the stone tree-if that was what it was-did not cease its mad growth, and she saw roots curl into the wounds in the city's flanks. where the lightning struck the writhing stone, the sound of the impacts boomed deeper than any thunder, but everywhere that wounds broke open stone swarmed in to heal the damage.

all at once the attacks ceased. sudden heat washed down upon kalyth and she cried out in pain.

the four nah'ruk sky keeps were engulfed in flames, reeling away from the gate. the fires brightened, and then, in a flash, burst incandescent white at their cores. as she watched, in horror, in wonder, the keeps seemed to be vaporizing before her eyes. churning, the towering pillars of fire pitched eastward, beneath them the ground blackening with scorching heat.

gunth mach spoke in her mind. 'destriant. see through my eyes. do you see?'

'yes,' she whispered.

two figures stood upon a torn, ruined ridge to the northwest. sorcery poured from them in terrible waves.

a boy.

a girl.

he didn't care. the world could be moments from being swallowed by the abyss itself, stormy was finally in the midst of war's sharpest truths and nothing else-nothing-mattered. laughing, he slashed and hacked at the nah'ruk as they pressed in, as the dead-eyed lizards sought to clamber over the ve'gath, sought by numbers alone to overwhelm this savage wall of denial.

gesler's charge down the pocket had pierced the bastards like a boar-sticker, forcing them into the narrow spaces between the frenzied k'ell and the shield-locked ve'gath. they fought with appalling ferocity, and died in chilling silence.

his mount was wounded. his mount was probably dying-who could tell? all these lizards fought until their last breath. but its defences had slowed, weakened. there was blood everywhere and he could feel its chest heaving with shuddering cadence.

a short-snouted maw lunged at his face.

cursing, he pitched back to avoid the snapping dagger teeth, struggled to draw close his short-handled axe-but the damned nah'ruk surged still closer, clawing its way up the ve'gath's shoulder. his mount staggered-

he chopped with his axe, but the range was too tight, and though the edge bit into the side of the lizard's head the wound it delivered was not enough to sway the creature. the jaws opened wide. the head snapped forward-

something snarling struck the nah'ruk, a knotted mass of mottled, scar-seamed hide and muscle, savage canines sinking deep into the lizard's neck.

disbelieving, stormy kicked his boots free of the stirrups to roll further back-

a fucking dog?

bent?

that you?

oh, but it surely was.

greenish blood spilled from the nah'ruk's mouth. the eyes dulled, and a heartbeat later dog and lizard pitched down from the ve'gath.

at that moment, stormy saw the burning sky keeps.

and the storm was gone, the thunder vanished, the world filling with sounds of iron, flesh and bone. the song of ten thousand battles, made eerily surreal by there being not a single scream, not a single cry of agony or shriek begging mercy.

the nah'ruk were falling.

battle halted. slaughter commenced.

no song lives upon a single note.

but to a soldier, who had faced death for an eternity since the dawn, this grisly music was the sweetest music of all.

slaughter! for my brave ve'gath! slaughter! for gesler and his k'ell! slaughter, for the bonehunters-my friends-slaughter!

as if some fulcrum had been irrevocably destroyed, ampelas uprooted slowly rolled upside down. the entire edifice was burning now, spilling sheets of flaming oil that splashed bright upon rubble, corpses and wounded drones directly below.

gesler knew it was now dead, a lifeless hulk slowly tumbling in the sky.

two sky keeps still raged in death-throes behind it, leaning like drunks, moments from colliding with one another. the smoke column from a third was shredding apart to high winds, but of the keep itself there was no sign. the rest were but ashes on the black wind.

before them rose a mountain of gnarled rock, enclosing the wreckage that had once been kalse uprooted, holding it up as if it was a gem, or a giant shattered eye. something about the stone was familiar, but for the moment, he could not place it. the manifestation reached stunningly high, piercing through the dust and smoke.

stormy's hunt for the last fleeing nah'ruk had taken him and a thousand or so ve'gath beyond the hills to the southeast.

exhausted, numbed beyond all reason, gesler leaned back in the strange saddle. some damned dog was yapping at his mount's ankles.

he saw kalyth, sag'churok, gunth mach and the j'an sentinel, and beyond them, approaching at a careless walk, two children.