Beastmaster’s warning proved true moments later: in the distance I saw what I might have taken as a swarm of insects, were it not too far out for their size to be reasonable. Birds, they were birds. Not buzzards, which were specially-crafted dead, but just any bird the Dead King had been able to get his hands on. His forces slaughtered and poisoned all wildlife wherever they went so that they could use this very tactic: throwing massive flocks and herds of them at us as skirmishers.

Like a tidal wave filling the sky, they came.

“I’ll handle it myself,” I finally said.

There went one of the two large workings I’d be able to throw around in daylight.

...

By the time I got to the front, stepping away from my armies with no one but Beastmaster at my side, the tide of undead birds was closer. Close enough no one could miss them, close enough that the beat of their wings and their ceaseless screeching hit our ears like a drumbeat. One coming ever closer as dead things filled the horizon. The birds would only be the first tide, I knew. They were just the quickest to make their way to our lines.

...

“You never taught me a prayer for this,” I said in Crepuscular. “An invocation. I imagine there isn’t one.”

I smiled at doom coming on darkened wings.

“Shall we make one together?”

On my shoulders I felt sharp talons dig into the skin, almost enough to draw blood. I had their attention and, closing my eyes, I breathed out and sunk into the Night. I pulled it deep into me until it was writhing in my veins like serpents of smoke.

“I have come a long way, through winding paths,” I murmured, and cocked my head to the side to better hear them.

It was neither a murmur nor the beat of wings, and somehow both.

“Yet behold,” I said, Andronike’s cool disregard given voice, “this barren realm, this crown of ruin!”

And her sister was not far behind, leaning close to hisper into my ear – every syllable a caw, a greedy call of carrion.

“Let me match horror with horror, might with might,” I said, Komena’s poisonous pride made verdict. “And know no master in this.”

The Night roiled, the sea boiling out of me in dusky vapour, and I almost smiled. They had left me the honour of the last touch.

“So let the sun weep and the Crows have their due,” I spoke in a rasping laugh. “For in the end, all will be Night.”

I felt the Sisters smile against the sides of my neck. This one, they whispered, would be known as mine. Catherine’s Tears. Above the tide of carrion birds the sky howled with gales as the Night left me, leaving me buckling down to my knees and hollowed out. My vision swam, but not so much I did not see my work: the power forming into a great sun of black flames, pulsing and screeching almost as loud as the undead. And the tide moved to split around it, but it wouldn’t be enough. I pushed myself up with my staff, and raised a trembling hand.

I snapped a finger and all the Hells went loose.

The black sun blew up in a wave of heat, long streaks of dark flame lashing out and carving streaks of ash through the undead. Like black comets seething strokes shot out, burning as they went and smashing into the plains below with enough might to have the ground shivering even where I stood. Droplets of black fire fell like rain, igniting the carrion dead, and I watched with a cold smile as entire swaths of the enemy burned. Soon the smell of burning bone and flesh would come to us with the wind, but for now I turned around and began my limp back to my lines. The Beastmaster’s followed, face gone blank.

A sky-shaking roar came as the Dominion and the Second Army gave their approval to my work, but no smile touched my face. I’d dug deeper than I’d planned to – my legs still shook and my arms felt numb – so I could not guarantee I’d be able to pull something on the same scale again. Not anytime soon, anyway.

It’d not been enough to blot out the birds, but it’d slow them down. The undead things had scattered every which way, so they’d take time to regroup, and I could generously be said to have at most destroyed half of the lot. It’d be long enough for the Dominion left to have put itself in position, hopefully, because otherwise there was going to be an awful lot of blood on the floor and soon

- Book 6, Chapter 55: Queen's Pawn

---

The official roster of soldiers for a legion was four thousand fighting men, I dredged up from my most recent readings, though the Praecepta Militaria had stated there were usually about as many camp followers, merchants and servants trailing in their wake.

- Book 1, Chapter 8: Introduction

---

The trench and palisade were facing the wrong way to stop us, but General Wheeler was the veteran commander of a sapper-heavy legion: already there were stakes and mantlets put up in our way. Mage lines were waiting behind lines of regulars, the enemy general’s intent plain enough to read. Now that the battle was turning in his favour, Wheeler wanted to keep us contained here until reinforcements arrived and we could be surrounded. Time for a reminder of who he was dealing with, perhaps.

“I have come a long way, through winding paths,” I spoke in Crepuscular, voice rising in prayer. “Yet behold this barren realm, this crown of ruin!”

The Night roiled around, like a wind made of darkness, and I felt talons biting into my shoulders. I felt Komena smile against the side of my neck, pleased at the destruction to come.

“Let me match horror with horror, might with might, and know no master in this.”

My limbs were trembling and the general staff had all backed away, looking at me in a mix of terror and fascination.

“So let the sun weep and the Crows have their due,” I smiled, “for in the end all will be Night.”

I’d only used this working once before, in Hainaut, and as the sky lit up with black fire I was reminded as to why. My vision swam, but I forced myself to finish it: I raised my hand, snapping my fingers, and the Hells were unleashed. A young black sun exploded, streaks of flame tearing through ground and men and shielding spells as screams filled the air. Black flame began to fall in a heavy rain, leaving only a horror of the dead and dying where once the Eighth had stood in our way.

“Your Majesty,” General Jeremiah carefully said, “are you-“

I spat to the side, wiping my mouth. It tasted like vomit, though I’d not thrown up, and this wasn’t even done. I raised my staff, the old general instantly going silent, and after pointing it at the horror swept it through. As it passed the black flames guttered out, leaving behind only great trails of smoke. I spat to the side again, leaning back tiredly in my saddle. Gods, my bad leg burned.

“Get your legion moving, Jeremiah Holt,” I rasped out. “I don’t have another one of those in me, not for a few hours.”

- Book 7, Chapter 20: Malicia's Plan

---

Komena laughed in my ear, delighted, and together we raised my hand as Night coalesced between my fingers.

“Take a swing,” I challenged. “See where it gets you.”

A storm answered. Arrows and javelin and spells, swarms of dead insects and clouds of poison. Ghouls scrambled up the wall and skeletons thrust long spears at my feet. It would not be enough. In my hand I held a sphere of darkness, and as I opened my palm it was revealed for a heartbeat – until I closed my fingers to crush it. The air shook, for a moment, and as I grinned the sphere exploded into a shower of black pinpricks. They flew out, growing and swelling into beams as they did. Komena’s eyes told friend from foe where I could not, held back by the limitations of my flesh, and everything else turned to smoke.

Night sliced through stone and steel and dead, the rays of the dark sun I had shattered taking a remorseless bite out of Creation.

The storm died, swallowed whole save for broken remnants that did not even reach my feet, and I let out a misty breath as Night swam thick through my veins.

- Book 7, Chapter 66: The Empty Grave