\hypertarget{interlude-skirmish-ii}{%
\chapter*{Interlude: Skirmish II}\label{interlude-skirmish-ii}}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\nameref{interlude-skirmish-ii}} \chaptermark{Interlude: Skirmish II}

\epigraph{``Mark my words, the Imperial banner will be flying above
Summerholm by midsummer.''}{Dread Empress Regalia II, shortly before initiating the Sixty Years
War}



``Sound the horns,'' General Istrid said.

The Red Rage pulsed in the back of her head, the song of slaughter
sweetly beckoning. She'd learned to ignore it, since she'd taken her
oaths to the Legion all these years ago. Still the urge was always
there, to let the howl loose and sink her fangs into one quarry after
another until all was left of her was the joy and the blood. Orcs never
really went tame, even when you drilled them and clad them in man's
armour. Her warlord understood that, had never tried to make them
anything but what they were. Instead he gave them enemies and taught
them to be better killers, to wed savagery to discipline and something
\emph{greater} than themselves. Some of the younger greenskins nowadays
thought that great thing was the Empire, but they'd been born in
different times. Istrid of the Red Shields worshipped only at the altar
of the Legions of Terror, the greatest killing machine Calernia had ever
seen. What was Praes, to her? A pack of squabbling humans decked in
silks and too much gold. Should she ever get the order, she would burn
everything they had raised to ashes and salt the grounds of their
ancestral homes.

It might just come to that. The Rage pounded her temples like a drum at
the thought. Black's scrappy little apprentice had men singing of
revolution these days, and even Her Dread Majesty was getting her hands
dirty in the Wasteland. After they dealt with this Sahelian girl, the
old order was going to see \emph{revisiting}. She savoured the killing
yet to come, for many reasons. The Red Shields Clan was not unbroken
lineage like the Howling Wolves or the Ivory Fangs, but the shamans
still spoke histories from the dead clan that had birthed her own. Of
the days when greenskin hordes sacked Wolof and Okoro as they wished,
took tribute from the kneeling kings of Aksum and fought great battles
against Deoraithe in the Golden Bloom. Even before the Miezans the
strength of her people had been waning in the face of high walls and
cunning sorceries, but Creation was a wheel ever spinning. Every dog had
their day, if they were patient enough. Her people's felt like it was
coming.

The Fourth did not use Praesi-made horns for their signalling. Istrid
had her own crafted from the bones of the great drakes whose remains
still littered the Steppes, great carved things that took an ogre to
blow them. Their call was deep and shivering, the hollow cry of
creatures long dead to this land. It was the promise of death, and
Istrid's legionaries marched to it against the last gasps of the old
order.

Squire's legate had done what she could but these Callowans were
watchmen, not Royal Guard. When the wights pressed where the line was
thinnest and the men of the Fifteenth started dying, the left side of
the centre wavered. Istrid had ordered the horns sounded before it could
collapse entirely, and watched as her legionaries steadied the front
before edging the Callowans aside. Her Fourth had earned their cognomen
at Black's own word, after the Fields, for turning back the mounted
killers of the kingdom. \emph{Ironsides}. It had a lot of people
thinking she'd raised her legion for defence, for taking a hit and
swinging back. Ignorance, that. Istrid Knightsbane had climbed her way
to the heights where she now stood by massacring everything in her way,
be it rivals chiefs or Wasteland lords or the chivalry of Callow. She'd
raised her army in her image: brute force made host. She had fewer
sappers than any other legion in service, only the requisite number of
mages and the Fourth was the only Praesi host with more heavies than
regulars on the rolls. There was a reason they paired her with Sacker,
she knew. Her old friend would use finesse where she did not, temper her
more belligerent instincts. But there would be no need for deep
thinking, today.

In front of her dead men stood and she would shatter them. That was all
there was to it.

The orc tightened the clasps of her helmet and licked her chops. Her
personal guard clustered around her, as eager for the fight as she, and
Istrid glanced at her seniormost legate.

``Bagram,'' she announced. ``Command's yours.''

``Wade in their blood, Knightsbane,'' the orc replied, flashing fangs.

Just a little too long in doing that for it to be entirely proper, but
the old bastard had always been flirtatious. Istrid limbered her aging
shoulders with a roll and unsheathed her blade. Ahead of her the lines
impacted with a heady fracas and she picked up the pace. Legionaries
moved aside for her until all that was ahead was the dead, a teeming
mass of pale flesh and steel that came in silent waves. The orc stomped
the ground and let out a hoarse yell. A hundred of the same gave reply,
greenskins from steppes both Northern and Lesser. Berserkers like her.
There were some who said there was no longer a place for the Red Rage,
in this orderly little world the Tower was building. No place for the
old dumb brutes from the north.

``\emph{Bone and flesh torn asunder},'' she whispered in Kharsum,
letting the old words wash over her.

Her father had spoken them, and his mother before her. All the way back
to the Broken Antler Horde and the years where Creation had stood in awe
of the orcs.

``\emph{Caked in doom and mask of cinder}

\emph{Stand ye ever red in tooth and claw}

\emph{Like empty, great and gaping maw}.''

The old rhyme eased her into it, the way it was meant to. Istrid's body
shook with spasms as a scream not her own filled the air. Muscles
tightened, bones creaked and the world turned to shades of crimson. The
wight ahead of her struck, but so did she and her sword ripped through
bone and flesh, bending steel and smashing it into another undead.

``FORWARD,'' she bellowed, laughing madly.

And so they went, doom upon all the world.

---

Abigail kept cursing even as the mage healed what was left of her eye.
She could still feel the teeth going into her flesh, ripping and tearing
as she struggled to get the wight off of her. It said a lot about the
day that she was one of the lucky ones. Her entire line had been wiped
out trying to steady the fucking Ankouans when it looked like they were
going to rabbit: with the guards giving ground her twenty had been
surrounded and torn through in moments. If a mage line hadn't burned her
a path to retreat, she'd be in some wight's mouth like the rest of her
soldiers.

``Cowardly shits,'' the captain spat. ``I hope she hangs them all.''

``Unlikely,'' Lieutenant Salome noted. ``And if you continue speaking, I
cannot promise you'll ever see again.''

Abigail shut the Hells up, though she was starting to have
\emph{opinions} about Legion healers. They worked slower than the
brothers and sisters at the House of Light and their bedside manner was
a lot less pleasant. They weren't as good at healing, either. The lack
of gentle persuasion about attending sermons more often wasn't enough of
a trade-off for maybe losing half of her total eye supply.

``There,'' the solemn Taghreb said. ``That should be enough. Keep in
mind this is a patch job, Captain. Actual restoration would take hours
of precision work, and will have to wait until this is no longer an
active battlefield.''

``I know the triage protocols,'' Abigail griped. ``I sat through the
fucking lectures.''

The Legions had to be the only army in the world where they made you sit
like a schoolgirl after the drills. It was a good thing she know how to
read, too, because it was a requisite if you ever wanted to make
tribune. She had her eye on that promotion, as it happened. Officers of
that rank weren't expected to be on the frontlines as often, which
should do wonders for her life expectancy.

``Legate Hune left instructions for the soldiers that were in your
section to present themselves for redeployment,'' the olive-skinned mage
told her. ``Try not to get killed, Captain Abigail. It would be a shame
for my work to have been pointless.''

``You're all heart, Salome,'' the dark-haired woman drily replied.

Much as she disliked the notion of going back into the thick of it, the
Callowan had expected she'd be sent for. Half her company still lived
but it wouldn't be headed back to where it had been bled -- that space
was now occupied by the Fourth, which had come out swinging. And
screaming. Gods Above, so much screaming. It must have been an orc
thing. The legionaries were turning around the situation there, at
least. Their frontlines had been stacked with heavies and they'd slammed
into the wights like a runaway cart, gaining back all the grounds that'd
been lost in the span of a quarter bell. Now they were carving a wedge
into the undead, which she assumed was the preludee to an all-out
assault. Abigail made the rounds and collected the remains of her
company from the tender attentions of the healers or the grounds where
they'd dropped down exhausted before making her way to command. Senior
Tribune Locks was the one who met with her, the reason for his
ridiculous Legion-assumed name made clear by the dark curls going beyond
his helmet.

``We're keeping you in reserve for now, captain,'' the Soninke told her.
``Most likely you'll be joined with another company that took casualties
and sent to steady the levies.''

\emph{Steadying the godsdamned Ankouans is how I lost half my company,
you smug prick}, she thought.

``Looking forward to it,'' Abigail said, playing up her Summerholm
accent so the sarcasm wouldn't register.

She spent half a bell after that standing behind the lines like she was
on death row, but she couldn't complain. Better the wait than the fight.
She was no tactician, but at the moment she'd wager the judgement that
things were looking up for her side. The Fifth on the right flank was
still stuck dealing with wights, but the undead were beginning to thin.
The Ninth was going through the enemy slower but with fewer casualties,
and the Fourth was digging into the undead like this was summer solstice
and they hadn't eaten all week. It could be generously said that the
centre was holding, though not much more than that. There'd been no
glaring fuckups that would require her to be sent back into the mess,
and she told herself she'd light a candle in a House for that. As long
as it cost copper, anyway. She wasn't putting down silver for the folks
Above, not unless she got a promotion and her hooks into a pretty boy
that was supernaturally flexible in bed.

She was made to regret the blasphemy immediately.

There'd been a bunch of fancy Wastelanders looming behind the undead
since the blades had come out and they'd finally stirred themselves to
act. The move they made was on the Black Queen, and Abigail had to give
them praise for the balls of it if nothing else. Catherine Foundling had
a reputation for brutally murdering her way through problems, so it was
pretty brave of them to so openly embrace that label. Blinding panels of
light formed around the Squire in the distance, slowly spinning. Abigail
would have looked closer but it hurt her eyes to, and not just because
of the light. The shapes she could discern were hardly shapes at all,
and even glancing was enough to have the beginnings of a migraine
forming. To be honest, she wasn't too worried about this. Trapping the
Black Queen was kind of line trying to put a bonfire in a box -- it'd
work for that short moment until the whole thing caught fire and then
your hands were on fire as well and by then it was way, \emph{way} too
late to do anything about it. Unlike some of her dumber countrymen
Abigail didn't think there was anything gloriously patriotic about
trading a Praesi monster in charge for a Callowan one, but Heavens was
she glad to be in the Fifteenth and not in the ranks of whatever poor
fucking fools were fighting it.

There was something to be said for being on the winning side, and
monster or not Foundling had a history of being the last woman standing
on the field.

The thing was, the light panels stayed there. No howling blizzard tore
them open. This, Abigail thought, did not bode well. The rest of the
army must have agreed because a shiver went through the ranks. Not the
old legionaries, they were made of sterner stuff, but the Ankouans were
wavering. And the men of the Fifteenth were\ldots{} It was hard to put
into words. You didn't have to like the Black Queen to put your trust in
the legend. In the stories about the girl who'd tricked resurrection out
of angels and swept her way through armies and heroes alike. Abigail had
seen her in Dormer, when she'd raised the stairs of ice and swept the
Summer fae off the walls. It had been like watching a force of nature,
not a person. Sometimes the captain still woke up with cold fingers even
when she slept by the fire. You couldn't see something like that and not
believe, even if only a little. \emph{So why isn't she breaking out of
the cage?} The Praesi took advantage, and if there'd ever been the
history of Callow writ in a sentence that was it.

Abigail had heard stories about the Conquest. Every kid did, not matter
where in the country they were raised. But those had been about battles
and sieges, cunning ploys and foul deeds\emph{. This isn't anything like
that at all}, she thought. Darkness was made smoke above the chanting
silhouettes of faraway mages, and that smoked moved. It slithered across
the cloudless sky, spreading smoothly like ink in water, and it was only
when it reached the army it clustered into a ball above it. Then it
exploded again, into a hundred dark tendrils that swept through the
centre of the host. Wherever the tendrils passed, men died. Choking and
screaming, clawing at their throats as the smoke went into their bodies
and poisoned something inside them. Black tears streaked down their
faces, leaving ash-like trails. Abigail's blood ran cold, and in that
moment she understood why old men called Praes \emph{the Enemy}. This
was not war, it was\ldots{} She didn't know a word ugly enough for it.

How many had died, over these ten heartbeats? A thousand, at least.
There was a gaping hole right in the middle of the army, and already the
wights were pouring through. Abigail almost thought she heard a snap,
when the morale of the Akouans broke. They were going to leg it, she
thought. They guards were going to flee and they were all going to die.
The smoke thinned and began to disperse, leaving only a field of corpses
behind. That, and one soldier. That one survivor took off her helmet,
shook free a ponytail, and the captain's heart caught in her throat.

``Rise,'' Catherine Foundling ordered, and the dead men obeyed.

The word had been spoken half a mile away, and still Abigail heard it
like had been whispered into her ear. Akouans and legionaries rose to
their feet, cold blue eyes shining, and the dead fell upon the dead.
Something old and harsh rose up in the captain's veins, something she
had thought herself beyond. It wasn't pride, because who could take
pride in one of their own matching the Wasteland horror for horror? But
it was something close to it, when she thought of the sneering mages on
the other side who'd swatted down thousands likes insects. \emph{Be
afraid}, she thought\emph{. Like we are, like we've always been. Be
afraid of the monster coming for you all, because there is not a speck
of pity or mercy in her.}

``Kill them all, Black Queen,'' Abigail whispered hoarsely, and meant
every word of it.

---

Sacker watched frost spread across the ground, dead men claw at the
dead, and felt her body shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the
sudden cold. She'd seen Lord Black in the fullness of his power, turning
the men behind him into a sword no army could withstand. This was
something else. It was the madness and might of the Old Tyrants turned
to sharp purpose, and the part of her that loved the Tribes above all
else wept at the sight of it. \emph{O Carrion Lord, what have you
wrought?} The Squire was a host unto herself, a wrathful child who'd
stolen the mantle of a lesser god and would wreck the world with it
until it fit her vision of how things should be. The goblin was a true
daughter of the Grey Eyries, daughter and great-daughter of Matrons, and
she knew old histories and the dark truths they carried. No Empresses
had been so terrifying as the ones that though they were in the right.
That thought they were doing the \emph{necessary} thing. The Praesi
knelt at the altar of Dread Empress Triumphant -- may she never return
-- and named her the greatest Tyrant that ever was or would be. But
she'd been a storm to be waited out, nothing more.

There would be no waiting out Catherine Foundling, she knew. The girl
had been taught by the most patient of monsters, and surpassed his
greatest weakness. Lack of power.

\emph{Is this to be your legacy, Amadeus of the Green Stretch? Will you
leave us with one last laugh at our expense, knowing the world will burn
in your wake?} Sacker held more respect for the Black Knight than she'd
ever thought she would give either a human or a male, but even so she
did not think he deserved a pyre as great as the whole of Calernia. It
was all made even more bitter brew by what what she knew, that the
Squire would be needed in the wars to come. They needed the likes of her
to turn back Procer, to smother the Tenth Crusade in the crib. \emph{I
hate you a little, old friend, for the knowledge that you shaped a
situation where we would have no choice but to embrace her.} Every inch
of Sacker told her that she needed to kill this girl, kill her right now
before she crossed a line they could not return from. But to follow her
instincts would be to cripple the Empire and the Tribes with it on the
eve of the greatest war they had seen in centuries.

The goblin let fear and grief hold her for a moment, before she wrested
back her mind. There were orders to give. The rebels had played their
hand and seen it faul. It was only a matter of time until Istrid and
Orim broke through, and when they did the battle would be good as won.
All that remained was to play out the rest of this.

``Raise the banners,'' General Sacker told her staff. ``Heavies in
front, mages are to Lob at will. Let's end this farce.''

It should have felt like a victory, but all she could think about was
what lay ahead. Her people kept to the Gods Below, as the Praesi did,
but they had given the oldest face of these deities a name: the Gobbler.
It was said, among the Tribes, that when the Creation was born the
Gobbler had spewed out all the peoples of the world. The last and
smallest of them, crawling from the open and exhausted maw, had been the
goblins. It was whispered to the daughters of Matron lines that they had
been the last to come and that they would be the last to go. That they
would be spared the calamities of greater peoples, hidden away in their
deep places.

Watching Winter spread through the dead, freezing and shattering
everything in its path, for the first time since she'd been spawned
Sacker doubted this truth.
