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“Shift!” Tadeus sounded stronger. Eavus thrust, tilted, shifted, letting the second line take the front. He panted, catching his breath. Pride in Aleteria swelled briefly. The division was like trees, a forest of steady trunks, while the feral barbarians broke around them like water. Their attackers could fight. He’d give them that. The Aleterians outnumbered them, but not for long if this kept up. Bodies had fallen. Lines had tightened. The enemy shouted to each other in a language Eavus had never heard, but somewhere in the back of his brain the patterns on their shields, the description of those braided warriors with their eerie cry of battle…He knew them.

Isfolj.

What in the nine realms were they doing here?

“Push!”

Eavus held strong, in case the line in front needed a brace. Was it the marsh stench in his nose, or had someone shit themselves when they died? He heard screaming again, all around him, shouting and sucking and gurgles.

“Shift!”

Eavus took a hard breath, tilted, and stepped forward to re-form the wall.

Revni had never fought a battle like this. Even in her inexperience, she knew they’d made a terrible mistake. The Isfolj were raiders, marauders. They rushed in on a wave of terror, struck hard, struck fast, and got out.

But this⁠—

Revni had ridden the tide of screamers at her side, stumbling a little as she climbed over the dune, welcome burning in her arms as she hefted her battle ax high—and blanched, even as the first of the Isfolj shattered the first few men. These were no ragtag travelers! They had armor, shields.

Revni’s brain frenzied to shift strategies even as she moved. She brought her ax down on the top of a shield, pulled—but the man kept his hold, his neighbor thrusting a long spear she barely spun to dodge. She flipped her weapon, jammed the pole end into the edge of another shield, taking him off balance, and then swung, punching the sharp butt into his ribs, the impact reverberating up her arms. But at a sudden cry from some helmeted person in the back, the whole thing moved like a machine, a giant tooth in a wheel. She tried to step in, but another shield moved forward, another sword striking from between a gap. She spun, swung her ax towards an exposed neck—but a spear jabbed at her from above, the man behind it thrusting his shield forward. The breath slammed out of her as she landed flat on her back, her vision sparkling. She scrambled like a crab as the machine moved forward, struggled to her feet.

“This isn’t worth it!” Knuf shouted. Revni backed up farther, stumbling, hitting the beginning of the incline. If they could drive them back, or get around the sides…Revni whirled, looking for a way out, for anything familiar. It was all grunts and mud, blood leaking out of punctured chests. Revni tripped, put out a hand to stop her fall, met something squishy. Niall. His dead eyes stared back at her, and Revni leaped away.

We came at this wrong.

“Form a wall!” someone yelled, but Revni didn’t know who and no one listened. The machine moved forward again.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied her father, looking furious, and she knew he felt the same. You didn’t go into a battle like you did a raid. There were different tactics, different plans. Niall had gotten them all killed. These were warriors, seasoned, trained. If they had known—What had Niall been thinking?! The Isfolj were trapped, between the hill and the wall of shields, and these fighters kept refreshing their men, that machine rotating them out so the Isfolj would tire first. And they were. Already they were tiring. Screaming with rage, Ragn hacked at one of those boring, solid shields like it was a stubborn stump, taking off chunk after chunk, before, suddenly, he crumpled, like a tree felled at its center.

They were going to lose.

Revni whirled. That machine kept shifting, men turning with one another, the line in the back using their shields to make a shell, protecting them from all sides. It was all a dizzying smudge of color and screams—but then she spotted Mama, near the end. Mama’s long braids whipped around her as she turned to strike a blow, and Revni had a sudden flash of memory, of how beautiful her mother looked dancing in the Hall at Juny’s wedding, Mama spinning and spinning and spinning until she collapsed with laughter.

Her mother collapsed.

“Hyld!” Her father roared, and all the air was sucked out of the universe, all sight, all existence. Revni didn’t care about gold or the gods anymore, only pushing towards the only two people in the world. She ducked and shoved—Isfolj, enemy, she couldn’t tell, her eyes locked on Da’s blood-streaked ear—except a weapon tried to skewer her and she turned to swing her ax. The snap of wood, the shock of bone, and then another spin, found him. Da. A sword drove out and Revni’s father speared himself on it so forcefully it almost looked purposeful—but no, he had just kept advancing, kept fighting. Another wrench of his ax and the man behind the shield suddenly had no head. The shield and her father fell together, two more dancers in a show, before the wall closed up again. The line pushed forward.

Revni ran. She couldn’t keep her balance. The soft ground sucked at her feet, the same sound a body made when it was dying. Da—Da was gone, behind the enemy. They’d rolled over him like a wave. The Isfolj were supposed to be the storm. Nothing made sense at all.

A spear whistled over her head, but Revni kept running, dodging bodies going separate ways. Were they fleeing? Gorin slammed into her, knocking her down.

“Go around!” he shouted, and the Isfolj shifted towards the muck, towards the puddles and the wetland. “Back to the ships!”

Revni couldn’t tell who was running or who was still fighting. She pulled herself up, her eyes locked on the opposite edge. Mama. Mama was lumbering up the hill—a fist shoved in her side, red everywhere. The bronze-clad warriors didn’t notice her, or didn’t care. Their machine turned, facing the Isfolj, and Revni ran the other way, following her mother.

“Mama!”

Hyld reached towards a spindly tree. She dropped her sword, leaving a bloody streak on the thin trunk. Revni raced up the hill, reaching Mama just as she went down. It was instantly cooler in the shade, the air fresher, the panic of the battle below nothing to the racing fright going through Revni’s every limb.

“Mama, mama—” Revni pressed the wound. Damp. Hot. It wouldn’t stop. What to do? What to do? She had trained for fighting, but not for Mama. Not for Mama’s soft stomach, Mama’s smooth skin. The blood was so warm.

Mama pulled at her hands, but Revni fought it, and for one ridiculous moment they slapped at each other, like children at play. The shush that came out of Mama’s throat was frantic and strangled.

“Revni, take it, take it.” Mama forced her ring off her finger. Her ring—Loyalty. Fierceness. The symbols of her family line. Two silver dogs biting a round red stone. Love.

Revni resisted, one hand trying to push the ring back onto her mother’s finger while the other slopped in the wound. Gods, gods.

“It’s yours, Mama, it’s yours.” She was babbling. Everything was coming in twos. What to do? Revni had never failed at anything in her life. She could fix this.