“I told you no,” Brontus commanded, as a blast of thunder shattered the skies. “Perner, disarm him. Do it quickly.” He turned to lurch outside.

The man Perner pressed forward, but Lythian was quick as a cat. He slipped sideways and slashed out, cutting at the man’s neck with his dagger. Perner reared, blood spouting from his open throat, hand snapping down on his craw. Symon Steelheart whirled forward with the fourth man, a big bearded brute, and the two of them slashed out with their blades. Lythian staggered backward, rolling over his desk, then leapt up over it and slashed down. He caught Steelheart with a glancing blow that cut open his pretty cheek to the bone. The man bit back a roar, swinging in an upcut…but Lythian vaulted away behind the table and kicked it forward, sending it crashing into the two men.

By then Brontus was staggering away with the full weight of the Sword of Varinar on his shoulder, escaping through the flaps. Lythian went to chase, but Steelheart flew in front of him. Blood was pouring from his open cheek. “Just give it up, Lindar. That’s his blade. His. You’ve got nothing to do with this.”

The bearded man reached out and swiped the table aside. He stood to Lythian’s right, Steelheart to his left, the exit beyond. Lythian glared at them. “You’re deserters.” That was the only thing that made sense. Amron had sent them all to the Twinfort, and they’d left to steal the blade. “You’ve abandoned Lord Borrington’s command.”

“We don’t serve him. We serve Brontus.”

There was some noise outside. Voices and movement. Brontus had more men out there. Lythian went to roar for help, but his voice was weak, his head heavy, and a bellow of thunder interrupted him.

Steelheart laughed. “Guess Vandar’s deserted you,” he mocked. “He heard about what you did, Lindar. Down in the south. Maybe this is your punishment?”

Lythian lunged at him, clumsily, slashing with his dagger, but the big man came in from the side, swinging with a mailed fist. Lythian swerved away, but never saw the second blow coming. It swung up from below, crunched hard into his gut, punching all the air from his lungs. He doubled over, gasping, staggering away. He tried to call out, tried to breathe, but he couldn’t.

The big man followed after him, stamping through the tent. Lythian backtracked, felt canvas behind him, turned and slashed, cutting a strip in the wall. He stumbled out into the rain, desperately trying to call out. Distantly, he could hear the sound of fighting somewhere to the north of the city. The yard was deserted. He could not see the River Gate through the rain, nor the walls and the men atop them. He took a step, another, and finally drew breath. Ralf’s tent was near. And Lord Rodmond’s. He had to reach them…

He lurched out across the cobbles, but got only a few feet. A steel boot swung out and took away his legs and he went crashing down to the stone. His chin struck hard, head juddering. He felt a man coming up behind him, felt a boot pressing down on his back, hard and heavy, crunching his spine. Then Steelheart was on a knee, right there beside him. “You’ve had your day, Lindar. But it’s over. And you’re done.”

The Knight of the Vale had time enough to snatch a breath, but not time enough to shout. Something hard came down at the back of his head. And that was that.

Done.

55

Lillia, Amron Daecar thought, as he charged. For Lillia, and for Amara, and for Blackfrost and for Vandar.

He raised the Frostblade and gave out a shuddering roar. “Blackfrost!” he bellowed, as he saw the city under siege before him. “Blackfrost! Blackfrost! For Vandar!”

A thousand voices echoed him. Ten thousand. Twenty. Borringtons and Crawfields and Rothwells and Blunts, Gullys and Spencers, Sharps and Cargills and Graves led by the Ironfoot, Mantles and Flints under the banners of House Oloran. A middling host in size. A powerful one in strength. For Vandar! they roared. For Vandar! For Vandar!

The Hammerhorse was thundering at his side, matching Wolfsbane stride for stride. Lather foamed from the horses’ mouths, clods of dirty snow flying backward at their charge. Sir Taegon Cargill tore his godsteel warhammer from his back and lined up the nearest foe. Amron had his eyes trained on his own, just fifty lengths away. Ahead, the rearguard lines of the enemy army were bracing for impact, lowering their spears and pikes as they hastened into a tight formation. Thousands of them spread across the open field outside the city, all shouting out and crying commands as Amron led his host through the midmorning mists. Muddy puddles of melted snow glittered beneath the sun, and the earth was churned and scorched by the passing of the horde. For once it was not snowing. For once the skies were clear. Arcing east to west, the summer sun shone down from on high. Vandar’s Smile, Amron Daecar thought. He favours us this day.

“For Vandar!” the men were chanting. “For Vandar! For Vandar! For Vandar!”

The northern warhorns sang out everywhere, a great chorus to stir the soul, and ahead the Agarathi were responding with their shrieking battlecry. The thrill was thick in Amron Daecar’s veins. This was like a battle of old. A battle of the last war. Dragons in the skies and a great horde ahead. A thunderous charge of misting knights with thousands of northmen at their backs. A city under siege, a desperate defence, a heroic charge to break the lines. For a moment Amron forgot the Dread, forgot Eldur, forgot the snows in summer and the unending rains, forgot the fall of the Bane and the Point and Varinar and the ending of the world. Today it was just this city, this battle. It was Blackfrost, his home, and his family within it. Lillia, Amara, Artibus, Gereth, young Jovyn was in there too, Whitebeard had said. They were safe in the mines, but for how long? If the enemy broke through…how long?

The enemy spears glinted against the sun, their black tips winking, lowering to meet them. To left and right three hundred riders fanned out, three hundred knights and lords and men-at-arms all armoured and armed with cold bare steel. Behind followed another line, and another, a thousand heavy horse to shatter the siege, punching through the lines like a fist. Amron thrust the Frostblade aloft, and let it catch the glow of the sun. Light shone out, bright and brilliant, and colour spread like a sunburst upon the field. The enemy soldiers turned their heads from the sudden glare, shying away, and into them the cavalry stormed.

The crash and clangour of steel on steel rang out, the thunder of ten thousand hooves. Men were trampled and smashed aside. Riders swept blades left and right, hacking and hewing; others went flying from the saddle, caught by pike and spear and bolt. Behind them followed the rest of the riders, two thousand strong, and the men afoot, swordsmen and spearmen, axemen and shieldmen, men with pikes and men with maces, bowmen, archers, crossbowmen to the rear, flying their arrows and bolts.

The Agarathi spearmen were falling before them like winter wheat beneath the scythe, crushed by the fury of the charge. The lines were smashed and broken. Beyond, tens of thousands more swarmed the field, spread across an open tract that led to the city walls several hundred metres away, framed by the snow-coated downs.

The outer bulwark had been breached, Amron Daecar saw, the battlements blackened and burnt, men lying dead in their droves, ballistas broken, flaming, catapults smashed and shattered. The fighting was ferocious where the walls had come down, toppled by dragonfire, opening gaps into the city. The enemy horde crowded in their thousands, trying to fight their way in as the Strand host held them back. Dragons circled like vultures above, slithering through plumes of dense black smoke that belched up from the squat stone towers, plunging and diving, savaging men with fang and claw.

My city, Amon thought, racing harder, faster.

“Blackfrost!” he bellowed, “Blackfrost!” as he led the riders on, cutting into the meat of the enemy host, sweeping the Frostblade left and right. With one great swish he sent a thousand arrows of ice cutting into the foemen before him. With another a blanket of frost fell upon them, slowing them, freezing them, and his riders ran them down. Behind him his men cheered out his name. Ahead the enemy shrank back in fear. A great screech pierced the sunlit skies. “Dragons!” bellowed the Ironfoot. “Brace for dragons! Dragons!”

The warhorns blew their warning, three blunt blasts, short and low.

“Arrows!” called out Lord Mantle, leading the Oloran host. “Spears! Prime spears!”

Flights of reeds and quarrels stormed skyward from behind them. Spears shot upward into the cerulean blue, thrust by the arms of Bladeborn men given strength by their bond to the steel. The first dragon to near was a small one, fleet and thin. It twisted through the hail of arrows, spinning, diving, but a spear caught it in the wing. The webbing tore, fluttering, and the dragon screamed and fell. Two more spears plunged into it, at shoulder and neck as it came crashing down into the bulk of the army below who swarmed it like wolves on a kill.

A second dragon followed behind, bigger, a thick bulky brute. It snapped its jaws and tried to gush flame, but its furnace fires would not catch in the bitter cold. A roar of rage bellowed and down it came, sweeping through a clot of Rothwell men, talons grasping and tearing. More spawn of the fire god followed, divebombing like seabirds, one and then another and then another, ploughing through tracts of northmen in leather and steel. They plunged and rose, plunged and rose, pulling men to the sky to rain down upon the host in a deluge of blood and bodies.

By then it was chaos. The riders charged onward; the foot spread wide. The Agarathi horde screamed their warcry and pressed. Ten thousand puffs of breath filled the air, snorting from mouths and maws and nostrils, and steam rose from the tops of heads to mingle into a great cloud. Atop Wolfsbane, Amron rode forth into the jaws of the enemy strength, leading a charge of his bravest and best; Sir Taegon and Sir Torus and Rogen Whitebeard in his dark grey armour and black cloak, bitter Sir Bryce Coddington and biddable Sir Reginald Hightree, the Varin Knights Quinn Sharp and Marcus Flint in their rich blue Varin cloaks. The Ironfoot veered west with his Grave and Ironmoor men; Lord Mantle charged east with the Olorans, his bat-like cloak flapping in his wake. Sir Harold Conwyn and Sir Lambert Joyce were with the foot, leading the Green Harbour forces.

“For Vandar!” Amron bellowed. All around him, thousands of Agarathi swarmed. He cast the Frostblade to the air once more. Power thrummed through it, so fierce it seemed to tremble and vibrate in his grasp. The cold, the snow, the ice enlivened it. The air sparked and glittered in a hundred hues. A shroud of icy barbs and bolts gathered and coalesced, hardening, sharpening, and he swung down and forward in a mighty arc. A score of soldiers flew backward off their feet, peppered with spikes and daggers of ice. Again, Amron thought, as he swung. Again, again, again.

Men fell before him. His knights spread out. Some stayed ahorse, charging and swinging. Others leapt off the backs of their steeds to hack and cut the Agarathi down on foot. The Giant of Hammerhall bore warhammer and greatsword at once, rampaging through the host as the Hammerhorse stampeded at his side, monstrously heavy in his godsteel barding. Whitebeard too was on his feet, a whirling black menace with Sir Bryce at his side. Amron glimpsed young Tyrstan Spencer in his gilded armour, bright as a beacon, wheeling about on his horse. The boy had gotten himself separated from his men and the Agarathi were scrambling to pull him down, several dragonknights rushing toward him with their tall black spears primed to thrust and stab.

“Rogen!” Amron bellowed. “Help Sir Trystan.” He flung a hand.

The ranger dashed off, and Sir Bryce rushed to follow. There was a roar behind him and Amron jerked the reigns, tugging Wolfsbane around. A dragon filled his view, jaws agape as it plunged toward him. Amron swung the Frostblade upward at once, sending a spray of icy spears into the dragon’s jaws. The beast’s roar cut off abruptly as they pierced the soft meat and muscle inside his mouth, cutting deep. Another swing of his blade and a thicker, longer spear shot forth to plunge into the beast’s neck, sending it reeling down to crash into the battlefield, scattering men and mounts as it gouged a rut into the muddy wet earth.

Men roared out Amron’s name. The air filled with the strains of, “Daecar! Daecar!” More of the leathern beasts were coming, too many to count. Amron peered across the battlefield. The enemy were still thronging at the breaches across the walls. Some looked to be battling their way in. How bad had Styron’s host suffered? They were meant to come pouring from the gates when the enemy turned to meet Amron’s charge. They’re weakened, the king knew. It’s all they can do to hold the Agarathi at bay.

A sudden fear engulfed him. Lillia. If they break through…

“My lord!” shouted a voice. Sir Torus Stoutman came riding up to Amron’s side, knocking men out of the way on his small barded horse. The dwarfish knight was armoured head to heel in steel, his great thicket of a beard poking out from beneath his faceplate. He raised a finger and pointed. “That one’s for you, Amron.”

Amron looked over. A huge dragon was hurtling their way, much bigger than the one he’d just slain, the largest brute on the field. Forest green scale armour with horns in shades of red and vermilion. A barrel chest, strong wide wing arms, webbing rippling pink against the sun, veined in blackish blue. It had a classic look, a fearsome beast of strong proportion, near as large as Garlath and Malathar. Amron knew him as Angaralax, and his rider as Axallio Axar, the finest young dragonrider to appear since the end of the last war. He had been there, at the Battle of King’s Point, the day Drulgar and Eldur came. Second in command to Ulrik Marak, Amron knew. Now their leader. “AXALLIO AXAR!” he called.

Amron raised the Frostblade in challenge. Angaralax gave out a resounding roar in response. Axar ripped out his blade and lifted it against the blue skies, his green and red cape fluttering in the wind. Amron could not hear his voice from here, but those raised blades were a sign. He glanced at Sir Torus Stoutman. “Torus, fight your way to the city. Clear the breaches so Lord Styron can join us. Take Sharp and Flint and their men.”

“Aye, my lord.”

Stoutman rode off, hollering and calling for the two Varin Knights to go with him. At once a host of riders hundreds strong was mustering another charge, cutting their way toward the walls as hundreds more followed afoot.

Amron vaulted down from the saddle. “Do what you do best,” he said to Wolfsbane, smacking him on the armoured rump with a ringing clang of steel. The beast reared up and kicked out. His neigh was loud and long, Wolfsbane’s version of a roar, and off he charged, swinging his head side to side as he stampeded through the battlefield.

Amron turned. Men were starting to clear away as they saw Angaralax approach. That was like the last war too. Bladeborn and Fireborn meeting in honour-bound combat. There were too few proper Fireborn riders left for that, but Axallio Axar was one such man. Amron favoured him for that. He stepped forward, encrusting himself in a thicker layer of ice, shining like a sculpture, a glitter of iridescent dust sparkling about him. The Frosblade was thrumming in his grasp, exultant. It thirsted for dragon-death and was having its fill.

“Axar!” the king roared, raising the blade once more in salute.

Angaralax thumped down to land upon the earth before him. The world gave a shudder, puddle water rippling, a hot wind rising to stir the king’s cloak. A broad space was opening around them, men racing away to battle elsewhere. Amron had flashbacks of the Battle of Burning Rock. The same had happened that day, with Vallath and Dulian, though he’d only had eyes for his foe. He would give Angaralax and Axar the same respect.

“Amron Daecar,” the rider called. He was a burly man, strong like his steed, with a ledge of thick brow protruding over his eyes to leave his gaze in shadow. His dragonscale armour was a dark pine green, his hair short and beard shorter, both black as a raven’s wing. His voice was thick and blunt.“Marak was meant to kill you at King’s Point.”

“He tried.”

“Did he? I saw your duel from the air. There was more talking than fighting. You have become soft men.”

“And you are here to do what he could not?”