Eyes had begun to form in the enormous dust cloud, deeper pits in the dark cloud that loomed thickest over his untrained troops. Empty eyesockets, rather, in what Chyren was slowly recognizing as a huge horned skull forming in the dust.

  Not all gods were equals, Maeltore had claimed, and Chyren had come to believe him. Some were not bound to corners of nature, limited in scope and power by concept or perception. Some were simply nightmares.

  Maeltore was one such god. The giant in the dust was another.

  "Ah, Shkerus," Maeltore said, quietly, his capering calmed as he watched the Fallen gods awake. "They have unloosed your chains… one last time."

  Chyren felt the horse tense and tightened his grip, and then Maeltore charged. Not merely a gallop, swift but proud as he often did, but a flat-out, neck-outstretched, muscles tearing sprint towards the army and the rising gods. The giant, skull-faced Shkerus was not the only god manifesting now in person: fire and wind rose in an enormous pillar behind him, strange unnatural forms appearing intertwined and vanishing in the whirling inferno in brief flashes; the earth heaved upward and broke apart, a living wave rolling across the plains towards the United Front… and more. So many more in forms strange or familiar, but all, in their own twisted ways, terrifying.

  The thunderclouds thickened and darkened, and a bitterly cold wind rushed in. Chyren flinched as it struck, but Maeltore just kept running. The army of civilians had stopped moving, understandably petrified by the sheer enormity of what was happening.

  The gods walking the earth. Not merely dwelling in a totem, lending strength to a weapon, taking up residency in a willing mortal host… this was divine power on a level no living man had ever seen before. And they rose at Maeltore's command… at Chyren's bidding.

  The horned-skull of the Ruinous Giant bowed over the cowering horde to sweep towards Maeltore and the battle beyond, the rest of his being a horizon-consuming duststorm driven before and around him. Dust and debris, mingled with ash. The warcamp. He'd arisen from the deserted warcamp.

  Yyle.

  Chyren's breath caught in his throat.

  No. It's too late. It has always been too late. Forget her.

  Forget her. Until he could bring her back.

  The army, the storming sky, and the tornado of fire all vanished as dust and ash engulfed him. Chyren narrowed his eyes, blinking against the hot, stinging grit, but Maeltore whinnied as if truly reuniting with a long-lost friend. Chyren could feel the horse's muscles moving, the movement and jolt as he leapt forward and stepped up and climbed, but he could see nothing but the dust and dirt before them. Even Maeltore's mane, right in front of his watering eyes, was partially obscured by the sheer density of the dust storm. Chyren gave up and raised his spear arm to cover his eyes, his other hand clutching Maeltore's reins with the desperation of someone who knew full well he was beyond the realms of sanity and needed to cling to something real.

  What are you climbing, Maeltore? What are you climbing?!

  Debris pelted his body, stinging everywhere his leather armor did not cover. It blew this way and then that, not chaotically as in a storm, but in an oddly rhythmic fashion–

  Chyren realized almost as quickly as he noticed. The giant, the duststorm, was breathing.

  He hunched in his saddle, bowing his head to further protect himself. Ash coated the inside of his nose and mouth, making every breath a dirty-tasting one. Gritty dirt blown by the giant's breath found its way inside his boots, his shirt, and made his skin itch maddeningly. He breathed shallowly and kept his eyes tightly closed. He didn't care what he was missing.

  And then, mercifully, Maeltore burst out of the cloud. Chyren gasped and coughed in the suddenly-clear air, hacking up dirt, but Maeltore of course was completely unaffected. No, if anything, he was exhilarated as conflicted winds buffeted them from all sides.

  "Behold, rider! Look upon our plains of conquest!"

  Chyren blinked through tears as he tried to clear the grit from his eyes, the world little more than a hazy, watery blur. He wished he had a waterskin to rinse his face…

  Lightning flashed, a vague white glow above him rather than a distinct bolt, and rain began to fall. It was cold, so much so that Chyren bit back a gasp at the suddenness of it, but he tilted his face up and let the water hit his blood-shot eyes. Then he flinched back, surprised, for mingling with the cold rain were sharp shards of sleet and huge warm drops as if from a summer storm, all falling together.

  "The clouds…" he murmured, realizing something was off, and Maeltore chuckled.

  "I told you to look."

  Chyren blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked around… and it finally sank in. The clouds didn't just look nearer - they were nearer. The storm clouds of multiple gods, humid hurricanes and bitter tempests, rain, snow, lightning, wind… all swirled and battled overhead. Winged shapes, strange and enormous, briefly appeared as shadows in the depths as lightning lit them, the clouds and lightning all closer than Chyren had ever seen them. Too close, because Maeltore stood proudly in an impossible place.

  On the bent back of a god made of dust and fury, charging across the plains from on high.

  Chyren felt dizzy. He looked down, over the shoulder of Shkerus, and saw far below the plains on which they'd fought. Maeltore's "plains of conquest".

  They seemed so… distant. The three of them, two Fallen gods and Chyren, looked down from halfway between sky and earth, and Chyren finally saw the whole of the battle.

  The United Front had fragmented, but not scattered. They fought three distinct battles; the two major ones being the Tchek Imperium holding their own on the eastern edge, and the alliance of Jyu and Lach further to the west. His Fallen, a streak of black against the plains, mostly concentrated on trying, and failing, to break those two lines, but a third, much smaller conflict had taken to the hills. Deserters, perhaps, and the Fallen who hunted them? Or the efforts of the smaller civilizations the United Front had brought with them, the tribes and wandering clans.

  "The Fallen Kings are losing," Chyren murmured, and glanced back at the second army. The army that he did not want engaging the enemy.

  The gods had caught up to and overtaken the armed civilians, leaving the horde slowed to a near standstill in their confusion. Almost all the conquered gods had taken on a physical form now, and the mere sight of them made Chyren's numbed sense of fear prickle.

  Shkerus roared to drown out all natural sound, the roar of wind and sliding sand and rocks crashing against each other, and those twisted gods below screamed their challenges and anticipation in response, and yet they hesitated right before the hills, right before committing. Chyren could feel them through Maeltore's eyes. So many. A ferocious forest god, wolf-headed and deer-bodied, leading a pack of dead yet wild-eyed creatures slavering blood. A long-armed dancer whose flowing garments twisted in preparation to strangle and whose song could steal the breath from a man's lungs…

  He'd known some of those gods in another life. The dancer, Tsicare, had been his sister's–

  No.

  No.

  NO.

  "Do it, Maeltore," he whispered, and the words felt hard and cold from his withered-up chest. "To victory."

  Maeltore reared, his battle cry lost in the tempest of the raging sky gods, but it didn't matter. The Fallen gods knew. He leapt forward, out into open air, and Chyren did not close his eyes as they plummeted.

  And far below, the gods charged.

  Chapter Eight: Godless

  La threw all her weight into the strike, plunging her short side-sword into the Fallen soldier's side through damaged armor. The man, too caught up in the fight to let pain defeat him, still made a grab for her, forcing her to quickly abandon the weapon and jump back. She almost slipped in the mud but managed to catch herself, then snatched the long knife from her belt as she settled into a defensive stance. Her last weapon.

  Shield had shattered, lance had been lost. They weren't designed for combat on foot, nor had she trained for it as much as she should have. She had always had backup for these battles. Comrades…

  Gone now. Qie, killed by a demon-beast a year ago. Immediately before that Chyren had abandoned them, or was captured, or Fell into darkness, depending on who was talking. Yyle had vanished last night without leaving a word, Harah had gone off on his own this morning to face… the conqueror, and Densk…

  Densk might still be alive. He had gone off to rejoin his people on the Imperians' side of the Front. They were doing better over there.

  Better than La.

  She had been forced off to the west of the main battle, into the hills that had been just a little too steep for setting up a warcamp. Companies of Fallen were pressing in after her and the rest of the survivors from the Kyre cavalry as they tried to flee, though thankfully their advance had been hindered by the mercenaries, clans, and other ragtag warriors who had come to the battle but did not belong to any of the major northern armies.

  La gripped her knife tightly, glancing around for some of that ragtag help now as the huge Fallen soldier switched his sword to his other hand and sidled closer, his pale eyes locked on her.

  He was wary and weakened, but she didn't fancy her chances. She couldn't block or parry that sword with one puny knife - her options were dodge, run, or risk getting in close. Her smaller build had encouraged an agile combat curriculum, but she still didn't trust her reflexes to get her out of harm's way from within knifing range. And that man could break her in half if he got his hands on her.

  Which means… run.

  La hated to leave an enemy behind her, but with her sword in his side he wasn't going to be chasing her down. She hesitated, looking for any other way to end this fight, but she had no backup and another party of roving Fallen were starting to get too close for comfort. She angled her knife and made a fake lunge, feinting for the get-in-close strategy, before twisting away and taking off up the hill behind her. She bought herself a second or so, enough time to get out of striking range, and though the Fallen soldier bellowed a curse after her, he could not follow.

  She clambered up the hill, sheathing her knife so she could use her hands, too, when she started slipping on wet grass. She didn't know whether the thunder and lightning was from a friendly or enemy god, but the rain fell with no distinction between the sides. They were all going to be wet and uncomfortable.

  A voice called out, and she tensed, her hand going to her knife. A moment later she spotted the speaker, gesturing at her from a hastily-constructed barricade of shields and spears near the top of the wide, rounded hill.

  "Hurry! Those Fallen have archers!" the man cried, and La quickly glanced over her shoulder as she increased her pace. He was right, of course. The group of Fallen had spotted her and were almost to their wounded comrade now, and several were raising bows.

  But they weren't the only ones. When La looked back up the hill, several others had appeared over top of the barricade to join the man who'd called out to her, and they already had arrows laid to the string. She realized what was happening and ducked, and the arrows flew over her head at the Fallen. Whether they struck targets or forced the Fallen to scatter, La didn't pause to see. She put all her strength into a final push and ran up to the barricade, ducking (almost falling as her foot slipped) behind the meager cover.

  Four men, the three archers and the one who'd called out, crouched behind it already. They all glanced at her briefly, but then the archers immediately returned their attention to their work. The first man looked her over, probably searching for injuries, then gestured at her knife.

  "Is that all you have?" he asked, and she frowned as she tried to place his accent. At a glance he looked Tcheketh, but he didn't sound Imperian. Those two usually came hand in hand.

  "Left my sword in a Fallen's side," she replied, and mirrored his quick inspection. Yes, definitely Tcheketh. The Imperium were very proud of their two-color eyes, and that because they somehow never seemed to show up in other kingdoms, even in mixed-blood. This man's irises were each split down the middle, greyish-violet on the right, light blue on the left. So why isn't he…? "Where's the rest of your cohort?"

  The archer nearest to them made a derogatory noise in his throat and peeked over the barricade. He definitely wasn't Tcheketh - skin too pale, hair too black. A Kellene. "We are his cohort, if I understand the term," he cut in sharply, and the accent caught La's attention. Similar to the first man's, but with a more familiar edge. "All that's left of us, at least."

  "Calm down, Hipothas," insisted the first man. He handed La a half-spear she hadn't noticed stashed behind the barricade and continued, addressing her again, "We're Ekhists, from Family Timr. I'm afraid my national kinsmen would have me executed before coming to my aid here…"

  Ekhists. The Godless.

  La took the moment's respite to wipe the blood away from a small slash on her leg, hissing in pain but grateful to see it was shallower than she'd thought. "Godless or not, I'm glad you're here."

  "We have a god, he's just not one of those," snapped the one archer, Hipothas. He looked… gods, he did look like Chyren. Everyone said Kellanes all looked alike, but she had never–

  – Harah has to be wrong. It's just some warlord from Kellan. Even that archer could pass for Chyren with a haircut and the wrong lighting - it's not him. Harah might think he was going off to kill their lost friend, Fallen into darkness, but no… gods no…

  An arrow thudded into the shields and La flinched. She tried to banish the sinking misery of her thoughts and instead looked to the Godless who'd called out to her.

  "What is your strategy? You can't stay crouched back here forever."

  "Especially considering our dwindling supply of arrows," one of the other archers commented tersely. "Any alternative ideas you come up with while we hold off the wolves would be appreciated, Jansz."

  La's gaze drifted past the Godless as they conspired, off to the east along the long conflict. Somewhere out there, all that remained of her friends were fighting for–

  "By the heavens! What is that?!"

  One of the archers froze where he'd risen from cover, his bow half-drawn, but his gaze was locked on something on the horizon beyond the Fallen soldiers. His exclamation drew everyones' attention, but too late. Hipothas the Kellane had grabbed his arm to yank him back down when a Fallen arrow struck like the goddess's lightning, knocking him back violently to the muddy ground. La flinched back, but did not avert her gaze. Arrow through the throat… there was no saving him. He was gone. As the Godless looked on in horror, she leaned over to grab the dead man's bow and quiver.

  "I know my way around a bow," she explained as their eyes followed her. "And we need the weapons."

  Jansz from Tchek risked a peek over the barricade, choosing to ignore the issue rather than linger on it. When he ducked back down again, just under a returning arrow, his two-toned eyes were wide.

  "They are doing something new," he said with a baffled intensity. "I don't… I don't know what…"

  La placed an arrow on her pilfered string and poked her head around the side for a quick glance. Just a moment, and then she pulled back to process the visual in relative safety.

  The Fallen were advancing up the hill, but cautiously. Several had been dropped further down with Godless arrows in them. Beyond them, on the plains, the second Fallen army was advancing as well, and beyond them, something dark. Something enormous.

  "A sand storm?" she guessed, and the Godless glanced at one another.

  "Not a natural one, not here. Which means…"

  La drew a sharp breath. "They're calling on their gods."

  Her new battle companions grimaced, and Hipothas muttered something in the tone of a curse as he swiftly rose and loosed an arrow at the approaching Fallen. "That looks like more than a simple calling to me," he grumbled as he crouched back down. "Jansz…"

  "No," their apparent leader retorted, and yet his tone betrayed his uncertainty. "The demons come in many shapes. This above us is one of their storms, after all. A cloud of sand may be nothing more than that, a corruption of nature. It doesn't mean they've risen."

  And yet, as he spoke, the air seemed to shift and warp around La, making her ears ache with sudden pressure changes. She had to brace as the wind steadily picked up, rushing first in one way, then another. She looked up, blinking and squinting against the rain, and saw the storm, the summer storm of Vyla'akah, getting pushed forward by new clouds, darker clouds. A deep rumble resonated through the earth, restrained but powerful.

  "Gods near…"

  She risked another glance, and then another, longer one when she realized the Fallen were standing still, too, looking up and back behind them. She followed their gazes and froze, just as the dead Godless had before the arrow took him.

  A fierce fiery glow lit the distant Fallen from behind, the earth rose up and moved like water on the plains between the armies, and in the dust cloud a face was forming…

  La choked.

  Her heart dropped.

  This… is more than an in-dwelling. This isn't like Harah's spear.

  The Godless cautiously peeked up next to her, and then their eyes, too, locked on that awful horizon. The faces of all three took on the same horror La felt deep in her stomach.

  "Shk'ros," whispered the one who'd been silent until now. "Demon of ruin. Highest have mercy…"

  Hipothas lowered his bow slowly, eyes wide like he was in trance. "The elders were right, Jansz. We shouldn't have come."

  Be strong, La. Be the hero. Rally them, like we always do. Rally them.

  She swallowed, opened her mouth to speak, and no words came. Words didn't seem possible, looking out at the growing number of Embodied and Fallen gods as they came to kill.

  "But… it can't be," whispered Jansz, though La saw no good in denying what was before them. "This can't be the end."

  Rally them! "It doesn't have to be," La managed. "Our– the United Front's gods will rise up to face them. We have to marshal, prepare to face that second army. We can still win this." Why haven't our gods arisen like that? A lightning bolt here, a ground-tremor there, setting aflame a volley of arrows… if gods can do that, why do they do so little?

 

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