text: Saradyn rode to the outskirts of the little town of Mordid at the head of a force of fifty, including six wind witches, his parajistas. He considered that entirely adequate to quash a troublesome little village and its resurrected rebel leader.
  
  He did not count on another army already being there.
  
  "What in the fuck is this?" Saradyn said.
  
  The scout before him trembled. "They must have come over the border unnoticed. We're several weeks from the northern border. We couldn't possibly have–"
  
  "How could I have no knowledge of it?"
  
  But there was an easy answer to that, one the sputtering scout would not dare give him. The north was lawless, still. He had few sources there, and not a single town loyal to him. They still worshiped trees and giant plants up there, and had yet to come under the fist of Laine's protection. He saw Natanial picking at his teeth a few paces distance, leaning against a tree. He'd refused to ride the whole distance, but looked more refreshed than any of them. Saradyn pushed down a flare of annoyance.
  
  "She probably has a hundred of them in the town already," the scout said, "and there are hundreds up on the hill on the other side."
  
  "How many hundreds?" Saradyn asked.
  
  The man's eyes were wide. "Hundreds!"
  
  Saradyn made a note to find a scout with a better sense for counting. But even a few hundred to his fifty was far too many. He surveyed the landscape – thick woods. His men didn't know these woods any better than the Dorinahs. Saradyn motioned Tanays forward. Reinforcements wouldn't arrive for six days, at best.
  
  "We can turn away now and come back in force," Tanays said.
  
  "When have I ever done that?"
  
  Tanays cleared his throat. "Lord, there is no tactical advantage here. The girl likely fled when the Dorinahs attacked. We can regroup–"
  
  "Let's begin," Saradyn said, ignoring him. They were small enough that the initial logistics would be easy to communicate. "Wind witches – I want four of you around the village, at the compass points. I need two to stay here for the final push. Archers" – all twenty of them – "at the east and west. Bear cavalry" – all twenty-five – "I'm saving you for the end, after the witches and the archers have thinned them out. We come in with fire. I'm relying on the witches to contain it. Not an ember leaves that village, are we clear?"
  
  He looked for Natanial. But Natanial was no longer leaning against the tree. A quick scan of the ranks told him the assassin wasn't there either. He had slipped off before he could be ordered about.
  
  Tanays leaned over. "You'll sacrifice every person–"
  
  "Then they shouldn't have harbored a criminal," Saradyn said sharply. "We showed them leniency the last time we were here. They may see cruelty, but I see an avoidance of foolishness. Burn it down, and every Dorinah with it."
  
  Zezili made for the door of the cathedral. Storm sprinted past her, but it was Zezili who yelled for the scout to run back up the hill for the Sebastyn parajistas.
  
  She broke into the town square and pivoted, trying to figure out the plan of attack. The air thickened. She saw a shimmering wave of air out behind the cathedral.
  
  "How many?" Storm was asking the scout. "How many?"
  
  "I don't know. Fifty? A hundred? They're up on the opposite rise. There could be another force."
  
  Zezili mounted her dog and rallied the women she had brought down with her. Her first instinct was to mash them all together into a defensive circle, shields and weapons facing out. The scout had seen Saradyn's men in the east, but that didn't mean there weren't more.
  
  "West!" Zezili yelled at Storm. "Retreat west!" There was no reason to hold her position. They had come to the village for supplies, but food was worth nothing if Saradyn smashed them here between two armies. Her biggest worry was that if that was indeed Saradyn up there, he'd discovered them a full week from their destination. And if that was so, she had run out of time to figure out the Empress's intent. Saradyn would rout them before she found Anavha or destroyed the Empress's weapon.
  
  Storm roared at the ranks, his booming voice now a useful asset instead of annoying grievance.
  
  Zezili felt the air pressure increase. "Parajistas!" she called. "Counter!"
  
  The village was small, but so crowded with flaming houses and terrified civilians that rallying a line to protect their retreat took longer that it should have.
  
  Finally, the parajistas appeared behind her, two hawk-faced Sebastyns. "They're deploying–" one began.
  
  "Counter it the fuck down then!" Zezili said. She missed Tulana, sensible Tulana who would have known precisely what to tell them. "Cover our retreat."
  
  They fanned out behind Zezili's loose line of troops, the two lines of five, and she felt a whump of air, a blast of dirt. She hated that she couldn't see any of it.
  
  "Shields up!" she called at the ten who'd rallied. "Shields up, lances ready. Cover and forward."
  
  Zezili urged her dog forward as the village burned around them. If it was her on that rise and she knew she outnumbered them, she'd circle to burn them out. If she made a fast retreat, she could slip the noose.
  
  She barreled after her forces, following the purple flag of Storm's page into the woods.
  
  The flanking force hit her as they broke into the trees, cutting her and the ten from the main body of the retreat. The mass of them was shocking. Her people were outnumbered four to one, maybe more.
  
  Zezili pounded through the first wave of the bear cavalry. She unseated a scrawny little man on a scraggly bear. Other men were bigger; Tordin bred its men large. They did not restrict or cull them, and it led to monstrously hairy creatures, ridiculous figures, like watching bears ride bears. But most of the fat and hair was bluster, and they died the same as any other soldier on the field.
  
  Two bodies lay in the dirt behind her. Her shoulder was already aching. The army's blades were plain metal, like hers. Not an infused weapon in sight. A shaggy youth on a great bear barreled toward her. She deflected blows from two more already within the reach of her weapon, felling one. Then the wild youth was on top of her. She turned her bear just in time. He caught its head instead of hers.
  
  Her bear fell under her. She rolled free, coming up, miraculously, without impaling herself on her own blade. Two more men on bears swept toward her, swinging from either side. She ducked between them. Their blades missed her and grazed one another's mounts. Their bears snarled and attacked one another, spitting great gobs of drool.
  
  Three of Zezili's women had been knocked from their mounts and stood back to back with shields up and lances out. She limped to their little circle and made herself a part of it.
  
  "Work toward the woods," she said, inching them forward as a group toward the trees. If they could make it deeper into the trees Saradyn's men could not come at them in groups. They could scatter and meet up with the rest of the others later.
  
  Only one of her woman remained mounted. She took point at the head of their group as five riders turned around and rallied toward them.
  
  Zezili heard others coming down through the village, a full-on assault now, not a noose. Parajista-fueled winds blew through the tops of the trees. Zezili saw one of her Sebastyn parajistas dead, mangled on the scrubby ground. The other was nowhere to be seen.
  
  The woods crawled with cavalry. How was she outnumbered? What was he doing taking a force this size into—
  
  Then she saw the force making all the ruckus coming through the village: four parajistas, and two men on bears. The parajistas were making a fine show, ripping the roofs from houses, obliterating carts and kennels and grain houses. The top of the church splintered.
  
  Five of Saradyn's cavalry ran at their position, and six more of his men came up behind them. Eleven against her four would be the end.
  
  Zezili screamed at them, furious. Her women took up the scream all around her – fiery, shrieking warmongers all.
  
  The cavalry crashed into their shield circle.
  
  Bears weighed a ton, on average. Five tons of force broke their line neatly, and the six tons coming after them trampled them over.
  
  Zezili was crushed under the weight of the two women next to her, folded behind them by the first charge. The second wave pounded right over her. Her wrist snapped. It was her left wrist. The one holding the sword. Her only good hand.
  
  She howled.
  
  The men dismounted and came back with swords out.
  
  Zezili yanked a corded necklace from the woman next to her using the remaining fingers of her right hand. She pushed her sword into her right hand and used her teeth to tie the blade to her right hand, then crawled out from under the bodies of her women.
  
  The woman on the bear had been unseated and run through with a pike. She kicked on the ground at Zezili's left, huffing blood and asking for a priestess.
  
  Zezili distanced herself from her, edging back toward the woods while the men advanced.
  
  Running was not much of an option, with her ragged gait. Her left hand hung uselessly beside her.
  
  "Shit," she said aloud, because if she was going to get a last line, that sounded best.
  
  The men swarmed her.
  
  She pivoted and shoved the first away with her right shoulder. She thrust the blade forward, running one man through.
  
  Someone moved behind her. She could not rally fast enough. She felt the thwack on her skull. Black spots, a burst of light. Zezili hit the ground face first.
  
  Yelling. Not hers. She had a mouth full of loam. Her fucking wrist hurt. She spit leaves, turned just in time to see a tall, wiry man standing over her. Black hair brushing a bared collar, a beak of a nose that was still somehow attractive in the long face.
  
  "Your name," he said.
  
  "Fuck you."
  
  "Anavha Hasaria," he said.
  
  She flopped her tangled sword arm forward. He stepped on her wrist. Pain rocked up her arm.
  
  "I've heard quite a lot about your face," he said. "I like it, but I think Anavha may find it shocking."
  
  "Natanial!"
  
  Another man, yelling from on top of a bear. Zezili could only see the bear's paws from this vantage.
  
  The wiry man stood, foot still on her wrist. "Call Saradyn over," Natanial said. "We have one of the legion commanders."