single line of twenty legionaries. But these were not regulars or heavies, I thought. Their armour was light, leather and breastplates, and none of them wore helmets. Their hair flew freely in the wind, long and dark and oddly animated. Each bore a single sword and a long spear. They… didn’t move right. They were beautiful, I thought, dark-skinned and dark-eyed but with impossibly smooth skin. My mind was being clouded, I recognized. After I bit my lip hard the beauty waned. Their skin was smooth as corpse’s because that was exactly what they were.

Not a single one of them breathed.

They struck in silence, three warriors dying before Alexis could warn them we were under attack, but I kept whispering my prayers. Almost there. Aquiline and Ishaq took on one of the enemies together, the Osena hooking his spear and dragging him close enough the Barrow Sword could take off his head. The legionary exploded into a spray of dust and rotten flesh, armour falling into the rocks. The Silver Huntress parried a spear tossed at my side then threw her own with a flash of Light, slaying the sender without batting an eye. The proximity of Light almost destabilized my working, but with a soft curse and desperate haste I compensated. Just a moment now, aligning it just right…

“Burn them all,” I hissed in Crepuscular.

The circle of black flame erupted around the crossbowmen, rising the height of three men before spinning inwards. The crossbowmen died screaming, but I was not done. The circle kept spinning on itself, until I snapped my staff against the ground and it exploded outwards in a wave. I heard screaming from legionaries not mine as munitions began to explode, the brush burning bright as the wave of incineration continued outwards until it gutted. I breathed out, brow touched with sweat, and drew my sword. The animated corpses that’d been attacking us – vampires? – were retreating, I found. Half the Levantines that’d come with us were dead and Ishaq was bleeding from a bite mark on his face, but otherwise we’d made out decently.

Eye scanning the night, I found that in the hills there were glints of steel under moonlight. More legionaries. Pulling back, I realized. And so were those that’d been fighting in the breach, though the Dominion pressed them close and the crossbowmen Juniper had sent took their toll. Maybe a fifth of those five hundred would make it out. But why were they retreating already? It made little sense. If they feared what I could do with the Night, why attack after nightfall in the first place? Feeling like I’d missed something I led us back to camp in a hurry. And there was something wrong, I noticed it immediately. Too many legionary tents were empty, and those that weren’t were being brought down. Packed away.

I found Juniper and with her my answers. My marshal looked wretched. I thought it was a wound, at first, but her body was fine.

“She played us,” Juniper got out, words tumbling out of her fanged mouth like a confession. “She left her camp, Cat. The Legions are marching on us right now, they’re most the way across the valley, and we can’t fight. Not with the entire Eleventh out in the hills waiting to flank us.”

My fingers clenched.

“You’re saying we need to retreat,” I slowly said.

“We’re in disarray, flanked and our camp fortifications are incomplete,” the Hellhound said. “If we fight, we’ll lose.”

I rocked back in shock. She knew, and I knew she did, that a retreat at night with the enemy nipping at our heels was going to get bloody. Goblin skirmishers were going to scrape of our rearguard raw, and we’d be both slow and vulnerable on the move. That she was still arguing we needed to retreat could only mean that she was genuinely afraid that our army was going to get destroyed if we did not.

“Where would we even go?” I got out.

“Further north,” she said. “Near the Jini Plateau, close to Nioqe Lake.”

That wasn’t a strategic position, I thought. Or even a tactical one. There were no real gains to be made by going there except not being crushed. That was how bad out situation had gotten. Numbly, I nodded my permission. I needed a drink, I thought, before we got going. Gods but my leg hurt.

I could not remember the last time we had been this brutally outmaneuvered.

We cut our losses and ran. It was not as hard a retreat as it could have been, Marshal Nim perhaps wary of engaging in a full pitched battle in the dark, but it cost us more than I cared to admit. As we fled I looked back and froze, for in the distance I saw the Black Knight’s fortified camp was burning bright under the starry sky. It took me a moment to understand. Of course she was burning that camp. She no longer needed it, after all.

She’d just taken ours.