Seihad

by TK Takaishi

After fifteen years of lies, the Khaydarin Empire finally launches its invasion with frightening force. As the prophesied Final Seihad escalates, the only hope of salvation lies with six stand-masters who must relive the legacy of Adun…and surpass it.

12. Seihad Chapter Twelve

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon. Seihad: Chapter Twelve

By: TK Takaishi

**July 10th, A.S. 522, Fifteen days later**

"A message for you, my Lord."

Locke looked sideways at the messenger who rode beside him, holding out a rolled-up scroll of parchment. Judging from the blue patch on his shoulder, the man was from his corps, but Locke could not tell whether he was in the rebellion or not; his face was expressionless. So Locke schooled every hint of tension from his face as well. "From who?"

"Centurion Yvan," the man replied. "He sent me this morning, and told me to deliver it with all due haste."

Locke reined his horse to a standstill and the scout stopped obediently beside him. There was no real haste to what he was doing anyway. The men digging the defensive trenches and repairing the breaches to the Ichijoujan walls around him could continue their work without his instruction. Whatever Yvan thought was important enough to risk contacting him by courier, it was definitely more important than this routine inspection of the defenses.

Locke took the parchment and inspected the seal carefully. Satisfied, he broke it, unrolled the parchment, and was presented with a string of gibberish.

"It's been encoded," he said, putting a note of feigned disgust in his voice. "Really, as if this message could have been intercepted."

The messenger's expression did not change. "Standard procedure, Praetor," he said flatly. Locke wondered if that was a hint of boredom he detected in the man's voice.

"Well, it's irritating nonetheless," Locke said as he swung his mount back towards the main encampment. "Come, let us see what this message is."

In truth, Locke was glad that Yvan had encrypted the message. Either the messenger was a really, really good actor, or he was not part of the rebellion. He was simply a routine courier, doing his job. When they reached his tent, Locke dismounted and shook his head at the messenger. "You're dismissed for now," he said shortly. "Return in an hour's time and I will have your reply ready for you."

The man nodded and led his horse off to be fed and refreshed and fed. As he left, Locke nodded at the guards around his tent before he brushed the flaps open and entered. He smiled slightly when they automatically took two steps farther away from the tent, effectively widening the guard perimeter. His obsession with privacy was becoming something of a legend, even within his own corps. The guards didn't need to be asked anymore.

Sitting down on his chair, Locke took the encoded piece of parchment and stared at it for a moment. Then he reached into his drawer and pulled out a locked box. Producing a key from beneath his cloak, he unlocked it and withdrew several pieces of paper containing the key codes, as well as a sheaf of blank paper, an ink bottle and a quill. Sighing, he spread the parchment flat on his table, opened the key codes beside it and began to decode.

Five minutes later, Locke sat back and studied the message he had written on the blank parchment. It read:

Hvea esteablishfed pgerimetqer rnd suthqern flenc. Dcurin Glnr apted dfnse westyrn sktr. Aides waull scre wit twnttousam, wit tnntousam rsve.Yvn

It was horrible spelling, but that was to be expected. All encrypted Khaydarin messages were spelled as unintelligibly as possible even before it was encrypted to make it more difficult to crack. After dealing with such messages for years, Locke had learned to translate it all in his mind even as he read it:

Have established perimeter around southern flank. Decurion Galinor appointed defense of western sector. Aides wall secure with twenty thousand, with ten thousand in reserve. Yvan.

But this message was not routine. Locke frowned as he read it over again. Decurion Galinor. That was the Decurion Yvan had said there might be a problem with, and as a result Locke had effectively isolated him from the rest of the army and subtly stripped him of all his connections and alliances. Galinor was as powerless as Locke could make him without dismissing him. In fact, Locke had already appointed assassins to kill him the moment they revealed their colours. Why would Yvan give him command over the defense of the south-western sector?

Yvan was trying to tell him something.

Casually, Locke glanced around his tent to ensure that there were no shadows outlined against the tent walls. When he found no eavesdroppers, he took out the locked box again and drew a small letter opener from its depths. Then, he took up his sheathed sword and took out the blade, leaving only the scabbard.

Carefully, he reached into the scabbard with the letter opener and slowly pried off the inner layer of leather. Once the worn leather had been detached slightly, Locke reached in with a finger, probed gingerly, and withdrew it.

Clutched between his index and middle finger was a small scrap of parchment, as thin as onionskin and just as fragile. With infinite care, Locke smoothed it out on the table, then looked at the original, encrypted message. It was time to try again. With the real cipher this time.

It took longer this time, because this cipher was much more complex. It made use of the nulls, or meaningless symbols inserted into the original code, so Locke had to go back and re-highlight the nulls, but eventually Locke felt an electric tingle shoot up his spine when he realized that his hunch had been right. The cipher in his hands, the one used only by the rebellion, was yielding semi-intelligent words. Ten minutes later, Locke put down his quill and stared at the message beneath the first.

Dvs, Drd, Mnk, Srl rdy. Pln?

In other words:

Duvas, Daerid, Marnak, Saril ready. Plan?

So Yvan was reporting on the recruitment's progress. Daerid and Marnak he had known about. Centurion Duvas and Decurion Saril were new. It was too much to hope that all of Centurion Duvas's division had joined, but even so, it was safe to assume that another twenty thousand had been added to the fold, bringing the total up to slightly more than forty thousand. It was perhaps less than the number that would have followed given the chance, but given the time frame, it was more than he had expected. Locke felt his breath catch in his throat as he realized the enormity of what he was accomplishing. Against all odds, the recruitment was succeeding. Forty thousand was nothing to be laughed at. Given a choice whether to follow the Emperor, or to follow him, the men were opting to follow him.

And yet…

Plan?

Plan? He had no plan! In frustration, Locke glanced at the map spread over his table, recalling, for the hundredth time, the position of his forces. His corps had been charged with the protection of the sangrias's northern and southern flanks. He was stationed north with elements from all five corps, supervising a defensive line that stretched ten miles inland from the coast before it began to arc south. Likewise, Yvan was stationed to the south, perhaps half a day's journey from his position.

Grabbing the map, Locke scrutinized it in more detail, then put it down again. No, there was no way he could formulate a plan. Too much depended on what Takeru was planning to do. Would he go for a straight frontal assault? In that case, it would be better to collapse inwards towards the center, annihilating as much of the central defences as possible before Takeru's path. But what if Takeru attacked in prongs? If so, from which direction? What if he came from the sea? Which way should his army move? Should they move to engage, or simply get out of the way?

Not for the first time, Locke wished there was some way he could re-establish contact with Yamato. But it was too risky. He had almost been unable to convince Tichon that his last contact had simply been a dream. So…the only reliable strategy was…

Narrowing his eyes in concentration, Locke bent over his parchment and began to write:

Dms, Jdm n I rdy. W strk whn thy strk. Nt bfre. Imprvse. I trst u.

**********

On the morning of July eighteenth, the five hundred and twenty-second year of the new Council's calendar, the long, silvered call of trumpets resounded across the city of Atun'dar, capital of Sheid. After three weeks of hasty preparation, the first stage of the Seitzin's plan was put into motion. Takeru, Kari and Yamato watched silently from a nearby hilltop as one hundred and fifty thousand war-worthy men wheeled away from the great walls of Atun'dar and turned east for their fateful march through the Shienar forest. Like a great wave of gleaming steel and dark armour, troop by troop, regiment by regiment, they rode forth, grim-faced, onto what might be the last march of their lives. The entire peoples of Atun'dar stood silent and unmoving on the mighty city's walls, watching with heavy hearts as their beloved King rode off to war. There were few cries of sorrow or despair, for the Shienar were a stern and dignified people, but scarcely an eye remained unmisted by tears as the last gleam of sunlight glinted off the Seitzin's spears or helm. As the streaming banners of the Seitzin disappeared from the horizon, Shienar trumpet-callers raised their horns to their lips and let loose a mournful dirge. What remained of the city guard turned eastwards, and stood stiffly at attention as they raised their hands in salute. It was the time-honoured tradition of honour and blessing. Return swiftly, the silent gesture said. Return victorious.

For the first time in twenty years, the gray of Sheid did not ride alone. The blue-gold of Ishida rode beside it, as did the white and silver of Yagami and the bright red of Fan-Tzu. The Taelidani had no banner, but their mottled cloaks could be seen guarding the flanks and rear of the company, flitting in and out of sight as they blended into the landscape, though they traveled in the open. And in the very front, at the apex of the massive steel arrow of men, their Kings rode beside their banners, leading them all on the first and last march of the Seitzin. Proud and tall, strong and grim did they appear as they rode on their mounts, and many took heart at seeing them unbent and unafraid.

And to think, Kari thought as she turned away with the others to join the march, this scene must be happening all over Gaea right now. For she knew they did not ride alone. Even as Atun'dar rolled out of sight beneath the horizon, she knew that Ken and Yolei were watching Ardinberg disappear behind a mountain crevice, and Davis and Cody were watching Falin, capital of Fan-Tzu, disappear behind the forest. She cast her gaze north, to where she knew Ken and Yolei were, then south, to where she knew Davis and Cody were. No, they were not riding alone.

They rode hard and fast through the wide forests of Sheid, following the ancient causeway that linked Sheid, the kingdom of the north, with Ichijouji, the kingdom of the sea. To their flanks and far ahead of the main host, swift Taelidani scouts scoured the land for ambushes and surprises. Their course ran to the east and south, and soon the foothills of the Ishidan mountains, their peaks wrapped in low-lying misty clouds of gray, could be espied on their left. Presently, their path began to run alongside the swiftly rushing Alph, which raged with the white meltwaters of the mountains' snowy summits. The great tall pine forests of the north gave way to the thicker, mixed forests of the south, then into the long, waving plains of tall grass which marked the beginning of Ichijouji. At the bend in the river Alph, just before it turned eastwards for its final run to the ocean, the Seitzin camped that night, poised on the junction of three borders: Sheid, Ichijouji and Ishida.

That night, as the Seitzin settled for what rest their troubled minds could find before sunset, the stand-masters dined together in the darkness. It was meagre fare, but none of them could have stomached any more as it were. Silently, they stared onto their plates as they ate, each lost in their brooding thoughts.

"I do not like it," Kari said at length as she looked eastwards onto the borders of Ichijouji. The wide flat plains blushed in the pale, eastern moonlight, as empty as the void sky above it. "The border is unguarded. Not a single patrol. It's as if they are inviting us in."

"Perhaps they do not have the power to guard all of Ichijouji," Takeru suggested. "They may have fallen back to the inner provinces."

"The Emperor will only have to hold onto Paen province," Yamato affirmed as he too cast his almond eyes over the empty plains. "He might have withdrawn his forces to protect only that province. He knows that everything else will fall later if he can hold onto that province for another week or so."

That was all they said on the subject. Shortly after their meal, they bid each other a good night, and retired to their tents. The long hours of night seemed to draw on forever as they hunched, sleepless, in their shelters, their minds tormented by troubling thoughts and the eerie silence that surrounded them. There were no cries of wolves or animals, no breath of wind across the wide plain, no sigh of crickets in the long grass. In the darkness the land lay like a dead thing in the moonlight, unmoving and silent.

Dawn broke dim and cold, but the Seitzin paid the ill omen no heed as they ventured across the threshold of Shienar territory and onto enemy soil. Despite the fact that it should have been the middle of summer, the Seitzin shivered and huddled in their thick cloaks as their breath steamed from their mouths, as the sun was obscured from the cold earth by brooding clouds. The once fertile and green fields of Ichijouji had turned into gray fields of blasted slag and dying grass seemingly overnight. Gone were the neat, tracts of farmland. Gone were the farming carts and trading merchants that frequented the causeway that they now marched upon. The only sound to be heard was the murmur and chatter of the Alph as it continued on its course due east for the ocean.

But as they rode, their bold advance was not challenged. There was no sign of black Khaydarin armour, no ambush unlooked for assailed their flanks or their vanguard. What cities they encountered were burned out husks filled with black, lifeless skeletons. Uneasily, the men marched even as despair and fear darkened their hearts and weighted their limbs with dread. The air of evil in the dying land could not be shaken, and even the bravest among them felt their hope wane.

The third day, the Seitzin's course departed from the river Alph. Turning south-east, they left the wide river behind them as they struck deeper into Ichijoujan territory, still following the ancient causeway boldly through the dying grass plains. Now, the silence that enveloped them was absolute without the constant chatter of running water. The air that they breathed became drier and laced with a slight tang of ash, as if a fine cloud of black dust had settled over the land, a black dust that gradually worked its way into every crevice of armour, and stung at the eyes constantly. Even Yamato could not tell what it was, and what kept the dust in the air, for there was no wind to speak of, but it did nothing to harm the men, so they marched on with all haste.

It was near the end of the fourth day, as the host ended their march, that the first sign of the enemy appeared. The Taelidani scouts returned swiftly on their mounts, and reported that Khaydarin patrols had fallen into place on either side of the party, just out of sight of the main host behind the shallow, rolling hills. Whenever the scouts approached, the patrols had cloaked, and the Taelidani had been forced to retreat lest they blunder into an ambush. None of the patrols seemed inclined to charge, merely to watch the movements of the Seitzin. Nevertheless, Takeru had the Seitzin double their guards around the perimeter that night, and plant huge bonfires two hundred paces out from the camp, so that no enemy could approach unseen. Although not unexpected, the confirmation of an enemy presence thickened the tangible aura of evil and fear that clutched the men's hearts. "Well," Yamato said grimly as he looked out at the dark horizon, "if they didn't know we were coming before, they certainly know now."

"We are ready," Aidan said firmly. "Let them come. If we meet on the plains tomorrow, Yagami will do its part with pride."

But Takeru shook his head. "We will not meet them tomorrow," he said. "They will make their stand closer to the sangrias. These plains are too open. If they meet us out here, it would be easy for us to manoeuvre around them. The closer to the sangrias they stand, the less territory they will have to defend."

His prediction turned out to be true. As their journey stretched into their fourth, and then their fifth day, the realm of Ichijouji turned wilder and more desolate around them. At last, even the long, hardy grass began to give way to fire-blasted black earth, bare and rocky underfoot. As they rode, the wind began to stir again, sending foul cold gusts of ash-scented air sweeping across the barren earth. Above them, the gray clouds grew thicker and lower, hanging overhead like an overbearing mountain of gray. Night and day could scarcely be told apart now, as the rising and the setting of the sun could not be seen, and what daylight could be seen had grown as dim and cold as the dead of winter.

Finally, near the end of the sixth day, forward Taelidani scouts ran back with the inevitable news. Khaydarin had entrenched themselves along the Paen wall, just as Yamato had predicted. They could go no further without using force. Takeru immediately called an early halt and an urgent council of war as the Seitzin set up camp for the final time, less than ten miles from the border of Paen province. As men pitched their tents, many uttered prayers under their breath. For tomorrow, the final battle would begin. One way or another, the greatest battle of the Seihad would be fought. Victory would mean life. Defeat would mean death, either immediately, or in the ensuing years as the black tide raged across Gaea. Men murmured to their horses, stroked their manes, and gave them an extra handful of oats in their feedbags. A last killing edge was put on weapons; bowstrings were painstakingly oiled and prepared for battle.

After she had finished the council-of-war with the monarchs and the stand-masters and the much longer meeting with the Seitzin's triage staff, Kari took a walk around the vast encampment. She was no military expert; she preferred to leave such matters to people like Ken and Davis, but she could sense morale. And as the soldiers around her settled in for what rest they could find in the long hours before dawn, their anxiety, their hope and their numbing fear suffocated and entangled her. The men were scared.

She looked up at the starless sky and felt a lancing pang of despair. Even the stars to which she had looked for reassurance in times past had hidden their faces from her, as if they could not bear to watch the events that would surely ensue the next morn. The wind was muted, like the low rumbling and stamping of some savage tribal song, holding the promise of sudden, lethal violence. Sighing, she bowed her head against the gritty wind and trudged across the dusty ground towards the customary meal of the stand-masters.

When she reached the circle of light cast by the single fire on the ground, she discovered that Takeru and Yamato were already present. Neither of them were speaking as they sat on the ground or on small pieces of rock. Silently, Takeru handed her her plate of stew and gave her a wan smile of welcome, but that was it. Accepting the plate, Kari sat down at her place in the circle with a slight sigh.

"We meet tonight," Takeru said shortly. "As agreed."

Kari ate her meal in silence. It would be good to see the others again, even if it had only been two weeks since she had seen them last. Yamato, who had already finished, quietly ran a wet stone repeatedly across his sword's edge. Takeru looked repeatedly at the night horizon, checking the progress of the moon. When Kari finished her last mouthful, Takeru accepted her plate wordlessly. "Come then," he said, not unkindly. "Let's go."

Kari wiped her mouth with her kerchief, then nodded. Yamato put down his stone, sheathed his sword, and settled, cross-legged against a nearby boulder. The last thing Kari saw before she closed her eyes was Takeru putting away her plate.

Moments later, she was on the thought-plane. Whoever had arrived first had plainly been too tired to think of an imaginative setting, and had simply recreated his or her own circumstances. She was sitting next to another campfire, almost identical to her own. The dark, frozen land around her was the same, as was the gritty wind that stung her face. When her eyes cleared from the silver flakes that always settled across her vision when she ascended, Kari saw Ken, Yolei, Davis, Cody and Yamato already sitting around the fire. Wordlessly, she took her place in their midst.

When Takeru appeared beside her out of a hazy shimmer of light, it was Yolei who spoke first.

"Takeru," Yolei said as she stared up into the sky. "Did you take a look over the horizon? With your stand?"

Beside Kari, Takeru sat down heavily and shook his head. Yolei lowered her head to stare unseeingly into the flames. Takeru looked around at the faces of his friends, all of them cast into grim, unmoving lines. Slowly, his brows drew together into a frown. "That bad?" he said.

"Their campfires," Yolei whispered. In the firelight, her face was as pale as paper. "That's all I could see in the darkness. Takeru, they covered the land like a city. It was like looking at the night sky. Except these stars were red."

"We will face them tomorrow then," Yamato said calmly. "We hardly expected any less."

Davis laughed gruffly. "At least we know now it wasn't a wild-goose chase," he snorted.

"Oh yes," Takeru said quietly. "We certainly know it's not a wild-goose chase. Are you in position?"

"Yes, arrived at around dusk," Ken reported. "Right at their doorstep. It'll only take a few hours march tomorrow morning for us to reach the outer wall."

"We arrived late afternoon," Cody reported for his group. "The Jakt and Fan-Tzu men are nervous, but they're ready. They know that Khaydarin knows we're here."

"Let's hope that Khaydarin is even more nervous than we are," Takeru sighed.

"Oh, they're nervous all right," Davis said, baring his teeth. "Let's see them turn this army back…"

Silence descended upon them again. There was no need to voice their feelings. They had been brothers and sisters for so long, had shared in each other's sorrows and triumphs for so long that there was no need to. Even thought-shapes were no longer necessary to read each other's thoughts. They all felt it, and they could all see it in each other's eyes and read it in each other's auras. Kari played with the ends of her hair aimlessly as she looked down. Hope seemed to be in short supply.

Yamato looked up at the sky. The shadows of fatigue and despair beneath his eyes were cast into prominence by the flickering flames. "Those are thick clouds hanging over Paen province," he commented noncommittally. "I can't see the light at all."

Kari knew that the thought-plane's clouds did not reflect the weather in real life, but she knew that Yamato was right. The clouds had not lifted ever since they had ventured into Ichijouji. Day by day, the dark gray mantle weighed heavily on her shoulders and on her mind. The cold did not bother her. She was used to cold. But the numbness that had wrapped itself around her limbs and her mind was undeniable. She felt muted. Stifled. And so unbelievably tired.

"I could," Takeru's soft voice said.

"Really." Yamato's voice was flat.

"When you look," Takeru said reassuringly, "just wait. You'll see it eventually."

For the briefest instant, the thick gray clouds parted slightly. The merest sliver of velvet sky appeared between the opaque lead-gray covers, and a single beam of starlight lanced down through the dark black dust that covered the land to illumine the cold earth. Only for a moment. Then, before Kari could smile in amusement, the clouds closed again, and the sliver of starlight disappeared.

"Takeru," Yolei's voice sounded resigned. "You know that just because you can make the clouds go away in this plane doesn't mean you've made the clouds go away."

"Oh, you'll see before you go to sleep," Takeru said, grinning enigmatically. "The trick is to see it."

Yamato arched an eyebrow. Davis snorted with amusement as Cody looked back and squinted, trying to see what Takeru was referring to. For the moment, the despair did not seem quite as keen. The dread did not hang quite so heavily. It was still there. But it no longer crushed them. At least one of them could see starlight. That alone was enough.

"I can see," Yolei said dryly, "that Takeru's back in his 'dramatic' mode. Just like that time we stargazed."

Yamato looked up. "What happened?" he said curiously.

Yolei glanced at him. "Oh yeah," she said. "You weren't there were you? I guess no-one told you?"

When Yamato shook his head, Yolei sat back. "Well," she said, shooting a sidelong glance at Takeru, "that was quite awhile back. But as I recall, there were some interesting ideas about what stars were."

And so they talked. Of everything. Of themselves. They talked of the stars. They talked of Kurtal. They talked of some of the stranger Taelidani customs. They talked of the Pilgrimage. They talked of the occupation of Shin'Tajikai, and their favourite food. They talked of the battle of Ridgewood, and their families, surrogate or otherwise. They talked of Prophecies, and for the first time Yamato understood just how incredibly specific its prophecies were. It was just like the old times, when they would sit down around a fire and talk until the dawn broke over the distant, misty horizon. Just like it was before they had gone their separate ways to shoulder the mantle of leading their respective kingdoms. What they talked about did not seem to matter. The sounds meant more than the words as the hours slipped away like seconds. Not once did they talk of the battle coming tomorrow, nor of their chances of success. Not once did they hint at the fact that tonight may be the last time they would see each other this side of heaven. They did not mention that one, or two, or all of them might die the very next morning. They did not even say goodbye.

Finally, as the fire began to burn down nearly four hours later, Takeru sighed. "I trust you all know the plan for tomorrow?"

Kari nodded along with the others. How could they not? The intricate battle plan had been drilled into their head hundreds of times already. Takeru, however, seemed to draw strength from their affirmations. He stood up. "We should get some rest for tomorrow," he said sensibly. "We will need it."

However, as the other stand-masters nodded and stood up as well, Takeru did not walk away. The others looked at him questioningly as he stood by the fire, his blue eyes gleaming unusually bright in the firelight. Then, slowly, Takeru stepped forward and embraced each one of them in turn. When he had finished, he stepped back. "I love you all more than words can express," he said softly. "No matter what happens…remember that."

Then he turned and slipped off into the darkness. As Kari watched his back recede, her vision became blurred with tears. Takeru was not one to be open with his feelings. His sudden declaration of love had been more than just that.

It had been his subtle way of saying farewell.

Closing her eyes, she slipped back into her body.

**********

**The Western Front**

When Kari awoke a few hours later, the Seitzin were already moving. From her tent, she watched silently as the Ishidan, Shienar and Taelidani regiments efficiently rolled up their tents in the darkness. Although it was hours before dawn, some of the advance cavalry and scouts were already being dispatched; they disappeared east into the pre-morning mist like ghosts. Others were carefully packing pre-cooked field rations into their saddlebags. The veterans knew that on the field, there would not be time to prepare a fire to cook. Meals would be something to be snatched between charges.

She heard the crunch of Takeru's boots on the gravel before she saw him emerge from the dark mist. "Everything is going according to plan," he said softly behind her. "Ken's group and Davis's group should already have departed. We leave an hour after them. Are you ready?"

Kari didn't answer.

"Of course not," Takeru answered for her as he touched her shoulder.

"TK, it wouldn't matter if we had a hundred years to prepare," Kari said, disgusted at the slight tremble in her voice. "Nobody can be ready for something like this."

This time, it was Takeru's turn to be silent for a moment.

"We leave in an hour," he repeated. "Ready or not, Kari, we're going to win this war, or die trying."

Then he was gone, off to check on someone else in his army. Kari turned to watch him go with a pang of sorrow in her heart. Takeru was treating her like any other commander in his army, as if he was distancing himself. The battle hadn't even begun and he had already started to mourn her in advance. Well, perhaps he was hoping she wouldn't notice.

But then, Takeru had always been hopelessly naïve about such things.

The next hour passed in an intolerably slow blur. Numbly, Kari went through the motions of preparing for battle. She checked her wakizashi, which she had honed to razor-sharpness last night. Despite her misgivings, she donned the uniform she had been given: armour she had been given: a pair of small gauntlets to protect the back of her hands and forearms, a lightweight chestpiece for her upper chest and shoulders, a heavy leather belt with to hold her weapons and sturdy, calf-high boots. She moved her limbs experimentally. Although the chest-piece was hot and uncomfortable, it was wonderfully light and supple in the right places. Kari nodded approvingly. She had never worn armour before this one had been pressed on her by Ardinberg's weapons-smith, but it wasn't as bad as she had thought. The chestpiece was so slim, it almost blended into her white and silver shirt. Made of the finest lightweight steel, the weapons-smith had told her. Hard to believe it was supposed to stop all but the most determined of head-on thrusts. There was even a sheath for her wakizashi mounted over her right shoulder. After tightly tying her hair into a single braid, Kari was as ready as she would ever be.

When the hour was up, Takeru raised his hand and the Seitzin surged forward. The trumpets were silent as the companies embarked on the final stretch of their journey into the inky darkness. It had become far too dangerous to send out scouting parties out this deep in enemy territory, so the Taelidani marched alongside the flanks of the host instead, flitting invisibly through the fire-blasted slag. Soon, the eastern horizon became gray with first light, revealing the desolate, evil landscape around them. Kari shuddered as she watched the weak glow splash across the sky, outlining rather than illuminating the thick gray clouds. The smell of the air. The parched, dusty earth, the gritty black dirt-storms. The colour of the sky, the cracked clouds, thick as mountains, that obscured the sun…it was all the same as Yamato had described it. They were indeed nearing the sangrias, where the waves of evil had blasted and poisoned the land for miles around, and turned it into the wasteland it was now.

Soon, the Taelidani scouts that had advanced yesterday warned Takeru that the edge of Khaydarin entrenchment began over the next hill, scarcely a mile away. Takeru called a halt, and the Seitzin waited tensely at the foot of the low hill as several teams of Taelidani spread out across the edge of Paen's first defensive wall. But Kari knew that Takeru wasn't waiting for any intelligence from them. He was waiting for the signal.

Fifteen minutes turned into twenty. Twenty minutes turned into thirty. The Seitzin waited restlessly in the hill's shadow, wondering what in heaven's name was going through their commanders' minds. Kari ignored the army's murmurs as she sat patiently beside Yamato, who was leaning against a boulder. Above her, Takeru stood on the rock's apex as he scanned the wall with a spying glass.

Forty minutes later, Kari saw Takeru lift his head. She didn't need to ask for what had caught his attention. She could sense it too.

Davis, are you ready? Ken asked.

Waiting for you, came the terse reply.

Then we're going in.

Godspeed, Takeru whispered to both of them.

Then he got down from the rock and exchanged glances with Kari and Yamato. Again, there was no need for words. Both of them simply started running back towards their horses. "Rally the men!" Takeru shouted at Aidan, Bjorn and Marc as soon as he came into range. "We march!"

**********

**The Northern Front**

Atop the wall, Centurion Foran suppressed a yawn as he surveyed the northern horizon. It was still dark, and by all rights he should have been in his tent, but scouts had been reporting a large Seitzin host for days. The men had to see that he expected nothing but constant vigilance, which regrettably meant that he had to exhibit it himself. Wrapping his black cloak tightly around his shoulders, Foran walked along the length of the wall, rubbing his eyes occasionally to stop sleep from forming.

It was so quiet. Not a whisper of wind disturbed his cloak, but the chill that hung in the air was unbelievable. Foran blew on his bare hands and rubbed them together as he walked, taking comfort from the slight rustle of his armour and the thud of his footfalls. At least it was something to break the silence. Above him the indigo night was just starting to give way to the grey of pre-dawn and stars were beginning to disappear. Impatiently, Foran looked up and willed the light to become brighter. His shift ended with dawn.

He climbed the steps up to one of the watchtowers that dotted the Aides wall every five hundred paces. On top of it, a sentry leaned silently on his spear. When the man saw Foran, or perhaps when he saw the golden stripes of rank on his shoulder, he snapped to attention. "Centurion! I-"

"At ease," Foran murmured. "Anything?"

The sentry relaxed slightly. "Nothing all night, sir," he muttered. "Not so much as a breath of wind. It's unnatural, this calm."

"There is no natural or unnatural," Foran replied sternly. "We only speak of what is. Choose your words with better precision."

"Yes sir."

"But I see what you mean," Foran said as he leaned on the wall and looked out. "But according to our scouts, they're coming. It's just a matter of when and where."

"Not a whisper here sir," the sentry said helpfully. "Perhaps the invasion is elsewhere."

"Perhaps," Foran said thoughtfully. In the back of his mind, he wondered what Praetor Locke would do if that  happened. If Takeru bypassed him altogether. Well, a problem to be solved later.

He stayed on the wall for a moment later, staring out into the darkness. A slight rustle of wind disturbed his hair, but Foran ignored it. A quiet night indeed. The calm before the storm. Well, the storm would break when it did. There was no sense driving oneself crazy waiting for it.

"I'll be heading back to camp," Foran said to the sentry. "Keep watch. The dawn relief should be coming soon."

There was no response. Foran frowned and turned to rebuke the man, then stopped. The man was slumped over the walltop. Angry now, Foran reached out, grabbed the man's shoulder and pulled him back.

The soldier flopped limply in his grasp, an arrow through his neck.

Then a hail of arrow descended from the night sky and Foran was shocked into action. He threw himself behind the wall's battlements, even as a round of arrows embedded themselves on the wooden scaffolding behind him. "ATTACK!" Foran yelled. "SOUND THE ALARM! ATTACK!!" Then he looked around desperately.

His voice was not loud enough. He could barely hear himself over the whoosh of incoming arrows. Moaning with fear, Foran struggled desperately against the heavily armoured body of the dead soldier. Pushing the man off, he groped for the flaming torch set in the wall, hardly daring to look up for fear of an arrow through his eye. Cursing his clumsy limbs, he finally grabbed the torch and threw it into the pit on the watchtower.

The wood, coated with dried pine resin, immediately caught on fire. Risking a look over the battlements, Foran saw the sentries on the watchtowers on either side of his immediately lift their bugles to their lips and sounded the alarm. Cries of alarm were beginning to call on the Khaydarin side of the wall now as men struggled and fought for cover from the incessant hail of arrows. The screams of the unfortunate were mingled with odd clanging noises.

Stunned, Foran twisted on his side to look behind him. All along the wall, grappling hooks were being cast onto the wall. Ten, fifteen…dozens of them flew up and caught neatly against the square battlements. Frantically, Foran turned the other way.

In disbelief, he watched as flares lit up all along the wall, as far as the eye could see. Already dark shapes could be seen swarming up the ropes and doing battle with the sentries. One of the watch-towers was already engulfed in flames. And still more flares were lighting up. And more…and more…

Diversions. Hundreds of them. Foran's breath caught in his throat as he realised the enemy's strategy. There was no way an army the size of the Seitzin could approach the wall without being detected. No matter how fast they rode, Khaydarin would be waiting wherever they attacked. But small groups of two or three score could make it undetected. And with dozens of these groups attacking across a miles-wide front…Khaydarin would have no choice but to spread out their forces. The enemy would be free to thrust hard at one point and break through.

He choked on a ball of fear as the first clash of steel reached his ears. The pre-dawn grey, so calm just a moment ago, were shattered with a fresh round of horns.

The Seitzin were coming!!

**********

**Akeldama**

Tichon looked up from his cloak and hissed furiously at the weak, pale sunlight. Beside him on the jeweled summit of the sangrias on Akeldama, Korvan shifted uneasily. The gathered bearers shuddered from their Emperor's sudden wrath.

Standing on the jewelled summit of the sangrias on Akeldama, Tichon raised his face to the sky and sniffed the air. He grew so still that even the vicious wind could not stir his suddenly leaden cloak. Around him, the great, gathered masses of Khaydarin's armies stilled themselves.

"So they dare," Tichon breathed as he lowered his head. "Come then, my foolish friends. No matter how desperately your struggle, you won't be able to stop the sun from setting…"

**********

**The Northern Front**

Locke released a long breath as he watched the enemy charge. Even from his perch a fair distance back from the Aides wall, he could see the green and purple glimmers of Ken and Yolei's stands clearly. Never before had he seen a mightier sight, and his heart quailed within him. Yes, this was the moment he was waiting for. The game was almost over. The gloves were off. He could finally start to unveil himself.

Traitor…traitor…the voices hissed. Die…die…die!

With an effort, Locke shrugged the mirrireid's sibilant whispers off. He narrowed his eyes as reports from other mirrireid bearers began to come through on his mirrireid. Two other fronts, one attacking the southern border, one main thrust coming from the west. All timed with such precision that it was a safe bet that each was being led by at least one stand-master.

Yvan could not know of this yet, not having a mirrireid of his own, but he would. In less than fifteen minutes, one of the mirrireid bearers in his company would tell him, then he would see the bigger picture as well. But Locke knew now. So Takeru had deployed his forces in prongs. A small grin tugged at the corners of his lips. Now, he could start planning his own strategy.

He picked up his bow and selected an arrow with care. Then he looked out. Yes, there was Centurion Foran, who had been assigned by Praetor Karensky to be his second, shouting orders on the wall top. Licking his lips, Locke forced his trembling hands to wait the required fifteen minutes. If he acted too soon and was suspected, Yvan would die. Calm…he could not afford to be careless now.

But oh…the game was almost over!

**********

**The Southern Front**

"Ladders to the front!" Davis roared. "Archers to the back! I want to see this sky hailing arrows!"

There was a great roar, like that of a gale ripping through a field of long grass, as hundreds of archers loosed their shafts and dropped behind the shield bearers. Precise as clockwork gears, another row stood up to loose theirs. Arrows flew thick and fast, rattling against the Aides wall, thudding into their targets with vicious accuracy. Impaled black bodies fell from the wall top to land with sickening crunches on the hard ground below. Davis watched with satisfaction as the Khaydarin men were forced back from the suddenly humming front.

Beneath the canopy of shrieking arrows, teams of men bearing long ladders and grapple-ropes ran to the base of the wall. All along the front, dozens, then hundreds of ladders settled against the wall and were promptly swarming with Seitzin soldiers. Davis scanned each ladder hurriedly. Yes, it was working. There was no way Khaydarin could hold off all those ladders for long.

But they knew that. Their objective would not be to defeat them at the wall, but to delay them while the sangrias could be pressed into service. And Khaydarin was adapting already.

Without warning, a storm of arrows flew over the wall and thudded into the ranks of the Seitzin. Davis was forced to summon his stand to stop several of them, but screams rang out as surprised soldiers fell where they stood. The Seitzin's shower of arrow faltered and at least half of the ladders fell from the wall as defenders took advantage of the lull. The first casualties had been inflicted. The Khaydarin archers had taken to launching blindly over the wall, and with fifty thousand men pressed against the wall's base, they were bound to hit someone.

"Legions one through twenty, launch over the wall!" Davis heard Cody shout. "The rest of you, keep scouring the wall top!"

A good strategy, Davis thought silently, but in the end, Khaydarin had the advantage. They had spotters on the wall that could tell the archers approximately where the Seitzin forces were stationed. We're merely shooting blindly. We can't even tell whether we're hitting anything.

So in the end, everything depended on getting someone onto the top of that wall, as it always had. Davis checked the ladders again. They were making progress; fights were already beginning to break out on the wall top, but it wasn't fast enough. By the time they gained control of the wall, Khaydarin would have succeeded. After all, Khaydarin didn't have to win this encounter; they merely had to delay and weaken.

"We have to blast down the wall," San shouted beside Davis. "Should I bring out the catapults?"

"No!" Davis roared back. "Save the catapults for the sangrias itself. Don't waste a shot on these walls!"

Another wave of arrows whistled over the walls and felled another rank of Seitzin. Already the fields beyond the wall were strewn with dead. San's face looked grim in the gloom of the morning sun. "The wall is costing us, stand-master."

Davis grabbed San's arm. "Then prepare a column of your men to charge," he gritted. "I'll blast that breach myself. When I do, I want it swarming with Seitzin the instant it stops smoking!"

San nodded, wide-eyed, then ran away to do Davis's bidding. Davis glared at Cody. Ready?!

Cody calmly hefted his staff. His returning thought-shape was wry. I thought you'd never ask.

Davis grunted as he unsheathed his kodachis with a swift flick of his arms. Then he was off, sliding down the gravel ridge before the wall, roaring wordlessly as he charged the line. It didn't take long for the Khaydarin archers to see them and start directing arrows at them, but the Seitzin archers, seeing their stand-masters finally make their move, redoubled their efforts. Thousands of shafts raked the wall-top and the Khaydarin archers had no choice but to retreat behind the battlements. The few arrows that did reach the two stand-masters were brushed aside contemptuously by the raging wind that enveloped them both.

Davis reached the wall first. Across the whole front, men turned to stare in amazement at the star that erupted in their midst as Davis summoned his stand. For a single ephemeral instant, the red dragon could be seen shimmering over the wall, its scales gleaming, its eyes glowing golden, its claws as brilliant as white lightning. Then the instant was over and the stand became red thunder. The ground shook concussively as an immense explosion blossomed over the battlefield and huge chunks of debris arced high into the sky. Screaming Seitzin and Khaydarin alike covered their heads and ran for cover from the falling bits of masonry; those closest to the blast were blown cleanly off their feet.

As men were picking themselves up, Cody reached the wall a hundred paces away from Davis. The Khaydarin on the walltop, having seen what Davis had done to their comrades, struggled to get away as Cody began summoning his own blow. Some fled screaming along the wall's parapet, others simply leapt off the wall, braving the twenty-foot fall over the cyan warrior that descended upon them like a breaking wave. A second explosion rocked the Ichijoujan countryside and almost the entire front was knocked off their feet. The unlucky few that had been caught on top of the wall when the explosion struck were hurled from their feet and tossed like rag dolls over the battlefield.

As his ears gradually stopped ringing, Davis lowered his hands and stared at the wall. Through the thick, acerbic smoke that now billowed across the front, a gaping hole now yawned in the once solid wall. The entire rampart was gone, and the bricks were now a third as tall in that section as they were anywhere else, easily scaled by a tall man. Beyond it, the gap was nearly devoid of black Khaydarin armour. Behind him, he could hear San roaring for the Seitzin's advance and the clatter of armoured feet as the Seitzin pressed forward to flood the gap. It was working!

Summoning his stand again, Davis made the dragon reach upwards and grab the edge of the parapet. Hauling himself upwards with his stand's arms, he flipped swiftly onto the wall top. "Forward the Seitzin!" he cried atop the wall as he wildly waved his kodachis above his head. Below him, the charging soldiers took up the call. "Forward the Seitzin! Forward! Forward!"

As San's column crashed through the gap and began doing battle with Khaydarin soldiers behind the wall, Davis began running along the wall top, slashing with his kodachis at all who stood in his way. He didn't have to look behind him to know that Cody would take the hint and start charging the other way. Behind him, more Seitzin swarmed up the ladders and grapple-ropes that he had just cleared, and fierce battles broke out along the entire wall top. In such close quarters, bows and arrows were cast aside as both sides drew steel and clashed with a thunderous roar. Beneath the humming storm of arrows that almost obscured sight, men fought and died like ants on a flame. Screaming soldiers fell off both sides of the wall, crushing comrades or foes who struggled to mount the wall and join battle. Soon, the entire wall top was slick with blood. Grimly, Davis ducked under a screaming Khaydarin's axe-blow and neatly ran the man through. As he withdrew his blade and kicked the dying soldier off the wall and onto his comrades below, Davis paused to watch the battle unfold and his mouth tightened. Their superior numbers were beginning to tell, but the Khaydarins weren't giving up without a fight…

**********

**The Northern Front**

Locke scanned the battlefront. Years of experience taught him what to look for: Ken and Yolei had both smashed breaches in the walls, and Seitzin were running along the top doing battle with his men. Behind them, more pressed onwards to flood through the breaches, but as long as his own men could hold the narrow gap, they could not bring their numbers to bear. Ken was a worthy tactician, but he was attacking an entrenched enemy. There was little he could do except send his men off to die in waves. Locke knew that if he wished it, he could make his stand here for several more hours and make the Seitzin pay dearly for the wall.

If he wished it.

He forced himself to count out the final minutes in his head before he acted. As he did, he glanced around at the Decurions on his side. Damas and Judim stood silently beside him, watching his every move with bright eyes. They were ready and waiting for the slightest word from him. In fact, they were probably wondering what was taking him so long to make his move.

In his head, the final seconds counted down and Locke stirred. Surely Yvan had formulated the same plan as he had by now. Taking up his bow, Locke drew the arrow he had selected out of his quiver and notched it on the bowstring. "Prepare to sound the retreat," Locke murmured at his Decurions. "Don't give anyone time to argue with you."

Damas and Judim nodded and unhooked their trumpets from their belts. Taking a deep breath, Locke drew the arrow to his cheek and leveled the bow at his target: Centurion Foran. The twanging of his bowstring sounded like a crack of thunder in Locke's ears. He was finally going to show his true colours.

The shaft flew straight and true. Foran didn't have time to scream before the arrow pierced the back of his neck and lodged in his throat. Scrabbling at his throat, Foran gurgled pitifully as he fell headlong off the wall and onto the waiting Seitzin forces below him. Locke knew that even if the man didn't die from the fall and the arrow, the Seitzin would finish off a man in a Centurion's uniform just as quickly. As he put down his bow, Locke smiled thinly.

The only command officers left on the northern front were now loyal to him. There would be no-one to countermand his orders.

"RETREAT!!" Locke bellowed. Beside him, Damas and Judim took up the call with their trumpets. Four sharp blasts, a pause, then four sharp blasts again. "RETREAT!!" Locke roared again at the top of his lungs. Then he paused to savour the confusion that erupted before him.

The call was being taken up by field officers and within moments every soldier on the mile-wide front had heard the order. Those loyal to the rebellion had been expecting this and they abandoned their posts with alacrity. Those unaware of the rebellion looked around in confusion. The battle, while not going entirely in their favour, was not beyond salvage. Precious moments were lost as soldiers tried to confirm the retreat order. Whole sections of the wall guard retreated even if their section was going well, thinking that the another section was nearing defeat. Others stayed obstinately and fought as their comrades fled all around them, leaving them easy pickings for the Seitzin's redoubled hail of arrows. In seconds, the Khaydarin front had dissolved into a formless mob devoid of order, helpless to resist the sudden flood of Seitzin footsoldiers that poured through the breaches like ants.

Locke turned to go. "Form up the legions for retreat," he said grimly to Damas and Judim. "Let Praetor Karensky's corps members form the rearguard. I want those loyal to our cause to form the vanguard. We retreat south." Then he mounted his horse and rode away.

The first part of his plans was complete. Now, he prayed silently, Creator, if you can hear me, give me courage for the second part…

**********

Ken watched in amazement as the black line of Khaydarin soldiers on the wall suddenly crumbled and fell. "Whats happened?" he demanded, whirling around to look at the captains on either side of him. "What's going on?"

"They're retreating!" Lord Corin said, his voice disbelieving. "Look! They've abandoned the north post!"

Indeed, black armour was streaming from the North tower as water might pour from a holed bucket. Taking advantage of the disorderly retreat, Seitzin field captains urged their forces onwards, through the breach and all along the walls. Beside Ken, Yolei loosed her last shaft, then lowered her bow as she too stared at the rout. "The battle's only just begun!" she shouted.

"Is something going on?" Talin said suspiciously beside Ken. "A trap, perhaps?"

But Ken could tell from the Lord-Captain's voice that even he doubted that. The retreat was turning into a rout. Disregarding even that, Ken could not think of a single advantage to be gained by yielding the wall to their enemies. Ken exchanged glances with Yolei. "Take a look over the wall with your stand," Ken shouted above the battle cries around them. "If you see anything that remotely resembles a trap, sound the horn and tell everyone to retreat. But for now, we'll take their retreat as what it is."

With that, Ken drew his sword and leapt up. "Forth, Seitzin!" he cried. "The wall is ours!"

It was the signal that his army had been waiting for. The footsoldiers that Ken had been holding in reserve just out of bowshot roared forward now, following the green banner of Ken's stand into the breaches blasted into the wall. Defiant arrows zipped from the last Khaydarin stragglers, but they rattled impotently against the advancing army's armour. In a flash, the spearhead broke upon the remaining black ranks like a lightning stroke, and the foolhardy few Khaydarin that remained were swept away like flotsam.

In moments, Ken was on the other side hewing down what little resistance that remained. At his command, footsoldiers were already establishing a beachhead for the cavalry to come riding through. Further down the wall, Ken could see two similar advances breaking through the wall. The fiercest fighting was dying down already.

Casting his eyes south, he could make out the rearguard retreating out of sight behind the next ridge, leaving behind a nightmarish field of their dead or dying comrades. The field was so littered with Khaydarin casualties that the ground looked black with their armour and blood. The retreat had cost the Khaydarins dearly.

"We've won!" he said, half in amazement, half in disbelief. "I can't believe it!" The battle had lasted scarcely an hour, and already the Khaydarins were running for their lives.

As if to confirm it, Yolei's thought-shape came on the heel of his words. They're running due south, she said incredulously. All of them. No ambushes that I can see, no counterattacks. They're simply…retreating! Should we pursue?

Ken hesitated, for a moment, then nodded. I'll organize two rider parties to harass and keep an eye on them, he said. You get the rest of the men over the wall and start marching due south after us. I'll clean up on this end. With that, Ken turned and scanned his own forces. "Talin!" he roared.

"My Lord!" The Lord-Captain came riding up on his steed.

"Take the First and the Third Corps and pursue them," Ken commanded, pointing at the retreating Khaydarins. "We'll be following as fast as we are able."

"Immediately." There was an edge of grim enjoyment to Talin's voice as he swung his horse around and began rallying the Ichijoujans. As Ken turned away and mentally prepared himself to tell Takeru what had happened, he couldn't help but share Talin's satisfaction.

The invasion of Paen province had begun in earnest.

**********

They've breached the Aides wall on all three fronts, Korvan whispered in the darkness. As near as our scouts can make it, they're riding on a direct route for the sangrias, hard on the heels of our retreating armies. The outer territories have been taken.

Tichon paused to consider the glowing map that shifted in front of him. Before him in the floating darkness of the Perenic plane, the glowing green, brown and grey representation of Paen province, detailed down to its rivers, rolling hills and ridges and walls, blinked and shifted as new information came in from his mirrireid bearers stationed with his landside corps. Three red arrows advanced slowly across the land, sweeping in from the north, the west and the south. He could already see parties branching off to widen the front as much as possible, to ensure that the three prongs could not be flanked.

The southern stretch of the Athelas river has been taken as well, Korvan continued. They've destroyed all of the bridges except one. We can't get across. A dot began glowing on the map, south and west of the sangrias. Following that, all intelligence of the enemy's eastern flank has been cut off. We do know that they're using the remaining bridge to transport their armies to the eastern shore, but we cannot stop them. As for what they're doing west of the Athelas…we can only guess.

The northern prong?

Smoke from the fires has obscured them from all our scouts. Korvan answered grimly. Praetor Locke reports that Emperor Ken has sent riders to harass his retreating armies, but he's not entirely sure where the main bulk of his forces are. We think they may  be following the Ishida-Ichijouji causeway, but that's merely a guess.

Tichon leaned back and allowed himself a moment's pleasure. A worthy strategy, he thought admiringly. He didn't need to ask about the western prong. The north and south prongs would effectively prevent any attempt to flank or cut them off.

This was no disorganized rabble that was invading Paen province. The stand-masters had begun to discover for themselves the incredible power of their stands: the power of communication and coordination. One by one, as towns and strongholds fell, roads, rivers and walls were coming into the enemy's possession and they were using them well. They had even started fires; there were five of them raging across the wide grasslands, effectively blocking or slowing down the passage of any counterattacks. There were no weaknesses in their advance, no holes through which Tichon could send his army, no rifts he could pry into divisions, no traps into which he could force them. They were coming, and they were coming fast.

My Lord?

Tichon ignored him as he looked at the map again. The pleasure turned into amusement. Yes, it was good to fight against a worthy foe again, but their unity had come too late. The sangrias had already been completed. Out from the sangrias, in the vast tracts of Paen province, there was room to maneuver. There, brilliance, skill and guile was giving the Seitzin the battle. But when they drew closer, there would be no room to maneuver. When the final confrontation began at the foot of the sangrias, brilliance would count for nothing. Only then would numbers begin to tell.

Slow them down as you can, bearer, Tichon murmured. Harass them, do not let them advance without cost, but do not make a stand. Yield when you have to, and strike elsewhere.

Korvan shifted. Tichon could tell that his lieutenant was uncomfortable. We can stop them at the inner wall, he protested.

There's no need…, Tichon sighed into the darkness. Let the Seitzin come. Let them see victory before their eyes. That way, when we crush them like the vermin they are, their anguish will be all the greater.

**********

This day, Takeru thought as he leaned, panting, on his sword and surveyed the battlefield. The choking black dust that swirled about him muffled his breath and stung his eyes but he refused to rub at them, lest he miss something. This day…

…will it ever end?

This latest battle, the third one they had fought today, had lasted almost an hour, with both sides exchanging charges and retreating. The field before him was a nightmarish scene of destruction. The blood of dead horses and armoured soldiers, clad in the black of Khaydarin or the colours of the Seitzin, covered the churned and blasted earth with a carpet of red. The clash of steel and the groans of the dying could still be heard over the swirling black wind, but the edge of controlled panic was fading; the choking fear and fury of battle had disappeared.

Dizzy with relief and adrenaline, Takeru watched as Yamato's band of riders pursued the last of the Khaydarin ambushers over the nearest hill. A few skirmishes were still being concluded on the fringes, but the heat of the battle had passed; the remains of the Khaydarin entrenchments that had held them for over an hour lay strewn at the foot of the hill like a collection of broken black dolls, wholly defeated and destroyed. A ragged cheer went up among the Seitzin vanguard as the last of the stragglers disappeared beyond the last hill.

Suddenly the world was spinning. The field before him shifted abruptly out of focus. Closing his eyes, Takeru felt himself swaying on his sword. Beside him, Kari ran over in alarm, her wakizashi still bloody from the last charge.

"TK!" she shouted as soon as she was close enough. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Takeru wheezed. He forced himself to straighten up and wave his arms to show her he was alright. "Just winded."

"You're tired," Kari said worriedly.

Takeru snorted. They were all tired, but they had miles left to cover before they reached the sangrias. "How are we doing?"

"King Aidan's doing a count now," Kari said grimly. "Our best guess is, we lost another hundred in that last charge."

"How about the other teams?" Swiftly, Takeru ran over in his head the relative positions of the five other sub-prongs he had split his army into after breaching the wall.

"Still advancing, as near as we can tell," Kari said worriedly. "We haven't heard anything yet at any rate. Seems that this ambush was only for us."

"They'll be coming for them soon," Takeru predicted grimly. "Tell them to be on their guard."

Kari's eyes were troubled. "And us?"

Takeru stared at her uncomprehendingly. "What?"

"Are we stopping?" Kari pressed.

"We have thirty miles left before we reach the sangrias," Takeru said in disbelief. "We can't stop now!"

"Takeru, take a look around you," Kari snapped. "Do you think you have a choice?"

Takeru paused and looked. The battle was winding down, but the ambush had done its job. The entire right flank, which had taken the brunt of the ambush, was in disarray. Their ranks were liberally strewn with the dead or dying. Already some helpful soul had organized a detail to help sort through and treat the wounded, but many of those they looked at were left lying on the field. They were already dead. Or worse yet…they were alive, but too far gone to bother treating. Even those carrying their comrades to the healers looked like they should be treated themselves.

Most of the others looked like how Takeru felt: dead on his feet.

They had come far and fast; as near as Takeru could put it, they were perhaps twenty miles from the wall and thirty from the sangrias, but by the Creator, Khaydarin had made them fight for every bloody inch of it. Nipping, hiding, rushing and retreating, they were costing the Seitzin dearly with every league they took. The once gleaming army was now in rags, trailing their dead behind them like debris. The advance had gone too fast to pause and dig graves.

"Takeru," Kari pleaded as she touched his arm, "if we don't stop soon, Khaydarin won't even have to fight us. Men and horses will start dying from exhaustion. At least give us a few hours!"

"All right!" Takeru snapped. "Two hours, that's all! Tell them to break out some rations; we're not stopping again until ni-"

The world went black.

At once, Kari's arms were around him, holding him up. Takeru heard a clang as Kari kicked away his sword so he wouldn't accidentally cut himself, then lowered him gently to sit on the ground. Muttering angrily, Kari groped for the canteen at her belt, hurriedly uncorked it and handed it to Takeru. "TK, you really are the worst," she said in frustration. "You can't even walk yourself, and you want to go on?"

Gratefully, Takeru took the canteen and sipped at it as Kari swiftly and professionally checked him over for any wounds. When she found nothing serious, she settled on her haunches and watched as he corked the canteen and handed it back to her. "Still want to go, you mule-headed fool?" she said tartly as she accepted the canteen.

"Two hours," Takeru rasped. "No more. And have a runner tell Isaac to get his men moving again. They've rested for long enough."

Kari's lips thinned. Isaac had only stopped three hours before, and his men couldn't be in any better shape than Takeru's. Still, she stood up and sheathed her wakizashi. "Rest," she said softly. "I'll take care of everything." Then she was off, and Takeru could hear her light, running footsteps fade away.

Thank you, he called after her as he struggled to his feet, retrieved Ichibou and limped back to the main body of his army.

Two hours later, and not a second after that, the last rations were put away as the Seitzin saddled up again. As his men busied themselves with tending to the damaged wagons however, Takeru looked up at the darkening sky in concern.

It was barely the fifth hour after high noon, and already darkness was creeping over the land as if it was the eighth. If anything, the wind that had sprung up around mid-day had thickened the black fumes that hung across the sky like dirty curtains, not cleared it away. In the weak sunlight, everything around him looked sickly and pale, as if the colours of the world were being washed out right before his eyes. Casting his eyes east, Takeru frowned as he saw the mantle of grey clouds hang lower than ever, rumbling ominously. There was bad weather coming.

When the all-clear was given, however, Takeru resolutely put the matter out of his mind. Determinedly, he raised the banner and marched forth. The advance must continue.

So the longest day wore on. Struggling through the barren wasteland that just weeks ago had been Ichijouji's countryside, the Seitzin wended their way across broken and rutted roads, burned copses and gutted villages and strongholds. Barely an hour into the march, scouts reported that they were being tracked again by large armies on either side and in front of their advance. Takeru immediately put out more scouts to their flanks to alert him to any attempted flanking maneuver, but the Khaydarins didn't seem interested in flanking them. They seemed content only to watch. It did not matter though. The mere shadow of their presence was enough to put the men on edge.

Grimly, the ragged, hollow-eyed remnants of the once-gleaming army followed their Emperor deeper into fume-ridden hell. The calm of the morning gave way to vicious, whipping winds that blew the smoke of their fires and the ashes of the ruined land into their eyes and nose, until at times it seemed as if they were riding through a cloud of ash, not air. Takeru however, refused to be deterred. Keeping a close eye on his enemy's movements, he forged ahead with all speed, pausing only now and then to set a new fire or destroy another bridge. Their hope was in their speed; their strength in their determination.

Several hours into the march, Takeru veered off the main road and onto a northern loop that led around a patch of deep forest. After sending scouts to comb through the forests on their flanks, Takeru set about the difficult task of cutting cross-country to the Ichijoujan 6th Road. The long, dead grass of the plains, which had once gleamed green and gold in the dark afternoon sunlight, lay in lank, greasy clumps across their path, tangling the wagons' wheels and slowing the footsoldiers. Dangerous fissures of broken rock and sharp boulders lay hidden beneath the grass, ready to ensnare the unwary's foot. And as Takeru rode through the ruined land, he realized with a pang of guilt that he was, deep down, very very glad that such a fate had yet to befall Ishida.

"What happened to this land?" he murmured to Yamato as they rode together at the vanguard. "I was here scarcely a year ago, and it was nothing like this."

Yamato didn't answer at first. Then he unsheathed his sword and swept down with it, severing several long strands of grass. Hooking the limp yellow strands with the dull edge of his sword, he flicked them up into his other hand. "You see the black motes?" he said gruffly.

Takeru took the strands and examined them closely. The grass was absolutely coated with the omnipresent fine black dust, but underneath it all, ugly black and brown stains covered the dying green like open sores. Disgusted, Takeru flung the strands away from him. "What are they?"

"I'm not sure," Yamato said, staring straight ahead. "But they're everywhere on Akeldama. And people that are exposed to them for too long…they get them too. On their legs and arms. If it's really bad…on their faces."

A chill ran up Takeru's back as he turned to look at his brother. "A disease of some kind?"

This time, Yamato did turn. But when Takeru caught sight of his brother's eyes, he almost wished he hadn't. Yamato's blue eyes were dead, haunted with unwelcome recognition. "The most basic kind," he agreed. "Do you know why mirrireid bearers are forever hidden in cloaks?"

Takeru stared at his brother in horror, then looked back down at the hideous brown sores on the grass. "They…"

"I saw one uncovered once," Yamato continued as he turned away. "The sickness had consumed him so thoroughly that the flesh on his forearms had quite literally melted away. You could see the bones of his hands amidst the black rot. That is, if you could endure the stench long enough to take a good look." Takeru sensed a slight shudder in his brother. "I was seven at the time," Yamato added quietly. "I had nightmares about it for years."

Takeru felt his jaw clench with nausea, but he forced himself to ask the crucial question. "Will it affect the men?"

"It cannot touch us standmasters," Yamato murmured, "and a few days will not hurt the men. The mirrireid bearer I saw had been immersed in it for thirty years. But in the end, Takeru, nothing is immune from evil. Not even the soil."

After that, they rode in silence. Before them, another murky forest appeared to the north, its trees bare skeletons standing in a sea of dead, rotting leaves, and Takeru was forced to veer around it again. To the south, the causeway they had been pacing alongside of angled sharply south and out of sight into the dark mist and for a stretch the Seitzin were forced to navigate blindly. Luckily, an old farming road appeared before long, and while it was crumbling in parts into the dried river ravine beside it, it was better than traveling across the morass of sharp grass, especially since night had almost completely fallen by now. With an impenetrable mantle of bruised indigo and crimson clouds obscuring the faintest glimpse of star or moonlight, Takeru reluctantly gave the order for the men to light and carry fire torches.

But he would not stop. When the wagons began breaking down, he ordered the provisions salvaged and carried on the backs of what steeds could be spared, then forged on. A manic madness and fever seemed to possess him despite the shaking exhaustion of his limbs, but as it possessed the men too, nobody complained when Takeru told them to keep moving when the last light had faded. The eighth hour flowed past like silent water. The ninth. The tenth.

Then the news came. Runners from Isaac and Isendre's branches came with word of ambushes and attacks unforeseen, of beasts that came out of the night like shadows and exploded onto the men like wolves. Isaac had lost almost half his men and had been forced to stop and salvage what forces he had left. Isendre had been luckier, advancing as she was on the open Long-ridge Esker, bare of all forests and cover, but she too had been forced to a standstill in the night. Yamato glanced meaningfully at Takeru.

"We're next," he said softly.

Takeru nodded, his throat dry. There was no word from the other three branches he had put out, but to pretend that they had not been attacked as well would be foolishness. Like it or not, Khaydarin was coming once more, and it sounded like they had finally let their hunter-seekers loose. Reluctantly, he raised his hand again. "We stop here for the night," he ordered. "Double guards, and I want a ring of fire around this entire camp!"

Exhausted as the Seitzin were, they sprang to it. They had settled in a little knoll where the gap between the north and the south forest widened slightly; there was ample space for the encampment. Those without any duties fell to the ground in their ranks at once. Field rations were passed out in the darkness and hastily consumed as the guard shifts were organized and the watch-fires planted. Soon, a complete ring of small fires encircled the camp a good hundred paces from the edge of the encampment. But within the encampment, only cook fires flared in the middle, well out of bowshot from the edges.

Few men bothered to set up a tent, but even so Takeru's heralds insisted on setting up his for him. It was only when Takeru pointed out that the foolishness of setting up a tent for a three hour nap that they subsided.

"One of us must stay awake at all times," Takeru told Kari and Yamato when the heralds finally retreated to their posts. "If they come after us with cloaks, we must be ready."

"Oh, I doubt that," Yamato said quietly. "All their mirrireid-bearers would be around the sangrias, pouring their energies into it to make it work. If they could have used their cloaks against us, they would have already."

"Nevertheless," Takeru said firmly, "we will be ready. I'll take the second shift. What about you two?"

Kari and Yamato exchanged glances in the dim firelight. Then Kari reached out and took his hand. "TK," she said gently, "take the last shift. I'll take the second. That way you'll get five hours of uninterrupted sleep. If you take the second, you won't get any at all."

Takeru felt annoyed. Was he that transparent? "And how about you?"

Kari shook her head. "TK, I know you well enough to know that you are dead on your feet."

"And you're not?"

"Takeru, cold as this might sound, the Seitzin needs you more than they need…Kari," Yamato pointed out.

Takeru said nothing.

"I'll take first shift," Yamato said firmly. "Kari will take the second. Takeru, you can take the third." Before the two of them could argue, Yamato drew his cloak about himself and stood up. "Get some rest you two," he said sensibly. "I'll wake you when it's time." Then he slipped off into the night like a wind through grass.

Kari and Takeru looked at each other, then at Yamato's receding back. For a long moment after his footsteps had faded away, they sat staring at the small fire at their feet. Then Kari sighed and drew her own cloak about her. Shuffling along the gravelly ground, she settled in by Takeru's side. "He has a point," she said softly. "Tomorrow…well, we'll need our rest."

Takeru nodded wordlessly. She didn't need to elaborate. They were still seven miles from the sangrias, and the going was only going to get tougher the closer they got. Still, he made no move for his roll. "I can't sleep," he confessed.

Kari's concerned eyes bored into his. Then she reached up and touched his face lightly. "Try," she ordered gently. "For me."

A few minutes later, as Takeru lay wrapped in his own cloak and staring up at the murky darkness, he tried for the last time to recall the map of Paen province that seemed to be his constant companion. A hundred worries crashed through his mind, like a raindrops making ugly ripples on a serene pond, echoing insistently until he wanted to get up and shout at them to go away. Tomorrow would be the day of final effort or disaster. Tomorrow, three hundred thousand men would be looking to him to lead and make critical decisions. He had to rest. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed them to go away. We've come far today, he thought silently to reassure himself. The fastest invasion in history. Fully twenty-two miles in one day.

And they answered, none of it matters if we can't press all the way to the end.

We have them on the run!

They're not running anywhere. They're letting you take the land. To them, only the sangrias matters.

Irritated, Takeru took a deep breath. He wished there was some way to turn off his mind. If he didn't like what he saw, he could close his eyes. But how did one close one's mind?

Closing his eyes emphatically, he tried again. We are winning, he told the voice in his head firmly. Tomorrow, the sangrias will come down. It will. It will!

There was a long blessed moment of silence.

Then why are you crying?

Takeru blinked his eyes open.

His vision blurred with tears. He had not cried in so many years, the sensation felt foreign. Unwelcome. As if something hot and wet was gripping his throat, covering his face and smothering his breathing. As he lay there waiting for the jagged blanket of sleep to cover him, stripped of the shelter of adrenaline and business, Takeru felt as if some dam had burst within him and every hurt and fear he had carefully pushed away flooded out to drown him. All his discipline, all his training gone, Takeru curled up on the ground and whimpered like a child. A part of him was furious with himself, for breaking down now when everyone needed him the most. The other…

The other was afraid. So very deathly afraid…

He felt Kari caress his shoulder comfortingly and almost died with shame. But because it was Kari, he reached up wordlessly and clasped her hand, drawing strength from her warmth. The touch said more than any words, any thought-shapes, but he had to try.

"Don't go away," he pleaded weakly as he shivered. "Please…"

"I won't," came the whispered promise. "Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Now, get some rest."

If the day was long, then the night was an eternity. Takeru lost track of the time as he lay there, shivering, tormented, and unable to sleep. Now and then there was a gap in his memory as he dropped off fitfully, but he was always jerked back to wakefulness mere minutes afterwards by nightmares. As if sensing this, Kari curled up beside him, letting her warmth comfort him. Whenever he jerked awake, it was never long before he heard Kari's light breathing and felt her silent, protective warmth on the edge of his consciousness, reassuring him of her presence, calming his fears and worries like a balm.

Then the first attack came and Takeru was roused instantly. Pausing only to exchange a wide-eyed glance with Kari, he snatched up his sword and dashed off. A Khaydarin charge managed to push through the outer guard before they were repelled, but when they were they melted into the darkness like wraiths. A brief, bloody battle later, the northern flank was in tatters.

"They've arrived," Yamato concluded grimly. "Just as we said they would."

"A countercharge?" one of the junior officers suggested.

"No use," Yamato growled. "They'll simply bolt. They're not trying to kill all of us; they're trying to keep us from getting any rest. Look!"

Indeed, Takeru's stand-vision could see small metallic glimmers of gold and black armour in the darkness, moving in ceaseless patrol around the encampment. Too far out to distinguish entirely, they flitted in and out of sight like ghosts. Disgusted, Yamato turned away from the Khaydarin skirmishers. "They're baiting us," he said wearily. "Let's not play into their hands. Get what sleep you can. They won't be letting up anytime tonight."

It was a treacherous night. Arrows whistled out of the gloom to take any that wandered too close to the watch-fires. The Khaydarin never showed themselves against the light, so after a few desultory shots against the watch-fires, the sentries gave up and returned to their silent, weary vigil. Sometime in the night, Kari got up to relieve Yamato and Takeru felt lonelier still. His limbs were numb with exhaustion, but try as he might, he could not sleep. Sick with fear and tension, Takeru closed his eyes and prayed. O Creator, he cried silently. Give me peace. Give me strength!

Four more times, the Khaydarins attacked, each time from a different direction. Four times, Takeru was brutally roused from his thin, rocky sheets to repel the invaders anew, and four times they disappeared wraithlike into the darkness, leaving behind a mess of dying men, overturned wagons and scattered watch-fires. The fourth time, Khaydarin unleashed a pack of hunter-seekers into their midst, which ran too fast to be tracked by arrow. That time, the charge almost reached the heart of the encampment before the last beast was killed. To Takeru, the night felt like it would never end.

When Kari came to wake him up for his shift, he was almost grateful. Even standing on guard in a freezing cold night was better than tossing around fitfully on a bedroll, being tormented by nightmares. He rose without complaint, murmured a quiet "thank you" to Kari as she wordlessly stumbled past him to her bedroll, took up his sword and began pacing around the camp.

Sighing as he let the cold night air wash away the sleep, Takeru looked around. "You can't defeat me," he said quietly but determinedly to the night. "You can try. But like it or not, we are coming after you…"

**********

To Yamato, it felt as if his head had scarcely hit his pillow when Takeru was shaking him awake again. Wearily, he opened his eyes but swallowed his groan as Takeru's grim expression and ashen complexion registered on him. He knew he was tired, but Takeru looked like hell.

"What is the hour?" he asked instead.

"About two hours before dawn," Takeru told him. "Ken and Davis's branches have already started to move. It's time to march again."

Then he was off to go wake Kari. Yamato sat up and stretched, trying to work out the kinks in his back. As far as he could remember, the Khaydarins had attacked twice more that night, brutally rousing everyone in the camp from what little slumber they could find on the rocky ground. He felt sick with exhaustion, which was a bad sign, but it couldn't be helped. Wordlessly, he rolled up his groundsheet, shook the dew from his cloak and donned his armour. As he fastened the last piece, he looked up to find Takeru's intense gaze on him.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yes," Yamato lied.

"Then let's go."

In half an hour, the Seitzin were ready. Without fanfare, Takeru raised his hand and the Seitzin started on their final march. Yamato rode silently alongside Takeru and Kari, numbly following the rhythmic clinking and clanking of their horses' stirrups and hooves. Behind them, the men were similarly silent, each soldier lost in his own thoughts. There was nothing to be said that had not already been said. Every prayer had been made, every farewell had been spoken. As before, Takeru had drawn his scouts in to cover only the army's immediate area, but they had little to report. The morning was as quiet as a tombstone.

Finally, Kari shifted in her saddle and looked around. "Do you think we're still being shadowed?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Takeru answered. "Sometime just before dawn, the hunter-seekers disappeared." He paused, then added, "And I have a good hunch where to."

He did not elaborate, and Kari did not press. The obvious thought remained unspoken. Khaydarin was mustering their final stand. These last few miles were nothing but the calm before the storm to end all storms.

They were getting close. Yamato could tell because he was beginning to suffer from more than the stifling cloud of ash and soot. Every now and then, a twinge and ripple in the thought-plane would send a wave of nausea shooting through his stomach, making him glad that he had not eaten much for his morning rations. With every mile they marched, the feeling became more intense. Beside him, Takeru and Kari seemed to be in similar discomfort, though they tried in vain to hide it. Well, Yamato thought to himself as he grimly fought down another wave of nausea, at least there won't be a shadow of a doubt that the sangrias exists anymore.

After another hour, as the gray tendrils of sunlight began to caress the horizon, Yamato lifted his head. On the cold, dry air, he could smell the unmistakably salty scent of the ocean; a scent that not even the omnipresent fumes could obscure. Almost automatically, he looked left. Sure enough, he could just make out the long line of the Aides wall straddling a far-off ridge, arching left and right to follow the peaks and summits of the shallow hills on its way south towards them.

Just like his dream.

Grimly, Yamato turned in his saddle to look at Takeru. Takeru too, had noticed the scent and the wall. Yamato could tell by the subtle shift in his brother's spirit aura. But Takeru said nothing, and did nothing as they mounted the ridge. Silently, one hundred and fifty thousand Seitzin followed. They crested the ridge.

Automatically, Yamato cast his eye to the north and the south. At the edge of his vision, Yamato could make out with his naked eye the red and green glimmer of Ken and Davis's armies waiting in the shadow of the rolling valleys. A flood of irrational relief coursed through Yamato at the sight of their coloured battle banners and gleaming armour. He knew they had made it, of course. But even at this distance, the sight of thousands upon thousands of neatly arrayed ranks was an impressive and a heartening sight. After a two-day invasion, the three branches of the Seitzin had finally met at the center.

He looked down, and sucked in a long breath through his teeth.

The innumerable hosts of Khaydarin's five corps were arrayed in full view along the immense, flat plains, dwarfing the united armies of the Seitzin. Neatly set out into five separate companies, their lines stretched for miles both north and south, running almost to the horizon. As far as the eye could see, the plain was covered in black-clad soldiers, standing as still as statues in the glaring red light of the sky. Rank after rank of bristling spears and shimmering, unsheathed scimitars twinkled and flashed in the glaring red light, more than the sands on the seashore, or the stars in the sky; more than the eye could count or the mind comprehend. Behind them glimmered the five towers and the miles-wide lines of red that Yamato remembered in his vision. The crystal tips were already beginning to pulse like a quickening heart as waves of wind washed around the towers as they would around the eye of a storm.

There were no roars, no trumpets, and no stamping of feet. Instead the deadly purposeful silence pressed in on the Seitzin from all sides; a great gulf of dark fathomless water. A murmur of unease rippled through the Seitzin as the great host suddenly seemed far too small and alone.

Takeru held up a hand and the Seitzin ground to a halt. As the wind scoured the valley, the two greatest armies gathered throughout the course of Gaean history stared at one another in silence with scarcely a mile separating their bristling fronts. In despair, Yamato closed his eyes. Just from the first glance he could already tell that they were outnumbered nearly two to one. Any general would have retreated and saved his army to fight another day. Except there were no other days. Retreat was not an option.

Meaningless, Yamato thought bitterly. It will be a meaningless battle. We were too late…

Then…

Yamato opened his eyes.

"What…," he murmured.

Above, below and around him, he could see nothing but a familiar black void. No matter how hard and how far he strained his eyes, nothing revealed itself against the dark gloom. Yamato raised his hands and stared at his glowing fingers. The translucent, sourceless light that illuminated everything here confirmed his suspicions. It was as if he had just ascended and had yet to form his thought-shapes except…

…he had not ascended.

And he was not falling.

Carefully, he raised his foot and brought his toe down upon a hard, flat, and entirely transparent ground. So he was not falling. Someone had went to the trouble of making an "up" and a "down", but that was it. Suspicions and more than a little alarmed, he was about to step out of the plane when he noticed it.

In the distance, something was happening to the dark void. A dark, pulsating column of violet, spearing upwards and downwards like an infinitely tall pillar, sparked and writhed violently. Tendrils of power arced out for miles. Paces? In this plane, where even such fundamental concepts of distance was an illusion, Yamato could not tell how far away it was, nor how wide it was. It was only there. The darkness rippled outwards in waves that were getting larger and larger by the moment. Instinctively, Yamato widened his stance to keep his balance as the swelling crests and troughs washed over him, leaving faintly tingly sensations running across his entire body. In bewilderment, he reached out at the waves, only to the phantasmal black wash between his fingers like flowing mist. What was this stuff? Was this what the sangrias did to the thought-plane with its mere existence?

"My time is short," someone said. "So I shall be brief."

Yamato whirled around. The man behind him grinned broadly as he slowly raised one clenched fist to his heart in a salute. "Yamato," Locke said. "That is what you go by now, isn't it? It has been a long time…"

Even Yamato could not entirely hide his shock. "Locke?" he whispered. "Did you…bring me here?"

"It was the only way I could talk to you," Locke said as he lowered his hand. In the dark violet light of the plane, Yamato could not be sure, but Locke's eyes looked unusually bright. "I could not speak with you before because I could not betray my position. But now that it has come to this…it doesn't seem to matter anymore, does it?"

The two men made no move to approach one another. Instead, they stood several paces apart (or was it kilometers? Centimeters perhaps?). It was inappropriate for commander and subordinate to come too close. Locke looked different. Six hard years had carved their indelible mark on his once-young face. The former Centurion's face was lean. Full of intense purpose, with hooded gray eyes that betrayed nothing. It was a strong face, but not young. Not young anymore.

An eternity of unasked questions crashed into Yamato's mind. He had had so much to ask. How had Locke come to defect? How had he found the truth as he did? How had he managed to stay hidden? Where was he? Yet, faced with the gray eyes of his former Centurion, Yamato found that it didn't seem to matter anymore.

"I can see you in the real world," Locke said, in a seemingly offhand manner. "Perched on that ridge. My, but it does make for an impressive sight. But I doubt that we will meet, Yamato. Not in the real world. You know battle. People tend to get…lost."

"Was it you that sent me that vision?" Yamato finally said. "The one about the sangrias?"

Locke tipped his head. "Yes," he said. "It was the only way I could get a message to you fast enough."

"It was not fast enough," Yamato said bitterly. "We cannot win. Even Takeru cannot move this mountain."

"But Takeru will," Locke said. His gray eyes gleamed with a strange peace, as if there was some subtle humour to be had in the grim battle ahead. "In fact he already has."

Yamato looked up. "What do you mean?"

"My corps is in the middle of those five ranks you see before you," Locke said, the amused sparkle in his eyes fading. "And I have made sure over the past few years that they served my cause. Not the Emperor, and not Khaydarin. Forty thousand men are ready to move at my bidding."

Yamato felt his heart skip a beat. For a moment, a single shaft of starlight lanced down out of the smothering darkness. "You don't mean…"

"It no longer matters whether the Emperor can see me," Locke said softly as he took a step forward, drawing nearer in the distanceless void. "Because in a few minutes, when the charge begins, my corps will show their true colours anyway. We might be able to create enough confusion for you to shatter the lines with your first charge. If you see a hole opening in the lines, it's not a trap. It's my men beginning their move. With luck, it may buy you enough time to get to the sangrias and destroy it."

"You're surrounded on both sides," Yamato said through a throat that was suddenly too tight. "You will be slaughtered."

His gray eyes burned into Yamato's own. Then, slowly, tentatively, he reached out and took Yamato's hand in his own. Clasping it tightly in his rough, battle-scared palms, Locke continued, his voice beginning to tremble.

"Yamato," he said, "the cloaked stranger visited me too."

Yamato stared. He didn't understand how, or why, but suddenly, everything made perfect, undeniable sense. He hadn't known it, but that was all he really needed to hear, all he needed to know. The answers to all the other questions were secondary. He now had absolutely no doubt about Locke's motives.

"I understand," Yamato said. And he did. He understood Locke as he had never understood him before.

"If you survive," Locke murmured, "don't let the world forget us. We were lost and deceived, but don't let them forget that in the end, ,we did finally come to our senses. I know that our sins are more than we can atone for, but we tried nonetheless." A spasm of emotion crossed his face. "It's…the least we could do for Him who promised to save us despite our past."

Yamato peered into the face of his former subordinate, and saw the grim eyes of one who did not expect to see the next sunrise. He saw, and he was moved to tears. So Locke had been true all along. He could see the man's heart  so clearly now. His anguish and his struggles. His eternal fight to repay the debt that could never be repaid. Why had he ever doubted? Why had he ever feared?

"The world will not forget," he promised as he folded his own hands over Locke's. "Your name will surely take its place beside ours in the saga of the last Seihad. Goodbye, my friend. And thank you."

A ghost of a smile touched Locke's lips as he nodded.

"Farewell then. We have a battle to win and a world to save…"

**********

Yamato opened his eyes and looked around.

A handful of dust swept into his face, and he was forced to shelter his eyes as he looked. The wind that swept across the land was shrieking now with anticipation, and the clouds of dead dust billowed this way and that in its fierce grip. Around him, the Seitzin had spread themselves out along the ridge top. For at least a mile in both directions, Yamato could see the multicoloured banners flying eagerly from their poles, lending an air of silent anticipation to the entire, surreal scene. Apparently, the entire exchange had only taken a few moments.

Seeing that the other stand-masters had already dismounted, Yamato hurriedly swung off of his mount as well. Patting his horse on the back, he passed the mount on to his banner bearer, who mounted the horse gravely. To a stand-master who could run faster than a horse for short distances, a horse in battle was more of a hindrance than an aid. Drawing his sword and holding it easily at his side, Yamato looked out.

In the dim red light, the massed black armies of Khaydarin stood as silent and ominous as ever. Suddenly, inexplicably, he felt a great laugh building up inside his chest. His shoulders began to shake with mirth. So Locke was out there. He could scarcely believe it. His former Centurion was there, scarcely a quarter of a mile away. The vast black army no longer seemed so impregnable. He had a friend in there, and that was all that mattered.

Further down the line, Takeru raised his sword high into the air, and somewhere in the back of the army, the rumbling tattoo of the nations' war drums started. Boom…boom…boom…they called, rolling through the land like thunder. A loud, ringing note burst forth as every soldier unsheathed his sword and held it at the ready. Suddenly, the ridge top was bristling with the silver glimmers of bright steel blades. Slowly, almost casually, Takeru lowered his sword.

"The Seitzin will advance at a march," he called.

The banner-bearers lifted their banners higher, and grips on weapons tightened in eagerness. Like a great lumbering beast, with a loud groan and creak, the Seitzin surged forth as one man and began to descend down the ridge. Yamato stepped forward, and was surprised at how light he felt. His whole body was tingling and his blood was boiling. But it was not the old blood lust that was overtaking him now. It was something different. Softer. Calmer. Far more powerful.

At the spearhead, Takeru raised his hand again. "The Seitzin will advance at a trot," his voice called. Automatically, Yamato broke into a light run to keep abreast of the soldiers on either side of him. He looked up. The black armies were beginning to move as well. The front ranks were rippling as shield bearers brought their shields to bear. The shrieking wind carried the faint rattle of clacking arrows as Khaydarin strung their bows. Despite everything however, Yamato was surprised to realize that he felt not the faintest trace of fear. The black dread that had hung over him only a minute ago was gone. Instead, a great stillness had laid itself over him. And while he did not exactly feel joyous, or happy about riding into battle, he felt…peaceful.

"The Seitzin will advance at a run," Takeru said, louder this time, his voice hardening like rapidly cooling steel. At once, the army broke into an easy loping run, eating up the remaining meters between the two fronts. Yamato raised his sword to the ready position. Yes, it felt right. This was putting things right. Perhaps he had been born for just this purpose. For a moment, he saw before him the great rift of his dreams. The black mass became the black gulf. He did not shudder or blink. Why had he not seen this? Why had he not realized before? It was so clear. So clear…

He looked up. The men were ready. Their faces were alight with fire. He was ready. The other stand-masters were ready. He could see them all along the line, gathering themselves for the final charge. Silently, he turned to look at Takeru, who marched in front of them all. A lithe, powerful figure, unbent with fear or dread, his sword's uncovered blade glimmering at his side. We are ready…Yamato said silently. We are ready…

Takeru raised his sword high above his head. All of a sudden, a pillar of gold lanced down from the sky and enveloped him in its glow. With a shout, Yamato summoned his own stand along with the others. Five other pillars of light flew down and blazed before the Seitzin, forming the greatest banner of all. The command that rolled from Takeru's lips was like steel striking stone.

"The Seitzin will CHARGE!!!!"

**********

Locke's heart leaped as, with a mighty roar, three hundred thousand Gaean warriors, drawn from every nation on the land, thundered down the ridge towards him. The six pillars of light that led them blazed ever brighter as the shouting soldiers charged. The earth trembled like a writhing beast under their pounding feet, the air shook with their reckless roars. Yes, this was the moment he was waiting for. The game was over at last. The gloves were off. He could finally unveil himself.

Traitor…traitor…the voices hissed. Die…die…die!

Locke shuddered. With an effort, he nodded at his banner-bearer, and the man hastily dropped the black banner. Raising a trumpet to his lips, the bearer blew three short blasts. Slowly and deliberately, Locke drew his sword as the trumpets around him picked up the call. Beside him, Yvan already had his sword drawn, and was turning his horse around. As he faced Locke however, the Centurion sat up straight in his saddle and saluted his Praetor. Once.

Locke returned the salute, not trusting himself to say anything past the lump in his throat. Yvan was a good man. He would understand.

Yvan nodded, then turned his horse the rest of the way, and rode off to the left on a tangent to the main Khaydarin army. Not daring to watch his Centurion's retreating form, lest he lose the perfect void of concentration he had crafted for himself, Locke nodded at his bearer, who promptly turned around, locked his gaze forward and rode off to the right. Around him, the trumpet ringing was almost continuous now. Murmurs of confusion were spreading through the other corps around Locke's, but Locke's forty thousand merely threw off their cloaks and cast down their masks. Turning silently, they split themselves down the middle. One half followed Yvan. The other followed Locke's bearer. Riding in different directions, they opened up a huge hole in the formation.

Fool! The voices screamed. You are weak! You will die! For nothing! Nothing!

The other corps were beginning to realize that something was seriously wrong as they watched Locke's men riding on tangents towards the sangrias. As the rattle of drawing weapons filled the air, Locke reached inside his mail tunic, withdrew the mirrireid and yanked savagely on the chain. The thin links broke with a defiant shriek. The voices screamed at him. They hollered, savaged and bruised his ears. Then they stopped.

Locke laughed out loud with relief as blessed silence descended upon him for the first time in weeks. Suddenly, it was all so clear. All his doubts and fears fell away like a shed cloak. Swinging the mirrireid about its chain, he threw it as far away from him as it would go and watched it lose itself in the midst of the roiling masses of soldiers. When the last twinkle of the hated talisman was gone from his sight, he swung his mount around and urged it forward to a trot.

**********

Kari had seen war before. She had seen death. She had ridden at the heads of countless armies throughout her time. Although she was a healer by nature, it was not as if she had never dealt out death, or been threatened with it. But this…this was something else altogether.

As she rode at the head of the Seitzin, thundering down the ridge towards the massed black ranks, she felt as if she was flying. The edge of adrenaline, fear and rage combined to make her entire skin crawl with electricity. When she saw Locke's army split, she allowed herself only a small measure of surprise. She did not truly hear Yamato's screamed thought-shape telling everyone to charge ahead into the gap. She would have done so anyway.

Then the vanguard of the Seitzin crashed into the front ranks of Khaydarin's confused defenders with enough force to send their first three ranks flying, and Kari was flung into hell. She was surrounded by wave after wave of scything swords and spears and enveloped by a hail of barbed arrows. Summoning her stand like a protective shield, Kari charged resolutely onwards, carving a path through the forest of black, felling soldiers left and right with her wakizashi and her stand.

Together with Takeru and Yamato, she felt a long shout of defiance tear from her throat as she led the keen edge of the Seitzin's blade driving relentlessly through the middle of Khaydarin's line. A relentless barrage of shouts and screams, shrieks and rattles assailed her ears and covered the plains like a thick, smothering blanket. Strangely, she felt no fury and no rage. The fear and dread that had weighed heavily upon her shoulders had slipped off. She felt nothing save the fiery tingle of her stand singing in her veins and through her limbs, flowing past her fingertips and into the tip of her wakizashi. Waves of black came from all sides, and she whirled through them like a reaper plowing through a field of corn. The blazing white tip of her weapon left trails of fire wherever it touched, be it through leather armour, metal shields, or soft flesh. Screaming men burst into flames at the mere touch of her blade, and disintegrated into ashes at the blast of her stand. The frustrated enemy's spears and swords thrust and scythed at thin air as she danced ever closer, a wavering, elusive steel-edged phantom. Whoever she touched, she killed; she left no wounded in her wake. She did not merely let the charge break upon her. She moved into it. Screaming men fled from her sight. She was too far away to strike, too close to defend from, too fast to see…

On either side of her, the Seitzin pushed determinedly onwards. Though they lacked her stand's awesome power and speed, they made up for it in sheer determination. Dozens, hundreds of men died in the initial rush, only to be overtaken by others surging up behind them, screaming, yelling, slashing, ever onwards. Forward…forward…

But the Khaydarin were beginning to recover from their surprise. The initial clash had been lost, yes, but it was sheer numbers that would decide the battle in the end. On both sides, the flanks extended and looped forward to swallow the Seitzin's reckless charge, despite the Seitzin's best efforts to protect their sides. The charge slowed as the black ranks dug in their heels and stood their ground. Khaydarin catapults behind the front lines began to rain burning balls of rock down upon the Seitzin. Blossoms of fire carved huge wounds in the Gaean army's ranks, and those not immediately killed by the flying shrapnel were set alight by the splashing flames and broke rank to run screaming to their deaths. Kari slowed, then ground to a halt as those around her were forced back. "No!" she screamed. "Forward! Forward!"

There was a thundering noise behind her, and Kari turned around. An entire legion of riders thundered past, peeling off to the left and strafing the fraying black lines with arrows. Yolei's burning orange shafts left vivid lines of colour on Kari's retinas as they zipped through the air and into the enemy. As swiftly as they had charged, the cavalry was retreating again, looping around for a second pass.

The Seitzin raised their weapons and cheered raggedly as hundreds of Khaydarin soldiers died from the first salvo. Before the rest could recover from the confusion, Davis was already leading in another wave of Taelidani and Fan-Tzu riders. Again the deadly hail of barbed arrows filled the sky. Those who were not immediately killed broke rank and fled. The footmen advanced another fifty paces. Kari felt the words leaping from her throat to join the Seitzin's singsong chant.

"Forward!" she shouted. "Forward! Forward!"

**********

As his corps's men marched further away from their former comrades, Locke marched in the opposite direction, right into the heart of the Khaydarin defensive formation. If somewhat puzzled by his lack of a mask and cloak, the Khaydarin soldiers in front of him parted when they recognized the Praetor's crest on his chest. Privately, Locke allowed himself a grim smile of amusement. The Emperor was not omniscient after all. Surely he had made his last mistake allowing him to remain Praetor. Going in was too easy.

As for coming out, he would likely not live that long anyway.

There was something strangely liberating about that knowledge. Locke felt lighter and younger than he had in years, as if some huge weight, some oppressive gaze had been lifted off of his shoulders. The game was almost over. The time had come to play his final card. And after that, he could finally rest, free from the voices, from the fears and from the doubts.

The roar of combat was getting louder as the front approached. On both sides, Locke could see his own men beginning to darting recklessly in and out, tearing up the flanks of the Khaydarin formations. There was Yvan, galloping at the head of a roaring column as he led yet another charge into the waving forest of steel. Every time they came away, the daring raiders did so with thinner ranks. Yet their losses paled in comparison to the carnage they wrought on their confused "comrades". Silently, Locke congratulated Yvan on a job well done. It was working…

Men around him surged forward, determined to stop the Seitzin onslaught. Nobody paid Locke much attention as he rode to the tall, Khaydarin banner in the center of the formation. He was a Praetor, and if he chose to head in the wrong direction, it was not up to them to question that. It was not long before Locke could hear Karensky's shouted orders as he directed his troops onwards.

Soon, the Praetors themselves came into view. The surviving four Khaydarin warlords, minus Caylor and Yaerin, were set in formation in one rank, shouting at their men to fall into their places behind them. The Khaydarin horn was sounding almost continuously now as the Praetors rallied their troops for a countercharge.

Laughing a little, Locke drew his sword, leaned down low in his saddle, and urged his horse to a full gallop for his final attack run. They were making it too easy for him. All the pieces had fallen into place so neatly that he could scarcely believe it. Yes, they would sing of this for the next thousand years. The daring, last charge of Locke Dimak, Praetor of Gaea's first and only Khaydarin corps as he descended upon his unsuspecting victims. Silently, Locke breathed a prayer under his breath as he rushed forward. Creator, give me strength…

Kirishima spotted him almost immediately. Standing up in his saddle, the Praetor waved his sword above his head wildly. "Locke!" he shouted. "What is your men doing?! Why did they…"

Locke couldn't hear any of it through the pounding pulse in his ears. His eyes were already judging distances and measuring angles. He was approaching from the south. From this angle, he could see all four of them strung out in a row. Jadan, Mordaen and Karensky were too absorbed in trying to rally their troops to take much notice of him. Suddenly, the black forest of armour around him was gone as he broke into the relatively empty circle around the Praetors. As if realizing he had finally trodden past the point of no return, his heart missed a beat within his chest, even as Caylor's words seemed to roar in his ears:

"You must strike with pinpoint accuracy and brutal force where the enemy is weakest…"

Kirishima was frowning now, as if he was perplexed by Locke's silence. He continued to shout. Locke forced himself to lower his sword slightly so it didn't look so threatening. They must not suspect until the last moment. He could hear snatches of Kirishima's shouts over his horse's pounding hooves now. "Rebellion…counter…help?"

He was closing so fast that Locke needn't have worried. Just as he had done a hundred times before in drills and in battle, Locke automatically began to raise his sword above his head for the killing stroke. Kirishima's expression turned from confusion to alarm as Locke galloped into striking range. "Traitor!" he screamed as he struggled to unsheathe his own sword. "You son of a-"

Locke's first stroke took Kirishima's head off. Before the decapitated Praetor had fallen to the ground, Locke was already racing onwards, hunkered low in his saddle, his sword held at his side like a scythe. The others had definitely noticed him now. Jadan was turning towards him, struggling to bring his bow to bear. Mercilessly digging in his heels, Locke spurred his horse on to an even greater burst of speed. At the last moment, Jadan threw his bow aside and scrambled for his sword. Locke's sword made a sound like wind running through silk. Jadan's head tumbled to the ground.

As Locke tacked towards his next target however, Mordaen was already charging. Before Locke could bring his sword to parry, Mordaen was upon him, his silver scimitar whirling. With instincts sharpened by years of combat on horseback, Locke tapped his reins to make his horse hop sideways and twisted swiftly in his saddle. Even so, he was not quick enough to avoid the Mordaen's stroke as it sliced through the flesh on his left arm from his shoulder to his elbow.

Locke reeled from the explosion of pain, and black dots danced on the edges of his vision. His breath caught in his throat as he swayed in his saddle, and his horse involuntarily took a few steps backwards. Triumphantly, Mordaen raised his sword for another blow and charged forward.

Desperately, Locke parried. Back and forth the duel went as the two Praetors strove to gain the upper hand. The horses snorted and pranced, darting in and out at the bidding of their masters. Sword-points flicked and slashed through the air like angry hornets. The swift singing of grinding steel drowned out even the incessant roar of the invading Seitzin. Finally, Mordaen swung his sword so hard that Locke's sword was almost smashed out of his grip. Reeling in his saddle, Locke was helpless to parry as Mordaen dashed in, eager for the kill.

"Always make certain of your first strike, Centurion, for you will never, ever, get a second shot."

But Mordaen had no way of knowing that Locke had long since abandoned any hope of leaving the battlefield alive. He no longer cared for his wounds, no longer cared for leaving an escape route open. Instead of backing off and defending as he would have done, Locke nudged his horse forwards. His black warhorse's hard shoulder slammed into Mordaen's mount, and Mordaen cursed as his horse staggered under the impact and threw off his aim. Instead of taking off Locke's head, the keen sword raked painfully across Locke's torso and tore into his side. As Mordaen struggled to control his dancing horse, Locke reached out and stabbed the man cleanly through the chest.

Mordaen's mouth opened in a soundless scream of fury. His grip tightened spasmodically on the hilt of his sword. "Traitor," he wheezed through his bloody mouth. His glassy eyes shifted upwards. Slowly, he slid from his saddle and landed with a crunch on the hard, stony ground. Locke heard the grisly snap of the man's neck as he collapsed. If Mordaen had not died from the sword-wound, he was most certainly dead now.

Locke gritted his teeth to stop himself from moaning in agony. Slumping in his saddle, he wrapped his trembling left hand to his side. The paralyzing pain from his wounds was incredible. The black specks were falling like thick snow now, obscuring his vision in their rapidly expanding flashes. No! his mind screamed at his battered body. Don't black out! Not yet! Not yet!

There was a rattle of arrows, and Locke looked up. Through the haze of drifting black specks, he was vaguely aware that the men around him were screaming and shouting in alarm, and that most of them were leveling their bows at him. A groan of frustration escaped him. Straining forwards, he urged his horse forward at a staggering trot, half-expecting to be pierced by a dozen steel-tipped arrows with each step his horse took. Not yet! Not yet!

"Hold your fire! This one's mine!"

With a disgruntled murmur, the Khaydarin soldiers lowered their bows and arrows. Incredulously, Locke opened his eyes.

Karensky waited silently on top of his black horse just out of striking distance. As if to enforce his command, his unsheathed silver sword rested at his side daring an archer to disobey. For a long moment, Karensky did nothing but stare at Locke, as if he was trying to fathom a perplexing specimen. His lip curled in disdain.

"So…Caylor's treacherous legacy continues..."

Locke said nothing as he sized Karensky up warily. He had pressed the element of surprise for all it had been worth, the proof of which lay in the three still-twitching bodies behind him. But now, it was gone. Karensky was ready and waiting. Even in his prime, Locke wasn't sure if he could best the man in a straight duel. Now, wounded as he was…

"Congratulations, traitor," Karensky spat through gritted teeth as he turned his horse towards Locke, and settled into an attacking posture. Raising his sword, he kissed the pommel like a duelist. "You played the game well. To outwit the Emperor must have taken some pluck. And I suppose we also have you to thank for the confusion along the front."

Locke carefully tested his left hand by clenching his fist. Good. Although he was rapidly losing feeling in his hand, Locke could still move it. He could still grip his reins. It would have to be enough.

"Oh God I hated you," Karensky continued, spitting in disgust. "Your too-perfect record, the sickening favours the Emperor lavished on you. Your young genius! Caylor was bad enough. To have his Centurion, a mere Centurion, ascend to his place overnight! I wanted to kill you, and now I know why!"

Yes, Locke thought silently. Get angry. Angry people made mistakes. Angry people became arrogant and careless. So he remained silent. Despite everything, he felt an ironic smile twisting the corners of his lips. What did it matter if he died trying? He had resigned himself to do just that from the very beginning. Karensky didn't know that. Perhaps he could use that to gain an advantage. Instead of wasting breath defending himself, Locke concentrated on gathering his strength for one final burst. Just one more…

"Answer me, traitor!" Karensky screamed, spittle flying from his lips. A hush fell around the assembled soldiers as they watched the confrontation between the Praetors. "Or am I too low for you? Am I unworthy of an answer?"

Locke forced himself upright, and leveled his sword beside him like a scythe. Sneering, Karensky did the same with his own, and the two Praetors readied themselves for the final charge. "Do you really think you have a chance against me?" Karensky taunted. "Look at you, you pathetic son of a whore. Look at you! Not so high and mighty now, are we? No army to back you up? No Caylor to look after you? Oh my, has our little Locke gotten into trouble?"

Locke coughed out blood. Then he raised his eyes, and smiled. "Not half as much as you," he rasped.

Karensky's eyes bulged. With an enraged scream, the Praetor leaned forward and began the charge. Locke felt a wordless roar tearing loose from his throat as he spurred his horse onwards as well. Like two tournament duelists, the Praetors charged one another with their blazing swords aloft. Great arcs of blood-tinged dirt flew skywards in their wake, and the air turned as thick as treacle with tension. The flying hooves ate up the distance rapidly. Fifty paces. Thirty paces. Twenty…fifteen…ten…

At five paces, Locke steeled his legs beneath him and did the truly suicidal. Gathering himself, he leaped from his saddle and hurtled straight towards Karensky with his sword-point first.

Don't forget me…

Flying through the air, Locke saw Karensky's arrogant sneer turned into disbelieving alarm. The black-haired Praetor's sword swung upwards instinctively, and Locke felt the burning cold point slide into his stomach, tear through his gut and erupt out of his back. There was a brief moment of unbelievable pain as white fire obscured everything. Then the two men collide with a vicious crunch and Karensky was knocked flying.

Locke could not even scream as they hit the ground and Karensky's icy sword twisted within him. There was a splintering sound as both their swords snapped. Over and over they tumbled in the dusty dirt, battered by rocks, gravel, and armour. The black specks that had been whirling across Locke's vision was like a thick, winter blizzard now, and a terrible cold swept over the young Praetor as he felt all feeling evaporate from his limbs.

When they finally slid to a stop, Locke found that he could not move. He could not even blink. With each weakening beat of his heart, he could feel his hot blood pouring from the hole in his belly, spreading over the ground like a pool. But Locke didn't care.

It was difficult to focus what little vision he had left. But by some freak chance, his tumble had left his face pointing towards Karensky.

Towards the broken sword-hilt that impaled the Praetor's throat.

Yes…he thought wearily, yet happily as the blackness descended to claim him forever. I've done it. I've won the game…

**********

"The last of them has died," Korvan said into the darkness, an edge of worry creeping into his voice. "My Lord, Locke has killed all of them."

Tichon stared at the scene unfolding before him, seen through the eyes of one of his mirrireid bearers. A ripple of shock and rage shuddered across his otherwise emotionless brow. So Caylor's treachery had run much, much deeper than he had thought.

"Our lines are beginning to crumble," Korvan said urgently. "My Lord, the men are leaderless!"

Tichon did not respond. His gaze was fixed on the broken body that had just moments ago been one of his most trusted Praetor's. Locke had played the game very well indeed, much better than he had given him credit for.

"My Lord!"

"I heard you bearer!" Tichon exploded. Korvan subsided into silence as Tichon turned back to consider the picture before him. Indeed, the lines were crumbling. Although the Khaydarins still had the superior numbers, their ranks were dissolving with panic and disorder. Yes, Locke was dead now. But the fact remained: Locke had cost him very dearly indeed.

Tichon felt the last traces of amusement disappear. In its place was grim wrath. The time for play was over.

"Takeru…," Tichon hissed, spitting the word out like a bitter herb. "I think it's time I showed you what 'Seihad' is all about…"

**********

Suddenly, the tone of the trumpets changed.

Ken looked up for a moment, a lone, green-clad figure in the middle of the immense, dusty desert, and cocked an ear to listen. Yes, there was something different. It was not the Seitzin's trumpets that had changed. The harsher-sounding Khaydarin horns had changed. Four blasts now, in rapid succession, instead of the long, drawn out one. Warily, he raised the tip of his sword to eye level and shifted to a more defensive stance. What did it mean?

Before him, the black ranks rippled and moved. Khaydarin soldiers turned and began to flee before the Seitzin's onslaught. Although they still had the advantage in numbers, Ken watched in amazement as rank by rank, company by company, the black-clad forces began to retreat and peel off towards the ridges to the north and to the south. All along the miles-long front, ragged cheering broke out among the Seitzin as confused but delighted soldiers lowered their weapons.

Beside him, Lord Marc raised his hand, and the Saldean forces stopped their advance. Slowly, Ken lowered his bloodied sword. Why?! Ken thought disbelievingly as he watched them scatter like chaff. They are far from defeated. They still outnumber us! Whatever it was that had happened at the North wall yesterday, it was happening again. The Khaydarin were turning tail and running for no apparent reason. The Seitzin had managed to push right to the foot of the sangrias. What possible advantage could they gain by abandoning their five towers now?

Still cautious, Ken summoned his stand and let it hover over him for a moment, scanning in all directions, but he could see nothing amiss. There were no reinforcements unlooked for approaching over the nearest ridge, nor were there any obstacles left between them and the sangrias.

Something must have happened at the top, Ken thought in amazement. But what could possibly have shocked them into yielding such a tactical advantage?

Casting his eye south, Ken could make out the other stand-masters in the distance, their forms silhouetted against the bright colours of their stands. All of them seemed as baffled as he was. Further downhill, he saw Yolei lower her bow. What's going on? she demanded. They're running away!

Cody's thought-shape was hazy with disbelief. I don't get it. They still had the upper hand, and they just threw it away!

Well, I say we smash them now, Davis cut in. Already, Ken could see several companies of Taelidani mobilizing along the northern front and setting off to pursue the retreating Khaydarin forces. No sense in passing up this-

"No!" Ken shouted. As Marc turned to him in alarm, Ken motioned urgently that he was all right, but that he could not speak for the moment. Instead, he focused on his thought-shape. Forget them! There's a clear path to the sangrias. Let's destroy that first, then worry about this!

There was a moment of silence. Then…

Ken's right, Yamato said, quietly cutting through the fading roars of combat. I don't understand why they left, but whatever they're doing, the sangrias comes first.

Pass on the word, Takeru said urgently. Every stand-master, advance with your respective nations. Yamato, Kari, you're with me. Davis and Yolei, you're the fastest; head for the farthest towers. Ken, Cody, take the nearer ones. Yamato, Kari and I will take the closest towers. Use the siege weapons we brought with us. Go!

Takeru's orders were accepted as the common sense they were. Within minutes, the Seitzin were on the move again, racing down the middle of the gap between the fleeing Khaydarin armies towards the sangrias. For Ken, the half-mile run seemed to be the longest in his life. All over the miles-wide front, Khaydarin and Seitzin passed each other as everyone closed on the sangrias with single-minded purpose. Desultory shots flew between invader and invaded, but the Seitzin made no move to stop the enemy from retreating. Now, their eyes were only for the sangrias.

Ahead of him, Ken could see Takeru, Kari and Yamato's column leading the wave, favoured as they were by the relatively flat terrain they had to cover. Further to the south and slightly behind them, Ken could make out Davis and Yolei leading the Taelidani, Fan-Tzu and Jakt forces on a mad dash for the southern tower. Turning back to his own assigned tower, Ken concentrated on running. Behind him, he could hear the rattle and grumble of the siege wagons the Ishidans had brought along with them roaring along the broken ground.

Ken tuned them all out. The towers were there, larger than life and ready for the taking. The path to them was blessedly free of obstacles. Fixing his eyes on his tower, he memorized the long rings of red that lined the ground and the concentric circles of bronze that circled the center; burned the image into his memory, and hurtled for it with every last ounce of speed he could muster. He could scarcely believe it as his feet carried him swiftly towards his goal.

They were there! Victory was at hand!

Perhaps that was why the first wave so utterly destroyed him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGHHHHHH" Ken screamed as the most repugnant wave of slime he had ever felt washed over him. The world exploded into multi-coloured stars and cracks, shifting into false colour and back again with such nauseating rapidity that Ken tripped and sprawled headlong onto the ground. Huddling helplessly into a shivering ball, he threw up every last thing that remained in his stomach. Shrieks and screams filled his ears, and sharp nails raked his skin. He was being pulled into a bottomless pool of filth by desperate phantoms that screeched for his blood. His stand's eye could see them clearly, shimmering against the cold dark, tattered and piteous, reaching for his soul. Horrified and disgusted, he writhed on the ground, slapping and scratching at himself convulsively. Over the shrieking that filled his head, he could vaguely hear screaming and shouts of alarm as the ground heaved beneath him.

The ground was heaving…?

With a Herculean effort, Ken slammed his stand's eye as tightly shut as he could and weakly propped himself up on one elbow; only to find that the nightmare that greeted his eyes was hardly better than the one that greeted his stand.

The center tower of the sangrias was pulsing with red, malignant waves. The six-foot high crests of crimson foamed across the gray land like mist, snapping the ground like a giant as it went. Everyone around him had been flung violently off their feet by the earthquake. Any who tried to get up were promptly blown back down by the frigid storm that had whipped up all around them. In moments, the charge was halted completely.

Ken was suddenly conscious of a sinking feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with his nausea. "No…"

The desert was turning into a surreal nightmare. The sun was now nothing but a circle of  black ash, and the sky was glowing malignant blood-red. The mantle of lead gray clouds opened up and screamed with thunder, vomiting forth showers of meteors that exploded in fountains of flame upon striking the ground. The earth heaved and split apart like a dying animal. Before Ken's eyes, an entire section of cliff along the coast cracked and disappeared into the raging surf with an earsplitting boom. The clouds whipped back and forth until they formed a vortex around the sangrias. And in the middle of the five towers, the central bronze ring started to turn and shimmer.

Takeru!

Ken twisted on his side and scanned the battlefield desperately for a glimpse of gold. Takeru, Kari and Yamato had been ahead of him, and must be even deeper within the storm than he was. For a few frantic moments, he could see nothing but whirling dust and bloody snowflakes. Noise and confusion so overwhelmed him that he couldn't see the ground in front of him, never mind where Takeru was. Hauling his shivering body upright, Ken shaded his eyes from the hurtling sand and searched the mirk desperately. "TAKERU!"

Then he saw them. Kari, Takeru and Yamato, barely a hundred yards away, clinging to each other as they struggled to their feet. Despite all odds, Takeru seemed to hear him as he turned at Ken's voice.

For a single moment, their gazes locked. An instant of shared fear. Shared dread…

Then Takeru whirled towards Kari. A flash of gold seared across the field as Takeru extended his arms towards her.

Ken shielded his eyes as he caught a glimpse of angel wings unfurling…

Takeru opened his mouth, as if to yell something back…

Ken's vision exploded. Every dark colour blazed with light. Every patch of light became soiled with black. Faster than the eye could fully see or the mind comprehend, a sphere of malignant dark violet expanded violently out of the center tower, rushing towards the three struggling stand-masters…

As suddenly as it happened, all the colours of the spectrum reverted back to their original appearance. Ken staggered and almost fell again as his vision snapped back to normal. Shaking his head and scrubbing soot from his eyes, Ken turned back.

In the roaring storm of stinging grit, he could see no sign of them.

In their place, the mile-wide rift of Yamato's dreams stood like a rotting, black mouth…

**Author's notes: Wow, I haven't posted so soon for a long long time. Luckily, the next chapter has already been written, so I'm pretty sure it will come out soon. I'll save my comments for then. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. And as always, please review! I like to hear feedback, good or bad, so that it doesn't feel like I'm simply posting into a vacuum.