The noise of the clashing armies was immense. Soldiers roared, blades crashed, magicks crackled across the meadows. As planned, Raelas, Ted and I had rejoined the Tundran command cell as they’d charged, and we now fought with Val and Corminar at our sides. I hoped not to let my wife out of my sight for a moment longer, but whether that was going to be possible was still yet to be determined.

  A Goldmarch soldier with a lance lunged at me, and I dropped through a portal at my feet to avoid the attack, emerging above the enemy. As I fell, I plunged with my knife pointing downward, stabbing the blade deep into their shoulder. As I pulled my weapon free, they staggered backward, into the fray of the clashing armies. Though I didn’t see them again, I knew they’d fallen when I felt another defeat notification pile up.

  ‘Styk!’ Val cried out, alerting me to another enemy launching into an attack.

  This time, I didn’t need a portal. I summoned blades and then threw them into the enemy’s arm, where her leather armour didn’t afford proper protection.

  As the fighting went on, I saw many in Goldmarch uniform fall, but I saw those on my side fall too. An orc was thrown from their warg, a spear plunged through their back. A tiefling from Coldharbour turned to cast a spell and save their comrade, but exposed themselves to an attack in the process. A man from the Tundras—barely a man yet, at that—was engulfed by ice magicks.

  I knew that this was the part of the plan where we would lose the most loyal soldiers, and yet I was the one who had given the orders. I was ultimately responsible for each and every death. Once again, I had doomed innocents, yet I would do it again, if I had to.

  I glimpsed another remaining soldier of corruption through the chaos.

  ‘Zoi!’ I shouted over the din of battle. ‘Another one near me—I’ll mark it with a portal!’

  If the tiefling replied, I didn’t hear it, but minutes later I did see fire magicks blossom into life roughly where the monstrous enemy had been fighting. Between Zoi, Raelas and me, I believed we’d cleared up most of the soldiers of corruption, but in the midst of such chaos, a few very easily could have avoided our notice. We had to remain vigilant.

  ‘Everyone!’ I shouted through the portal relays. ‘Tell us if you see any more of the corruptions!’

  I thought again of Yua and Turell. Elfric had made clear that Tana would’ve planned for my portals, that she would have put in protections or counterspells near the ritual site to stop us simply portalling in to stop them. But I’d gambled that these would be more concentrated protections than the comparatively simple alerting spell of before. An alerting spell was relatively simple to cast over a wide area—at least, if you were a Player—but a spell more advanced than that? It would need to be focused. As it turned out, luck had fallen in our favour just this once—Yua and Turell were inside Auricia.

  ‘Turell?’ I shouted as I slid around an enemy’s slicing blade to attack with my own. ‘Any update?’

  His voice came back through the relays. ‘My unit remains unspotted thus far. We will remain hidden for as long as possible, to put as many friendly soldiers within the city as possible. We are at perhaps sixty soldiers at this current moment.’

  I nodded, though the lord wouldn’t see it. I paused to meet an enemy soldier in combat. Once again, they charged in with a blade much larger than mine, and I countered it by portalling around behind them. ‘And Yua?’

  ‘Much the same. We are currently still hidden—you chose your portal’s location well—but we will update you all as soon as this changes. The warehouse grows full; it is only a matter of time until we are forced to—’

  The relay went quiet.

  ‘Yua?’ I prompted her.

  ‘We are spotted. Please, keep the portal open for a few moments longer; we can defend it. Then we will make our move through the city.’

  ‘How many? How many made it through?’

  ‘Perhaps ninety.’

  Ninety through one portal, and it was only a matter of time before Turell’s group was also found too. Even an optimistic estimate meant that only three hundred soldiers had made it into the city through the portals. But that made me relieved, more than anything, like I felt we’d made the right decision. The commanders had discussed trying to pour the whole three armies through the portals into the city walls, but we’d ultimately decided it wouldn’t be possible; the portals would be surrounded too quickly. Instead, we decided we’d have better luck with smaller forces that had a very specific target in mind: the southern gate itself.

  ‘Turell,’ I said. ‘Move up now. Before you’re spotted. Yua can draw the focus of those soldiers still in the city; you guys keep hidden as long as possible. Remember, we’ll need to surprise them at that gate.’’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Styk?’ Val cried out.

  I turned to see her fighting off two enemies—her lifedrain magicks blasting one and keeping them at bay, but the other close to hitting her with his swinging flail. I opened a portal next to the enemy’s weapon, and the chain became caught around its edge in mid-swing. This gave Corminar enough time to loose an arrow into the gap in the soldier’s helmet.

  Once again, notifications piled up, but I didn’t bother looking at them; I was far from an ability selection, and even if there were any levels up, the base points weren’t going to make much difference right now.

  ‘There are too many,’ Corminar said, just loud enough that I could hear him over the clashing soldier. ‘There are—’

  A soldier of corruption burst through the enemy ranks at that moment, crashing into what was left of our formation. My elven friend dived to the left, while I dived to the right to tackle Val out of harm’s way. She landed on her stomach, and clenched.

  ‘You OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Focus on the enemy!’ she shouted back at me. Good advice, really.

  ‘Zoi!’ I heard Corminar cry through the relays. ‘Another here!’

  But I was more than capable of taking it down. I opened up another portal next to the monster as it set on two of our orcs that had become separated from their flank. I whipped the portal towards the enemy, meaning to slice it in two, but then two soldiers—one friendly, one not—tumbled into the way, grappling with one another. Because they were sentient beings, I couldn’t move my portal through them.

  The corrupted soldier reached down and gripped the woman of the Tundras on the shoulder, and corruption spread through her. It was too late for her, now, but I could stop it happening to anyone else. As soon as I thought that, I realised I’d just let another innocent life go so easily.

  I activated titan husk, just while the corrupted enemy was so close, and I charged into the beast. I tried to tackle it to the ground, but of course it was more than strong enough to withstand me. At least I managed to refocus its wrath onto me. As it reached forward with its grey arm, I opened another portal, and this time whipped it through the enemy straight away. My portal sliced directly through the monster’s torso.

  I staggered back, releasing my titan husk ability to conserve my mana reserves. We’d already lost Ted amongst the battle—for all I knew, he was already dead—and my only other source of mana replenishment was Corminar, who was barely in sight.

  I turned, helped Val deal with another enemy, and then wrenched her in Corminar’s direction.

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  ‘I was fighting here!’

  ‘If you think I’m letting you out of my sight, you’re insane,’ I retorted. We ducked the wildly swinging axe of one of Gelik’s soldiers, then emerged into what was about to be a collision between Tundran warriors and Goldmarch spearmen. I knew which group would win that skirmish, so I opened two portals on our right as we ran. The spears poked through the portals and back out the other side—into the chests of the enemy’s comrades-in-arms.

  We successfully regrouped with Corminar. For now.

  ‘Corruption has taken hold on the western flank,’ Zoi said. ‘I’m dealing with it.’

  A huge blast of fire filled the battlefield to my left, and I didn’t let myself wonder just how many of our soldiers Zoi had needed to burn.

  I glimpsed a throwing axe falling towards us—one of the orcs’, if I wasn’t mistaken, so it couldn’t have been aimed this way—but didn’t react in time to stop it clipping Val on the arm. She fell to the floor, bleeding, and I rushed to help her.

  ‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ she insisted, already working her Healing magicks on what looked like a fairly light wound. ‘It barely touched me.’

  ‘Yeah, but an inch to the left and it might have taken your arm off.’

  ‘A good thing it didn’t fall an inch to the left, then, isn’t it?’

  A huge man armoured in gold fell backward onto us, and I stood up to meet the impact and knock him away from Val. When he’d fallen, I’d thought he was already dead, but I realised he was just wounded. I summoned blades into my hands, threw them, and then used that distraction to close the gap. A second later, I struck the enemy with my dagger and activated the etched blade ability, in this case still Val’s lifedrain magicks.

  My wife brushed herself down as he stood up, and at that moment I realised the axe had sliced off some of her hair, too. ‘Better not keep using that, you’ll run out, and I might not be around to put more charges in.’

  ‘Might not be around?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t mean dead, I mean—’

  We were knocked from behind as a warg whipped around to face its attack, its large rear being the cause of the impact. I scrambled back up from the mud as more enemies rounded on us, and met them with a knifestorm flurry of blows as Val rained lifedrain onto them.

  ‘I’m not gonna let that happen,’ I said. ‘I won’t let that happen.’ Almost before I knew I was doing it, I opened a distant portal to a cozy tavern in Ironview, far from the war. A bewildered innkeeper stopped drying a glass when she noticed the portal in the middle of her floor.

  Val caught sight of it just as I was about to push her through it. ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ she cried. ‘This is my gods damn fight too.’

  ‘And our child’s? Is it theirs?’

  ‘Even more so.’ When I didn’t say anything, she added, ‘If you do it, I’ll never speak to you again.’

  With a sigh, I closed the portal. ‘Then don’t you dare die, either.’

  ‘I’m doing my best!’

  I saw an enemy archer raise their bow behind Val, and I opened a portal just in time to catch the resulting arrow and blast it back at them. They stumbled from the hit, and I portalled myself over there to finish the job with a stab. Just as I finished dealing with them, a broadsword swung towards me, and I dropped through another portal just in time to avoid the attack. I landed on top of the enemy and slammed my blade down towards their shoulder.

  The blade clinked into the strong metal armour.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, before activating closed reach and piercing the armour that way—by bending reality around it.

  When I looked around for Val, she was gone, the ever-shifting flow of battle having swept her away.

  ‘Val?’ I cried through the relay, my ever-so-slightly breaking voice giving my concerns away.

  ‘Still here!’ she confirmed.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned once more to face down yet more enemies. Val was lost to the hoards of soldiers, and I was just going to have to trust that she was strong enough to survive.

  I didn’t like that one bit.