Each step was a fresh agony, but Bastet welcomed it. It was a different kind of pain than the one he'd known on the board. This was the clean pain of exhaustion, a pain that meant he was moving forward, not just enduring. He kept his eyes fixed on the gambeson-padded back of the guard leading him, forcing his trembling legs to match the relentless pace. Finally, after a walk that stretched his endurance to its breaking point, the guard grunted and stopped. "We're here."
Before them was a house spacious enough to shelter a small family. But nobody had patched the thatched roof, so it was barely hanging onto the rafters. The oiled cloth stretching across it was torn, so the window was nothing but a hole in the wall that autumn air whistled through, and the interior of the house was peeking at them through the slouched front door, which could not be fully closed. This scene was not an exception; the whole town gave Bastet the impression that it was abandoned a long time ago. The wide streets were empty, and no people, let alone carriages, were passing through.
Reaching under his armor, the bulky man took out a small piece of parchment. Bastet was literate, but his eyes were drawn not to the script, but to the large, blood-red wax seal stamped at the bottom. At its center was a heavy, unadorned broadsword, its point aimed downwards like a final judgment. There was no artistry to it; it was a thick, brutal slab of steel made for cleaving, not for dueling. Wrapped around the blade, coiling like a serpent, was a single, thick-linked iron chain. It looped twice around the steel before snaking behind the crossguard.
Bastet froze, his breath catching in his throat. He knew that seal. He had seen it his whole life, pressed into the clay tokens the tax collectors carried, hanging on a bronze plaque above the door to the Briskwood Magistrate. It was the symbol of order, of the distant lords who kept the roads safe and the chaos beasts at bay. But for two months in the dark of his cell, a part of him believed that his captors must have been cultists hiding behind stolen armor. It was the only story that made sense, the only way to reconcile the symbol of protection with the merciless slaughter of his village. He lifted his gaze from the seal to the man who held it, searching for the monster beneath the armor. But there was no mad gleam of a cultist in the man's eyes, only the weary indifference of a soldier at the end of a long day. And in that simple, damning fact, the lie Bastet had told himself dissolved. The men who had purged his village served Wesia just as he did.
"This is an order from the Warden of Stormbridge, Lord Nillen," he began reading in a stern voice. "At dawn, gather before the eastern gate. Rest well."After tucking the parchment back under his clothes, the man handed Bastet one more leather flask of that healing liquid and instructed him to drink all of it before tomorrow, and dismissed him.
Bastet stood in the musty silence, the door creaking in front of him. He was alone. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his hands. The raw, circlet-shaped wounds on his wrists had been sealed by the acrid liquid, but the memory of the chains remained. He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons shift under the scarred skin. The voluntary motion felt alien, a forgotten language of the body. A wooden pail of rainwater sat in a corner by the window. He shuffled to it, his legs still unsure. The water's surface, rippled by the draft, showed a fragmented image: a gaunt, hollow-cheeked stranger with a wild, matted beard and eyes that held no light he recognized. Turning away from the man in the pail, he pushed through the slouched door, seeking refuge from his own reflection.
Inside, the elements had not been gentle on the interior of the house either. The rain had swelled the wooden flooring and distorted it, causing many bumps and cracks. His eyes immediately met with those of a man who was lying on one of the two beds in the room. Forcing a smile, Bastet exchanged greetings and introduced himself. The name of the skinny blue-eyed man was Kreil. Kreil seemed to be a bit younger than Bastet's father had been, but his deeply sunken cheeks probably added a few years to that evaluation. His disheveled beard and chestnut hair were in dire need of trimming.
"I'm guessing everybody got the same treatment?" Bastet asked, his voice flat. He stretched on his bed. It might have been just hay on top of a wooden frame, but after the board, it felt like a feather mattress.
"Some of us get it worse than others, friend. The things they did to me are unspeakable." Kreil crossed his arms. "And it seems that they're only letting the dogs out of the kennel because the wolves are at the door. They're rallying as many men as they can."
"Will they… lock us up again once the battle is over?"
"Who knows?" Kreil shrugged. "Better focus on living long enough to find out."
"That won't be easy. They only gave us the night to recover, so I'm guessing the attack was unexpected," Bastet lamented. "And we're barely on our feet, yet they still drafted us. They must need all the help they can get. I don't know about you, but I'm a farmer. What good am I against whatever is out there?"
"I can pull my weight. But first, do us both a favor and pick your words more carefully, will you?" Kreil frowned. "Don't you remember your oath? The very first orders your recruiter gave you?"
Bastet gave a slow, grim nod. The terms of the blood oath were seared into his memory, a brand on his soul laid down by the Inquisitor before the healing liquid had even touched his lips. First, always act in the best interest of Wesia. Second, obey any order from a superior, unless countermanded by a higher rank. And finally, never lie to a superior, or even attempt deception. The three chains of Ariadne.
"Sure, you must always act in the best interest of Wesia, but you never truly know what that is, do you? You can only know it through your own assessment, and that is something your own beliefs will play a part in." Kreil shook his head. "So don't say that you're weak, or that Wesia must be desperate since they brought even you to help. You're just setting yourself up to believe that it's better for them if you were sacrificed, and that the times are dire enough to warrant sacrifices."
Bastet broke into quiet laughter. The sound was hollow in the small room. If even his thoughts were against him, was there anything that remained that he could really call his own?
"So you guard your thoughts, and be careful of what you say to me," Kreil said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "The real chains aren't on our wrists. They're in here," he tapped a finger against his own temple.
"Thanks for the warning." Bastet lowered his head. "This is not a side of Wesia that I know. The sword and the chain… It was supposed to mean protection. Order."
"It means ownership," Kreil corrected, his tone flat and devoid of pity. "That's all it ever meant. But they never tell you that, do they? They paint a grand picture of honor for the boys who enlist. Their families watch as they kneel and drink the blood of Ariadne, selling their souls for a lie."
"That's… not how it was for me," Bastet said, shaking his head. "They never recruited from Briskwood. We're farmers, not fighters. I was never meant to take the oath." He paused, the next words catching in his throat. "One day… they came and burnt it all down. They called it a Cleansing."
At the word 'Cleansing,' Kreil went still. He didn't ask what it meant. He simply stared at Bastet with grim recognition. After a long moment, he spoke, and his voice was hushed and serious. "Forgive me, friend. I assumed you were like all the others here. But it seems that we are much alike. They took from me too." Kreil's gaze drifted towards the darkness outside the window, his voice taking on a hollow, distant quality. "You're not supposed to survive a Cleansing. They have a plan for you, farmer. What did they want?"
"Loyalty. When the end was near and I was bleeding out… the Inquisitor told me of the Emperor's promise. That all who fell in his service would be brought back to life," he looked up, meeting Kreil's gaze. "My oath was to be the proof that my family never betrayed him."
"The gall of them! He's the one who took them away, and he promises to bring them back?" Kreil exclaimed, picking his next words carefully. "Keep your guard up, farmer. To Wesia, loyalty is not a goal, it's a prerequisite. And don't trust their promises. The Emperor speaks as if his ascension was already guaranteed. But he can't bring the dead back."
"So what? You're saying I made a mistake?" Bastet raised his tone. "What was I supposed to do? Refuse the wager and accept the certainty of loss? The kingdom of heaven is long gone," the words tore from him. "I didn't betray them. If I refused, they'd be gone forever, and I would've bled out. This is the only way we can have a future."
"I didn't question your choice. It was no choice at all. But tell me, farmer. This world he promises, the one where the dead are returned," he leaned forward slightly. "Do you think it would be beautiful?"
Bastet creased his brows at the strange question. "I don't know." He met his gaze, his expression plain and honest. "But it doesn't matter if it's beautiful or not. It would be worthless without them."
"Oh, it might matter more than you think," Kreil replied with a weary voice. A long silence stretched between them, deeper than the darkness in the room. But once he finally seemed ready to continue, Kreil's words were forcibly cut off. His head jerked down to the bed as if struck by an invisible fist, and his eyes squeezed shut. "The sun has gone down," he muttered, his voice thick and strained. "We've got orders to rest. Best not to think too much."
The abrupt change had to be the result of the oath. Had it interfered because of the orders to rest, or had Kreil thought something he was not allowed to? He did not know… The interrogators had called him a scholar with a messy mind. But aside from that last question, his mind seemed to be in order. He remembered the words of the interrogator, about one problem solving the other. He could not make sense of those words, but he understood that it was no coincidence he was placed with Kreil of all people. They made them share this home on purpose… But that was as far as the thought went. Home… The word was a jagged edge in his gut. His hand went to his pocket, his fingers closing around the familiar, smooth shape of the wooden fox. He didn't remember how he got the fox. But it belonged to Maria. She had carved it many summers ago, and then brought it to him in tears to fix it, as she messed up the left ear. She was so happy with the result that she never parted with it. But it was now in his hands, and he did not know why. He would not have taken it. It belonged with her. But if he hadn't taken it, then it must have been Maria herself who gave it to him. But… when?
The interrogators had called him the only survivor of Briskwood, but if they were so sure of it, then why did they spend months obsessively interrogating him about Maria? She had been there, she's the one who pulled them inside the house before the world exploded. So, how could they possibly not know her fate if he's the sole survivor? And if they knew her to be dead, would any of the questions they relentlessly asked truly matter? They were about her past, her habits, and even about where he thought she was. Would their interest be that obsessive if she was truly gone? No. Certainly not. It had to mean she survived. Somehow. Maybe she had slipped away before the end, escaping the flames by herself. He firmly gripped the fox in his hand. She must have survived the purge. But where would she go, all alone in a world this unkind? The promise of bringing her back from the dead felt like a cruel joke if she was still alive, suffering a fate worse than his. At the very least, he reminded himself that she wouldn't be in a Wesian prison, as they considered him the sole survivor. He found some comfort in that. But he would have to find her. He had to.
He was tired. Bastet deeply sighed, and finally closed his eyes. He snuggled into the hay. The breeze could not fully disperse the smell of animal droppings that reeked in the room. He fell asleep to the squeaking of rats.
***
It was daybreak. Hundreds of men stood along the eastern rampart, overlooking a birch forest that sloped down the mountain. The wall stood about twenty feet high and was half as thick at its bottom. Many of the bricks that enclosed it were missing, exposing the base that was made of earth and quicklime. The healing liquid had closed his wounds, knitting skin and muscle back together into a map of tender, puckered scars. But it was a crude patch, not a true restoration. A deep, throbbing ache remained in his bones, and he was so drained that it still took a considerable amount of effort to ball his fists up. It was cloudy, but he was profusely sweating beneath multiple layers of clothing. They didn't have any armor for him but a stack of clothes might dull a strike, or so he was told. An old sword hung by his waist, and right next to it was a leather flask filled with a blue liquid. The so-called Camael's Tears. He nudged Kreil. "What is this stuff?" Kreil glanced at the flask, then at Bastet, his expression hardening. "Just pray you don't have to drink it," he muttered, turning away. Kreil was not keen to talk this morning. He was anxiously pacing around, stopping to look at faces, almost as if he was searching for someone.
Bastet's hand rested on the hilt of the unfamiliar sword. It was a tool for taking, its single purpose an ugly counterpoint to a life spent giving. It was the same kind of steel they had carried into Briskwood. He looked away from the blade, his gaze sweeping over the men assembled on the rampart. He wasn't alone in his ill-fitting role. Half the faces he saw were gaunt and haunted like his own. His eyes found the commanding officer, Nillen, his black ring mail a stark contrast to the conscripts' rags. His stomach tightened. He even saw his interrogators, Gerald and Sylvona, standing near Nillen, deep in conversation with other officers. Their low murmurs were lost in the growing tension on the wall.
Hours crawled by. The men around Bastet grew restless, their hushed conversations curdling into grim jokes that no one seemed to find particularly funny. Kreil took no part in them. By now he had already studied every face on the walls, and whenever footsteps sounded from inside the city, his attention snapped toward the courtyard below, searching each new group that crossed it.
"Who are you looking for?" Bastet finally asked.
Kreil did not turn. His reply came a few seconds too late. "My daughter."
Bastet looked at him. "She's here?"
"Somewhere."
"In the cells?" Bastet hesitated.
"Last I knew."
Bastet's gaze drifted down to the first division of soldiers, who were standing by on the outside of the wall. A guard was passing between the rows, checking their flasks one by one. "You think they might've brought her out?"
Kreil's jaw tightened. "I don't know what they've done to her."
Bastet wished he had not asked. He knew that particular kind of ignorance. It was not the absence of an answer, but a space the mind filled on its own, always with something worse. Maria had occupied such a space for months. "How did she end up here?"
Kreil opened his mouth, but nothing came. The silence stretched strangely. His brow furrowed, not with reluctance, but an emotion that Bastet could not quite understand. He only looked down as though the answer might be written somewhere on the stones beneath them.
A thin column of fire rose beyond the forest. Bastet looked up, as did everyone else. It burned brightly against the gray horizon for a few seconds before disappearing into the clouds. Bastet waited for Kreil to answer. Another column appeared some time later, closer than the first. By the third, he had stopped waiting. The clouds had gotten thicker and the wind picked up speed; it looked like a vicious storm was approaching.
Before long, shapes broke from the tree line. A dozen figures stumbled out of the forest, running hard for the city. Bastet's hand closed around the hilt of his sword. Beside him, Kreil straightened. A cry rose from the gate. "They're ours! Open it!"
The great doors shrieked apart. The figures ran faster when they saw the opening, some limping, others half-dragging the wounded between them. They crossed the final stretch in a ragged knot and spilled into the city.
But one man kept walking. A woman was strapped to his back, her arms hanging weakly around his shoulders. He walked past the others with the same stiff, uneven step, until one of the scouts caught him by the arm. Only then did the man fold, and the woman cried out as they struck the ground together.
Nillen rushed forward to free her from the straps—but stopped. The one who carried her had a dagger buried in his throat.
The scout beside her swallowed. "He died three miles ago." The man's voice had gone strangely quiet. "Wouldn't stop walking."
"I told him he could stop," she whispered. "I told him."
"Take Illias inside," Nillen jerked his chin, and then turned toward the forest. Losing no time, he raised one hand, as a spark appeared between his fingers. Bastet knew what came next. Fire swelled in Nillen's palm, bright enough to stain the nearby stone orange. In moments it had grown larger than a man's head. He hurled it beyond the walls, and the birches erupted.
Flame raced through the dry undergrowth and climbed the pale trunks with terrifying speed. The first explosion was followed by another, then another, until an entire stretch of forest became a single wall of fire.
Bastet could smell Briskwood. For a moment he was back beneath a blackened sky, watching roofs collapse and trees vanish behind sheets of orange light. His fingers tightened around the sword until his knuckles hurt.
"They'd burn the world if they thought it useful," Kreil muttered beside him. Bastet said nothing as they watched the forest burn.
For a while, he thought that might be the end of it. Then something moved between the trees. At first he mistook them for burning trunks falling through the smoke. Then more shapes appeared. Men emerged first, shields blackened, cloaks smoking, some supporting the wounded between them. Behind them came others Bastet had no names for. One walked upright on cloven hooves, a pair of great horns curling from its skull. Another had scales running from its throat to its brow. And behind them, through the thinning fire, Bastet began to make out even more of them. Far more. They had walked through Nillen's inferno, and they were still coming.
Bastet's hand began to tremble. He had heard stories from the front. Everyone had. Twisted beasts pouring from broken lands, things with too many limbs or mouths in the wrong places. He had imagined something like that. But not this. The horned creature had a wounded human slung across its shoulders. A scaled soldier stopped in the smoke to tighten another man's shield strap before they continued. The Magistrate in Briskwood had always insisted that nothing truly intelligent had ever crossed over during the purple sun. Only beasts and monsters, never people. Yet the multiplying shapes all marched together under the banners of a silver tree.
"First division!" Nillen's voice cracked across the wall. "Drink and advance!"
Below, the waiting men reached for the blue flasks at their waists. Bastet's hand instinctively closed around his own.
"Second division! Off the wall. Form behind the gate!"
The men around him immediately began filing toward the stairs. Kreil caught Bastet by the sleeve before the movement of the crowd could separate them.
"Come on."
Bastet followed, but glanced back toward the field as they reached the stairwell. The first division had already begun to drink. He remembered Kreil's warning from earlier that morning and felt the flask at his waist grow heavier with every step downward.
By the time they reached the bottom, the wall had completely blocked the battlefield from view. Bastet found that he hated not being able to see it. The second division crowded into the narrow space behind the eastern gate, packed close enough that the men shifted as one whenever someone tried to move. Bastet could hear boots scraping overhead and officers shouting from the wall, but the stone swallowed their words.
Then someone screamed. His sword was halfway from its sheath before he knew he had reached for it. Another violent scream followed, and then another, until so many voices had joined together that he could no longer tell how many men were screaming. How could the enemy have reached them so quickly? Bastet stared at the gate, expecting it to shudder beneath an impact at any moment. But the gate remained still, and the shrieking only grew more distant as its source moved down the sloped mountainside.
And then a new cry rose beyond the wall, so sharp and sustained that his teeth clenched together. It began unmistakably as a man's voice, but somewhere in the middle, it ceased to sound like one. And then something answered it. The noise was low enough that Bastet felt it in his chest. The men around him had gone quiet. A smell reached them soon afterward, carried back over the wall by the wind. Hot iron at first, then something heavier beneath it, so foul he knew of nothing to compare it to, making his stomach heave. Every part of his body seemed to draw inward at once. The skin along his arms tightened beneath his sleeves, and a primitive certainty settled over him that these could be no mere death throes.
Beside him, Kreil covered his mouth. "It's a blessing that they lose their minds along the way."
Bastet lowered his eyes to the flask hanging from his belt. The leather looked perfectly ordinary. He checked the stopper without thinking, pressing it firmly into place before taking his hand away.
Beyond the wall came the crash of steel, the splintering of something heavy, and a roar that rose above both. Men on the rampart shouted in response. Some of them were cheering. Whatever the first division had become, it had reached the enemy. In his heart, a desperate, selfish relief washed over him, as he prayed that Nillen would have no reason to send anyone else through that gate.
But then the gate opened, and a command came from above.
"Second division—!"
He never finished the command. A concussive boom shattered the air, but it did not come from the battlefield. It erupted from the heart of Stormbridge, directly behind them. A gale tore through the streets and struck the backs of the assembled division like a battering ram.
Bastet's breath was driven from his lungs. He dug his boots into the cobblestones, his heavier frame groaning against the crushing force as it drove them all toward the open gate. Around him, soldiers screamed as they were swept off their feet, tumbling forward into the mud and the waiting meat grinder beyond.
Kreil was too light, his strength already hollowed out by the cells. The blast tore his boots from the ground entirely, and he flew forward. There was no time for thought. Bastet abandoned his stance, throwing his mass sideways into the gale, and lunged, as his thick fingers closed desperately around the collar of Kreil's tunic. For a moment, he managed to hold him. Then the gale strengthened. Bastet was dragged forward with Kreil, his heels skidding uselessly over the stones. He twisted his body, trying to pull them away from the opening, and the motion sent them both careening sideways instead. Kreil struck the inner wall first. Bastet slammed into him a heartbeat later, crushing the air from both their lungs.
Before either of them could move, another gust struck. This one carried dust, broken timber, and loose stone with it. A sound like a breaking spine cracked directly above them as the old, quicklime-patched masonry could not withstand the immense outward force. Bastet looked up just as a massive fissure jagged across the stone face, and the wall gave way. A rain of splintered timber and choking dust cascaded down upon them. A heavy block of stone slammed into Bastet's hip, driving him hard into the dirt, followed immediately by a wet pop against his waist. A secondary shower of rubble struck the back of Bastet's skull.
The world suddenly went dead silent. A brilliant white bled across his vision, washing out the battlefield, the dust, and the sky. Sound did not return for several seconds, replaced by a high, whining hiss like boiling water inside his ears. He blinked rapidly, the white glare slowly resolving into a blurry smear of gray ash and pulverized stone.
He was lying half-buried in broken brick and wet earth. For several seconds, he could not remember where he was. And then the sounds rushed back in all at once: the clash of steel, the guttural roars of monsters, the desperate screams of dying men. No longer muffled by a twenty-foot wall, the battle was inside the city.
Bastet pushed his torso up on a trembling elbow, coughing up chalky dust. His hand moved instinctively to his hip, chasing the phantom echo of an order he was never fully given. His fingers grasped for the leather flask, but found only shredded hide and a cold, blue dampness soaking into his trousers. The Camael's Tears were gone.
He tried to shift his legs, but the weight of a shattered beam and several heavy stones pinned his lower half to the mud. He grunted, pushing against the rubble, but he had no leverage. Beside him, Kreil was shifting weakly, equally trapped.
Suddenly, the weight lifted. A heavy, armored figure shoved the beam aside with a grunt of exertion. Strong hands grabbed Bastet by the collar and hauled him roughly out of the debris, then he quickly turned and did the same for Kreil.
Bastet staggered to his knees, blinking through the dust. Their rescuer was an armored Wesian soldier. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a bald head, thick brows, and a face twisted with frantic irritation.
"Move!" the bald soldier barked, sprinting toward the breach.
Kreil grabbed Bastet's arm, and they scrambled behind the relative safety of a collapsed tavern wall. Bastet sank into the mud, his lungs burning. He wanted nothing more than to press his face into the dirt and remain there until the screams stopped. But a cold, alien pressure began to build at the base of his skull. The phantom chains on his wrists throbbed. Wesian soldiers were dying within sight of them. To act in Wesia's interest, they had to rejoin the fray.
"We can't stay here," Kreil whispered, echoing the terrible truth.
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Bastet asked, his voice tight with pain. "We're half-dead. We don't even have armor."
"And that is precisely what will save us," Kreil carefully peered over the jagged edge of the wall, his blue eyes scanning the slaughter. "The oath demands we serve Wesia's interest. But throwing ourselves at the first enemy we see helps nobody. It would be a waste, as we'd die in a blow." He ducked down, his face grim. "We can do little. So we must find where little is enough."
Bastet nodded. Kreil rose slightly, his gaze moving methodically from one desperate struggle to another, dismissing them as quickly as he found them. A cluster of horned creatures overwhelming a shield wall—meaningless. A Wesian charging a scaled beast—suicide. Finally, he pointed toward a heap of fallen stone fifty feet away. "There." A single Wesian soldier, separated from his unit, was fighting a hulking, obsidian-horned creature. "A balanced scale," Kreil muttered, crouching lower. "We wait until it only needs a finger to tip."
Bastet accepted the logic, and the cold pressure in his mind accepted it too. The oath allowed them to wait. And so they watched. The clash of the Wesian's longsword against the heavy axe rang out over the din. Bastet's grip tightened on his own unfamiliar blade. The combatants were evenly matched, trading blows in the mud.
The Wesian parried a heavy downward swing, striking the handle of the axe. As the blade glided down, it cut through the densely furred grip of his opponent, disarming it. The Wesian stepped in, and drove his longsword deep into the creature's abdomen as the beast let out a gurgling roar. Bastet let out a breath. They had judged correctly. The Wesian had won.
But the beast did not fall. Instead of pulling away, it surged forward, driving the blade deeper into its own gut to close the distance. Its massive hand clamped down on the Wesian's sword arm, locking him in place. With its free hand, it snatched a heavy cobblestone from the mud.
The stone came down, crushing the soldier's helmet. The Wesian staggered, and it struck again. And then a third time, with a sickening, wet crunch. The soldier collapsed into the mire, dead.
Bastet stared at the corpse, a cold horror washing over him. With a low groan, the horned soldier planted a cloven hoof on the dead Wesian's chest and wrenched the longsword free from its own abdomen. It staggered backward, leaning against a broken cart, its hand fumbling for a flask at its belt. It was severely wounded, and bleeding out.
He recognized it as the healing liquid. And so, the calculation shifted. A wounded enemy whose injuries would only start to get better. The moment Bastet understood it, a familiar, terrifying numbness coursed through his legs. His mind did not issue the command, but his body rose from behind the wall. The oath sprang him into action.
The horned soldier looked up, startled by the sudden movement, and slashed out with the stolen sword as Bastet approached. Still reeling from the collapsed wall, Bastet's parry was slow and agonizingly weak. The force of the blow sent a shockwave of pain up his arm, nearly knocking the steel from his numb fingers.
He stumbled backward, his boots slipping in the churned earth. He wasn't a soldier. His bruised ribs made it impossible to twist, every breath a jagged spike of agony. The creature pressed its attack, and Bastet's knees finally gave way. He tripped, falling hard onto his back in the mire.
It loomed over him, raising the blade for the finishing blow.
But out of nowhere, a heavy rock smashed into the back of the horned soldier's skull. Kreil stood behind it, panting. The creature staggered, its eyes rolling back, and fell to its knees with a loud groan.
Bastet did not hesitate. He scrambled up, lunging forward to drive his blade into the creature's exposed neck. A wet, grinding crunch traveled up the steel and into his arms. He wrenched the blade free with a gasp. The horned soldier collapsed, its one vacant eye staring up at the gray sky.
Bastet's stomach heaved. This was not like butchering a hog. He stumbled back, his knuckles white on the hilt, the coppery scent of the creature's blood thick in his throat.
"Good work," Kreil said, the words sounding obscene. Bastet looked from the corpse to the blood on his own hands as if they belonged to a stranger.
"The satyr was in no condition to dodge," Kreil added, already squatting down to rifle through the dead Wesian's pouches. "Here." Kreil tossed a small leather flask.
"We're going to have to keep doing this until—" Kreil's voice seemed to recede, stretching out over a vast, echoing distance.
Bastet tried to take a step, but the dead satyr beside him tipped strangely toward the sky.
No. Bastet was tipping.
His knees struck the mud. The roar of the battle, the shouting, the pain—it all folded inward, collapsing into a single, silent point of absolute black.