Tolnían didn’t even flinch as he answered. “Vohin Rogdai, before this is over, we will be arming ten-year-olds.”

Rogdai laughed, because it was necessary, not because he was amused.

Tolnían’s hand-woven banner—a Sirin in flight, talons bared—caught even the sickly glare of the foggy sun, sowing light on the warriors. Rogdai felt a semblance of hope rising. He turned to look back at the palace. He imagined he could see Darina Sabíana even at this distance, raising her hand. Something gleamed in the highest turret of the palace, and the braying, glorious cacophony of trumpets exploded around them.

The doors groaned. Rogdai screamed white-steaming anger as his men rushed out into the high fields around the city. All of his brothers strained—he could sense it as his own strain—for that fearful first blow of steel against steel, that entry into the whorl of war. He sang, and his brothers took up his song, an old ballad of death and glory.

They were answered with silence. Out and out they poured through the open doors, but no enemy came to greet them.

Something hissed and crackled around Rogdai. A wall of malice rose up from the very earth, it seemed. The fog swirled, as if some huge, invisible finger was mixing a poison to choke all who approached. The hissing grew louder. Rogdai realized it came from above. Swarms of ravens plunged down in a blinding attack, a black wave of talon and beak. Just ahead of him, the fog suddenly resolved itself into thousands upon thousands of Gumiren. But then they all changed, as though their human forms were cloaks to be cast off before battle. He faced an army of monsters.

Most were chimaeras combining human and animal features in the most grotesque parody of creation—leonyns, wolf-men, bull-men. Huge snakes seethed everywhere. Some walked on short legs, and some were no more than worms with mouths that unfurled outward to reveal rows of dagger fangs. Everywhere, growls replaced the calls of men.

“What in the Heights is going on?” Only decades-long discipline stopped Rogdai from running away, screaming.

“It is the Raven, Vohin Rogdai,” said Tolnían next to him. All that was visible of his fear was a slight paleness in his cheeks. “The Darina was right. Only Adonais can help us now.”

“Well, I am not going back, crying for my nanny, boy,” said Rogdai, punching himself on the chest to knock his sense back into his body. “Vasylli! For our Darina! For the Black Sun!”

“The Black Sun!” The lines caught the chant like a wooden ball and passed it on, until the field rang with it.

There was no time to form ranks: the monsters were among them, biting and clawing. Before charging, Rogdai looked back to see how Tolnían fared, and laughed to see him mumbling some prayer under his breath.

“Careful, boy, it will take steel, not words, to survive today.”

“I am not interested in surviving. I am interested in the annihilation of this Darkness.” He smiled, but it was a warm smile, a smile of farewell.

Then, Rogdai was in the midst of it, and the war-wind took him. Even through the haze of red, Rogdai saw that the monsters were aiming for the banners, as though the embroidered High Beings were a source of power. The Vasylli would not long survive without the hope that the banners held out to them.

One by one, the ranks of spear-men protecting the banners were mowed down by the rising enemy. One by one, the banners near Rogdai tottered and fell, and with each one the growls of the creatures seemed to grow more vicious. As they fell, the light they scattered faded, and Rogdai felt the terror rising with each downed banner. Some of the boys fled in screaming fear. They were easy prey for the ravens, who wheeled above, ready to swarm on anyone who ran.

A ring of spearmen directly in front of Rogdai disappeared like smoke. Before he realized it, he engaged a reeking lion-thing over seven feet tall, with two or three more at its heels. They pushed Rogdai back into Tolnían, and his strength proved nothing against them. Cursing aloud, he tripped on a rock and felt the sinews of his ankle tear. What a pathetic way to die, he thought.

But the creatures reeled from a new, ferocious attack. Tolnían had thrust the point of the banner into the earth and attacked the enemy like a one-man avalanche. Every stroke was perfectly directed, striking some vital part of the monsters now cringing from him. He hacked and slashed and parried with incredible skill, not a hint of fear in the way he held himself. The creatures shrieked with mad terror at his calm and deadly assault. They ran, falling over friend and foe alike. All around them the Vasylli, embolden by Tolnían’s courage, shouted and charged.

The banner-bearers that remained alive—and they were few—labored to raise all the fallen banners by lodging them in earth as Tolnían did. Once again, the images of ancient Powers rose over the battle-scarred slope. Some boys even began to climb the trees to lift the banners higher, to try to catch the sparse rays of sunlight. Rogdai was amazed—the ravens did not touch them, as if their resurgent courage somehow gave them added protection.

The battle raged. More and more creatures rushed at them from the mists below, constantly replenishing their losses. Rogdai saw many men simply crumple to the ground in pain, though they faced no enemy. Snakes hidden by creeping mists were everywhere. Rogdai himself was surrounded by a mass of snake carcasses, since they were the only creatures he could still fight off, unable as he was to stand on his torn ankle.

Then he heard the great bell, and his heart sang. Its velvet peal poured fresh strength into the men around him, and they redoubled their fury, pushing the monsters back into the churning mists. Someone picked Rogdai up and supported his weight. It was Tolnían. Together they pursued the enemy to the churning fog on the edge of the killing field.

Something bright flashed deep within the fog, and the mists dissipated with a breath of wind. Not a single monster remained in sight. All the way down the slopes, beyond the plateau surrounding Vasyllia, boulders and earth and grass were covered in the bodies of fallen Vasylli—many too young to be called men. Their dead faces were bone-white in the sun, expressionless and calm. Rogdai wondered if their spirits had found better habitations in the Heights. As he stared at them, the momentary ardor of victory cooled.

“Where are they?”

Not a single mangled corpse—or any trace at all—remained of the monsters that had appeared from hell and apparently returned there. And there was no sign of any Gumiren anywhere. Rogdai wondered if this was victory, or a prelude to something far worse.

I have seen evil. I have felt it in my blood and in my bones. I have been it. And I survived. But after it all ended, after I paid the ultimate price, the question still remains. Did the Raven control my actions without my will? Or did I willingly let him into my body?

Unsigned note found among the personal effects of the Karila embassy

Chapter 31

The Last Battle

“You are mad!” Yadovír shrieked, sick with nervous excitement. His clerk had just burst in on him, announcing the victory of the Vasylli warriors over the enemy. Yadovír was so shocked, he even forgot to hold the lavender-scented kerchief to his nose, as he did ceaselessly now, only to have the stench of the Raven inundate him again. He raised his now-skeletal white hand back to his nose, and stamped his foot, whining.

“You lie, you gullible fool. How can that be? The day is not even far gone, and already we are victorious? Impossible. You lie! Get out. I do not want to see you anymore. Out!”

Yadovír was aware that to others he now cut a rather pathetic figure, always shuddering, muttering to himself, and holding his scented kerchief to his nose, but his mind was as keen as ever, and he took special pleasure in storing hatred for every slight—perceived or otherwise, it didn’t matter—for the right moment.

“Ha! It seems they have done it,” he said aloud after the clerk left him. “Now what will you do?”

The appearance of solitude belied the obvious presence—unseen, but sensed by creeping skin, foul stench, and slithering voice that was and was not in Yadovír’s head.

“It is unbecoming of such a noble heart to stoop to foolishness, my rat.”

The Raven’s tone oozed malice and calm. Yadovír’s momentary excitement shattered, and the voice laughed, almost in spite of itself.

“My very own fool,” he hissed. There was even a kind of unctuous tenderness in the voice. “Your people truly are fools if they think to have won any victory.”

“Fools that somehow managed to beat off your creatures.”

Yadovír felt a chill of displeasure from the presence.

“Yesss. There was perhaps a moment or two of unexpected bravery there. But no matter. It just makes your part in all this a bit more urgent, nothing more.”

“You have c-c-come to d-demand payment, h-have you?” Yadovír’s assumed bravado was completely betrayed by the unfamiliar stammer, which had begun to decorate his speech at the most inopportune moments.

“Y-y-yes, I h-h-have,” the voice mimicked with half-suppressed laughter.

“Will you leave me alone then, after I have done your dirty work?”

“What? No demands that I install you in a position of power over those you hate? No pathetic attempts to wrest terms from the jaws of the pitiless Raven?”

“I don’t n-n-need you for that,” Yadovír said.

“Oh, I see. You rely on my munificence to keep you alive as a boon for your treachery, and then you plan to take advantage of the ensuing commotion to murder your enemies in their beds, is that it?”

Yadovír stamped his foot again in frustration. The Raven laughed inside his head.

“Do not worry, you will get all you wish for in that quarter. But you can give up any puerile hope of my ever leaving you alone. You are my favorite plaything.”

Yadovír almost gagged at the feathery touch on his arm.

“What do you want of me?” Yadovír nearly screamed.

“What do I want? I want you to be happy. I want you to feel the pleasure of vengeance, my rat. Not to wait and wait and wait. When all this is done, you can punish Sabíana in whatever twisted way your strange mind desires. Now go. The Gumiren are waiting for you. They have already cleared the blocked passage. Open the hidden way into the city.”