of the corner of his eye, threw himself backwards as Zhia arrived. He gave ground right up to the encircling flames, desperate for space to evade her - only to watch in astonishment as Zhia’s slender sword ran straight and true into the seam of the black cuirass, driving deep inside.
Her brother faltered, driven sideways by the unexpected impact, but before he could react, Zhia forced her sword further into Koezh’s guts. A gasp of pain escaped his lips as she retracted the weapon and stepped back. Her brother staggered and dropped to one knee, his hand going to his side as a spurt of black blood spilled out.
Styrax didn’t hesitate, advancing and smashing Koezh’s sword aside. With the vampire defenceless, he cut at his opponent’s neck and felt Kobra tear through the armour. Koezh fell, limp before he hit the ground and a sudden silence descended.
‘I’m sorry, brother,’ Zhia whispered, her voice strained, ‘but it must be this way.’
She turned to Styrax, who faced her with his weapon raised warily, but the Vukotic princess shook her head and sheathed her weapon.
‘You will have to enjoy your battle alone, Lord Styrax - I am done for the day.’ Her right arm went to the armpit where he’d injured her. He could hear from her laboured voice that the wound was severe.
Do I kill her now, while I have the chance?
‘You could kill me,’ she said, correctly guessing his thoughts, ‘but that would deny you an ally for the future — one who could be of use to a collector.’
With a gesture she dismissed the flames crackling all around them and the true Bloodsworn rushed forward, stopping dead as Styrax raised a hand. He thought for a moment, panting to get his breath back after the furious exchange, barely able to string a coherent thought together.
‘Go then,’ he said eventually, ‘go with my blessing and remember this debt.’
‘My debt to you? How very male,’ Zhia gasped, her arm drawn tight up to her chest. ‘I suppose that’s all the thanks I’ll get for persuading Koezh our chances would be better without the Legion of the Damned.’
She looked down at the corpse of her brother, lying at Styrax’s feet. A faint mist was building over it as his body started to decay and disintegrate.
‘As you wish,’ she said finally. ‘Until we meet again.’
She turned and faced the wall of soldiers. They didn’t move, and she looked back at Styrax, who gestured, parting the Bloodsworn for her. Once a path was clear, the vampire left without looking back once.
Styrax looked down at the putrefying armoured corpse at his feet. Koezh’s Crystal Skull was still attached to the cuirass, and he quickly tugged it free. The armour was already soft and malleable, decaying with Koezh’s body; the metal would melt into nothingness unless it was removed with alacrity, as Styrax had the first time they fought. If not, it would slowly reform with Koezh’s body in the crypt beneath the Castle of Silence, far to the east. Koezh’s sword was similarly indistinct within the mist, and as he watched, it sank into the moorland beneath it, unclaimed yet again.
He looked up at the assembled troops surrounding him. With an effort he smiled. ‘First blood to us,’ he announced hoarsely. The responding cheer was deafening.
‘Enemy’s advancing,’ Veil said, pointing.
King Emin looked up. ‘So it begins,’ he muttered. ‘How about the left flank?’
Veil squinted at where the smaller Menin force had formed up, by the tree-line. ‘Looks like it - I’d need a mage to be sure.’
‘Where are the damn mages?’ Emin growled, seeing nothing but soldiers. The fort contained more than a thousand men, as closely packed in as could be managed without causing complete chaos.
‘There’s the runt,’ Coran said, indicating the diminutive form of Tomal Endine, who was weaving a path towards them, through the Kingsguard and the catapult platforms that stood between the central tower and Emin’s position on the rampart.
The mage laboured up the wooden ramp towards King Emin, and Coran reached down to drag the small man the last yard while he gasped for breath. The King’s bodyguard stood out from the crowd by more than size now - his cuirass and helm were painted a bright bloody red, in contrast to the green and gold livery that surrounded him. The rest of the Brotherhood wore black-painted armour, punctuating the crowd of resplendent Kingsguard like needles secreted in a haystack.
‘Piss and daemons,’ Doranei said, ‘man’s exhausted and the battle’s not started