The Battle of Kala began with three streaks of red light crisscrossing a dark sky.

Its prelude had taken place while most the Thirteenth still slept, hard men with sharp swords going into tents to end the lives of the soldiers the general staff believed would fight against rebellion. The purge was quick and bloody, followed by men being hastily roused, and the Thirteenth Legion began to move moments after a mage line sent up the lights that would inform the Army of Callow of our success. The legion left behind a significant chunk of its supplies and all of its siege engines: I’d heartily agreed with General Holt when he’d stated that the Thirteenth tried to leave with everything it would just get caught by the rest of the Loyalist Legions and rout. Treachery rarely made for strong morale, much less treachery interrupted halfway through.

The legion was not in a good position to turn on the others, no doubt a precaution of the Black Knight’s. The valley between Moule and Kala Hills had sprouted fortifications in three sets. First the Rebel Legions’, in an angled half-circle whose curve faced the east with its back anchored to Moule Hills. Then the mirroring sets of the Loyalist Legions and the Army of Callow, first running parallel from Kala Hills to the east until they reached the curve of the rebel trenches and then, still in a rough mirror, curving around the half-circle. The Thirteenth Legion, while assigned to the front, had not been posted facing us. Instead it was to hold the curve of the loyalist trenches, facing the fortifications of the Rebel Legions. That made leaving a more complicated task than we would have liked.

It might be possible to cross the trench the Thirteenth guarded and then march down the no-man’s-land down to my army’s positions to the south, but that would be… risky. The Rebel Legions might think they were being attacked and start shooting. Considering two thirds of the triumvirate of generals that’d run that army had just gotten killed and the surviving third was discredited, I was inclined to think they were nervous enough to start shooting without thinking if they caught sight of movement. That left only the option of getting out the hard way: through the camp of the Eighth Legion, which held the western half of trenches facing my army’s own. The three streaks of red light were meant to help with that chancy business and help they did.

Within moments, torches lit up the night as the Army of Callow began an assault on the Eighth Legion’s position from the front.

General Jeremiah had offered both Vivienne and I horses, but while she rode with the old man and his general staff I held back. There would be retaliation when someone on the other side realized what was happening and I needed to be ready for it. I kept to the side of the army, its soldiers giving me a wide berth, and rode slowly as I kept an eye on the distant camp in Kala Hills. The camp of the Fourteenth, holding the eastern half of the central trenches, lit up with torches first at the sound of the fighting. The camp in the distance was not far behind, though, and maybe a quarter-hour later the rebel positions were alight as well. I shaped an eye out of Night and tossed it up above, keeping an eye on the battlefield as armies began to move.

Surprise was working to our advantage. The loyalist sappers had built their walls cleverly, keeping much of the half-road behind them, but that’d been turned to our advantage. The Thirteenth moved briskly down the road and smashed into the side of the Eighth’s camp by surprise even as the legion was mustering to face an assault from the wrong direction. The rebels were staying out of it for now, probably wary of dipping a toe in this without having a better read on the situation, and I chewed on my lip as I loosely kept pace with the Thirteenth. I’d started trailing behind, wary of the hammer blow I’d expected but wasn’t coming. My little eye in the sky was beginning to glimpse the shape of a rout, meanwhile.

The Eighth had been taken by surprise, out of position and attacked from two sides. Goblin munitions deployed to hold the trenches had stopped cold the advance of the Army of Callow but General Wheeler couldn’t afford to pull away those men else General Zola would resume the charges. When the Thirteenth ran into the first few companies thrown hastily in its way it had slowed, but it had now smashed its way through them and the Eighth’s positions were collapsing. Too many of its legionaries were only half-dressed, and some enterprising souls from the Thirteenth had set fire to parts of the camp. Gods, at this rate we might actually destroy the Eighth as a fighting force. That’d be quite the coup, if one we’d not dared to hope for.

With one legion gone and one switching sides, the Black Knight would be –

“Ah,” I grimly smiled as power bloomed in the heights to the north, “there you are.”

Night swirled around me in thick currents, terrifying my borrowed horse into trying to buck me off until I stole away a sliver to force calm into his simple mind. I wasn’t seeing magic accreting anywhere yet, but it was only a matter of time until the enemy mages- my thought was interrupted by a subtle wave of power shivering across the Thirteenth. Instant. It’d been quick enough I’d not been able to do a fucking thing. And now legionaries were dropping to the ground, one after another. Like puppets with cut strings, just… falling to the ground. Weeping Heavens, I thought. What was this? The sorcery seemed to strike as if by random: it dropped ten soldiers in one company, thirty-three in another and then none in a third. Heart in my throat, I rode to a fallen soldier and unhorsed.

The rest of his tenth spread to make room for me, faces full of fear, and I swallowed a wince as I knelt in the dust by the dead man. Except, I realized a heartbeat after I undid the straps of the legionary’s help, this was neither a man nor a corpse. The dark-skinned woman under the steel was still breathing, if faintly, though she looked sick and she was shivering with fever. I laid fingers on the side of her neck and found the skin slightly shrivelled but the pulse steady. I heard the soldiers around me began to salute and turned to cast a look at the approaching mounted silhouette of the fair-haired Kachera Tribune of the Thirteenth, Sally Thoms. She saluted me, after a beat of hesitation.

“Your Majesty,” she said, stumbling over the unfamiliar address. “The general sends me to ask if you have any insight on this curse. It is crippling our offensive.”

I looked away, my lone eye turning to the shallowly breathing woman I was still laying a hand on. Something about this was niggling away at me. The suddenness of the effect, unlike any war magic I’d ever seen, and the shrivelled skin. There was something familiar about this, somehow, but where would I have… Suddenly I breathed in.

“Tribune,” I said. “The rations your legionaries have been eating, where have they been coming from?”

She looked surprise.

“You think us poisoned?” she asked.

My look grew impatient and she swallowed.

“Part is from our own stocks, ma’am, but half has been coming from the supply depot in the main camp,” the Kachera Tribune said.

And there it was, good as confirmation. General Jeremiah had said that the Black Knight had not believed we’d approached him, but evidently she’d taken precautions anyways. And not just her, because I had seen this magic before. Just never used like this, and I moved my gaze back to the downed legionary so that the officer would not see triumph in my eye and misunderstand. I let it linger though, the taste of victory. Allowed myself to enjoy it. Because the last time Akua Sahelian had used that ritual, she’d left a few thousand Spears of Stygia dead and shrivelled husks before using the power to open a Lesser Breach. Now, instead, she had chosen to spare lives. To incapacitate instead of kill, even when the incentives were many to do otherwise.

All these corpses could be undead, right now, with the power she would have gotten back. Or she could be hammering away at the Thirteenth with a spell powerful enough that even I would struggle to protect the legion from it. Instead she has stayed her hand. Proved she was not the same woman she had been at First Liesse, even in the face of greater gains than those for the taking back then.

“I’ve seen this magic before,” I said. “It won’t kill them or continue to drain them. Light or healing sorcery should be able to fix most of the damage.”

I followed her back to the general staff, after, though I sent up another Night eye to gauge the situation. Our overwhelming advantage had turned to ash in our hands in a matter of moments. At a guess I’d say that maybe a quarter of the Thirteenth had dropped under the ritual, punching holes everywhere in its formations and causing widespread chaos. The Eighth was using the time to consolidate its position and I could already see the Fourteenth moving towards the melee to reinforce. Considering the Army of Callow’s attempts to breach the trench were still a bloody stalemate – Zola had gotten men to the palisades, but Wheeler had gotten his mage lines in position and was torching everything in sight – this now had the potential to go very badly for us.

I still had Night at my fingertips but I was hesitant to use it. It’d leave us exposed to a counterstroke from enemy mage cadres and I could solve one of our two problems at most. Either I’d slow the Fourteenth or blast our path south open, but I couldn’t do both. Now quickly enough, anyway. I was still weighing the risks when I got to General Jeremiah and found that the choice had been made for me.

“Princess Vivienne is leading my cavalry in a delaying action against the Fourteenth,” the old man said. “I if I might-”

I raised a hand to interrupt him, looking through my eye in the sky again. There she was, leading six hundred heavy cavalry against the Fourteenth’s vanguard. The enemy looked to have been sloppy with composition, they’d gone heavy on crossbowmen and too light on regulars, but she was still outnumbered more than three to one. I held back my wince. I’d have to trust her, then, and do my own part. The Night eye turned to the positions in our way south. The trench and palisade were facing the wrong way to stop us, but General Wheeler was the veteran commander of a sapper-heavy legion: already there were stakes and mantlets put up in our way. Mage lines were waiting behind lines of regulars, the enemy general’s intent plain enough to read. Now that the battle was turning in his favour, Wheeler wanted to keep us contained here until reinforcements arrived and we could be surrounded. Time for a reminder of who he was dealing with, perhaps.

“I have come a long way, through winding paths,” I spoke in Crepuscular, voice rising in prayer. “Yet behold this barren realm, this crown of ruin!”

The Night roiled around, like a wind made of darkness, and I felt talons biting into my shoulders. I felt Komena smile against the side of my neck, pleased at the destruction to come.

“Let me match horror with horror, might with might, and know no master in this.”

My limbs were trembling and the general staff had all backed away, looking at me in a mix of terror and fascination.

“So let the sun weep and the Crows have their due,” I smiled, “for in the end all will be Night.”

I’d only used this working once before, in Hainaut, and as the sky lit up with black fire I was reminded as to why. My vision swam, but I forced myself to finish it: I raised my hand, snapping my fingers, and the Hells were unleashed. A young black sun exploded, streaks of flame tearing through ground and men and shielding spells as screams filled the air. Black flame began to fall in a heavy rain, leaving only a horror of the dead and dying where once the Eighth had stood in our way.

“Your Majesty,” General Jeremiah carefully said, “are you-“

I spat to the side, wiping my mouth. It tasted like vomit, though I’d not thrown up, and this wasn’t even done. I raised my staff, the old general instantly going silent, and after pointing it at the horror swept it through. As it passed the black flames guttered out, leaving behind only great trails of smoke. I spat to the side again, leaning back tiredly in my saddle. Gods, my bad leg burned.

“Get your legion moving, Jeremiah Holt,” I rasped out. “I don’t have another one of those in me, not for a few hours.”

It was another hour before we made it to safety, a full quarter of the Thirteenth Legion left behind either as corpses or prisoners, but we made it. I waited at the edge until our Princess made it back victorious, a makeshift banner for her knightly order flying high as thousands of throats cheered themselves hoarse.

Now the real battle could start.

By midmorning the lines in the sand were drawn.

The wounded had been seen to, the dead burned. I did not bother to send envoys to the Rebel Legions after I saw four crucified bodies hoisted atop their palisade: the same four Jacks who’d supposedly assassinated General Mok and Jaiyana Seket. I didn’t know who was in command, Sacker or one of Malicia’s plants, but whoever it was they were hostile. Yet the rebels had not returned to the loyalist fold, if the way both armies kept the trenches facing each other manned was any indication. It’d be a battle with four sides to it, not three. Our attempts to reach out to Sepulchral came to nothing: the Rebel Legions were running patrols and west of Moule Hills and shooting at our people on sight. I sent a pair of riders to take the long way around, but it’d be hours before they were anywhere near the Aksum camp and hours more before they could return to us with anything useful. No, when it came to Sepulchral’s intentions we were still running blind. That had me somewhat uneasy.

“We’ve gamed out the engagements with all possible stances on her part,” Juniper told me, unmoved. “Whether she stays holed up or goes on the offensive, she’ll tie down largely the same number of loyalist troops anyway.”

That sounded almost absurd, considering that with the defection of the Thirteenth in fact Dread Empress Sepulchral now commanded the largest of the four armies in Kala – around twenty thousand, even with the losses of her vanguard – but Juniper wasn’t blowing hot air. The camp in the hills she’d taken for her own had easy slopes down mostly facing the north and east, approaches where Marshal Nim had built forts in a since-broken attempt to encircle the camp. We expected a single legion to be assigned to defending those forts, the Eleventh, with the reserve being kept close just in case. Sepulchral led a traditional Praesi noble army, which meant they were pretty shit at taking fortifications if magic couldn’t level the walls.

Good luck with that when Akua Sahelian was running the mages for the other side.

The Loyalist Legions certainly weren’t going to win that fight, but the Black Knight honestly shouldn’t be wrong in believing a single legion should be able to keep Sepulchral contained long enough for the fighting in the south to be settled. If no one else intervened, anyway. I sighed.

“Malicia will have something afoot in that camp,” I said.

“Let the Tower have its tricks,” the Hellhound said, “so long as we have the field.”

There was little more left to do save hope it would end up as she’d said. We’d already tossed the dice, it was too late to have qualms. The legions and our army spent the time preparing for the fight all could smell in the air, but there was an odd sense of restraint. Like no one wanted to be the first to swing a sword and get the butcher’s ball rolling. In the end, it was us who fired the first shot: Archer shot a legate from the Fourteenth who’d made the mistake of wandering too close to her range and with the woman’s death rattle hostilities began. I wasn’t actually fighting, to my mounting frustration. Masego and I were on the rampart of a fort, overlooking the battlefield and awaiting enemy magic. We were meant to be defensive assets for now, not go on the offensive, and though I knew the sense in it the sight below had my nails biting into wood.

It was a bloody slaughter.

First came the siege engines. The scorpions and ballistae of the enemy began pounding at our palisade, knocking down chunks where my mages did not reinforce quickly enough, and our own engines replied in kind. A heartbeat later the rebels entered the fray, and to my relief they’d picked a side: their own. They were firing at both the Army of Callow and the Loyalist Legions. Already I could see what Juniper had told me about, the ‘box’. It was a corner, the square-shaped area where our fortifications were facing the loyalists to the north and the rebel to the west. The weak point of our defensive setup. Bombardment from both sides was already taking its toll, the sheer number of engines that facing two different sets of legions signified having an immediate impact.

Marshal Nim theoretically had the same weakness in her setup facing our own weak spot, but in practice she was better off: the Army of Callow had fewer siege machines spread out over a set of fortifications just as long.

“Are we simply going to fire at each other with machines all day?” Masego asked me, sounding pleased. “That sounds rather civilized.”

“No,” I sighed. “Now comes the bloody part, Zeze.”

Rising from their cover in the trenches, legionaries climbed over the solid grounds and began charging at the enemy fortifications. They came for us and we for them. Across the great line splitting the valley, across the half-circle and its mirrors, men and women in legionary armour raised their shields and charged. From atop palisades mage lines began firing volleys of fireballs, crossbow companies filled the air with bolts. Down in the no-man’s-land, screams and death bloomed. It was the kind of messy, ugly butchery that only came from well-trained forces hammering at each other. Legionaries tried to form testudo formations to take the edge off sorcery and arrows, but on all sides the same model of scorpions were turned on those attempts.

Those deadly bolts punched through shield and mail alike.

“They are not winning,” Masego said.

I turned and found him frowning. Puzzled, and perhaps a little appalled.

“No one is winning,” he continued, frown deepening.

That’s war, I almost said.

“First we bleed,” I said, “and then Juniper’s plans begin.”

The priests were giving us an edge, I saw as the hours passed. The body count kept mounting and the men grew tired, but the fighting continued. Twice rituals were attempted against us, but both times we shut them down. Light healing did not need time and carefulness the way mage healing did, which meant it could actually be done on the frontlines: this was a meat grinder for everyone, but unlike our enemies we could keep some of our men in the fight. We didn’t have the numbers to fight a war of attrition against two sets of legions, though, which was why Juniper had made plans otherwise. So far everything had come down along fairly predictable lines, which meant now generalship would begin to matter.

Which turned out to be a problem, because against our predictions the Black Knight was moving the Seventh south to reinforce her battle line. Juniper and I had been sure the Black Knight’s own legion would be kept in reserve for hours yet, held back as a precaution in case Sepulchral ended up giving the Eleventh trouble. Four thousand fresh troops would be enough to breathe vigour into an attack on our defences, I thought, and already the melee between the trenches rested on a knife’s edge.

“Fuck,” I muttered, looking at the Seventh’s dust trail rising high. “What do you know we don’t, Black Knight?”

Leaving my post, I headed out to speak to Juniper and found she had an answer for me. Not out of any prodigious insight, but because the two envoys we’d sent this morning had turned back early and brought back news.

“There’s fighting in Sepulchral’s camp,” Juniper growled.

“I’m guessing you don’t mean the Eleventh is attacking it,” I said.

She glared at me. Fair enough. Whatever Malicia’s scheme had been in there, evidently it had crippled them as an army. It made sense that the Black Knight felt comfortable sending her reserve into battle if Sepulchral’s twenty thousand were basically out of the fight. That was something of a problem.

“We need to get that army moving,” I grimaced.

“Good of you to volunteer,” the Hellhound replied.

“Not even queenship gets me out of the shit jobs,” I sighed. “Should have aimed for empress.”

Juniper snorted and gave me the Order of Broken Bells to lead. My knights weren’t going to be charging trenches anytime soon, and the enemy’s remaining horse was also still at large. I wasted no time, saddling up and riding at speed full south. Going all the way around Moule Hills to get to Sepulchral’s camp would take hours, even riding horses, but there was no alternative. We passed by the silhouettes of the Rebel Legion camp in the hills, deep behind their valley fortifications, and I noted it did not look heavily defended. Sacker or whoever had usurped her command were putting their back into the valley battle. I could see the sense in it, even if it was Sacker that’d given the order.

The rebels didn’t want to win the battle, they wanted everyone weakened to their bargaining position improved. Either Marshal Nim or myself winning would be an actual problem for them, they were sure to kneecap whoever pulled ahead.

We kept riding hard to the north, eventually finding the same path that Sepulchral’s main host had taken to link up with its vanguard in the heights. There were wagons at the bottom of the slope and tents too, the camp having proved too small for the whole army of the rebelling High Lady of Aksum. We got closer and immediately I winced: not only was there no picket to see us coming but what looked like supply wagons were actually being left unguarded. There were some soldiers at the bottom of the slope, maybe a few hundred, but they were disorganized and didn’t actually notice us coming until we were in charging distance. Levies, I thought. Rubies to piglets those poor bastards were levies wanting to be left out of the mess in the heights.

Our arrival unsettled them but the shield wall they tried to make to discourage a change was visibly shaky. I hadn’t come here for a fight, though, so instead I whistled for an escort of knights to follow me and pulled ahead. It took a bit for them to realize I wanted to talk and then choose someone who would, but eventually a pair of middle-aged Soninke shuffled forward warily.

“I’m not here to kill you,” I bluntly said. “I’m here to speak with Empress-Claimant Sepulchral.”

A harsh laugh from one of the two.

“A little late for that,” he said. “The old witch’s finally dead.”

It was easy to get them talking after some prodding. Apparently Abreha Mirembe had died overnight. Some had claimed it was old age that’d done her in, but both her designated heir Isoba Mirembe and his cousin Sanaa Mirembe claimed it to be assassination. They promptly accused each other of the deed, which had seen violence ensue. Sanaa Mirembe, sister of the same Fasili Mirembe who’d served Akua and died at the Doom, had proved to have many supporters among the Aksum men. Isoba, however, was engaged to the daughter of the High Lord of Nok: those troops had largely sided with him. Fighting had been breaking out all day with short breaks to negotiate, but the breaks were getting shorter and the fighting bloodier.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Malicia had fucked up that army pretty good. If I were a betting woman, I’d bet that Sanaa was the Tower’s ringer in that fight but I couldn’t be sure. Besides, in Malicia’s shoes I wouldn’t actually want Sanaa to win by too much if I wanted her to win at all. The costlier her victory, the less of a threat she would be after being called to heel. No, I decided, just having a ringer was too simple to be a plot of Malicia’s. Better odds she had someone under Isoba as well, fanning the flames so that the factions would keep bleeding each other instead of coming to an arrangement. Worse, I couldn’t see an easy way out of this. I wasn’t sure I had the men to force Isoba’s claim, I thought, and even if I did it’d take too long.

I needed that army to get marching an hour ago.

“Are they fighting right now?” I finally asked.

“No, they’re still in talks,” one of them said. “The moment they leave the tent and the corpse, though, they’ll be back at-”

My eye sharpened.

“The corpse is still in there?” I pressed.

They nodded.

“It’s why the truce is observed while in the tent.”

I left them to that, riding away and back to the Order. Talbot came up to me but I ignored him, closing my eye to think. Would it work? Could it work?

“Your Majesty?” Brandon Talbot asked.

I opened my eye. It was my best shot.

“Form up,” I said. “We’re going into the camp.”

I felt the weight of his gaze on me, but he did not question the wisdom of the decision. He was a reliable sort, Talbot. The way uphill was difficult, but the loyalist sappers had pretty obviously gentled the slope. It was usable, just not the kind of thing you ever want to lead a cavalry charge up through. Or any charge, honestly. We ran into actual defences the moment we reached the heights, at last. The division in the camp was pretty blatant, tents and furniture having been used to make makeshift barricades facing each other while bristling armed soldiers faced each other. I saw – and smelled, Gods take pity on my nose – that horses had been butchered by the hundreds while tied and their carcasses left to rot in the sun, but along with that horrid mess two parts of the camp were being avoided.

The first was a pavilion the size of a small castle and enchanted to look like one, which I assumed to have been Sepulchral’s personal quarters. It was now neutral grounds for negotiation, however long that would last. The second was a maze of large cages of black iron, which only people in scarlet livery every came close to. I could see misshapen silhouettes within, some of them snapping at the servants in scarlet and others trying to claw their way out of the cage. Right, Aksum. The Cauldron of Monsters, once famous for its use of monsters in battle. At least the squabbling soldiers had been smart enough to stay clear of that. Neither side moved to block us as we formed up on the heights, but the repositioned to be prepared for a fight if it came down to it.

Gods, it better not. We didn’t have the room for a charge and they’d bury us with corpses if they had to. No, I was going to put on the fancy hat and bargain my way into that tent. The Order was just here to… help temptations stay at bay. It took half an hour for all my knights to make it up in the camp but I waited it out, only then riding forward with a small escort. Someone must have warned the squabbling Mirembe, because both of them came out of the tent with escorts of their own. I led Zombie towards them, pleased I wouldn’t need to posture to get that talk after all, and sped up. Trumpets sounded, and I almost laughed at the pageantry – did I really require that kind of announcing? – before I realized they were coming from too far north.

The trumpets continued to sound the alarm.

“ATTACK,” shouts came in Mthethwa. “THE LEGIONS ARE HERE!”

Huh, that might actually end up to my- I caught sight of movement from the corner of my eye, feeling a ripple of magic. A small thing, repeated many a time. A few hundred cages had opened at once, and as my stomach dropped I saw a scaled beast the size of a battering ram slink out and taste the air with a forked tongue. Well, I thought, fuck. Magic rippled again but I almost laughed. What were they going to do, open the fucking cages twice? A heartbeat later a hold opened in the middle of the camp, the sides of it inscribed with runes.

“I really ought to know better by now,” I admitted.

At least I knew what Akua was going to do with that stolen power from earlier, I mused as a Lesser Breach screamed open and devils began pouring out. I sighed, cracking my neck and loosening my shoulder. Time to get to work, then.

After all, if it were easy what the Hells would they need me for?