The Twilight herald

Oh piss and daemons. Doranei scrambled backwards, almost falling over the fallen acolyte behind him. 'Wyvern!' he yelled, finding his voice at last.

The moment balanced on a knife-edge, the air charged with ex¬pectation as Doranei readied himself for the creature to leap through the flames. Distantly he heard Zhia spit harsh syllables he couldn't understand and the air shuddered with the impact of the spell. The fires ahead of him suddenly surged up bright and fierce into the night air, the heat striking him like a mailed fist. He raised an arm to protect his face as a reptilian shriek rang out.

'Haipar's out there,' Doranei yelled, but the only response was laugher from behind him – Mikiss – and he turned to see the vampire raise his axes expectantly. He gave the King's Man a comradely nod, his canines now elongated and gleaming in his smile. Doranei felt a small shiver; Mikiss had looked about to turn on him as he argued with Zhia, but now they were friends again? A soldier who couldn't depend on those beside him never lasted long.

'I can't help Haipar if she wants to fight on her own,' Zhia said calmly, her hands tracing shapes in the air as she continued to weave her magic. 'A wyvern means Mistress is working for Rojak now; I wonder how many of the Raylin I employed are now against us.' She shrugged. 'I don't suppose that will make much difference, even if they were all here.'

'Zhia!' Doranei had to shout to get her attention. 'However many are out there, so is King Emin and my Brothers. We have to help them.'

'And so we shall,' she replied almost dismissively, 'but I don't want to act prematurely.'

'What are you talking about?' he asked, but his voice was drowned out by an ear-splitting crack echoing around the street. Doranei turned back, unable to see anything through the flames but certain he recognised the sound of one of Cetarn's favourite spells. 'Do you hear?' he cried in dismay. 'They're being attacked. Zhia, please!'

A greenish glow pulsing with energy surrounded Zhia as she put her hand to the Skull she carried. 'Yes, I think you're right,' she said softly, before raising her voice to a shout that made Doranei's bones tremble. 'Koezh!'

The wall of fire winked out in an instant. Doranei blinked at the darkness, blind and afraid as he sensed movement all around him. Another whip-crack.sound rang out from somewhere to his right and as he took an involuntary step forward, something flashed towards him. Without thought he stepped aside and lashed out with his sword, which caught something, though his night-blindness obscured all detail. An inhuman snarl came from behind him – one of the vampires he guessed, but the sound was so savagely animal he could not tell whether it was Mikiss or Zhia – and a figure darted forwards, striking out at whatever he'd found.

Doranei didn't hesitate to follow; he'd done his share of sewer-fighting, combat in the dark where blows were guided by sound, following shadows moving in darkness. Something scraped down his chest and Doranei wheeled and struck again. He was rewarded with the splash of blood, or something like, on his face. He hacked upwards with his axe to catch any downward blow, and felt the blade bite. It was the opening he needed; stepping forward he thrust the point of his sword forward at chest height. Wherever on the enemy it had struck, it went in deep and was wrenched out of his grip.

Doranei let it go and sank silently to a crouch, chopping down at some movement at his feet in case it wasn't just the kick of a dying man's leg, but the edge only clattered against stone and made him gasp at the impact ru

'Not bad,' Mikiss said in his heavy Menin accent, stepping out of the gloom to look Doranei in the face. All around the darkness began to resolve into shapes as detail returned, figures ru

'Not bad at all,' Mikiss continued, 'you couldn't even see it like I could, and you're the one that dealt the final blow.'

Doranei's eyes widened as he saw the twitching body of the wyvern on the ground, the hilt of his sword protruding from its mouth. Gods, I drove my hand in there? The head was at an angle, and the hilt rested against the wicked curved tip of its upper fang. Someone was looking down on me with a kind heart; a few inches to either side and all I'd have caught would have been one of those teeth in the back of my hand.

Mikiss was clearly thinking the same thing as he tugged the sword from the wyvern's head and offered it to the King's Man. A perfect strike,' he said. An uncertain expression crossed his face, wavering between fearful and awestruck.

For a moment Doranei caught a glimpse of the man Mikiss must have once been. He gave a brusque nod in reply and turned his attention to the figures streaming past. Over the thump of boots on the ground he heard weapons clashing and screams of the dying, but he could see little other than the flood of soldiers filling the street, charging towards the sounds of battle with grim intent. Haipar was nowhere to be seen.

They were a ragged bunch, looking more like heavily armed savages. Doranei turned to look at Mikiss, about to ask why they were being ignored by the newcomers, when one slowed to look at them stand' ing over the body of the wyvern, his jaw hanging open in a lopsided grin. His tattered leathers and rusting mail hung loose on his body. His baldric was drawn tight, as if that was all that was holding him together. His tightly stretched skin was filthy – no spare meat on this one… or any of them, Doranei now saw as he looked more closely.

These men were all lean, verging on withered; they looked fragile, but they carried their massive swords and axes with ease. It was their faces that made the King's Man blanch. Doranei looked closer at the man who had slowed to look at the wyvern and saw one side of his face had been brutally shattered at some point, his ear was a mangled mess and there as an u

What was it Zhia had called her brother's troops? The Legion 0/ the Damned? A soft groan escaped Doranei's lips. 'Gods, is there anyone actually alive in this city?'

Mikiss broke out into a fit of laughter, dropping one of his axes and reaching for Doranei's shoulder for support as his body shook. The fingers dug hard into his shoulder, pushing through the stiffened leather and mail as though they were not even there. Doranei winced as he was driven down onto one knee and his sword slipped from his hand as his fingers opened of their own accord.

'Be careful, pet,' the vampire hissed in his ear, his laughter ending suddenly. 'Your life is in our hands.'

'Ahem,' said Zhia, behind them. Doranei felt Mikiss flinch at the sound of her voice, but the grip did not lessen. 'My hands, I believe, not yours.'

The fingers dug harder for a moment as a scowl passed over Mikiss' face, but he released the King's Man and stepped away, not about to try facing Zhia down. Doranei felt her hands under his arm, but he shook them off and rose oi his own volition.

'What's happening here?' he said in a daze. 'I thought you said they would make matters worse?'

'Worse?' Zhia repeated. 'This place is dead; there is no worse to be found here.' She pointed towards where Doranei had seen men fighting a few moments earlier. Someone was lying on the ground, sur¬rounded by Koezh's men. Doranei took a long look before he realised the white face he saw was a mask identical to that worn by the Jester acolyte who stood not more than three yards away. Looking around, he saw more, half a dozen dead in a circle where they'd tried to defend themselves against overwhelming odds. Doranei looked around. The acolyte he had been fighting alongside a minute ago was nowhere to be seen, vanished into the night.