"Let he who bears the sword remember: duty forges the soul more surely than steel forges the blade. 'My will shall be yours, and your sacrifice, my offering to the world. For the knight fights not for himself, but for those who cannot raise the sword, and his strength is born of this renunciation."

  — Words of Solar?s, XVIII

  Revealed to Thérion the Veiled, Year 1 of the Endless Day

  As the lieutenant advanced toward the drawbridge, he noticed several enemy bodies lying in the ash, a dagger planted in the nape, throat or back. He asked himself no question. He had heard Knight Vaan Hart's orders and knew a specter watched over him.

  Not far from his position, his cohort of about a hundred fighters advanced in a rumbling wave, their armors resonating like metallic thunder while the smoke became increasingly dense.

  The port finally plunged into darkness, Lieutenant Bjornhold raised an axe and stopped in the middle of a crossroads to sweep the scene with a gaze, his angular features tense with contained fury.

  "HALT!" he thundered, turning toward his warriors who stood behind him. "Regg?s, take about thirty soldiers to help the populace and order the rest to scatter. I leave you command, I'm going ahead with my unit."

  The sub-lieutenant gave his orders and the warriors deployed with brutal precision. Before continuing his way, Dragar pivoted on himself, his eye searching the moving darkness.

  "The Noohrikane! I know you're there so listen to me well because I'll only say it once," he called out while continuing to scrutinize the surroundings around him. "YOU'D BETTER LEAVE ME SOMETHING TO FIGHT OTHERWISE I GUARANTEE YOU'LL PAY DEARLY FOR IT! DID I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR, WOMAN OF SHADOW?!"

  No response came. However, a certainty vibrated in his bones. She prowled, intangible specter in the storm of ashes watching over him as her chief had ordered.

  After several glances, he decided to advance. He traveled only a few dozen meters when through the opaque curtain of smoke, a horde took shape in the distance, deformed forms dancing in the braziers' reflections. About fifteen looters emerged, their ebony armors gleaming under purple half-capes attached to their hips.

  A wide smile brightened the old lieutenant's face, happy to be able to quench his bloodthirst before a flash, or rather a memory, resurfaced in his mind.

  "Ashengard?"

  His lips stretched in a fierce grimace, revealing clenched teeth, and he brandished his axes, their edges glittering under a ray of the Zenith that had pierced the opaque smoke covering the sky. With all the rage and savagery that characterized him so well, he charged with raw power, his muscles rolling under his harness like a taütaurus ready to sweep everything away, alone against fifteen.

  The first adversary, a lancer draped in dark armor, planted his heels in the ground, his pike aiming at Dragar's chest with cold precision. In a flash, the old man reacted. His left axe described a lightning arc, deflecting the point in a metallic scream that made a spray of sparks burst forth. The impact vibrated in his arm causing a shock wave that rose to his shoulder, but he didn't flinch. His second axe struck down like a divine cleaver, cutting the looter's shoulder in a cracking of pulverized bone. Using the back of his first axe, he struck the second. The blade plunged even deeper to shred flesh to the sternum in an explosion of warm blood that splattered his tanned face, a ferrous taste invading his mouth. The man collapsed, his purple half-cape gorged with crimson spreading around him like a living puddle, a wet rattle dying in his ravaged throat.

  A second assailant burst on his left, a blade brandished in a guttural cry, aiming at his exposed flank. Lieutenant Bjornhold pivoted halfway, his senses catching the whistle of displaced air. The edge grazed his armor in a strident creaking, a fleeting burn brushed his skin under the metal. He retaliated with calculated savagery, driving his right axe into the man's thorax. The ribs gave way in a sharp crack, like breaking wood, and the looter toppled backward, breath cut off. His eyes died in a glassy gleam as his head violently struck the pavement in a dull impact.

  However, death didn't only strike the enemy camp. Further to his left, Torv, a veteran with gray locks, grunted while parrying a pike while a second lance emerged, fast as a shadow, to pierce his flank, nailing him to the ground in a scarlet pool. His scream disappeared in the toxic mist as his body sagged like a broken doll. To the right, in an adjacent alley, another Golden Lances warrior raised his shield in a desperate reflex. In vain. An enemy cleaver struck down to split his helm and skull in a spray of blood and bone shards.

  Distinguishing his warriors and friends falling in the distance despite the smoke burning his single eye, the old man from the North roared, an incandescent fury rumbling in his chest. He charged a third adversary, a colossus with a cape stained with mud, a two-handed sword raised above his head like a sentence. Their weapons clashed in a titanic crash, sparks bursting in a furious cascade that illuminated the reigning darkness. The giant's sword struck his pauldron and notched the metal in a sharp grinding. A dull pain exploded in his shoulder. Too little to stop the man from the North. Dragar slipped under his assailant's guard with brutal agility, passing behind him. His right axe lacerated the back of the colossus's right thigh in a descending blow, making blood spurt in a warm arc as muscles tore. Without slowing, he whirled on himself in a fluid and fierce movement, to plant his weapon's blade at the level of his left temple, in a scarlet jet that sprayed the superheated slabs. The giant collapsed, his hands clawed the air in a futile spasm before his body spread in a steaming puddle under the furnace devouring the place.

  Carnage bloomed around the lieutenant like a poisonous flower. A few meters behind him, two looters wanted to attack him while he finished off the colossus. They sagged without a sound, a fine dagger planted in the nape, their bodies rolling softly in the dust. Another warrior emerged from a volute of smoke and charged toward the old man with his two short swords in hands. He didn't know he was already dead.

  It was there, at this precise moment, that the lieutenant saw her.

  The specter was at his back. A shadow in the flames that passed so fast in the enemy's blind spot that the tongues of fire seemed to dance in her wake. With a simple blow, a blade driven under the armpit, she pierced his heart, making the man collapse in morbid silence.

  A cry alerted Dragar on his flank. He shifted, his axe cutting the raised arm of the assailant with an ascending slash in a cracking of crushed bone. In the same movement, he turned his wrist to bring down the back of his axe on his adversary's helm with such violence and savagery that the enemy knight's head literally sank between his shoulders in a gong sound that rang in the alley.

  Suddenly, at his back, a lancer rushed to impale him. Once more, the specter watched over the old man. The enemy warrior crashed to earth a few meters from his feet, a dagger lodged in the right eye, his body jerking one last time to immobilize in death.

  Dragar panted, his lungs burned by the air saturated with ashes, and a faint murmur escaped his lips.

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  "By my grandfather's axes, this little one is just as frightening as Sara?."

  While he observed the Noohrikane's shadow moving through the flames, enemy bodies continued to collapse under her hand. An archer fell, throat pierced by a steel flash before he could loose his arrow. A fugitive sagged, a blade planted in his back, his cry muffled by smoke. An enemy warrior, who wanted to finish a son of Solheim she had brought down, felt the coldness of two twin blades perforate her flanks. Mei, elusive specter, wove death with surgical precision, her blows as fast as lightning in the storm. The tumult calmed in a collective rattle, the last survivors—few—retreating, pursued by the Golden Lances warriors still standing.

  Dragar planted an axe in the ground, the handle vibrating under his calloused palm. He crouched near a dead enemy to observe his armor more attentively, his torso rising under jerky breaths that burned his trachea. This wave-shaped emblem traced on ebony armors, the purple half-capes—Ashengard, he had no more doubt.

  But while he enjoyed this semblance of calm to catch his breath and think, a silhouette emerged behind him, light as a murmur in the wind of the Valley of the Merciful. Mei placed a knee on the ground and moved aside her mask, revealing a pale face with sharp features, her eyes glittering like embers in the flickering gleam of flames. She raised her head and spoke loudly enough for the Golden Lances chief to hear her in this furnace din.

  "I have orders to head toward the Intendant's tower, my Lieutenant. I must verify if Madam St?venson is safe."

  Without turning around, he indicated a slender structure to the west, a blurred silhouette in the thick veil of mist before wiping a scarlet trail on his cheek, his gray pupil scrutinizing A?gardyne's statue in the distance.

  "Head over there. The Intendant's tower is at the feet of the Ancient King's statue," he growled, before adding in an authoritative tone. "But come back quick, I don't think these dogs will stop there, and your daggers will be more than precious to us, little one."

  Mei acquiesced with a sharp nod, her fingers tightening her hood. She vanished into the darkness like a shadow swallowed by the void, leaving Dragar alone facing the flickering flames and echoes of a conflict taking root in Port-Foam's ashes. The Sun, motionless at the zenith, seemed to weigh on his shoulders, a silent judge observing the agony of a world he refused to abandon.

  On their side, Siegfried and Juuh'ma trod Port-Foam's southern bank. Around them advanced the south bank battalion, a horde of a hundred fighters in gleaming armor, their guttural grunts mixing with the crackling of braziers devouring the buildings. Tumult engulfed them from their first steps through the city's streets—panicked silhouettes of villagers fled in disorder, some screaming their despair, others staggering under the weight of bundles or children huddled against their chests, their outlines blurred by acrid smoke that clawed at lungs.

  Barely had they crossed the main artery on the south side when the contingent's captain, a stocky fellow with graying temples, immobilized, his words tearing through the ambient din. He pivoted abruptly, his gaze sweeping his troops, his voice cracking through the brazier.

  "Scatter! Comb through each alley, lock down the flanks. Out of the question they take us from behind!"

  Immediately, the warriors split with mechanical precision. A squadron rushed into a narrow passage, another bypassed a warehouse whose flames licked the walls, while a third group climbed a pile of smoking rubble. Siegfried pivoted his head slightly to exchange a brief look with the colossus behind him.

  "Let's head toward the market square, my brother," he ordered.

  The Stoneskin made his chains clap in a dull rumble.

  "I follow you."

  Without waiting, they launched through a sinuous artery, accompanied by five Golden Lances soldiers, their metal plates resonating in the suffocating atmosphere.

  Above, R?chard, agile as a sombrefel, bounded from roof to roof and made his bow sing on enemies posted at height. Twelve had already fallen under his shots when he crouched a short moment behind an old chimney to look at where his best friend was. At this very moment, he heard her strident cry pierce the air and turned toward the sound to glimpse Feather, diving at full speed toward enemies located on a bell tower, aiming at him.

  Just before the man fired his arrow, the goldenbeak dove and lacerated his face with her talons, making the projectile deviate to bounce on the roof tiles. Taking advantage of the raptor's attack, the young archer notched an arrow and drew his bow as much as he could, the wood cracking under tension. He aimed, cut his breathing and as soon as the bird flew away, he released the projectile that shot so fast, it seemed to pierce the smoke volutes to lodge in the enemy archer's head. Then, while rolling on his left side to dodge the second archer's shot, he took a second arrow, notched it and fired.

  "And fourteen," he congratulated himself while the projectile hadn't yet reached its target.

  The steel point perforated the man's throat. There, he whistled loudly three times in a row, his way of thanking his friend, who responded to him. The boy stood up and continued his route on Port-Foam's roofs to climb a wall gnawed by years to jump on a beam blackened by soot, his soles slipping a moment before finding purchase.

  A few leaps later, R?chard reached the summit of a building that dominated the market square. He pressed against a chimney, his breath short, and swept the space below with a piercing gaze. Through the smoke volutes that dissipated in places, silhouettes took shape.

  The boy counted quickly, his lips moving in silence.

  "Ten... fifteen... maybe twenty."

  With a quick gesture, he plunged his hand into his bag and pulled out a small piece of parchment prepared for this purpose as well as a bit of charcoal. He quickly scribbled a message and tied the parchment to an arrow's shaft. He drew his bow and aimed at the wall near Siegfried whom he glimpsed in the distance.

  As the square took shape at the end of a stone corridor, an arrow split the air from the heights to sink into a wall to the knight's right with a sharp sound. A piece of fabric, tied to the shaft, floated like a macabre signal. He tore off the message, his eyes scanning R?chard's words. He raised his hand, fist closed and pivoted toward his battle companions.

  "About fifteen men are on the square before us, knights! Our combat begins here!" he explained with calm and coldness. "We are in numerical inferiority. We must stay grouped as one man. The N'zonki and I will face the enemies."

  He pointed his finger at each of the five warriors.

  "You, you stick your backs to his and you protect the rear. He'll take care of the flanks. With this formation, we pulverize them before they can touch us! Follow my orders and we will be victorious. May Solar?s see us!"

  "At your orders," the soldiers acquiesced, a gleam of determination running through their gazes and turned around, their shields pressing in a moving steel wall.

  Siegfried launched forward, Juuh'ma in his shadow, their steps resonating on calcined slabs. But while they continued their way, a heavy and weighty voice troubled the knight's concentration.

  "Don't you find it strange there are so few enemies, my brother? Weren't we supposed to defend a siege?" the colossus asked him, surprised to cross so few assailants.

  "Yes, it's strange," he acquiesced in a tense voice without slowing his pace. "Either they concentrated their forces elsewhere... or this was never their true objective. A siege would require hundreds of men, not these scattered skirmishes."

  He paused, his jaws tightening.

  "Something escapes me. This attack resembles more a diversion than a true offensive."

  The N'zonki growled dully.

  "A diversion?"

  He couldn't answer him. They emerged onto the market square and here, only his concentration was useful, so he observed this immense space surrounded by walls of roaring fire. The stalls, once overflowing with life, collapsed under insatiable braziers, their awnings reduced to calcined shreds fluttering in the air saturated with heat. A fountain, at the center, vomited trembling water, surrounded by dislocated crates and still smoking debris, while the facades around crumbled under ardent tongues, projecting twisted shadows on the blackened ground.

  Suddenly, fifteen silhouettes equipped with flaming torches emerged from a crossroads of alleys to encircle the sons of Solheim.