“Every plan fails at the first blow. Therefore, the general who plans only failure cannot falter.”


    — Isabella the Mad, Proceran general


    <hr>


    The air felt strangely hot for a day with snow crunching under Pony’s hooves. Frosted breaths hung in the air, and the horizon gleamed redder than any Winter sunset had a right to. Ominous? Probably. Something to worry about right now? It wasn’t high on my list of stabbing priorities.


    I tugged at the hem of my armour’s dress as Pony picked her way between the trees. Wearing dresses and silks was already a recent concession to practicality—or so I told myself—but elegant armour? That was still a novelty.


    The Sahelians, of course, had spared no expense. Tailored, polished, and impractical enough to make me feel like the world’s deadliest peacock. Lacquered steel scales overlapped in what was apparently an ancient Taghreb style, though I was dubious of the historical authenticity of that claim. Surely they didn’t decorate their armour like this? Either way, my split skirt made riding an exercise in frustration it hadn’t been in plain armour. The helmet was rounded and almost practical, wrapped in a scale aventail that I’d draped with a red silk shawl. All of this came together to conveniently leave my face visible, so everyone would know exactly who to aim at. I was a walking beacon fire, the perfect target for any ambitious archer.


    At least my boots were comfortable.


    “I’ve half a mind to hang the fool who suggested marching through the night,” I muttered.


    “If I recall correctly, wasn’t that brilliant notion yours?” Akua mused, arching an elegant eyebrow. I kept my eyes locked on the road ahead, rather than on the red and gold dress which hugged all her curves.


    “We are so close, Akua,” I grumbled, “It seemed inspired at the time.”


    Abigail snorted on my right.


    “Oh, undoubtedly, Catherine. I’m certain it seemed inspired in the moment,” Akua lied.


    “Have the matrons budged, or are they still waiting to pounce after everyone’s exhausted?” I asked.


    “Regrettably, we’ve heard nothing further,” Akua denied.


    Negotiating with the matrons before leaving for Callow had been as fruitful as I’d expected—which is to say, not at all. A pity,” I muttered, “though hardly surprising.”


    “The matrons will wait until the dish is properly spiced,” Akua agreed, smiling.


    “Hoping they''d tip their hand first was asking too much,” I replied, matching her smile. “They’ll wait until half the empire is armed to slit throats.”


    “Better watch your back, Lady Akua,” Ghassan said slyly. “With how the Novice has been making eyes at you, I’d expect the first assassination attempt sometime soon.”


    My teeth dug into my cheek as warmth crept up my neck in spite of winter’s cold. Praesi. Only they could treat assassination as a declaration of courtship.


    “Careful, Ghassan,” I drawled, “it’d be a shame if an attempt on your life conveniently pointed to Nok’s high seat.”


    The obnoxious man let out a choked cough.


    “Now, consider that-”


    “Let’s stick to strategy, shall we?” I suggested. “That is, after all, your only expertise.”


    Akua let out a delighted laugh.


    My cheeks warmed.


    I let the conversation slide into the background as I nudged Pony ahead, the trees closing in around us. I glanced around as her nostrils flared, and her ears flattened against her skull. The narrow pass between the hills ahead felt more like walking into the maw of some great beast than a battlefield. Fifty soldiers across at best, and we’d be stuck like a pig on a spit if the Tyrant decided to bottle us in. And yet, I couldn’t spot anything off.


    Abigail clung to my side, much like the part of my conscience I’d been doing my best to ignore.


    “You’re looking distracted,” I said.


    “Just appreciating how much nicer this is than the wasteland,” she mused.


    “You mean how not everything is trying to kill us,” I quipped.


    “Let’s not get crazy,” Abigail snorted, then coughed. “There’s still plenty that wants to kill us.”


    Her cough had me tensing before I could help myself. “How bad is it, Abby?” I asked softly.


    Abigail swallowed hard, her shoulders stiffening as she glanced at me. “A day, maybe two, before it gets real bad,” she paused. “We could still leave, you know.”


    An awkward silence fell between us for a few moments while I considered what to say.


    “Can we, though?” I asked.


    Abigail was about to reply when Teresa rode up, looking as gruff as ever. If she was here, it meant something had gone wrong. The woman had a talent for finding problems that exceeded my own.


    “Lady Novice,” she grunted.


    “Whose pulling knives this time, Teresa?” I inquired.


    Her lips twitched, almost a smile. Almost. The list of things she’d bothered me with ranged from drunken brawls to someone deciding that three wheels on a wagon were a good idea. What would it be today?


    “The men are getting rowdy. Weather’s shit and there’s been slim pickings. Are you sure we can’t-”


    “No looting, Teresa,” I cut her off. “They’re being paid enough. Anyone who tests me hangs.” The back of my neck prickled as I felt the judgement of two golden eyes. Was she disappointed? No, not important. I wasn’t about to burn my own homeland for little more than an empty smile.


    “Scouts spotted the Regicides on our southern flank,” Teresa added, switching topics with the grace of a drunk on a tightrope. “There’s mention of the Squire being present as well. Orders?”


    William was present? Expected, and not unwelcome. This was an opportunity to speak to him away from the trappings of court. A chance to see if he could be an ally, or if we were doomed to fight each other.


    “Coordinate with Marchford,” I ordered. “Get ready to-”


    <hr>


    A sleepy guard resting on a stool beside the weathered stone walls of a modest temple roused to wakefulness as an anguished cry echoed from outside. Reaching for the sword at his side, he stumbled to his feet, only to stagger as an arrow took him in the throat.


    The rustle of mail and the clinking of steel on stone heralded the arrival of a single company of Helikean soldiers. They marched in unison into the empty church, then stopped before a large standard plunged into the ground, pitch black, with a golden snake swallowing its own tail embroidered into the cloth.


    “What’s this?” A dark haired soldier asked, approaching the chalk circle inscribed around the banner.


    “Don’t know,” a deep voice replied. “Think we should leave it alone.”


    “Looks important. Better to show it to the higher ups,” the first argued.


    “This thing feels off,” the second muttered.


    “More reasons to tell someone,” the first declared.


    “Better to leave it alone,” the second said, shuddering.


    “What happens if I-” the first soldier’s voice cut off as his friend pulled him backwards.


    “Don’t go closer,” the second soldier hissed. “That looks warded to the hells and back, and we don’t know what it does.”


    The erratic sound of a limp announced the arrival of a boy dressed in red and gold silks. Both soldiers went stiff as a pair of tombstones, then stared at him in open awe. The boy twirled a golden sceptre as he set a malevolent red eye upon the banner and grinned. “Well, well, well: our drunken friend didn’t lie,” he laughed, then spoke to a marble Gargoyle beside him. “How about that, Tay-”


    <hr>


    I blinked away the vision. My blood ran cold. That banner? I’d recognized it from some of the more quintessentially Praesi lessons I’d been tortured with by my hosts. One of Triumphant’s old banners. It could only mean one thing: a Hell Egg. Demons. That someone had told the Tyrant where to find it was lower on my list of priorities. Something that future Catherine could brood over after we’d pulled through.


    “Soldiers,” I gasped as the vision ended. “They’ve walked right into a-”


    My voice cut off as a muted scream reverberated throughout Creation.


    Louder.


    Louder.


    Louder still.


    The sound of thousands of soldiers collapsing into the snow echoed across the hills of Marchford. We all clutched our ears in agony. I looked over Pony’s sleek black mane through tears of pain and into the sky above. A streak of blood ran across the horizon, painting the world red from one end to the other.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Then, the pressure vanished like a veil lifted from a corpse.


    “You feel that too?” I hissed.


    Akua raised a delicate finger and opened her mouth, before her words were stolen from her mouth by a choked scream among the troops.


    “To arms, godsdamnit!” I screamed, but I was too late.


    The first sign was the trees.


    They didn’t fall or burn. They… changed. Branches swelled like lungs as bark peeled away to reveal veins pulsing with dark ichor. Teresa was too close. Boughs twisted and reached towards her as she barked orders to my troops. Shadows spilled from my outstretched fingers, snapping like a whip against the branches just before they grazed her armour. Teresa stumbled back, cursing, her face pale as death itself.


    “Get moving!” I snarled. She pulled herself to her feet, then looked at me like she was seeing a monster. Maybe she wasn’t wrong. I cursed a moment later as roots erupted from the ground, writhing like snakes to drag soldiers into the earth. I tugged at the shadows and hurled them at the trees, only for them to slip from my control. My fists beat against my legs as the men screamed.


    Down.


    Down.


    Down again.


    They scrambled, but it was futile. One by one, the roots pulled them pulled under. Their dying screams swallowed as soil sucked them under.


    Why here? Why now? Each attempt to buy Abigail time had both weakened my Name and eroded my control. I swallowed my fury. There was no use blaming anyone except the Tyrant for this. It was beyond us. I pulled the knife from the sheath on my leg and ran it down the length of my palm. It had been some time since I’d needed to do this, but demons were truly the best form of encouragement. I’d rather not risk any half measures against a horror like this.


    I called, and my dark beasts answered, raking through the branches with claws of shadow. Threads of flame spun from Akua’s fingertips, wrapping themselves around the writhing wood. The snow beneath hissed and spat in protest.


    “What in all the Hells is this?” Abigail hissed, struggling with her helmet. “Why didn’t I just stay in Summerholm? Stupid, stupid!”


    “Don’t let them touch you!” I snapped, twisting in the saddle. The snow was turning into slush beneath Pony’s hooves as I shouted orders. “Shields up, fall back in order! Archers, shoot anything coming from the north—I don’t care what colours it’s flying!”


    Ghassan galloped off to manage his own men. Teresa was already relaying my orders, though I was betting discipline would crumble the moment fear turned into full-on panic.


    The ground trembled, sending a shudder through me as twisted creatures charged our northern flank. Lions with six legs. Boars with scales. Deer—well, three-headed deer. A part of me noted I’d seen stranger monsters in Aksum. Then another part of me laughed at the absurdity. Shadows swarmed at my call, biting into the oncoming horde.


    Then came the rancid stench.


    Soldiers closest to the corrupted beasts clawed at their throats, their skin bubbling as their bodies twisted into grotesque shapes. A young man who couldn’t have been older than twenty turned to look at me and screamed as his face mutated into a patchwork of scales and bone.


    The sound that came out was wrong.


    Like the scraping of steel against glass.


    My stomach twisted, but I swallowed it down.


    “A demon, undoubtedly,” Akua murmured. “But what kind, I wonder?”


    She opened her mouth to continue, but a sudden choked scream interrupted her, followed by the thumping of hooves as her mount bolted. Akua’s golden eyes swept the battlefield with a diabolist’s efficiency, her dress not even a little worse for wear as she gracefully rolled from the fall.


    “That much was obvious,” I bit out, shadows flickering at my feet as I tore through another misshapen tree limb grasping towards our flanks. Arrows drove an apelike monstrosity away from the north, before two more hurled themselves against a mercenary shield wall.


    “Summoned forth by the Tyrant, perhaps?” she replied, her brow furrowing. “No, I doubt he has the necessary talent at his beck and call. One of Triumphant’s Hell Eggs. Madness, or Corruption. The latter, I think.”


    “You’re the expert,” I snapped. “If anyone can fix this mess, it’s you, Akua.”


    “Fix a demon? Oh, Catherine, if only it were so simple,” Akua purred. “There are no heroes among us, and someone — likely a provincial imbecile — has loosed a Hell Egg. Finding the banner remains our only recourse,” she said, raising a hand to summon forth another sphere of flames. She hurled it toward a cluster of corrupted soldiers, incinerating them before they could spread further. “Not an easy task, I assure you.”


    “Isn’t taming demons and flying fortresses an art to you?” I challenged.


    My gut churned as another rank of mercenaries buckled and warped. The corrupted animals surged towards us again, their twisted forms moving faster than a normal eye could follow. One of them — what was left of a bear, judging by its mishappen shape — lunged toward my side.


    Tenebrous clouds reacted before I could, swatting the creature away with the kind of disdain that the Sahelians reserved for everything except their own reflection.


    Not you, though. You’re a good little abomination.


    I ignored the voice as I caught sight of another branch swerving towards a line of fantassins. My shadows twitched in anticipation. I tightened my grip on the reins, my knuckles going white. A curse slipped out as the shadows wrested themselves from my control. They lashed out in a fit of rebellious spite, slicing through a line of mercenaries. Then another. And another. These weren’t corrupted. These were mine.


    And now they were dead.


    “No!” I snarled, struggling to regain control. Darkness recoiled like an unruly cat, but the damage had already been done. At least two dozen soldiers lay dead in the snow, their blood steaming in the frigid air. My chest tightened. I needed to focus. Now wasn’t the time for tears. They could come later.


    “We should push forward,” Abigail insisted. “Warlock’s supposed to be in Marchford, right?”


    I bit my lip as I considered her words. There was merit to the idea. I didn’t know of any villains who could solve this problem, but I’d bet on the man who rained hell upon Summerholm before anyone else.


    “An hour to Marchford, Catherine,” Akua noted as if commenting on the weather and not a budding catastrophe, “though the demon will make short work of us before we ever reach its gates.”


    Abigail glared mutinously at Akua, only to let out a hacking cough. My eyes darted from one to the other. Whose advice should I listen to?


    Teresa’s voice cut through my deliberation. “We’re losing the northern flank, Catherine! If we don’t move now, they’ll blockade the road behind us!”


    I twisted in the saddle and examined that part of the battlefield again.


    A chill ran down my spine.


    She was right. Those corrupted by the demon were closing in, their malformed bodies cutting off the road behind us. Akua was right, I wasn’t about to order our force to charge forward without knowing what lay ahead. Which left what? My thoughts became tangled in a labyrinthine web. What did I even have? Certainly not a hero. First Liesse, then Summerholm. They only ever showed up when they wanted to burn some place down.


    Determination lined Akua’s face as she chanted under her breath. The mercenaries broke — because of course they couldn’t stick around in the face of an actual fight — slipping on the melting snow as they charged back along the road. I sneered, “Any deserters caught will be strung up by dawn!”


    A bearded veteran dropped his shield, his wide eyes fixed on the warped faces of our foes. “I can’t fight them,” he stammered, stumbling away from his former friends.


    “Fight, or you’ll look like that come dawn,” Teresa snarled, then drove her knee into his gut when he didn’t move. His hands shook as he reached for the shield, but he listened to what she said. They always did.


    I scowled.


    “Threats, Catherine, lose their weight when the enemy inspires greater terror than you do,” Akua observed fondly.


    “Here, on my horse,” I said, offering her a hand up. She took it without hesitation. I was keenly aware of her warmth as she slid into the space before me.


    The shattering of clay balls took everyone by surprise. What now? What else had gone wrong? Green flames erupted along the northern edges of the battlefield, consuming everything in their path. I breathed out a sigh. Goblins had arrived, their gleeful cackles audible even over the mounting turmoil.


    I glanced right. There was no mistaking that red paint around their throats. The Ninth Legion. Under different circumstances, I might’ve cursed their presence. Today? I’d take whatever help I could get.


    “Move, damn it!” I bellowed, spurring Pony forward. “Retreat in order! Teresa, keep them moving—stragglers die where they stand!” A pale faced man stumbled as the line shifted. He cast a desperate glance over his shoulder and met my eyes for a fraction of a second. That was enough. He scrambled back into place.


    Sigils formed in the air before me as Akua chanted. I leaned to the side and squinted around them. The mercenaries slowed and did their best to form up into ranks. Abigail trembled as emerald flames surged to our left. I didn’t know if the conflagration could do anything against demons, but it did buy us seconds against the fresh wave of nightmares approaching.


    I felt the pressure of the knife at our collective throats, the sands of the hourglass running dry. My head became fuzzy as blood dripped from my palm. I gripped Pony’s reins tighter in one hand and the knife in the other. We were almost at the mouth of the valley when another wave of corrupted creatures emerged from the hillside. My stomach sank as a line of green flames burned away our exit, because of course there wasn’t enough going wrong.


    “Forward!” I shouted, though I doubted anyone heard over the sounds of combat. It didn’t matter. The waves of heat from the goblinfire were enough to send everyone scrambling forward. Forward to Marchford, whether they liked it or not. Anyone who disagreed could voice their complaints to the demon. I said nothing as the ranks broke again.


    Akua was also right about this.


    Nobody could browbeat hired sellswords into holding their ground against this kind of enemy.


    Malformed willows flanking the road ahead of us twisted, writhed, then morphed into a gargantuan, hulking, abomination. Swollen heads extended from branches, blood leaked from now scaled bark, claws stretched from leaves. My shadows splashed harmlessly against a hand the size of a small house as it crashed into a cluster of mercenaries. Over a dozen soldiers, pancaked in an instant.


    “Infantry, fall back!” I shouted. “Archers, oil your arrows—pretend the thing’s a boss who hasn’t paid you in three months!”


    The abomination lunged again, raking through shields as if they weren’t there at all. Men scattered. One of the soldiers tripped, landing hard on the snow. He clawed at the ground as the thing’s shadow fell over him. A pair of clay balls towards struck against the branches, the hiss of green fire masking the soldier’s terrified sobbing.


    “You’ll die when I say you can,” Teresa barked, yanking him to his feet. “And not a moment sooner.”


    The now flaming monstrosity took another pass at some of my men. I snarled as my vision swam, pulling hard against the darkness and concentrated it around the monstrosity. An umbral whirlwind swirled around the arboreal nightmare, pulling loose boulders and smashing them against its hardened hide. The ground trembled as roots pulled loose from the soil, tearing through another line of men on course with us.


    Clay balls hurtled towards the monstrosity, only to be grabbed from the air by sharpened claws and hurled back at the perpetrators. Black smoke obscured the sky as another line of green erupted, this time to the south.


    “Maceris, lord of ruin, devourer of flesh,” Akua’s voice echoed across the valley as she spoke, “By the blood I have taken, by the suffering I have sown, I call upon you.”


    The sigils surrounding Akua snapped into place as she pointed towards the monstrosity before us.


    “Contracts were made, debts incurred,” she continued. “My grasp holds even the emptiness of the void. From the hells you have come; to the hells you will return. Kiss the world with hunger.”


    I shivered as the sound of millions of invisible locusts thrummed through the air. Layer after layer of the corrupted creature peeled away. First the scales, then the sap, then whatever horrid fleshy stuff was hidden underneath. An aeon’s worth of spite consumed the monster in moments, leaving nothing but a husk on the road.


    “Not over. Not yet,” I muttered, gripping Pony’s reins tighter as the battle surged around us.


    “It won’t end until we claim the banner,” Akua panted as we charged past the hollowed out remains.


    “How many more delightful horrors do you have hidden up your sleeve?” I asked, shivering.


    A part of me questioned at what point I’d started considering contracts with devils an acceptable method of problem-solving, but that part got boxed and set aside for careful examination later. As far as I was concerned, anything was acceptable when dealing with demons. We could leave worrying about the sanctity of my soul to the nuns.


    “Not nearly as many as I’d prefer,” Akua admitted, “but I’m nothing if not resourceful.”


    Blood dripped from my palm to the ground.


    I stared into the darkness ahead.


    How many more of those monstrosities awaited us?


    The night, after all, had only just begun.