Tyler snatched up a discarded bow and loosed an arrow, dropping a black rider who was creeping up on Simon. "Or perhaps they never expected to find themselves surrounded."

  It had devolved into pure chaos—no formation, no tactics, only the brutal immediacy of close combat: shouting, blood, and death. The Cynthian black riders began consolidating toward the center, abandoning their fallen comrades who lay scattered in black-cloaked heaps, some dead, others still clinging to life. The Godman soldiers tightened their encirclement, frequently stumbling over bodies and trampling discarded cloaks.

  In theory, the Cynthians should have held a considerable advantage—their green cloaks rendered them nearly invisible amid the underbrush. But in this engagement, the Shadowgreen Knights fought with bewildering incompetence, more like panicked gazelles before a pride of lions than elite cavalry. One by one, they abandoned cover, exposed their positions, and fell to Godman blades—disoriented, frantic, their discipline utterly collapsed. Even the Godmans seemed confounded by how easily their opponents succumbed. The bedlam lasted but a few chaotic minutes.

  Then, like a receding tide, the Cynthians began withdrawing northward—back in the direction from which they had come. "Hold! Don't pursue!" Carl bellowed, but his warning went unheeded; he lacked the authority of command. Every soldier among them had heard tales of the notorious battle at the North Bank of the Doby Stream—that merciless slaughter where encircled troops were annihilated to the last man. Now, transformed from prey to predators, they hungered for complete victory.

  "Fuck it. Blood-mad fools," Carl cursed. "We haven't the numbers for this! They broke because we hit their flank when they weren't looking! Chasing them gains us nothing! The breach, damn it, the breach is the target!"

  "Devalosfang will whip them back into line," Tyler predicted. "And fetch our horses too." He spat onto the leaf litter. "Lost every single fucking horse. Should never have gotten off them."

  The main battle drifted away from them, leaving only isolated pockets of conflict. "Simon," Tyler prodded the heavyset man with his boot, "you can stop cowering now. The Cynthians have withdrawn."

  "I—I'm merely examining their equipment," Big Mouth Simon muttered defensively, pawing through a nearby corpse's belongings. "These cloaks especially—fascinating craftsmanship..." He had barely torn one free when it began emanating an eerie blue luminescence. Within seconds, flames consumed the fabric entirely. "That happens without fail," Tyler informed him. "Every one of their cloaks eventually incinerates itself."

  "Someone coming," Carl breathed, sinking low. A single black rider struggled to drag a wounded companion, who mumbled weakly. Tyler and Simon melted into cover beside Carl, behind a thick redwood scarred white with arrows. "Just one!" Simon whispered, eyes gleaming. "Let's take him!"

  The pointed silence from his companions instantly dampened his eagerness. "Something about him seems familiar," Carl murmured to Tyler. "I can't shake the feeling I've encountered him before."

  "Difficult to determine," Tyler frowned. "We've been crossing swords with these cloaked devils every day this week."

  The black rider halted suddenly, head cocked, listening intently despite his wounded companion's feeble protests. Carl held his breath, hardly daring to exhale. "We outnumber him three to one," Simon pointed out.

  Both Carl Clawyn and Tyler Wynlers made a silent oath: after this, Simon was due a thorough beating. The black rider released his grip on his comrade's cloak, eliciting an anguished moan from the fallen man. In one fluid motion, he drew the bow from his back, nocked an arrow, and drew the string to his cheek, left forefinger aimed precisely at their concealment behind the arrow-studded redwood.

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  "Now?" Tyler inquired tersely.

  "Now," Carl confirmed. "Do you have a bow?"

  "Acquired one moments ago."

  The black rider advanced methodically, each step deliberate and menacing.

  "I need your shield," Carl requested, tapping Tyler's shoulder. "My buckler has seen better days... Wait, the Fox emblem?" He examined the decorative crest on Tyler's shield. "This is that ancestral heirloom you had mounted above your hearth?"

  "From when my family still existed to claim it."

  The black rider's approach was marked by the crunch of metal debris beneath his boots. "I'll break left as bait, draw his attention. Then you—"

  "Circle right and put two arrows in him," Tyler completed the thought. "Precisely."

  "What's my role?" Simon asked eagerly, rubbing his palms together.

  "Keep quiet," they snapped in unison. "And stay here."

  The forest fell unnervingly silent. (Has he stopped moving?) Carl wondered, straining to detect any sound. (Damn it, I can't pinpoint his position.) Nothing but stillness.

  Carl raised the shield before him, exposing only his eyes above its edge. (Gods preserve me.) He inched half a pace outward.

  His eyes widened in sudden recognition, pupils contracting in alarm—but before he could complete the movement, a tremendous impact slammed him backward into Simon. A red-feathered arrow had punctured completely through the shield, burying itself deep in his left shoulder. Carl heard Tyler shifting position beside him. "Stay back!" he warned. Another arrow whistled through the air—Tyler halted his advance and threw himself back behind their cover. He felt a cold presence graze his cheek; a second red-feathered, narrow-headed arrow had penetrated the redwood trunk, its lethal point missing his face by mere fractions of an inch.

  Simon hastily dragged Carl back behind their shelter. "How is such speed possible? He couldn't have nocked a second arrow so quickly!" He carefully supported Carl's weight. "Perhaps he had another already in hand?"

  "Then how in all hells did he penetrate a shield at that distance?!"

  "Perhaps..." Carl whispered, his voice weakening, "he's something beyond human."

  "Don't remove it," Tyler cautioned, staying Simon's hand from the arrow shaft. "We lack the means to stanch the bleeding properly."

  "Then what? He's dying, damn it!"

  "Our best—perhaps only—option," Tyler stated grimly, brushing stray hair from his face, "is for us both to charge simultaneously from opposite sides of the tree. He can target only one of us—possibly neither if fortune smiles upon us."

  "Were you blind just now? Against this demon, fortune has abandoned us entirely!"

  They heard the black rider mutter a curse in Cynthian. "Then drag Carl along with you," Tyler suggested coldly. "If nothing else, perhaps he'll intercept a few arrows on your behalf."

  The color drained from Simon's face. "That was gallows humor," Tyler clarified. "I'll move first. Use that opportunity to pull Carl into the underbrush behind us. Mind the thorns."

  "And after that? What then?"

  "You'll need to improvise."

  "So one of us must perish regardless..."

  "That would constitute our most favorable outcome."

  Another arrow suddenly whistled through the air—this one struck not their position, but the Cynthian black rider himself. He howled in pain and leapt behind another tree for cover. "Reinforcements?" Tyler ventured a careful glance. There was no sign of friendly forces nor of the wounded black rider. Another arrow thudded into a nearby trunk. "Impossible to determine whether they're friend or foe," he muttered.

  Rustling sounds erupted from the underbrush near Simon. "Someone's approaching!" Before he could reach for his sword, Tyler had already launched himself at the disturbance. "Friendly! Friendly!" The pinned knight struggled against Tyler's restraining hand. "I'm with Third Company!"

  Tyler Wynlers examined the man's armor markings, then released him. He gestured for Simon to drag Carl into the relative safety of the thicket. "Was that your arrow just now?"

  "Difficult to say for certain," the knight coughed. "Keep your voices down!" Tyler immediately clamped his hand back over the man's mouth. "That black rider will hear us!"

  "He won't dare," the knight insisted, pushing Tyler's hand away. "Not now. He's one, we're four."