It took us five days to get to one of the defensive way points – not much more than a heavily built up log fort on an earth embankment - along the road connecting Carnelian Peak to Osak. I spent that time on a cart, laid out on a pallet. I spent the first day asleep and the second day of travel worrying that the upper of the two crates stacked alongside me would slip to the side. Not on top of me, but off the side of the wagon, because there was a severe weight imbalance.

Something about being wounded meant that people weren't listening to me, but after the second day, Udano was recovered enough from his own battering to take charge and he ordered repacking so the crates sat next to each other – even if they weren't quite level any more since the cart wasn't wide enough – and I rode on top of them.

Udano still had no official rank save volunteer, but my scale-lieutenants and fang-sergeants were used to the idea that on the rare occasions he spoke that he did so with my authority. And everyone else with our rag-tag band took their lead from them, even the other four Dragon-Blooded. Because apparently Turok was right and there wasn't another officer above the rank of Scalelord present.

It was one reason we were so short on Dragon-Blooded – no other talonlord was with us, much less the garrison's dragonlord or either of the winglords I knew had been in Carnelian Peak.

Only one of them was from the gate, a fanglord who claimed the name Redoubtable Weasel. I have no idea what his parents were thinking. On the other hand, he could tell me the name of his scalelord and the other fanglord to die there. I wrote them an official commendation, for whatever that might be worth.

I was awake enough to examine my own wound and reluctantly concurred that riding the cart was definitely for the best. Exalted heal faster than mortals, but even so I'd need the better part of a week to recover. Another week, that was.

At least we didn't have to cart the pigeons around any further. Everyone who could write copied out my terse report and the next morning we sent them out to carry word to every outpost that the birds called home. This should hopefully include Osak – it was hard to say, since Turok had brought along the birds but not any reference for which bird was intended for which destination.

In case any of the birds headed back to Carnelian Peak, we didn't include any notes on where we were or our intended destination. Yurgen could probably guess, but without definite information I suspected that he wouldn't waste the relatively limited forces he had with him hunting me down. He needed to secure his new fortress, all the supplies it had and start the business of eliminating as many of the scattered detachments and strongholds that he did know about before they could be reinforced or evacuated.

Learning that they knew of his coup in taking Carnelian Peak would only spur the Bull on to make best use of his time.

One other advantage of sending out the birds was that Winglord Tepet Vergus Relasit had only about half as many questions when we turned up suddenly on her doorstep. The old Dragon-Blood – she was of Arada's generation – had been left with less than half her theoretical command by the redeployments to push on Fallen Lapis, but the fortress was almost bursting already.

"I see that rumours of your demise are overstated," she told me once I had been moved into one of the cabins that provided shelter to the officers. "Not as much as I would have hoped, though."

The room I had been carried to was barely big enough for a field cot, with hooks on the opposite wall to hold various war gear. It was still more privacy than I'd had in a while. Even in Carnelian Peak, I shared a tent with Udano and a couple of my soldiers. "I'm not surprised rumours are spreading." I looked up at the war gear. "You didn't have to displace someone for my sake."

Relasit glanced at the gear. "In any wing I command, the wounded get the warmest and driest quarters. Besides, I want you somewhere that's secure in case someone decides it's best that the rumours become true."

I groaned. "Politics."

"Of course." Relasit leaned out of the open door and addressed one of the stretcher bearers who'd brought me in. "Take my gear and stack it in my aide's room."

…this was the winglord's room? "Just what rumours have been spreading?"

The old winglord pinched the bridge of her nose. "One of the officers who has already reached us claims to have heard – though she was clear that she had not seen it herself – that you had killed one of the Heptagram's sorcerers. And that your scale was last seen fleeing the west gate in disorder as the Bull's forces stormed it."

Incarnae damn you, Lisara. "Let me guess, General Mallon's aide?"

Relasit snorted. "Correct."

"I ordered the mortal members of my scale back so I could use a dragon vortex on the attackers. I didn't see any reason to have loyal soldiers wounded by being careless."

She blinked. "You can use the dragon vortex? I can sear a battlefield, but I can count on two hands how many officers I know who have mastered that charm."

"One of the officers holding the gate knew Dragon-Seared Battlefield so he could reinforce it; and I was studying at the Cloister of Wisdom," I explained. "My essence control is pretty good."

"My essence control is above average," the winglord snorted. "And yours must be better than mine if you can use that charm. You're what… sixteen years old?"

"I won't be fifteen until summer comes."

"Mela's breath," she muttered. "No wonder you killed one of the Anathema."

"Three."

"Three?" The woman took a deep breath. "You wouldn't be kidding me, would you?"

"One in the Realm, one in the Ironthorn Forest." I made a face. "And now one more at Carnelian Peak." There hadn't been room on the report for specific details like the defeat of Crimson Antler.

"At last some good news. Not the Bull himself?"

I gave her a rueful grin. "No, another Forsaken – one of the icewalkers I believe. Red tattoos on her face."

Relasit leant against the wall. "Makes sense. That would be Crimson Antler – the other of the Bull's icewalker Anathema was leading the armies around Fallen Lapis when General Arada made his push there."

I looked up at her face. "Not good news?"

"No. They call him Fear-Eater and he worked the Haltans and other tribal warriors into a frenzy." She shook her head bitterly. "And Mors Ialden had the wit to pull his more disciplined forces back in a feigned retreat. Half the Eighth Legion died before the Wind Dancer could get the rest out. Mortals and Exalted alike, from what was reported."

"Not good."

"You have a gift for understatement." She drew herself up. "I want you on your feet properly, so get the rest you need. I'll send a scribe to take down a more detailed report in the meanwhile. I don't need another aide, so Tepet Lisara will be joining the ranks as a Fanglord. She has no legitimate business coming here."

"Fine by me."

"And the Heptagram sorcerers?" she asked. "Lisara said that the one you didn't allegedly kill fled."

"He received a message by sorcery. Encoded, so I couldn't swear to the contents, but he claimed it was orders to get himself out first and leave us behind, regardless of his wishes. I don't know his name offhand."

"The sorcerers were Mnemon Hrafna and Ledaal Ordaal."

"It was Hrafna then. Ordaal was hit by an arrow – I'm guessing the Bull's."

The old winglord sighed. "That would make some sense. He's picked off officers before, firing from some vantage point on the battlefield. And we think he was the one who killed the sorcerer carrying General Arada towards Osak a few weeks ago."

I was working on one of our remaining warstriders when a messenger called me to the command tent. Well, one-part working and one-part teaching Udano and the warstrider's pilot how to do some of the maintenance work.

Patriotic Endeavour was the same warstrider that had been handling the west gate at Carnelian Peak. To her credit, Tepet Validel had kept it going the entire march to Relasit's fort, dragging a wagon that carried four wounded soldiers and three heavy essence cannons that the sorcerer-technicians had been repairing during the attack. That was much longer use than was seriously expected of a warstrider without maintenance.

She'd received a well-deserved commendation, but had then had to have the warstrider dragged the rest of the way to Osak on a rather large wagon because she couldn't carry out the maintenance and repairs needed.

"I always had a support crew to handle that," she had admitted when faced with the issue. "Can you help me put one together?"

"You'll need more than help, unless you know what they need to be taught," I'd pointed out. "Which means I'm going to have to teach you as well."

The woman looked abashed and I'd sighed and agreed. We might need Patriotic Endeavour at some point and there wasn't really anyone else with our force that could have done the work. But I was drumming the basics into her head as well. Udano had joined the lessons without asking – I thought at first that it was out of habit from all the time he'd helped me out at school… but apparently, he was genuinely interested in both the subject and in Validel.

Or at least I assumed so. He'd moved into her quarters, so there was something going on there. Not my business what life-affirming activities they got up to.

"Looks like we'll be finishing this later," I said, pointing at the ankle joint we were working on. "Unless the two of you want to have a try?"

Validel glanced at Udano, who nodded. "We'll try to do this ourselves," she decided.

"Fine. Leave the armour off so I can check your work," I agreed. It wasn't the first time we'd worked on the ankles – they take a beating in warstrider operations just from the weight they have to support.

Cleaning oil off my hands with a rag, I rolled my shirt-sleeves down and shrugged on the replacement for my previous coat as I walked from the sorcerer-technician's part of the town across to the command tent.

Osak was considerably smaller than Carnelian Peak and it had been taken by storm, the entire population expelled or conscripted for one purpose or another. Thus, it was now a 'purely military' town – assuming you squinted a lot at the camp followers who lived in a shanty town south of the old walls.

North, west and east were camps for the more than ten thousand soldiers here. There was nowhere else to rally the legions as unit after unit had retreated out of Rokan-Jin. And others were confirmed as lost trying to hold forts that couldn't be relieved or on the roads eastwards towards us.

There was a lot of muttering about 'the relief', although what that might be varied with rumours. A full detachment of the Wyld Hunt was popular, the entirety of the Cathak legions was another. I had my doubts if anything was coming, but saying that would be… detrimental to the morale of the soldiers.

We still had a strong force north of Osak, guarding the routes north towards Fallen Lapis, and withstanding the pressure the Bull was putting on Talinin. This wasn't even half of what General Arada could still command…

But at the start of the war, the Tepet Legions and their allies had fielded over forty thousand soldiers.

"Alina!" someone called and I turned without slowing. Brunette hair, braided and pinned to fit under a helmet. A jade-steel bow strapped to a quiver, a leather cuirass that must have needed to be altered to fit over those curves… huh, I didn't know anyone like that. "Alina!" she called again.

"Who are you?"

She was jogging towards me but almost stumbled. "It's me! Hunt, you dunce!"

"Hunt?" I rubbed my eyes. Looking again, I could see the features of my childhood nemesis. "You've grown. It's been years, I suppose."

"You too." She shook her head. "I thought you would have looked me up now that we're in the same army."

I guess as family, I should have, but… "Hunt, I had no idea you were here in the first place." Although, to be fair, I hadn't looked up Doreg and there were quite a lot of the Eighth Legion here, rebuilding with scraps of the Forty-Third. "Have you seen Doreg lately?"

She reached out and grabbed my shoulder. "Doreg's dead!"

I paused. Damn. He was? "Fallen Lapis?"

Hunt nodded indignantly. "How do you not know this?"

"A lot of people are dead, Hunt."

"And now that you're the great shikari, you don't need to care about the rest of the household!?"

I shook off her hand. "You miss the point. Look, I need to report to the commanders. And even if I didn't, I have duties. I just… don't have time to grieve. Not for him, not for Icole or any of half a dozen more names that wouldn't matter to you."

"Icole is fine!" she snapped. "He exalted! Doreg was so excited for him. But apparently he's also too good to speak to us."

I looked her up and down. Unmarked armour, now that I looked at it. How much action had she seen, if any? I didn't know what most of the Exalted volunteers had been doing – I'd recruited Udano and assumed most of the rest were filling out other units. Had most of the younger ones been sheltered, given jobs within their assumed competence? "Icole was sent home without a leg. On the same ship, one of the finest Immaculates I know went home without her eyes or most of her face. This is a war, Hunt. Not a hunting trip."

And then I left her gaping and headed on past guards that surrounded the dozen or so tents that kept the spring rain off the commanders, and more to the point, made it harder for some distant archer to see them and pick them off from a mile away or whatever ridiculous distance it was that the Bull could shoot arrows across.

General Tepet Arada was inside and I counted off other generals and dragonlords. If the Bull did strike here, he could wipe out much of the remaining leaders of the legions. It was fortunate in that respect that Samea was dead – she might not have needed to see into the tent to attack us with a spell.

I moved towards Relasit – her de facto addition of two hundred odd heavy infantry from Carnelian Peak to her command had been recognised with promotion to Dragonlord. It wasn't as if there weren't vacancies at that rank – but Arada waved me aside.

The old man looked his years more than I had ever seen him, but there was a banked fire still burning in the eyes that glared out at the world from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "I should have heeded you about the sorcerers," he admitted grimly. "If I'd held them in reserve then they would have been far more useful in the field against Fear-Eater than they were scouring Fallen Lapis."

I met his gaze in silence for a moment, then looked aside. Everyone else in the tent was watching us. "If I've never made a mistake – which is debatable – then it's because I'm younger. If I've never erred on that scale, it's because I've never held responsibilities as broad as yours."

He scowled. "I do not need your forgiveness."

"No." I shook my head. "You need that of Fallen Lapis, which probably won't be forthcoming. And you want Tepet Arada's, which you won't give. But all we can do is move on."

"And there we come to the point of this meeting." The old man turned away, checked the tent. Presumably satisfied that everyone he wanted was present, he returned to the table.

I took the opportunity to join Relasit. I had two talons now, which in theory made me a winglord although no one had bothered to make that rank official. But I was more or less attached to her as the supporting arms to her dragon. A nice little task force.

"I know what you are hoping for." Arada put his hands on the map table. "It's the two words that everyone is whispering behind my back. The relief."

There was a deathly silence.

"There is none," the general told us flatly. "I have had no official instructions, support or any response at all in months. The closest thing was a letter from Tepet Jita, informing me that the Scarlet Empress hasn't been seen since the first day of Calibration."

More than two entire seasons and the linchpin of the Realm was gone for both of them. It was… impossible for most of the people in the tent to get their heads around that.

The Scarlet Empress was the Realm. Every part of its government and administration was in theory delegated from her. Every conflicting interest would eventually come down to her – or someone she had entrusted to make decisions in a certain narrow fashion, such as magistrates. The legions, the largest mortal army in Creation, with more than half a million fighting men and women… was in theory simply a means to project power without her having to use the Imperial Manse to obliterate everyone that offended her.

(Which she could do. The Manse was essentially the ultimate weapon. There was a reason I'd used the essence flows that empowered it to destroy Creation).

But the Realm was intentionally unstable. Everything rested upon the Scarlet Empress because it gave everyone a vested interest in keeping her in charge. Sure, no one would have ever chosen her to rule them, but at least her somewhat sarcastic and cynical regime was better than… you know… them. That other house. Or department. Or satrapy. Whoever it was that you had to fight with every day just to get things done.

Because she'd set up those conflicts to begin with, ensuring that almost any internal challenge would be torn down by their own rivals before it seriously threatened her.

There had certainly been attempts to remove her – right from the start of her reign, when the Seven Tigers, leading the most powerful remaining detachments of the Old Realm's armies, had marched to the coasts of the inland sea and prepared to cross it and overthrow her.

When she was done obliterating the Raksha invasions that had come so terrifyingly close to finishing what the Great Contagion had begun, Her Scarlet Majesty had used the same weapons on those armies. It had set the tone for her own reign and for seven and a half centuries every challenge had been foiled. Always there had been the same hand at the tiller, delicately balancing the power struggles so that there was always someone that you hated just a little more than her.

And now that she was gone… those hatreds would not vanish. There was simply no one left to keep them at their usual simmer. And thus, the pot would boil over.

"That would be the bad news," Arada continued before the silence could grow too heavy. "Although for all we know, she might be back now and butchering the Deliberative for disappointing her."

That idea seemed to brighten his day. It was also… not unprecedented. Something over a hundred years ago the Deliberative had let power go to its head and over-ridden three successive uses of the Imperial veto. I don't think that Arada was involved in the Legion that dissolved the Deliberative, but I don't doubt he would have carried out the orders to behead every senator in the lower house and most of the upper house with gusto. And possibly complained bitterly about letting the handful who were merely exiled off so lightly.

"The good news is that the Bull has been hurt, badly."

That notion seemed to be harder to swallow, but he waved down any dissent. "Not by Fallen Lapis or by the casualties he's been taking fighting us. Unfortunately, he can replace mortal supporters essentially at will, so silver-tongued are his supporters. But he has lost a third of his supernatural allies and that has to hurt him."

"We also," the old warrior added, "Have a better idea who they are now." He raised one finger. "Mors Ialden. Good general, decent fighter, knows enough sorcery to get by. I could name half a dozen Dragon-Blooded here who can take him. He's Exalted – we know what he can do because he's basically one of us."

His second finger. "Nalla. One of the Wretched. An assassin and a raider. Good fighter, but that's it. He can do a lot of damage, but he's not a field commander and he's not a sorcerer. Pin him down just once and we can take him. He has to win every time, we don't."

"Then there's the Deceiver. Raneth, his name is. Main agent in maintaining the Haltan alliance, but not the fighter Nalla is – perhaps not even as good as Ialden. We're probably not going to find him." Arada looked around the tent fiercely. "But he doesn't matter to us. We're here to crush the military threat and if the Bull can't win the fight then his whole alliance collapses. Then a normal Wyld Hunt can take him. So, target of opportunity, that's all."

"Fear-Eater. He's an ice-walker, one of the Bull's own people. Another Blasphemous preacher, whipping up the tribes and villages into fanatics. And he can fight, I'll give him that. But he's no great general and he's no sorcerer, so at least for now he's nothing close to being the sort of threat Samea was."

Arada raised his thumb. "And there's the Bull himself." He huffed slightly. "Good general. Very good general. Can shoot the bollocks off a fly – more importantly, our key officers in the thick of a battle. Good enough up close that I don't want anyone taking him on solo if they can avoid it. But he has got to take the field now."

"Why?" asked Relasit bluntly. "He's been doing fine so far without."

"Because his other major commander is dead," answered Arada unhesitatingly. "Crimson Antler was one of the very few he was able to trust with leading a substantial force. Without her it's Ialden and maybe Fear-Eater… and he's never had a serious independent command. The Bull does not have a solid backbone of junior officers. He's not had time to develop one. So, he needs to have supernatural force on his side, lieutenants who can make up the loss, and a reputation for invincibility."

The old man leaned forwards; hands now flat on the table. "Samea is now dead, meaning he can't rely on heavy duty sorcery. He has only one really good field general beside himself. And two – a third! – of his Anathema are dead. His army believed that that couldn't happen. But they were wrong. And so, he needs to show them his strength. Needs a clear open victory where he and the other Anathema take a visible role."

He swept the map clear of markers and then started laying out a new deployment across the three kingdoms that had been our battlegrounds so far. He seemed to be barely looking down.

"Right now, he still has a lot of his forces sweeping across Rokan-Jin and pushing at Talinin – spread out and dispersed. The one concentrated force we have to worry about is here, outside Fallen Lapis…"

Fallen Lapis had been a walled city, much like those I had seen in Talinin but much less grand than Carnelian Peak. Today it was still walled, but how can you call a place a city when everyone inside it is dead?

There are other words for such a place. Ghost-town. Haunt-ridden. Necropolis. Shadowland.

The latter was literally true. As with anywhere that there has been death and suffering, the barriers between Creation and the Underworld had been worn thin. Under the light of the sun, Fallen Lapis was an empty city, one beginning to fall into ruin.

At night though, anyone leaving its walls would find that they had wandered out into the lands of the dead, and the ghosts of those murdered within the walls might flood back into the streets where they had died.

Out of simple self-defence, Mors Ialden had been forced to use his army to drive the ghosts from the city long enough to salvage supplies. They'd returned when he was gone though, and between sunset and sunrise there would be no escape.

One might have thought that they would hate us more than the Bull's army. After all, it was in the name of the Realm and the Tepet Legions that their city had died. But I doubt that they saw much difference. We were all outsiders, all invaders. All reviled for what we had brought them.

There were undoubtedly some locals who liked us. The worms and the ravens were doing well out of the war. But for the most part, this had not been their war to begin with. The Haltans versus the Linowan, the Bull versus the Tepet. It was our war, our guest-gift in their lands and I got the impression that they would very much like to give it back.

There were going to be more ghosts soon as the full force of the remaining heavy infantry from three legions crashed directly into the heart of Mors Ialden's army.

The sound was unbelievable. More than ten thousand warriors packed into a tiny space, screaming at each other, would be bad enough. Metal on wood, metal on metal and any number of pointed things entering flesh added to it.

The outcaste Dragon-Blood was desperately trying to get his army out from between the oncoming wave of the Realm's finest. Given the flanking forces of less well armoured soldiers, it wasn't going well for him.

While there was considerable forest around Fallen Lapis, in this instance it had worked against the Bull's forces. My scouts and other units similarly hardened by the come and go nature of the last few months of skirmishing had gone through the Haltan scout forces like a reaper and with casualties mounting, they had clearly been less interested in telling Mors Ialden what exactly was marching north and instead more on getting him to rescue them.

The Fear-Eater's fanatics were less in evidence, most likely having been pulled west to take advantage of the openings there, and it was the old-guard of regiments that had been fighting us for more than half a year who found themselves sucked forward to face a considerably larger force that had no interest in allowing them to break contact again.

Now that we were out of the woodlands and into the broad swathe of open fields around Fallen Lapis, the defenders' chances had diminished rapidly. They had hurt us badly, there was a trail of wounded soldiers stretching back miles behind us with strays from both sides fighting it out to recover them or kill them. But they hadn't stopped us.

And now their backs were to a wall and the sun was edging its way towards the horizon in the west.

Almost two hundred bows hurled arrows up and over our own frontline, slashing down into the rear ranks of Ialden's forces. Some undoubtedly hit helmets, others struck upraised shields. The latter was more what we were aiming for.

Keeping a heavy shield up in the air to protect you from arrows is exhausting. In some ways, we were wounding them more by doing that than we were those catching arrows in their flesh. Not the ones who died, obviously, but the constant steady trickle of arrows was wearing down their endurance and their nerves.

Ialden must have known that he was near a breaking point. If his men were forced back into the city then all we'd need to do was watch.

If they broke, we'd chase them down. And a rout would kill many more than even this grinding battle was.

His only hope was a breakout, and so he massed his best men around him and battered at our left flank.

Either flank would have done. Get out on the left, heading west and he might be able to hook up with the Bull. Go east and he could curve north and connect with the Haltans.

But Tepet Arada had wagered on the left. He'd stationed reserves on both flanks, expecting this, but he himself was here – on the left. Waiting.

Five hundred northern warriors in heavy plate scavenged from battlefields and captured armouries knifed into what was left of the Thirty-Eighth Legion's medium infantry. The line bent back, arched, strained as if it would hold the push… and then smoothly gave way.

Escape beckoned. And right in the path of it were the four hundred heavy infantry of Tepet Vergus Relasit's dragon, backing up Tepet Arada, Relasit and a dozen other hand-picked Dragon-Blooded.

I wasn't in that line. I was, ironically, just a hair too powerful. If I'd lit off a vortex or even just seared the battlefield then I would have gutted our own formations. This called for greater precision and – as Tepet Arada himself had advised diplomatically - he wanted a reserve for his reserve.

The space between Ialden's spearhead and our slightly outnumbered heavy infantry was full of ambient essence tearing up the ground as every one of the five elements was unleashed in a line only a few yards deep but almost fifty wide.

Ialden came forwards into that hell, so did two other warriors who must have been Dragon-Blooded. A few others tried to follow them and regretted it, very briefly.

I think I could have managed the intensity of the anima effect, at one time. I was, not to boast, probably stronger than Arada was now.

But I had never learned to focus it down, to shape it into anything more than a massive circle around myself. I could almost see the principles and I suspected without rancour that Arada's exclusion of me had been because he wanted people he knew he could work with. It might not demand that everyone know this variation of the charm, but it surely helped to have them familiar with how it was shaped.

The mark of the truly great Exalted was the ways that they shaped essence in ways that no one else had ever tried. Developed new approaches that might be used long after they themselves were forgotten. I had never had a posterity to see if my own innovations would last beyond my immediate students, but as one who had created his own charms rather than only learning them from others, I tip my hat to Tepet Arada.

He might be a grumpy old man with a far more ruthless edge than I was entirely comfortable with, but he was a true Tepet – a scholar-soldier.

There was no doubt who Mors Ialden would head for and his daiklave – a long, curved blade of green jade, longer than he was tall but no thicker than two finger widths from edge to spine – clashed with the shorter and heavier weapon carried by our general.

Blue and green flashed with the last light of the sun as the pair of them duelled.

Ialden's companions didn't get that courtesy: each of them was facing at least three veteran Dragon-Blooded and they were outflanked, encircled and cut down with ruthless efficiency by Arada's chosen few.

There was a sharp slash, a trail of blood and Ialden almost fumbled his sword with a hand that now lacked two fingers. He switched hands, fighting left-handed now, pouring essence into making good the unavoidable loss of precision.

Long, sweeping cuts failed to connect with Arada, intercepted by short and functional blocks. And then Arada stepped forwards, deliberately. The entire line of Dragon-Blooded went with him.

A second step, then a third.

Ialden's back was against his men, who were being forced now to give ground in the face of the devil's brew of a storm that surrounded the Wind Dancer and his coterie. And they weren't falling back fast enough for now the Bull's best general had no room for his full cuts – he had to tighten his form or he'd have been cutting into his own elite.

There was no ceremony, no grand moment. It was over almost before anyone realised it. Tepet's sword gouged a trail several inches deep into the flesh of the outcaste's left arm – opening it from wrist to shoulder near enough.

And then Arada stepped forwards and there was another wound below the other Dragon-Blooded's breastplate, right thigh ripped to shreds by a bolt of air so razor fine it had flensed a handspan of leg to mincemeat in an instant, launched from the Tepet general's left hand.

Mors Ialden fell and with a sound like a sigh, the heart went out of his army.

Some fell back still, grimly forming circles and trying to stand but most just ran, bursting through the edges of our lines or dashing into Fallen Lapis in the hope that they could get out the other side before the sun finished setting.

The battle was won, another victory for Tepet Arada. And another of Yurgen Kaneko's lieutenants had been taken away from him.

A rider cantered up behind us on a horse that was clearly too tired to go much further. He reached the standard that Udano was holding and let go of his reins, sliding off the side. I hadn't had a standard until lately but apparently now I needed one so people could find me.

"Walk that horse," I told the man – not much more than a boy, really. Anyone who thinks that mortal men are fragile should look at a horse sometime. Yes, they're bigger but those legs… and they just can't keep going the way a man or woman can. Making the assumption that they can keep carrying someone all day is a serious error, and if you think they'll gallop further than a half-mile… well, good luck is all I'd say.

Not that I ride much myself, anima flux being what it is. But there's no use treating them like machines. There is a profound difference.

"Sorry, sir," the rider gasped, taking the reins and managing to keep the horse moving in a circle around me, cooling down manageably rather than probably pulling a muscle. With his free hand he reached into his jerkin and pulled out a folded piece of paper, no seal on it. "Scale lieutenant Turok reports that there are sun-banners at the Thuan and Stony crossroads."

I checked the paper and it was in Turok's scrawl, repeating more or less that. "Good to know. Alright lad, I'll let the people who need to know this in on that. You see to your horse – he got you here so you owe him that."

Udano gave me a questioning look as I opened my satchel and pulled out a folded map. It wasn't a very good map, honestly. There are excellent topographical maps of Creation as long as you don't mind them being a few hundred years out of date. But for the rest of us, there are rough lines for roads, trees for forests and up-turned Vs to indicate mountains. It's good enough, a lot of the time.

My finger traced back down from Fallen Lapis to Osak and paused as I reached the crossroads in question. Yes, that was what I thought.

"Time to report in," I decided and walked forwards. Relasit's dragon had fanned out into a perimeter around Arada, trying to strike a balance between not crowding him and not giving any archers a shot at him.

Given the number of trees off in the distance, I didn't like their chances but war isn't safe anyway.

Arada, for his part, was wiping his daiklave clean absently as he listened to reports being filtered through his aide and the other officers. Udano stuck the standard in the ground and gave me a questioning look.

"Yeah, if nothing else you'll block sight of him from a distance." Arada wasn't all that much taller than I was.

The two of us were allowed into the perimeter, with Tepet Lisara doing her best to stay po-faced as we went past her, and Relasit spotted me almost immediately. "Alina, what's the news?"

"Report from the scouts covering our rear."

The Dragonlord nodded sharply. "Don't you go anywhere without him?" she asked, waving one hand vaguely towards Udano.

I shrugged. "He helps to keep people from trampling me by accident."

She looked down at me and then cracked a smile. "Well, maybe you'll grow up one day."

"Here's hoping. I might need to settle for older."

It only took Relasit a moment or so to shuffle us through the crowd to Arada. "News from the south."

He arched one bushy eyebrow but said nothing.

"Thuan and Stony Crossroads are occupied," I reported tersely. "More or less as planned for."

He gave me a satisfied nod. "Exactly as planned."

I'd suspected as much. We'd left Osak entirely uncovered in order to hit Fallen Lapis with a massed strike. And by taking those two crossroads, the Bull had cut us off from the best routes back. However, it was an entirely moot point because Arada had no intention whatsoever of going back to Osak.

There was no retreat for us now. The army would be stiffened by the need to advance because we absolutely had to break through to the river, and down its valley to Dramasine. Unless we could link up with the Linowan on the river, we'd be cut off and surrounded. But if we succeeded, we'd have turned the war on its head: now we'd be in the north and Yurgen Kaneko would be in the south, divided from his allies.

Arada's assessment of Nalla was pretty accurate. He was a good fighter. Under other circumstances, I might even be enjoying this.

The rocks beneath our feet were wet and slippery as we jumped back and forth, trying to get close enough for a lethal contact that would finish the fight.

From the way his eyes were wide with excitement and his lips drawn back, he was finding it as exhilarating as I was.

He crashed down, a khatar spearing into one of the boulders and splitting it just after I left it. It would have been very helpful if he'd gotten himself stuck, but that wasn't going to happen.

I landed facing him and felt the stone I was stood upon wobbling. This entire section of the river was rapids and gravel banks, nothing steady or stable. Linowan canoes could navigate it, but they'd have to run past Dramasine, which was asking a lot of them. And on foot, it was possible to ford the river here, just risky.

An arrow thwapped past the two of us and hit one of Nalla's men in the calf. He staggered and the warrior next to him grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back and away from the fight. Two of them for one arrow, I liked that trade.

"I can keep this up all day." The Night Caste Solar called the claim to me in a voice that carried over the sound of water hitting the rocks and splashing. "Can you?"

"I was hoping for a warmer bath." I didn't look back to see if my men were done hauling Udano and our other wounded back to the shore. It was going to have to be done on trust.

The luck wasn't with us so far: Nalla hadn't even been looking for this patrol, he'd been on his way back from raiding closer to the main Tepet Legion and we ran into each other as we were both trying to re-join our own sides.

I'd had twice his men at the start of the skirmish, but despite my best efforts, half the scale I'd brought with me wouldn't be making it back. He was so damned slippery!

He paused and swept blond hair back from his face, scattering water behind him. "You're the one they talk about, aren't you?"

I shrugged, taking the moment to catch my own breath. And to judge just how unstable the rocks were under me.

Pretty damn, it seemed.

"I don't know. The one who talks about?"

"The one they call Sunslayer."

I gave him a sceptical look. "I could be. Not a name I'd enjoy but which of us gets to choose our own names in life?"

The Solar leapt downriver to another rock, a little closer to me, a little closer to my men as they tried to get out of the river. I could hear them splashing still, but they weren't wasting arrows on him – he'd see them coming and that was enough to be sure that he'd escape their paths. "The one that killed Samea. And Crimson Antler."

"Ah." I turned slightly to keep him in view. "Yeah."

"Both the women in our circle! Is this a woman-thing I wouldn't understand?"

"Luck of the draw. War is an equal opportunity murderer."

"I prefer to think I make my own luck," Nalla told me and jumped again.

I kicked off from the boulder beneath me and shattered it, destabilizing the entire cluster of boulders beneath me.

The rocks crashed and tumbled down the river, sweeping away the stones that the Solar was going for. One of them hit him a glancing blow as he hit the water and was swept away, arms still moving as he tried to steer himself around the rapids. Somehow, I thought that he'd make it.

"Yeah, nice when I can manage that," I muttered, although there was no way he'd hear me.

Then I turned to the remaining mortal soldiers who were staring after their Exalted leader in some consternation. I made a shooing gesture; confident I could kill them but also that it wouldn't really make any much difference to how things turned out.

They decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retreated downriver after Nalla while I went back to my men. Udano was doing better – he'd been hit in the head, which had bled a lot at first. But it wasn't with the khatar, so it was more that he'd been stunned and concussed.

"This would be easier if you weren't so tall," I told him as one of our taller men tried to support him.

"But size is all I have going for me!" the young man protested weakly.

I shook my head. "Shall I ask Validel about that?"

He blushed self-consciously and I resisted the urge to ruffle his hair. It was easier since I couldn't reach it. "Okay, I won't," I promised. "But when we get back to camp, you're taking a couple of days to make sure you're fully recovered."

The army was itself too large to move as a single body, with three columns marching closely enough that they could support each other if necessary but far enough to have some freedom of movement. Riders and other scouts mapped out each day's campsite in advance, with a rotation between which units marched first on a given day, and thus wound up having to do the initial work on setting up fortifications for the rest of their legions.

The Forty-Third Legion and the Eighth Legion had been essentially disbanded, with their remaining forces used to make good losses in the others – essentially making each legion that remained somewhat over-strength. Thus, each was over seven thousand strong – a small city on the move.

I'd seen the burned-out hill village that was today's camp on the way out, but it was almost unrecognisable as I arrived in the late afternoon. Trailing elements of the Thirty-Eighth were still arriving but the existing walls had been torn down for materials to reinforce a new wall that encompassed much more land than the old village, following the lines of fields and animal pens where they could. And where not, they too were torn down for their stone and timber.

Tents, carts and wagons (fewer of those as heavier four-wheeled wagons tended to bog down more than lighter carts) crowded inside, cooking fires already beginning to send trails of smoke upwards.

We handed off Udano to the army surgeons, who could at least see that he rested, and a stray sheep we'd found on the way back went into the legion's flock. Much of our meat rations were being carried 'on the hoof' as it were and replenishing that was one of the lesser tasks of auxiliaries. No one asked how stray the animals were, one reason the remaining farming villages hid from us if they could.

There was a grand command tent, but it was being used to cover up Patriotic Endeavour and other valuable war machines. Arada was sleeping in an ordinary trooper's tent, sharing it only with his aide, and a map-table was set up under an unremarkable awning surrounded by strategically stacked supplies – mostly bags of flour for the legion's bakers.

"Sir." Tepet Itani, the aide in question, was a fresh-faced soldier who I thought might have featured in one of Icole's letters from the House of Bells as a fellow student. A little older, I thought as I walked under the awning, comparing the two, but there was some resemblance. "Talonlord Alina has arrived."

Arada glanced up from the map-table, the map on it heavily annotated with notes about the terrain, and marked by counters for forces friendly and hostile. "What news from ahead?"

"Could be better." I looked at the map and orientated myself. "The broad shallows here turn into deeper water as the river narrows and it knifes through some steep slopes in the valley here." I tapped the location. "It's good defensive ground, and at least part of the Bull's army has reached it."

Arada eyed the location. "Can we work around it?"

"The woods to the north are dense," I told him. "Heavy deciduous, a real tangle and there's no real road since the locals just used the river valley. And there are some Haltans up there – the only place I've seen them. I'm guessing, but I think they're worried about the war spreading north and insisted the Bull detach them to cover that flank. It'd explain why none of my scouts have seen them for a few days now."

"And south?"

"The terrain is better, but there's a skirmish screen." I moved my finger over to a road coming up into the valley from the south. "I think the forces ahead of us are just a stalling force. The Bull's sweeping up everything he had south of us into an army and rushing them up to catch us before we can break the river blockade at Dramasine."

"He's learning quickly." Arada eyed the map, picked up some markers and laid them out. "My other scouts report something similar. I think you're right. So, swinging south would have us pincered by his blocking force and his main army. Fallen Lapis again, but with us caught between a rock and a hard place. So, can we break the blocking force?"

"A day, day and a half to march. Probably a full battle and then the inevitable recovery…" I laid out the unforgiving numbers. "If he's more than two days away, he'd let us get past it and swing west to intercept us, using his blocking elements to close the narrows behind us. So, he's close enough that we might take the narrows but that we'd not be able to easily move out of it."

"He means to siege us there," Relasit grunted from where she stood at the other end of the table. "Likely some kind of trap buried under the hills."

"Or just pen us up and watch us starve." Arada observed. "Forage will be poor and our supply train only has so much. That wretched Nalla got close enough with his last raid to have a decent idea of how much we're carrying."

I nodded. "I ran onto him coming the other way. Nothing decisive unfortunately."

"Are you losing your touch?" the general asked, his tone softening the question to a jest.

"Dropped him in a river. Reporting was more important than chancing a fight."

"Aye, for the best." Arada looked around. "So, Kaneko has laid a trap for us. Much like the hunter that he is. How do we turn this to our advantage?"

I waited politely for anyone else to speak before putting forward any ideas. Then I realised that this wasn't fifteen years ago and I didn't have to restrain myself so I didn't squash out of the box ideas from subordinates – to the officers here I was the raw junior officer who might be worth listening to before they offered their own sage words. It was oddly liberating.

"We're not getting out of this without a battle so we need to stack the circumstances of that fight as much in our favour as possible, which means fighting the Bull sooner rather than later." I was stating the obvious but it needed to be said. "He's waiting for us to be weak enough that he can crush us with little loss… so let's give him the impression that his moment has come."

There was a rustle of interest. "How do you propose to do that?"

"The first step," I proposed, "is to fail to take the narrows."

Somewhat more than two thousand soldiers were sent to seize the narrows, chosen from the auxiliaries… and not from the better units. Tepet Lisara was given a special field promotion to command and since the auxiliary units had fewer Exalted among them then the regular infantry, twenty volunteers from the younger dynasts were allowed to stiffen her forces.

Meanwhile the rest of the legions marched after them. Our first night's camp was significantly less fortified than usual, the soldiers quiet and subdued. Rumours were allowed to spread that food was now being rationed and extra alcohol was issued instead.

The next day, we marched at a sedate pace, several units breaking ranks to forage. It was a costly decision – more than a hundred soldiers were killed by one of Nalla's raids. And as predicted, there wasn't all that much food to find. This far north, harvest wouldn't be until well into the summer.

The camp that night was a disgrace. All three columns were gathered north of the river, but I could see the dragonlords were visibly pained at the sorry state of the palisade. No one even tried to set up an embankment to use as a base for it. And the short food and extra alcohol left the troops moody and on edge.

Shortly before sunset, Tepet Lisara returned… the rest of her force following her simply because they were less swift to retreat. The rear-guard had bravely dragged the wounded back with them, including seven Dragon-Blooded who would have been dead if they were mortal.

I watched the tattered column, almost five hundred fewer than when it had set out, until they reached the gates and then wordlessly headed for the surgeons' tents to do what I could.

There was still enough alcohol to use it as a sedative. Triage was its usual bloody business but I was shocked to realise I recognised the second body dragged before me.

Hunt would probably never be as pretty again. I think she'd been hit in the face with something the size of a goremaul – one of the massive artifact warhammers that some Exalted favoured. I couldn't think of any sighted among the Bull's followers, but I suppose it could have been a siege weapon instead. Broken bones in all four limbs, but what was likely to kill her was inside her chest. She'd closed the external bleeding but that must have trapped something inside because she was choking up more blood slowly and painfully.

Despite pouring enough booze down her throat to lay an entire squad of marines on their backs, she was awake and screaming as I had to cut her open to fish out the four arrow heads that had embedded themselves into her organs.

And she was not the worst hurt of those I treated, that long dark night.

Come morning I stared east at the rising sun. It would be today; I could practically feel it. Yurgen Kaneko was a hunter at heart. He had wounded prey in front of him, a confused army that was half starving and on the edge of mutiny.

It was not a chance that he would pass up.

Udano caught my shoulder. "Breakfast is served."

I gave him a grim smile. "Aye. We should eat hearty."

Everyone else was, I found as the campfires lit up. Half the army was swarming around supply carts as quartermasters, not wearing their usual signs of rank, simply handed out as much food as anyone asked for. After the last two days, no soldier in their right mind would pass that up.

Someone had even set a cart on fire for no particular reason, although before too long a hastily erected spit was roasting a hog.

The only thing that was lacking was wine. The excess of the previous two days had drained reserves of that low and thus the good spirits were not fuelled by actual spirits.

Looked at from the outside, it would be all too easy to conclude that the legions' ranks had had enough and stormed the supply carts for food. As if they had been forced to the brink of mutiny. And that was not the only such sign.

Near the collapsed remains of Tepet Arada's command tent, a crucifix rose up, bearing the body of an officer in the legions. I stared up at it, my appetite fading.

Tepet Lisara had not been condemned for failing to take the heights. But for being among the first to flee… an example had had to be made. Arada had been merciful though – he'd strangled her first.

Udano patted my shoulder again. "It's not your cooking," he offered, gesturing towards the tents. "But it's warm."

"Good enough." I hoped I was right about that.

I don't know how long it took Nalla to report our state to his chieftain, but probably not as long as it took for the Bull to get his forces into action. A dawn attack from the east would have been ideal, but he didn't have the warning. But giving a day for Dragon-Blooded officers to restore order was equally unthinkable and thus the attack came in from predominantly the south, under the sun at its zenith – to the south but not low enough to blind us.

Banners, hundreds of them, waving under that sun. Formed companies of seasoned veterans of the Bull's campaigns. Mercenaries, fanatics and tribal warriors marched side by side. At their back, one of the greatest general of their age, before them the corrupt and crumbling remains of one of the mightiest armies of the regime that had oppressed the Threshold for centuries.

I like to imagine that his pre-battle speech said something about 'one good kick bringing down the whole rotten thing', but Yurgen wasn't young enough or brash enough to be that optimistic.

Flanking forces would be coming at us from the east and west. From the north if he could get the Haltans out of the thick forests that they clung to as if they were their parents.

But the main force of the Bull's army marched northwards, down the valley slope before us, towards the shallow and fordable river, perhaps knee deep and two hundred yards across.

Above the river, the hastily assembled pens for our herds – those horses we had, but mostly livestock. And then the tents of our camp, a bare echo of the usual rigid lines and well-fortified perimeter we were used to.

I was counting as the first ranks splashed into the river. Blocks were a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty? A talon-equivalent. We knew that the Bull used an older organisation, something perhaps recalled from his past life, closer to the organisation of Lookshy than our own. Where each of our Dragons had two Wings, and each of them two Talons, the Bull's legions integrated five Talons to a Wing. That made ten talons a Dragon, a thousand fighting men or more. And I could see ten sun-banners among those wading towards us, as many more behind them. Our own number, roughly. Coming at us over a more or less open field, marching on a front perhaps a little over half-a-mile wide.

It was no rush though. They marched in something of unison, bound together by common purpose and by a chain of command. Our own drums were silent, though soldiers ran and shouted, looking for comrades and donning armour hastily. But the horns of the Bull of the North sounded out, loud and proud, signalling the rising cause of the Sun Kings of old.

I tightened my bracers. Udano shrugged his shoulders, trying to settle his coat better. Around us, thousands of soldiers were doing much the same.

The Bull's first rank reached our shore and a new and brazen note came from the horns behind them.

At almost the same moment, a great war drum began to beat. Another joined it, then two more. And others besides, a great pounding salvo that caught at everyone who heard it. The heartbeat of the Realm's legions, some called that sound.

It caught us, I say. It caught the Bull's men off guard, unexpected by them given that they had expected us to be in disorder and barely aware of them. It caught we of the Tepet Legions though, and it bound us into one body.

A near mob of infantry settled suddenly into ordered lines. Medium infantry at the fore, but behind them wedges of the heavier infantry were ready to rotate forwards to meet breaches. Archers and slingers in loose formations, their first salvos already soaring upwards as more than a hundred ropes were yanked.

The palisades we'd built were not much more than a framework – but the timbers we'd used before still made for a solid barrier, we'd just laid it flat along the edge of the camp, hiding it as little more than a roadway. In three great sections it sprang up – the vast mass pulled upright in part by every warstrider we could still field, shielding the interior of the camp from enemy view as more engineers raced to lift the framework towers that had been hidden inside tents, and the war machines that were secured to the platforms that would top them.

It was the first day of Resplendent Earth. The river we fought over was known already as the Bloody River.

We made that a truth.

Yurgen must have grasped almost immediately that he had made a terrible mistake. He was not so foolish as to compound it though. His leading elements were already too close to turn away without exposing their backs and being slaughtered. And the rest of his army was too close behind for there to be room to retreat.

He needed time and space, and like any general, he bought them in blood.

The two armies met with a crunch, men and women whipped up into a near-frenzy by the Fear-Eater smashing into a line backed by seven centuries of tradition.

Sometimes the line broke, sometimes those trying to crack it did. Either way, screams filled the air.

Archers and slingers reaped a terrible harvest. Anyone who fell in to the water was as likely to be crushed under the feet of those behind him as they were to be helped upright, and those who could not rise would likely drown. The Realm's infantry was on solid ground, the northerners were not. And that told.

But there were breaches. I was watching from behind, pinned by my duties. The task of an Exalt with auxiliary forces was to protect them, and thus I stood by the archers and I watched the plan that I'd suggested - and that two dozen Tepet veterans with close to three thousand years of combined experience had polished - unfold, heavy infantry flowing forwards to contain and crush the break-throughs.

It was tempting to think that those men and women in their thick breastplates, thigh guards and helmets should have been on the frontline, but even the Realm could not arm even half the legions that well, and medium infantry was always the more numerous. Besides which, the task of grinding down each penetration would likely have been twice as bloody without them.

I watched the nearest breach crumble, the heavy foot linking up with and anchoring the flanks before too many of the less well-protected legionnaires could be surrounded. And then, like a threshing machine, the great halberds swung and thrust in near unison, butchering Rokan-Jin born men who screamed the Bull's title as they died.

It seemed to last for hours. And then the engineers finished their work. Great gouts of crimson water arose as essence cannon – including those we'd dragged out of Carnelian Peak all those weeks before – blasted into the mass of soldiers, elevated to shoot over our own. Coruscating beams of lightning raked across the river, frying men and women as they kept wading forwards.

Our one implosion bow hurled a spherical pulse of essence that smashed one of the sun-banners and its bearer into the water, along with everyone within yards of him. A moment later, an arrow as long as my leg came back across the river and smashed into the ancient war machine as a second shot was prepared – the blast tore the bow apart and hurled the crew from the firing platform that had been used to lift it up from behind cover.

It was hardly the only arrow we saw. Bows were a common weapon in the east, while slings and javelins are favoured in the north. Yurgen Kaneko was glad to use both and he had managed to bring them forwards now, halting the flow of pike and spear-men onto the river. Death sheeted down upon our lines, hammering shields, helmets and sometimes the flesh within.

"Talonlord!"

I turned and saw Itani, Arada's aide, jogging towards me. He was fairly evidently trying not to look nervous. "I see you, Itani."

He raised his hand in salute. "Talonlord, the Fear-Eater is bringing his force out of the heights to our west. The general would like you to take your force and convince him that this was an error."