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Chapter 25

As the Sons of the Black Sword assembled above the shores of the Martaban, an earthquake shook the city. Men stumbled as it intensified. Bricks fell from nearby walls as mortar ground to dust. Before them was a casteless quarter, and it was fortunate that most of the residents had heeded the warnings to get away from the water, because the earthquake caused many of their feeble shacks to collapse. Anyone who remained inside was surely crushed beneath. The disturbance lasted but a few seconds yet was so intense that only Ashok and those who had touched the Heart were able to remain on their feet.

The tremor abruptly stopped.

There was a moment of strange quiet afterward, and then the city came alive with shouts and wails. Dogs barked, children cried. As his soldiers got back up, Ashok scowled at the distant river, because something wasn’t right. All the noises of human fear were slowly drowned out, gradually replaced by a sound that increasingly grew louder and louder, until it was like thunder.

Across the Martaban, thousands of torches and lanterns flickered as the armies of Great House Vadal and the Capitol manned their defensive positions. The river was a pitch-black divide between them. Jagdish had the workers create huge piles of wood all along the darkest patches of shore to be lit in case of emergency, and upon receiving Ashok’s warning, the local workers had ignited their bonfires in order to illuminate potential targets for their Fortress rods.

Those piles of wood and trash burned all along the shore bright enough that the Sons didn’t need Ashok’s magical eyes to see that the river was draining.

For hundreds of yards in either direction the water level was falling rapidly, as if a great fissure had been torn in the riverbed beneath. The thunderous sound they were hearing now was from the great and growing waterfalls that had formed on each end of the gap, as millions of gallons of water cascaded into the unseen caverns below.

Then the world vomited up a horde of demons.

They erupted from the water, glistening black, crooked limbs twitching as they scrambled their way up the muddy banks. The demons were in many different shapes and sizes, but each one was unmistakably deadly. There were the gigantic titans, spidery-thin beasts, and hulking destroyers, but then there were unfamiliar breeds that even Ashok had never seen before, smaller darting creatures the size of monkeys or dogs, and big ponderous things that resembled beasts of burden. They seemed not built for killing, but for labor. Had the demons even brought their worker caste?

This army of hell clambering out of the draining river already seemed greater in number than what he’d seen in the Capitol, and more were still coming. His prediction had been right. Every demon alive would be attending this battle. Their number uncountable. Their hunger insatiable.

Despite the horrors moving in the dim light below, the Sons didn’t quail. His officers shouted their commands. The paltans had already taken their positions along the high ground above the casteless quarter. The terrain enabled the gunners to remain up the slope where they could fire over the heads of the infantry.

Ashok glanced back the way they’d come from, toward where Thera was supposed to be observing the battle from the highest tower in the Lantern District. Even his keen eyes could not pick her out from here, but he knew she was there. He would not fail her.

The rift in the river was a few hundred yards away, but such a large target was well within the range of their rods. Ashok glanced back toward where Gupta waited on one flank, then Praseeda on the other. The workers, casteless, and foreign fanatics appeared ready. “Tell the gunners to begin.”

Orders were relayed. A moment later, the air filled with smoke and noise as Fortress rods discharged. More guns fired along the opposite bank. Then there was a terrible roar, loud as the falling river, as the first of Gutch’s great cannons ignited. It was followed immediately by another, and then there was a cacophony of ear-rending booms as months of worker-caste effort was unleashed. Thousands of men, working around the clock, with all the resources of the richest House, backed by the wealth of the Capitol, had managed to flood this city with hasty alchemy.

Projectiles hit blackened hide. Most of the lead flattened and bounced off, but the great metal balls fired from the cannons had so much power behind them that even if the demon’s skin was impenetrable, the creature it hit was still sent flying. There were so many demons packed into the riverbed that they couldn’t miss.

The well-practiced gunners of Fortress had fired a second time before the gunners of Lok had finished reloading from their first volley. The foreigners seemed a flawless instrument of efficient movements. They had been preparing for this moment since they had been assigned to the Weapons Guild as children and they were clearly determined to not let Ram Ashok down. They thought he was their ultimate hero reincarnated. The gunners would fight accordingly.

From this point on his gunners wouldn’t stop until they ran out of powder, lead, or life. The rapid industry of Vadal City had seen to it that every one of them was carrying pounds of lead and powder, but their lives would not be so easily replaced. When their weapons became dangerously hot, the plan was to drench the barrels in water, sizzle the dangerous heat into steam, then continue. The duty of the spearmen was to keep the demons back so the gunners could continue their deadly trade.

The Sons and many of the city’s Sepoys were armed with rods, which took very little training to become basically proficient with. Meanwhile, the warrior caste—given such ample time to prepare—had turned to the most destructive weapons of their tradition, such as ballista and trebuchets. The finest of those had been built by the engineers of Kharsawan who had come to Vadal hoping for appointment to the Order of Defenders. As soon as those implements of destruction were wheeled into place, giant rocks and bolts began to hurtle through the sky, plummeting down into the horde.

The Vadal had poured thousands of gallons of oil into wagons that could be set on fire and sent rolling downhill into their demonic foes, and in the distance Ashok saw one of those fire wagons explode into a massive conflagration. Black shapes moved like shadows through the flames. One of those shadows was promptly flattened by a falling boulder.

All along the falling river the demons were climbing up both sides, directly toward their hated foes. Their wicked claws had no difficulty finding purchase in the slick mud. Not knowing from which direction they would come, Jagdish had worried that one of the three armies would be forced to take the brunt of the attack, but it seemed there were so many demons that all of them would get buried equally. There were forces scattered everywhere around this vast city, but thankfully the few hours of warning Ashok had bought them had enabled most of the combatants to arrive in time.

But Ashok could no longer concern himself with the fate of the other armies, because the horde was rapidly closing on his.

“Warriors, prepare yourself!” Ashok bellowed so all could hear him over the gunfire. “Hold this line. Upon the signal, second rank up while the first reforms. Repeat until they’re dead!”

Ongud, Risalder of Cavalry, who would normally be atop a horse, bounced with nervous energy at Ashok’s right hand. “I don’t know how foot soldiers stand this.”

“I know you want to ride out there and hit them, but being infantry’s not so bad once you get used to it.” Risalder Eklavya was at Ashok’s left, heavy armor freshly painted in his native Kharsawani red, which he wore proudly since the Law had declared their kind were outcasts no more. “At least we’re on solid ground this time.”

“I yearn to be on the move, with the wind on my face. Not standing here waiting.”

“They’ll be here soon enough,” Ashok growled, though he too would have preferred to be atop Horse, even if for nothing else than the slightly better view of the battlefield that extra height would grant him. But alas, animals could not abide the presence of demons. Though Horse was so belligerent that he might very well have proved the exception to that rule, Ashok had decided not to risk it.

“I assume that signal to change ranks will be mine to give, General?” Eklavya asked.

“Yes. Odds are I’ll be too busy to notice.” Though he’d been given the ancient title of a supreme commander, Ashok and his sword were too valuable to waste merely watching. He would need to range about, fighting wherever he was most needed. Plus, Ashok lacked a clear understanding of what it meant to be a normal soldier, so was not a good judge of when the men had reached their limits. Eklavya had a keen mind, and a leader’s heart, with the instincts to someday maybe even equal the wisdom of Jagdish, should he live that long. “They are yours to command, Eklavya.”

“I’ll do right by you, Ashok. That I swear.” The demons were nearly in bow range, so Eklavya shouted, “Toramana, send it!”

It was rare for an arrow to pierce a demon, even using a hardened steel point designed to punch armor, but launch enough of them and a lucky few might make it through. The fletchers of Vadal had been kept very busy over the last few months to the point that the archers’ arms would probably give out long before they ran out of arrows. Each of his fearsome swamp men was carrying a bundle of the things.

Ashok didn’t need to give instructions to his wizards, as he had already conferred with Laxmi. The former slaves of the House of Assassins would do as they saw fit. As Ashok had no idea about how best to utilize magic on the battlefield, he had simply turned them loose to use whatever patterns they knew as the opportunities presented themselves. They had a supply of demon bone beyond what most wizards ever dreamed of, and no need to save any of it because it was doubtful any of them would live to see tomorrow.

Tendrils of fire rose into the air and then fell upon the demons. Magic ripped rocks from the ground and sent them tumbling between the demons’ feet. Transformed wizards in the shape of birds wheeled about over the river, dropping smoking Fortress bombs to explode among the demons, and then flying back to where Shekar’s skirmishers waited to supply them with more munitions.

The Sons’ ears were pounded as the gunners kept firing above them. The obscuring smoke temporarily hid the churning demons from view, which probably helped keep the less stalwart men from breaking ranks and running away. But when the smoke parted for a moment, Ashok saw that the blue waters of the Martaban had been almost entirely replaced with demonic black. Even pessimistic Ashok had never dreamed the army of hell would be so great.

On the opposite bank, cannon balls struck the ground and careened through the demons. Smaller creatures were swept off their feet. Limbs were torn off. Greater demons took the hits, stumbled, then continued stomping toward their prey. The ground was shaking again, not from the sharp cascading of tons of bedrock into the depths, but from the stampede of demons.

The smaller, faster creatures were nearly upon them. Behind them were a multitude more. The strange beings showed no emotion, no hesitation. Their relentless approach never slowed, even as they were struck with bullet, bolt, arrow, and magic. For each demon that fell, another immediately took its place.

Helms were closed. Grips were adjusted on weapons.

Ashok drew Angruvadal. The shard in his chest burned hot as coals yet did not sear his flesh. It was for this moment he had been kept alive. It was for this moment he had been chosen. In this moment he would fight like no man had ever fought before.

As the sun began to rise over the horizon, the battle was joined.

Two thousand spears collided with the first fifty demons. Dozens of men died immediately as the monsters hurled themselves over the shafts, ripping and tearing on the other side. Behind the spears were men with swords, axes, and maces, and they immediately rushed to plug the gaps.

A smaller demon bounded back and forth before Ashok, weaving between the spear thrusts. It jumped, but Ashok had already surged forward to slash the beast from the air. Hide split effortlessly and white blood sprayed. It rolled down the hill, limbs flopping.

The nearest demons seemed to take note of that effortless killing. They must have recognized what Angruvadal was and then focused their attention on Ashok.

Good. Better for him to draw their wrath than a less capable warrior.

“I warned you demons the cost of trespass. Come and meet your fate!”

They did.

Ashok rushed ahead of the spears. A dog demon leapt at him, jaws opening, but Ashok darted past, opening its belly as he went. The worker-caste demons didn’t seem to have nearly as thick a hide. Right behind it, though, was one of the fearsome spiders, suspended on four spindly limbs. It lifted itself upright at the last moment to swing at Ashok with one of its long multi-jointed arms. Angruvadal caught its wrist and sent that hand spinning away, then turned and inflicted a brutal draw cut across the monster’s chest, splitting ribs and spewing white organs. Even the tougher-skinned beasts were nothing compared to Ashok’s righteous anger and Angruvadal’s hungry edge.

Sword swinging, Ashok pushed farther into the horde until he was surrounded. That simply gave him more targets.

A hulking brute clawed for his helm. Ashok lopped off its fingers, swept under that arm, and sliced it from hip to knee. He caught the demon behind it through the chest with a thrust, twisted Angruvadal, and then ripped the blade out its side. White blood sprayed hot.

Angruvadal warned him of a multitude of incoming dangers, and he reacted to each in turn. He parried claws. He dodged fists and bites. Demon after demon was cleaved by black steel.

The sun climbed higher.

Upon that blood-drenched hill Ashok reached a state of being which even he, the greatest swordsman in the world, had never experienced before. His anger remained, but it did not drive him. Both anger and the river were a distant roar. He fought with a calm beyond meditation, in a state of complete awareness, outside the flow of time. His actions were not cruel, they were punitive. Since the shard had done its work in the starving pit of Xhonura, the most skilled warriors had seemed slow to Ashok. Now, in this great and terrible instant, even fearsome demons seemed inferior to him. Though still incredibly deadly, they were simply malignant things to be dispatched as efficiently as possible.

Behind him, a demon, nearly nine feet tall, was pushing its way through the teeming masses toward the Sons. Their spears glanced harmlessly off its incredibly resilient hide. Dozens of arrows and bullets had done nothing to it. Ashok flung himself after the beast, rolled beneath another monster’s attack, and sliced the legs out from under the big one. It toppled through the forest of spear shafts, landing before Ongud, who laid into its head with a polearm and Defender might. Ashok left him to it and kept going.

It appeared the rest of the Sons’ line was wavering. They didn’t have his magical gifts. Mortal men, no matter how brave they were, couldn’t withstand such an onslaught. Many Sons were dying, but they did not break. They did not flee. Every last one would die rather than yield. Their courage inspired the man bereft of fear to somehow fight even harder.

Ashok rushed down the line, darting effortlessly between his own men’s spears, hacking demons along the way. The shard whispered secret knowledge to him—as it had when he fought the Dvarapala—and his eyes no longer saw demons as living beings, but as anatomical structures, with vulnerable points for him to exploit.

One of the barrel-chested beasts was about to ram its way through the Sons’ right flank, but Ashok lowered his shoulder and collided with it. The demon outweighed Ashok by a quarter of a ton, but he was moving so fast he still knocked it aside, sending it crashing through the ranks of smaller demons. He followed through the chaos, launching two or three lethal strikes for every measured heartbeat, until he was standing over the fallen monster. It desperately lifted one hand, almost as if pleading for mercy, but Ashok had none. He stabbed Angruvadal down through its palm, straight through its eyeless skull, and then twisted brutally, the crunch of bone so loud it was audible even over waterfall and gunfire.

Despite being overwhelmed by the armies of hell, the Sons of the Black Sword who saw that feat roared. Even those who weren’t true fanatics had to believe that the Forgotten had sent Ashok, because he fought with a merciless skill so far beyond theirs that it could only be a gift from the gods.

Demon after demon fell, but men died by the hundreds. Bullets and arrows continually rained into the horde. Clay pots full of Fortress powder were set ablaze and hurled out between the demons to explode as their wizards whipped flame and stone through the demonic ranks. The Sons kept fighting as Eklavya bellowed commands with a voice strengthened by the Heart. And through all that, Ashok tirelessly ranged back and forth to wherever instinct told him the men were about to give, to slaughter the demons there. He bought them a respite to trade in fresh arms, and by the time he returned the first men had caught their breath and the process could repeat.

No warriors had ever fought harder than the Sons of the Black Sword did on this bloody morning.

The plan had been to fall back into the city and regroup as necessary.

The Sons didn’t give an inch.

He didn’t know how much time had passed since the battle had joined. Perhaps an hour. Perhaps a million years. The pale disk of the sun had just risen over the tall buildings to the east, so closer to the former, but his arms ached like the latter.

Black-steel ghosts whispered that he had to stand and fight like never before. The fate of man was balanced on the edge of his sword. Instinct warned him that he had to hold until every last demon had been drawn into the light of the sun, and only then would the gods’ terrible wrath be unleashed. Ashok didn’t understand those strange whispers, but he continued anyway. Even with the Heart of the Mountain lending him superhuman might, Ashok’s breath was ragged. Beneath his lamellar plate, his body was drenched in sweat. He reached levels of exhaustion that would have killed a normal man, and then crossed thresholds that would have felled even ancient Ramrowan himself.

On that day, Ashok Vadal became the greatest killer the world had ever known, the living weapon of the Forgotten.

All his efforts were not in vain, because it slowly dawned upon him that the entire slope of this district, from the Sons’ line to the shattered casteless quarter below, had been soaked in milk-white blood, and scattered across it were the blackened lumps of dead and dying demons. He couldn’t even remember wounding so many. He had trained himself to recall every man he had ever killed in battle, but demons were unworthy of such a courtesy.

“If man prevails, what we have accomplished here will become legend,” Ashok told the demons. One tilted its lump of a head and hissed back, because they did not understand human words. Only then did Ashok note that through the sea of white ran veritable rivers of red blood, as thousands of his men bled out on the slopes above.

The Sons of the Black Sword were good men, noble and brave. Many of them had wives and children, and no legend, no glory or honor, would ever be enough to fill the void left by that father’s or husband’s passing. Ashok’s pride for his warriors’ lives was replaced with a cold and vengeful fury for their deaths. The eerie calm he had experienced before was pushed aside by something far more terrifying.

“Now I will show your kind what it means to truly hate.”

Ashok cleaved that demon in half.

All the demons concentrated on Ashok now. Before they had been uncoordinated, and he had been able to move through their unruly pack, picking them off one at a time. Now they grasped that he was the keystone, without which this seemingly impenetrable fortress of flesh and bone would fall. While the weaker masses continued to harry the Sons, the fiercest warriors of hell assembled to challenge the Black Heart.

Ashok found himself surrounded by silent seething evil again, only this time that positioning wasn’t his doing. These particular demons were organized, as if they had suddenly fallen under the command of some wiser power. Instinct told him they would fight as a unit. There were half a dozen of these greater beasts, each champions of their kind, all far bigger and stronger than Ashok was, and their obvious purpose was to put an end to Angruvadal’s threshing of their kind like wheat.

While the Sons continued to battle the rest of the horde that had attacked this bank, Ashok and hell’s elite paused before their duel. It was a mystery why these greater demons hesitated, but he was glad to use that time to let the Heart repair his torn and strained muscles. Ashok slowly turned in a circle, carefully studying his foes as the shard placed images into his mind of where best to target each type for maximum lethality.

“What are you waiting for, demons?”

The demons said nothing, but Angruvadal revealed the answer.

They await the orders of their king.

“Then I’d best kill you all before he arrives.”

He struck. The first demon caught Angruvadal with its forearm. Green sparks flew, but there was no white blood cut. The shard had not encountered such a thing before, but it appeared with this peculiar warrior breed the hide of their arms had been thickened and calloused by thousands of repetitive scarring cuts, making their limbs harder than any shield.

Ashok attacked ten more times, faster than the wind, but the elite demon parried each. Never before had a demon shown him such actual skill. Their danger came from their incredible strength, durability, and sheer unrelenting viciousness. This one fought like a swordsman rather than a ravening beast.

Then the six attacked as one and it took everything Ashok had not to die. Claws ripped across his armor. A mighty fist dented his helmet, and he was thrown, not from the circle, but into another demon’s embrace. It immediately hoisted him from the ground and tried to squeeze the life from him. Steel groaned and bent. Ashok’s ribs popped. He reversed Angruvadal and stabbed at a demon behind him. Black steel sliced across its knuckles and averted the blow meant to break his spine. He slammed his helmet down into the blank face of the beast that was restraining him. It reflexively bit back, and black fangs ripped through mail and sliced into his cheek. Unable to get an angle to strike the beast, Ashok followed the instinctual instructions of his sword and dropped Angruvadal.

The tip of the sword fell straight through the demon’s foot. It was enough distraction that with a mighty draw from the Heart, Ashok was able to break free of its grasp. With magically fueled intensity, he kicked that demon in the chest so hard that it fell away and ripped stuck Angruvadal right through its foot.

Ashok snatched up his sword and dove out of the way, inches below a wild swipe from another demon that would’ve broken half the bones in his body. He rolled and slid down the wet hill, then immediately got back up as the six warrior demons pursued. Parrying an incoming arm, Ashok managed to cut that demon across the side, but it was too shallow to drop it. Then the attacks were coming so fast and from so many different directions that even Ashok couldn’t keep up.

He was struck in the arm, in the leg, across the hip. Bones splintered. Then he was kicked brutally hard and stumbled to the side. He sliced a chunk from that demon’s leg and then stabbed the next through the guts. That one hit him in the helmet with a thickly calloused elbow hard enough that the steel of his helm deformed, leaving him blind.

Even without eyes to see, the ghosts of black steel saved him. He parried two more strikes and then leapt over a kick he knew was coming only by the sound of it moving through the air so fast.

Instinct screamed to make distance or die, so Ashok dove farther down the hill. He hit the ground and slid even closer to the draining river. Knowing the six were following, quick as he could he rolled onto his back, leaving Angruvadal to rest across his breastplate, tore off his damaged helmet, and tossed it away. By the time he got up, the demons were nearly upon him. One of them even swatted aside a lesser demon that was getting in its way, nearly breaking the smaller thing in two.

Ashok met them with flashing black steel. The demon lifted one heavy arm to block his downward strike, but he only gave that a glancing blow, as he drew Angruvadal swiftly downward to thrust it directly into the demon’s heart. He ripped his sword free as momentum kept the monster running downhill, dead before it even knew it.

Now there were five. He watched them as they watched their mortally wounded compatriot flop onto its nonexistent face.

With cracked bones, torn muscles, and some internal bleeding, Ashok had no choice but to turn the Heart from giving him strength toward tending his wounds. Suddenly he felt all the weight of his armor. Blood stung his eyes, dripping from a cut he didn’t even know he’d received. Of the remaining warrior demons, one had a wounded foot, the other had white guts bulging through a gaping hole in its belly, but demons did not show pain. The remaining three were circling around behind him. They did not intend to let him escape their clutches again.

The demons closed. Ashok fought. Bounding back and forth between them, each time a demon drew near, Angruvadal raised sparks from their hide or wrung blood from their flesh. Except these were the fastest creatures Ashok had ever seen, each of them nearly his equal, and though Ashok had generations of ghosts to lend him aid, it seemed demons never forgot either, and each one of these had killed many men. It was a mystery how long demons lived, but from the scars, these had faced black steel before, perhaps even from a sword wielded by Ramrowan himself.

Ashok was struck from behind, and his shoulder blade cracked. A claw pierced the armor on his left side. That puncture went deep. He promptly slashed that demon’s wrist open, but the damage was already done. The Heart compensated for the wound and slowed the flow of blood out the hole. A demon charged him and Ashok was unable to get out of the way. As he was knocked down and trampled, another of his ribs broke.

As that demon went past, he swung from the ground and Angruvadal opened the back of its leg, cutting to the bone. He didn’t have time to watch that demon fall because the others were already upon him. Blade flashing, Ashok kept them at bay until he rose. One grasping demon left a few fingers behind.

They were near the outskirts of the casteless quarter, at the sandy border between untouchable squalor and worker prosperity. A cooling mist from the new waterfalls fell upon them here. Ashok stood at the ready, shaking, muscles quivering, blood running down his armor, as the demons advanced once more. The Heart seemed more efficient for him now, or perhaps it was from the magic of the shard, but whatever the cause his wounds were healing fast.

Just not fast enough.

The warrior demons swarmed. Ashok intercepted one and inflicted a deep laceration across its chest. A claw ripped through his bracer and left a long bloody track down his wrist. Instinct saved him from having his head swatted off by a giant fist. He ducked beneath the blow and sliced that demon through the ribs. Its heart burst open, but another kicked him, which sent him lurching back with a gigantic muddy footprint on his chest.

Four remained. He only saw three.

It was the demon with the crippled leg that he didn’t see coming, for it had slithered in low to the ground behind him. Instinct came too late, as his legs were struck out from under him. Steel sabatons saved his flesh from the rending claws, but he was still sent flipping through the air, to land hard on his side.

He’d barely gotten to his knees when a demon barreled directly into him. Angruvdal pierced its guts, and Ashok lifted with all his might as he rose upright, splitting the demon’s torso wide open.

But this demon had been on a suicide mission, and with Angruvadal still burning its way through demonic vitals, it wrapped its gigantic hands around Ashok’s gauntlets and locked them around Anguvadal’s grip, trapping him there. Ashok roared and pulled, but the dying beast wouldn’t let go. Its jaws snapped for his face, and he had to lean back, narrowly avoiding death, and still left some of the skin of his neck upon its razor teeth.

With Angruvadal trapped, the remaining demons attacked. Blows rained down. His skull cracked. Blood flooded one of his eye sockets. All he could hear was the pounding of his pulse in his ears, far too fast. His flesh was torn open by obsidian claws. If he abandoned his sword he would die. If he did not abandon his sword he would die.

Ashok drove his body forward, calling on the Heart like never before, and he shoved the mighty demon back across the sand, then hoisted that vast weight into the air. Angruvadal and gravity cut the monster nearly in half, and by the time the black steel erupted from its shoulder, the claws fell lifeless from his gauntlets.

A claw slashed his throat.

He cleaved that beast across the skull hard enough to send chunks flying, but then was forced to stumble away as far too much blood suddenly flowed from his neck. Ashok pressed his hand against the gash as the severed artery sprayed. The leather glove within his steel fist was quickly soaked, and it was far too clumsy to find the artery to pinch it off. Forced to turn the Heart toward controlling that one mortal wound, the rest of his unnatural strength fled, and he immediately went to his knees. Dizzy and desperate, he threw off one gauntlet, and with fingers slick with blood he probed the hole in his neck until he found the severed tube, squeezed it shut, and dragged it back into what he thought was the approximate place it should go.

A demon put one massive foot on his shoulder pauldron and shoved him over. When Ashok’s responding swing was easily avoided, the remaining demons knew they had him. Upon his next clumsy thrust, Angruvadal was knocked aside with an armored forearm. For one of the only times in his life, Ashok lost hold of his sword, and Angruvadal went skidding across the sand.

The last two converged for the kill.

Kule had stolen his fear, but not his regret. As his vision darkened, in the distance he could see the opposite bank and upon it the army of hell was ripping the warriors of Vadal apart. Demons were swarming across the Martaban bridges. Though the Sons had held their bank, the others had fallen, and soon the Great City of Man would fall with it. He had failed those who had trusted him, and most of all he had failed Thera.

The demon with the hole in its guts loomed over him. It raised one giant foot to stomp his brains out.

“For the Forgotten!”

The demon looked up just in time to get shot in the head. The bullet careened off, leaving a gray lead smear, but the distraction gave Ashok enough time to roll out of the way before the foot came crashing down where his skull had been.

All the Sons of the Black Sword came charging down the hill. The remaining horde were retreating before them! His officers who’d touched the second Heart were in the lead, heading straight for where Ashok was encircled by the last of the demonic champions.

He had fought to save them. Now they would fight to save him.

Eklavya drove his spear into an elite demon’s chest. The shaft flexed as he pushed the beast away from Ashok with superhuman might. When the spear snapped, he drew his sword and kept swinging. Ongud rushed past his comrade and struck the demon’s armored forearm with his polearm. Green sparks flew from the chipped hide.

Toramana was behind them, wielding a mighty bow so powerful that a normal warrior wouldn’t even be able to draw it all the way back. The arrow struck the demon nearest Ashok in the head so hard that though the steel point didn’t penetrate, the shaft shattered from the energy. It jerked away, giving Ashok the chance to scramble after his sword.

Shekar ran by, screaming the battle cry of his raider house. He rolled beneath the eviscerated demon’s clutching hands and came up on the other side to stab it in the back. With Defender might, the demon had no choice but pay attention to this lesser foe.

With one hand falling upon Angruvadal’s hilt and the other pressed against his weeping neck, Ashok struggled back to his feet and returned to the fight.

The spilled-gut demon struck Shekar hard enough to fling him back against a casteless shack several yards away. Such a blow would surely cripple him, but hopefully the Somsak madman had paid attention to what Karno and Ashok had taught him about the workings of the Heart. As soon as the demon turned back, Ashok was ready. Angruvadal bounced off the hardened raised arm, again and again as it desperately tried to block the black-steel edge. Mercilessly hounding the creature, he drove it back. The instant it stumbled over a discarded casteless net, Ashok kicked it in the wounded belly, splitting it even further open.

Eklavya rushed past him and buried his pole arm in the wound, driving it so deep that the skin of the demon’s back bulged outward. Even as it repeatedly clawed and slashed him, the young officer kept shoving the beast across the sand. The demon struck Eklavya’s helm with a mighty overhand blow, knocking him flat, but Ashok swept in and promptly buried Angruvadal in its head, sending bits of brain flying like wood chips when a worker hit a log with an axe.

Only one of the elite remained. Ashok turned back to see that with his polearm broken, Ongud had thrown himself onto the back of the demon with the crippled leg as it crawled. The demon managed to lurch upright, trying to throw the warrior off, but in an incredible display of courage Ongud wrapped his arms around the monster’s head and wrenched its jaws open wide. Toramana promptly launched an arrow straight through the roof of the demon’s mouth and into its brain. The monster fell over backward on top of Ongud, crushing him beneath.

The lesser demons were rushing through the casteless quarter and down the now empty shores to leap back into the fissure where the Martaban had been. The Sons chased them all the way to the usual edge, but then stopped there, for following them down the slick mud- and slime-coated stones would be madness. Only a suicidal fool would risk sliding into that hole.

When the Sons saw that all the demons who’d invaded the district they’d been assigned to protect were either dead or running, they let up a cheer. Still holding his lacerated neck together with one hand, Ashok was so delirious from the loss of blood that it took him a moment to realize his entire army were all chanting his name.

“Ashok. Ashok. Ashok.”

Leaving the Heart to do its healing work, Ashok could do nothing else but stand there, pulse pounding, damaged lungs struggling for air, trying to understand how so many of them had survived. The expected trade was the lives of fifty warriors for a single demon’s, but from the look of things it cost a whole demon to kill but a few Sons of the Black Sword. The men must have believed that it was because their gods were watching over them, but when he looked toward the eastern bank Ashok knew why the enemy had retreated. The demons weren’t afraid. They’d broken through somewhere else. Why fight the indomitable Sons when there was easier prey elsewhere?

The battle for the city of man had just begun.

The Sons were lifting their weapons skyward in time with his name, but his throat was still too damaged to address them. Toramana pulled on the dead demon’s arm so that Ongud could free himself from the weight of the corpse. Gradually his officers assembled around him, each of them seeming astounded to still be alive.

Except, Ashok realized that the man who had led the charge that had saved his life wasn’t by his side. Eklavya lay there in his red armor, unmoving.

“No time for napping, Ek. There’s still glory for us to claim.” Shekar limped over, knelt, and pulled off Eklavya’s helm. “Oceans!” Shekar exclaimed as Eklavya coughed up a huge gout of blood.

There was a wide gash through the side of his breastplate, with the wound slicing through liver and lung. Blood poured out. It would’ve instantly killed a normal warrior, and perhaps still might kill even a mighty Defender, but rather than stop and give the Heart a chance to heal him, and let the men see him falter and perhaps lose hope, Eklavya had led them all the way down the bloody shore to victory first.

Shekar grabbed Eklavya by the armor and shook him. “Come on, lad. Hang on.”

Ashok knelt next to his risalder, whose eyes were wide with fear, surely gazing into the great nothing that waited to consume him.

No, Ashok told himself. There was no such thing as nothing. Keta had told him there was something more as he had bled to death in Ashok’s arms. The Law said there was no life after death, but to the ocean with the Law. In honor of their courage, Ashok would no longer believe that particular decree ever again. If Eklavya were to perish here, he was going wherever the gods sent the bravest heroes when they died, but in the meantime Ashok would do his best to prevent that.

“Listen to me, Eklavya. You must let the Heart do its work. Calm yourself and focus upon the injury. Do not give into the pain. Your will to live must pull stronger than death itself. To do so you must forsake your fear.”

Eklavya looked to Ashok, blinking rapidly. It was easy for a man without fear to tell a warrior to mock death, but such defiance was necessary, for Ashok had seen even experienced Senior Protectors succumb to wounds less than this. Even the potent Heart of the Mountain could only do so much. But then Eklavya looked past Ashok, seeing something over his shoulder, and his expression seemed to change, from one of terror to a look of pure determination.

Ashok glanced back to see the wizard girl Laxmi running toward them. It appeared Eklavya had found his motivator after all.

“That’s right, Risalder. You’ve done your part in this fight, but you must live so you can live for others. Do not disappoint her.” Then he shouted at some of Eklavya’s infantry. “Keep him still until he is coherent, then carry him to the nearest fort.”

The Sons continued their cheering and shouting. He would let them have this moment of triumph. Soon the overwhelming number of casualties they’d taken would sink in, and the nature of the insurmountable task that still lay before them might cause even the most devout among them to fall into despair, but for now, on this beach at least, they were victorious.

There was a dark flash above as a great bird circled. The eye-searing dark light faded as it swooped toward the ground, and then vanished entirely as a Vadal wizard appeared running across the sand.

“Ashok Vadal, Phontho Jagdish needs your help!”

Before the wizard could even deliver his message, Ashok received another warning from his sword. Man’s stubborn resistance here had finally forced the greatest danger of all to reveal itself. Having not set foot on dry ground since the Age of Kings, this trespasser was ruler, controller, and both god and king to all the armies of hell.

It is here.


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