The enemy fled before them like a flock of birds. Citizens screamed and shut their doors, but the cohort paid them no heed. They swept through the streets, four-hundred strong–a wave of white shields and blood-streaked spears. All the while, Vexillum serenaded with fervent chanting, his old croaking voice splitting on every other word like a carrion's caw, refusing to quieten.

Ahead, the terrain opened up as buildings gave way to a barren orchard, rising steadily up a stout hill towards what was once the proud marble temple of Chrysaetos–now, the enemy's stronghold. Hundreds of men surrounded the courtyard at its top–having retreated from all the walls and streets around. So many were the defenders that they overflowed over the hillside. It seemed that much of the city's defenders had rallied beneath the black shield of their heretic god. The disk spread above the temple, blotting out the clouds, and Skippii could see now, rising from the courtyard, moats of dark magia, coiling like snakes, feeding the void.

The defenders–Ürkün and Philoxanian both–fled from Cohort II in dregs. But before they could unite with their kin, the host spilled forward. Those who had been fleeing stopped and turned about, or else stood stupefied and weaponless, or cowered beneath the orchard's trees. But soon, they were swallowed by the barbaric tide. Hundreds of warriors with determination on their faces and fury in their voices. Many times more than the legionnaires.

"With me," Skippii said, leading his companeight to the front as the phalanx formed to meet their charge. "Primus," he hailed. "Let me fight in the centre. I have a tactic-"

"Don't explain," Maritor pushed him forward hastily.

Skippii knew that he was still a deserter, but it seemed that the power of politics held no sway here. He and his companeight positioned themselves at front and centre, with Maritor and the remaining Tonnage VI at their rear.

"I need to get close," Skippii shouted. "I can't hit him from here. Bore a path."

"To the temple!" Maritor related to the cohort, and his staff relayed the command down the ranks. The trumpeter sounded agreeably: two short bursts followed by a sustained call, ordering the cohort to advance and not give ground.

As the Ürkün charged towards them, no arrows went before their advance. The enemy's ammunition was spent, bows discarded for cudgels, swords and axes–tools of crude destruction. Javelins flew overhead, thrown by the Brenti, peppering the orchard and advancing horde, but did little to slow them.

An idea occurred to Skippii–not one which he could spend time contemplating. Trusting his gut, he drew into himself a Boiling Blood and broke forth. "Don't follow," he shouted, dashing towards the enemy. The Ürkün's battlecries swelled like a choir's chorus, and within moments, he was in their midst.

Stomping the ground, he emitted a Seismic Quake. The hillside shook, and in their stampeding charge, many Ürkün fell forward, toppling over one another. But he did not relent. He charged forward, leaping over their bodies, shield and spear in hand. The tatters of his leigonnaire's cloak flowed behind. Again, he drew a breath of power and stomped the hillside. The Ürkün cried in confusion. Many climbed over one another to get at him, swords raised, spears thrown.

Skippii took them on his shield and sheltered behind a large apple tree. The most nimble amongst his enemy recovered swiftly and fell upon him. Pressing his palm into the trunk, he abruptly burned it from the inside. The Enkindled Burst sent fiery shrapnel upon his foes as a fireball claimed the canopy with a great heave of smoke.

Behind him, a trumpet blurted, but it sounded leagues away as Skippii's consciousness wavered. Dizzily, he rounded the tree's smoking ruin and strode between his victims, shield lowered tiredly. Men crawled, agonised in the dirt. Smoking staves jutting from their chests. Splinters burned on their faces. Skippii watched them with a dull resolve, numb to their pain. They were servants of the incursors, and had meant to kill him. All their sins would soon be resolved in the heavens.

The ground shook, and a wave of red cloaks closed around him. Skippii was pressed forward by friendly hands, and the faces of his companeight were about him. All was a flash, too quick to comprehend. He focussed on his breath and connection with the earth. Sweating profusely, his shield slipped from his hand, but he was too tired to retrieve it. Forcing his tired legs on, he followed in the wake of the cohort's carnage.

As before, the Ürkün had been stunned by his magia, unnerved and weakened. But witnessing his power spurred the legionnaires on. Many cried his name. "Skippii the Firebreather." "Skippii, son of Summitor."

"Skippii the Scorcher!" Kaesii yelled, red faced and out of breath, but did not slow for a breath.

Finally, after so much fighting, they reached the foot of the temple's plaza. Here, the enemy were packed tight. No longer could they flee, but no longer could the cohort face them in stride. The legionnaires hit them like a mallet against a wall, denting, but not breaking them, and now they were surrounded on all sides. Four hundred against four thousand.

Skippii's attack had placed him and his companeight on the phalanx's right flank, nearest the temple steps. But still, so many bodies stood between them. He doubted he had the strength to bring his magia upon them all.

Amongst the enemy's warriors were sickly looking men and women–pale skinned priests–scantly garbed in rags, their bodies painted with black streaks. Their teeth were yellow, eyes bloodshot with rage as they spat at the legionnaires, throwing their bodies upon their spears.

There was a unique horror to the enemy who desired death, and sought it willingly. Stabbing themselves, they gripped the legionnaire's spears, tearing weapon from weilder. Beside him, Fulmin struggled as several grasped his shield and the tail of his cloak, pulling him out of their phalanx. An Ürkün warrior strode forward, and before Skippii could dash to his aid, the warrior rose a great axe and cleaved Fulmin's arm.

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The blow struck beneath his thorax, splitting the elbow. Fulmin cried out in pain and fell to one knee. Arius' spear shot out and pierced the attacker's chest, but more fell upon the weakness–wolves scenting the blood. Drusilla dragged Fulmin back behind the phalanx as the others beat the enemy off. But the fighting was desperate. One by one, legionnaires fell, or lost their weapons to the masses. The heretics grinned with corrupted glee. One such women dove upon Skippii's spear, piercing herself through the stomach, and fell clutching the shaft.

Dropping it, he drew fire into his fists and lay about the baying heretics with Burning Strikes. Embers sparked as his fires singed their flesh, beating them back. Of the Ürkün he struck, their furs caught alight, creating screaming pyres, who flailed and burned amongst the enemy's ranks.

"To the temple!" he yelled, as loud as his lungs could muster. Above them, the black disk loomed like the mouth of a cave. It swallowed all light, reflecting nothing but a cold disdain. About him, his companeight strove. Tenoris had lost his spear, but he was more dangerous with a shield alone; colliding with the enemy like a ram, he bent the heretics like reeds and sent the Ürkün warriors to their knees. Arius was quick to execute any who fell, as Orsin and Cur followed in his wake, protecting their flank. Drusilla and Fulmin had gotten lost, but Kaesii was still by his side. The hefty Vestian heaved with each thrust like an oarsman in high waves, blurting unintelligible curses, keeping forever by Skippii's side.

Three strong men waded through the press of heretic flesh, parting them: Ürkün chieftains. Mantled in bear-hides, they bore long iron swords. One decried a challenge–a battlecry taken up by their kinsmen who followed–and the barbarians charged. A brutal foe, and fearsome, had Skippii not already faced much worse in the golems upon the mountaintop of his temple.

Striding forth, he opened his arms fearlessly to goad them. At the last moment, he thrust his shield out and emitted an Enkindled Burst. The willowcore blew apart, showering the enemy with blazing splints. Through the smoke, he sped, fists ablaze, striking wildly, indiscriminately, burning all he faced.

Power flowed through him from the centre of the earth–it, the wax, he the flame. But the candle was burning at both ends, and it was killing him. He could feel his grasp over his magia weaken, like fingers fatigued of gripping a ledge. A heavy weight pressed upon his shoulders. Was it the heretic's magia, or his own weakness? He could not tell. But at any second, the fires might crackle and hiss out, and he would fall.

Skippii looked beyond the carnage and spotted a black shape atop the temple's steps, some twenty metres away. Too large to be a human, wreathed in a coil black worms, his crooked skeletal hands stretched out to the imposing disk above them. Many heretics prostrated at the magus' feet, groping his form, climbing over one another like pale beachwood stacked upon a pyre. The dark tendrils caressed their flesh, penetrating them, bulging out of their eye sockets and mouths, choking them to death and rising, twisting upwards, and disappearing into the void.

In a flash of vision, Skippii beheld their destination: the fields before Nerithon, where the legions fought through peril and the Coven clung to the last of their storms, submitted by the heretic's domination.

"Spear," he yelled, searching for his companions. In his assault, only Kaesii and Cur had followed. All around was death, but the enemy knew no fear, and closed fast. Kaesii was soaked in blood, eyes wide, a sword in hand and shield cloven in two. Fear was upon Cur's face–a horrible certainty. Skippii reached out and grasped the shaft of his spear, but Cur did not let go.

"Get your own," he snapped.

"I need a spear."

"Not mine," he shouted. "Not Mary."

"Then whose?"

Cur's face twisted into an agonising snarl, and he released his hold.

Skippii spun on the heretic and filled his lungs with magia. The power surged through him agonising for release. But he held it, pouring it into the weapon, shaping a Firetail Lance. With all his might, he roared and launched the spear over the heads of the enemy. It sailed strong and true, like a ballista bolt. His heart plunged, lungs empty, fixated on its flight.

Somewhere in the heavens, a coin was flipped, and rang like a bell as it landed. Aequentia gleamed at the results.

Light illuminated shadow. His fires struck the heretic and exploded. The magus fell into the writhing masses of his acolytes.

A horrible scream, like screeching metal, filled the courtyard. All the enemy turned their heads to their master as above, the edges of the black disk shimmered and burned bright silver. All bloodshed held its breath while the heretics screamed and clutched their faces, scratching out their eyes, strangling themselves, flailing as though wreathed in flames.

The body of their master burned. The fires rose atop the temple steps, spewing smoke up past its marble pillars and over its arched eaves. But the swarming acolytes did not retreat from the flames. They simply burned and wailed a sonorus sorrow.

Suddenly, a deafening thunderclap above drew his eyes. He could not believe it, but the black disk had vanished to a mere spot. It burned like a silver pox, and faded. A breath, then rain showered the temple. But nothing could quench Skippii's fires.

The Ürkün threw down their weapons in dismay, babbling and baying their grief. They knelt, faces pressed to the plaza's stone, and wept.

Cries of victory penetrated the malaise, but Skippii's intent was focussed on his enemy. Striding through the crowd, he ventured alone to the temple's steps, picking a path between the malnourished heretics. Behind him, with a clamour of armour and heavy breaths, his tonnage followed. Still Skippii did not turn about for more than a glance, coming up the steps and upon the corpse of the heretic magus.

The fires burned hot and bright, fed by many bodies of his servants who had thrown themselves upon the conflagration. Skippii drew what magia he could, prepared to continue the fight, but the magus did not move within the flames. Like a sludge, the black worms burned away to reveal a stick-thin figure with elongated limbs and a monstrous face. The fires had already claimed his flesh, and it was difficult to discern his features, though clearly, they were wholly inhuman.

"Blow the horns. Sound the victory," Praegesta called. Repeatedly, the hornbearer blew the signal of victory. Their cry rang over the city to the ears of legionnaires fighting still atop its walls and in its streets. The sound was taken up, as birds in a chatter, rising from the rooftops and the lands beyond, sweeping over their encampments south and the harbour eastward, and the Sleeping Mountain westward. All of Philoxenia must have heard its call; freemen rejoiced, and the accursed skulked back to their shadows.

Tenoris strode to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Is it done?"

Meanwhile, the rest of his companeight held back from the flames, perturbed by their heat. But Tenoris was safe, so long as he bore the gift of Oyaltun's necklace.

"It must be," Skippii said.

The big legionnaire stepped forward and prodded the magus' corpse with the tip of his spear. At first nothing happened, but a feeling of dread shot up Skippii's spine. Acting on instinct, he snatched Tenoris' wrist to pull him away. But the man was motionless, strict, like a statue. His eyes had rolled back into his head, and he vibrated, stricken by fit.

Panicked, Skippii wrenched the spear from his grasp and threw him backwards. Tenoris fell to the steps, limp and lifeless.

A cold dagger slit Skippii's stomach open with grief.

"Scourge!" he wailed, and plunged into the conflagration.

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