“Liz isn’t the only one trying to prove herself. I promised I’d surpass you.”
She would ensure no monsters left this field alive—and that would mean utterly breaking their will to fight.
＊＊＊＊＊
The monsters stood firm in the face of the imperial charge. Humans were meat to them. An army willingly leaping into their jaws was cause for celebration, not dismay, and with starvation pricking at their bellies, their hunger easily surpassed their fear. They waited in naked anticipation, shoulders heaving, drool dripping from their mouths. Several looked on the verge of breaking ranks and meeting the enemy advance, but none did. Their commanders, the yaldabaoth, kept them on a tight leash.
The yaldabaoth were naked from the waist up, revealing the intricate patterns scrawled across their chests. They wore no armor, merely scraps of cloth around their waists to protect their modesty, but that only testified to their confidence in their natural strength. They sat atop their mounts, inspecting their weapons one last time. Packs of the failed fiends known as archons clustered protectively around them, alert and watchful. They had more brawn than brains, but they still knew to follow orders—although whether that was based on instinct or some vestige of their former lives as humans, only the gods knew.
The boy who led them sat on the ground behind their lines, legs crossed, one hand resting against his cheek. On one side of him stood Ceryneia, the last of the primozlosta. On the other was the yaldabaoth chieftain, Null. Both looked down at him apprehensively.
“The enemy assault has begun, my Lord,” Ceryneia said.
“I see.” The boy gazed disinterestedly up at the sky but said no more.
Sensing nothing else forthcoming, Null turned to Ceryneia. “Are you certain it is wise to wait?”
“Your yaldabaoth might be intelligent, although it pains me to admit it, but the rest of these oafs can only follow the simplest orders. This will minimize our losses.”
“Must we be so cautious against mere humans?”
“If brute force alone could best them, the zlosta would have conquered the world a thousand years ago.”
The yaldabaoth and the archons that accompanied them were capable of understanding most commands, but the wider variety of monsters would scratch their heads at any notion of strategy. That was the biggest reason the Demiurgos’s horde had failed to defeat the Crow Legion and their allies before the main body of the imperial force arrived. Momentum would not suffice. They had no chance of victory without the flexibility to adapt to an ever-changing battlefield.
In that, however, Ceryneia saw the seed of an idea. If attacking the imperials was a hopeless strategy, why not simply wait for their foes to come to them? Even a dog could wait on command. Monsters could surely manage that. And once battle was joined, one simple order would plunge the human forces into terror: “Kill.” The more he thought about it, the more certain he became: patience was the way. The imperial forces would see a solid wall of ravening monsters with key points reinforced by yaldabaoth and archons: a quagmire they would never escape. To break through with their paltry human strength would be next to impossible.
“If all goes well,” Ceryneia said, “we will not be needed at all.”
Null shrugged. “Then I will make my own way to the front.”
At that moment, the clashing of steel echoed from the front lines. Screams filled the air. The pair turned toward the noise.
“So it begins.”
Swirling dust swept like smoke over the right flank. A cloud of blood and gore filled the air. One hunk sailed higher and higher until it splattered back down at Null’s and Ceryneia’s feet—rather impressive, considering the distance to the front line. Ceryneia looked down at the decapitated head and froze.
Null stroked his chin in amusement, pushing a scrap of flesh into his mouth. “Hah! Perhaps these humans are not so puny after all.”
Ceryneia’s cheeks burned with shame. Before them lay the head of a yaldabaoth. Its features were not twisted in agony as he might have expected; rather, they hung slack, as if the monster had never even seen the fatal blow coming. An unspoken warning hung in the air: You will get the same.
“What now, Ceryneia? It seems matters are more dire than you expected.”
Null seemed invigorated by the promise of a worthy foe. Left to his own devices, he may well have charged recklessly into the fray.
“I will attend to the front in person,” Ceryneia said, hurriedly issuing an order. “You will reinforce the left flank. It is being pushed back—Claudia, most likely. I am sure she will entertain you.”
“May I kill her?”
“If you like. It will not inhibit our plans.”
“Good. Then I shall bring back her head.” Null sprinted away for the left flank, his powerful strides carrying him faster than a horse. A handful of yaldabaoth fell in behind him.
Once he was out of sight, Ceryneia knelt once more before the black-haired boy. “Forgive my departure, my Lord. I shall soon return with word of my victory.”
“Do as you please.”
The boy sounded as indifferent as ever, but Ceryneia did not mind. If anything, he was glad not to have to waste time on formalities. He stood up and looked over the surrounding yaldabaoth.
“Keep our Lord safe until my return.”
With that, he mounted his horse and drove his heels into its flank. Unlike Null, he rode with no escort. The yaldabaoth detested him just as much as he despised them. They knew him well, and they would have nothing to offer him but jeers.
The boy showed no regard for his new protectors. His gaze remained fixed on the flames spreading across the battlefront.
＊＊＊＊＊
They were fast. Too fast to follow. The imperial vanguard surged ahead unimpeded, mowing down monsters in droves. A cold sweat broke out on Scáthach’s brow to see how swiftly they pierced the enemy lines.
“How strong you’ve grown, my lady...”
Liz and her troops sped toward the core of the Demiurgos’s army with formidable momentum, leaving corpses strewn in their wake. As they drove deeper, however, the monsters around them pressed in with greater force. Piercing the center had left them with foes on both sides.
Scáthach forced the nearby monsters back with a sweep of Gáe Bolg and turned to Aura. “Should we be concerned, my lady? Are they not moving too quickly?”
“It’s fine. We follow them.”
Aura sounded confident, and she had a better view of the battle from atop her horse, but Scáthach’s misgivings were not allayed.
“What about the flanks? They are not keeping pace either. Were we not supposed to coordinate our offensive?”
The imperial flanks had been meant to strike the enemy lines first. Only then would Liz have pierced the softened center, splitting the monsters’ forces into two halves that the empire could isolate and crush.
“That’s why I put the Lebering troops and the Crow Legion on the ends. Once Queen Claudia sees how fast Liz is going, she won’t want to be left behind. The same goes for the Crow Legion. They’ll all want to put on a good showing.”
“Lady Aura is right,” Selene said, flicking the blood from her sword. “I see no cause for concern. If we have the momentum, why waste it? The flanks are only lagging a little, not enough to pose a problem— Yah!”
She sprang forward as a monster leaped between her and Aura, crushing its face with her knee before spinning vertically and bringing her heel down on another foe’s head. With a graceful landing, she glanced back the way they had come.
“I only see corpses behind us. Either the monsters don’t have the brains to cut off our retreat or their flanks are so hard-pressed they’re unable to try. Either way...”