Zyla:

  My master has a deft hand at tactics. He laid out our plan in detail once more, right before we emerged.

  I only hope that I can execute. Perfectly.

  “Timing,” Saegors says at the edge of the briars. “Timing is key. Don’t panic Zyla. Don’t send out forces too early or too late. Trust in me. Trust in your brother. And…” he hesitates. “Pray that Raiten kills the boy.”

  For him, that has always been the unknown factor—the unquantifiable variable. But everything else? My old teachers used to tout that, to a certain scale, warfare can be predictable.

  You just have to understand the pieces.

  Before emerging into the lush green valley, I close my eyes, and envision my pieces: the spirits.

  They flow now from my outstretched hands, forming lines of ravenous elemental animals. Most of them are from the first circle: wind spirits, wood, fire, ice, water, dark, a rare few light, even fewer iron, three heavenly, two human. Many are slaves. Few are bonds.

  All 500 of them are terrifying.

  Wolves, blood ravens, panthers, a few bug mares with chitinous armor, warfoxes, war monkeys who ride the foxes—and more.

  My bonded Aether wolf curls up next to me, nuzzling its maw against my leg. I bend down to pat it and scratch behind the ears, waiting for Saegor to signal our attack now. His eye scans the battlefield with keen intelligence. He just needs to see a flash of green clashing against red, and then…

  Then it's war time.

  …

  I climb atop an iron bear and hitch my breath as one of the blood ravens pinches my shoulder blades with its talons, forming a set of ice wings at my back. The bear paws the ground impatiently, sniffing the air, now grinding its teeth as if to sharpen them for the flesh of man.

  My heart thunders.

  My eyes see but can’t quite believe.

  This is my first battle. Probably my last as well. But I accept that. I have to—for Saegor. As long as he gets what he came for, then my life is forfeit.

  My army stalks forward into the daylight, a colorful force of murderous entities.

  Then, without preamble, we break out into a charge, full force, a horizontal line of gnashing teeth and hounding spirits. The bear, although one of the biggest of my cav, still moves with remarkable speed. It tears across the land and roars out savagely—the metal within making its cry echo.

  Subtlety doesn’t matter at this point. They see us. We are not hard to spot, even if we come from the right upswing of the briars.

  Masaru is no fool. At the lower slope of the hill, he positioned his formation into a crescent, refused flank. The Sorayvladian general angled his spearmen towards his exposed forest flank, entrenching them with dugout positions. He understood the risk of a trap, yet refused to move his men into the briars—electing instead to keep position and prepare for the worst.

  He thinks like a conventional tactician.

  As such, he no doubt plans to hail our force in the killing field—the distance my army has to cross to engage with his spearmen. The Elder will use the projectile rangers at the back. And, even if that doesn’t work, even if we make first contact, he can initiate a countercavalry charge. Then, all Masaru has to do is wait for the whales to come down. Those are the biggest obstacles: 100 magicks users saddled atop each whale gives them the capacity to decimate our force from above. And I don’t have the air forces to counter that.

  If the whales come down, we lose.

  It only takes ten seconds before the first volley arcs up from their lines of archers and mages: fiery arrows, ice shards, wood splinters, and a few blinding balls of light. Hundreds of projectiles slash through the sky like tiny locusts in the sunlight.

  I order my spirits to counter volley—at least, those that can. The scorpions fling back iron telsons, the ravens caw out blazes of fire, and the war monkeys—equipped with slingshots—fire carefully inscribed Incanta stones with explosive properties. The Incanta on their stones is not of my doing; even though they are mere spirit slaves, war monkeys have their own cultural facets. Both in life and death. So, they have older, more primitive ways of using Incanta.

  The result of all of this is a midair clash of elements that blinds the eye and shakes the soul, along with the valley. Everything rumbles. Remnant shards rain down upon us and I mold myself against the hide of the bear, who charges on, gaining momentum now. Some stones clatter against my wings, which curl up to shield me. A shard lands dangerously close to my hand, breaking against the front paw of my iron bear.

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  Others are not so lucky. I see a raven fall victim to three arrows. A wolf limp behind us, its leg shattered by a blast. A panther rides hard next to us, but it too sports ice shards in its wooden body. Still, even as their volley continues, even as more and more of my spirits fall victim to the assault, it's not as bad as I predicted. This would’ve been their best chance to weaken our numbers. However, either because of our speed or the countervolleys or even just the surprise factor, we make it out less scathed than I thought.

  I am at the front center of this charge, not too far behind, but not amongst the fastest. Yet still, my position is the focal point of our heavy cavalry: the biggest and baddest spirits. The iron bear, five ice hippos, many fire and wooden crocodiles, and panthers and lions and other big cats. To our right and left now cordons off the lighter cavalry. The horses, wolves, dogs, foxes, ferrets, bunnies, and the war monkeys.

  Our line becomes a fork.

  And as the spear men on the other side of the hill rush to reinforce the left flank, as the whales yawn from above and begin their descent, as the thunder of war drums on in my ears, thumps on in my chest, sings on in the chorus of roaring spirits and yelling Soryavladians—

  The heavy cavalry makes first contact.

  All in all, it took twenty five seconds.

  Thirty seconds seconds until I see the first Sorayvladian spearmen die.

  The cats jump upon them, savaging them with claws and teeth. The hippos charge into them. Men scream as they are crushed. They poke desperately with spearheads and from higher on the slope, the archers and mages now focus their efforts on the biggest animals. Some of the spearmen are evidently more skilled than others. They vault on their polearms and thrust from midair. Some are able to use magicks in close quarters and I see one soldier twirl his spear with great gasps of fire, dueling against one of my ice crocodiles.

  Regardless, we do make a killing of them.

  My bear crashes against seven men, breaking through their line and whipping around, stomping, slashing forth with iron claws. One man yells a battlecry and tries to jump for me, spear upraised.

  My heart pounds and I almost order the raven to fly me away.

  But the bear is quicker. It turns around and snatches the man in its jaws. Snaps down. The bear crunches through the skull like it's a nut meant for cracking. Blood spatters on me and drips from the bear’s teeth as it roars and the men around us flinch back in fear, only to be taken by fire crocodiles from their flank and even if the crocs don’t get them, their flaming tails whip into them and send those poor soldiers screaming towards the ice hippos, who also maul and issue freezing breaths to slow them, kill them, murder them.

  There is no war here.

  There is only chaos. Chaos and destruction.

  I internally command the left and right light cav to split off and run parallel to the spear lines. They will employ hit and run tactics. Engage briefly, spew projectiles, retreat back, charge again. I can afford to do that with them. Especially now that we’ve entrenched the heavy cavalry with the Sorayvladian infantry. It's hard for the enemy to focus on anything but the iron bear that rips through their lines.

  As that pressure mounts on the bear, I fly off and leave him, ordering my raven to put me on one of the lighter cavalry—an ice cougar. In the air, I’m too obvious of a target. Yet, even my time with the bear wasn’t fruitless: it's much easier for me to command individual spirits when I’m riding atop them. For the army as a whole, I have to envision them in my mind and carefully instruct them. Brief instructions—anything too complex or longwinded will confuse the slaves. It's an art I spent most of my time at the academy perfecting—mostly thanks to Saegor’s advice rather than the teachers.

  From the hill, Masaru still holds onto his counter cavalry. Only 500 horsemen, a few tiger spirit users, a few mountain-croc riders. Sorayvlad in general is not renowned for their cavalry. But still, it's a force I have to keep in mind and watch out for. I don’t know why he hasn’t employed them, but there has to be a reason.

  One of the hippos fall. The men around it cheer for brief moments, until the hippo rises again from the dead and clamps its mouth around three men at once, cleaving them in two.

  Saegor’s magicks at work. He is somewhere in the center of our force, reviving spirits as needed. Though he is not stationary: he’s just waiting for an opening. For a path to the witch.

  The effect of having the hippo come back from death works wonders. The Sorayvladian spearmen are breaking, dying, and falling. Their rangers are panicking.

  However more of their men come from the other side of the hill, now reinforcing their numbers, redirecting their fire power. More spirits die.

  And the whales finally descend close enough to make their mark.

  They call from above, casting huge shadows, with the regiments on each now lining up their shots.

  And all hell is laid upon us from the heavens as their shots ring forth from the sky, a great cavalcade of elements. Unlike before, we cannot countervolley these while also fighting the enemy in front of us.

  But the shots never reach.

  Instead, they ping off of the hexagonal shields that now reveal themselves in the sky. A great aegis forms a dome around us, encompassing our battle. And the whales are now rendered mute.

  Saegor split the battlefield with Kiren. Because Raiten drew out the plagued, Kiren was able to shield them off, and at the same time, create a dome to protect us from the whales. The battle is now sectioned off into a quarter sphere. And all we have to do is worry about defeating the main Sorayvladian force—so long as Kiren can keep up the shields from his position in the briars.

  I smile and quietly whisper a thank you to my brother.

  Masaru may think like a conventional tactician…

  But unfortunately for Masaru, we are no conventional army.

  We are mancers. And we do not fight battles on the enemy’s terms.

  With that thought in mind, I command the bear to lift up onto its two legs and roar out once more, blood flying from its mouth. In the distant clouds, I see flashes of green and red pierce through the gray. Thunder booms from above as war rages below.

  And the Battle of the Glades begins in earnest.