The red hooded wizard was floating some distance above the battlefield, looking down at Fangrap and taking aim with a wand, gripped in an impossibly thin, bony hand. In the heat of the moment Drake forgot that the huge priest was a worshipper of Skorvos. He was his battlefield commander and had to be warned. He shouted a warning, but he was too far away and his voice was drowned out by the din of the battle, so he used the War Whisper, the first time, as far as he knew, that any priest of Samnos had ever used it to communicate with anyone other than another member of his own order. “Look out above!”

     Fangrap looked up just as the wizard activated the wand, and a ball of orange fire exploded around the huge priest. Unholy wards and charms protected him from the worst effects of the fireball, but a trio of laughing ghosts were also descending towards him, while other spiritual undead were singling out the other priests, having deliberately hung back until their victims were so possessed by the killing fever that they were virtually blind to everything else going on around them. The red hooded wizard knew priests of Skorvos well, Drake realised. He must have fought them before and knew exactly when they were most vulnerable. And he’d drawn his battle plans within moments of realising that he was under attack! Fangrap had a worthy opponent!

     But he’d been thinking too much when he should have been paying attention to the battle. There was a lancing pain in his side as a sholog’s sword chopped into his chain mail vest, driving the small links of iron deep into his flesh. He was momentarily paralysed with pain and dropped to the muddy, trampled ground as the huge humanoid towered over him, howling in triumph as it prepared to deliver the killing blow. He was saved by the Skorvosian soldier standing next to him, one of Fangrap’s humans who parried the sholog’s blow with his own sword and drove it back while Drake healed himself and got back to his feet.

     “Thanks,” he said as he rejoined the fighting.

     “Think nothing of it, Samnian,” replied the soldier, grinning in amusement. “Never thought I’d save the life of a priest of Samnos.”

     “Never thought I’d have my life saved by a worshipper of Skorvos.”

     At that moment, a terrible scream came from somewhere behind them, and he risked a glance to see one of the priests of Skorvos withering in the grasp of one of the ghosts. It was the half sholog, half hobgoblin, and he was ageing years in seconds as the ghost literally sucked the life out of him, turning a powerful warrior into a frail, doddering, toothless wreck crippled with arthritis, screaming with hopeless terror in the full knowledge of what was being done to him. The awful sight reminded Drake of his own danger and he looked up to see another ghost angling towards him, arms outstretched and its ectoplasmic clothes billowing out behind it like a monstrous, demonic kite.

      For a moment the young priest was frozen with fear as he saw his future. He saw himself sucking his gums in a bathchair in front of a fire in a home for war victims, all the youth and strength melted from his body to leave sagging skin draped loosely across crumbling bones. He almost ran screaming, and he cowered hopelessly as the laughing ghost approached. A small whimper of terror escaped him as he threw his arms over his head in a vain attempt to shut out all knowledge of the approaching apparition.

     His pride saved him. The knowledge that he was surrounded by worshippers of Skorvos who would be looking down at him in disgusted contempt, seeing the confirmation what they’d known already; that priests of Samnos were cowards and weaklings. That the God of the Fight against Evil was fit only to be the shield bearer of his much mightier brother.

     “No,” whispered Drake, a new light burning in his eyes as he lifted his head. “Forgive me, my Lord. I am weak. Give me the strength to face this evil and send it to Thy judgement. Give me faith and take away my fear.”

     The terror melted away and he felt new strength filling his body. He gripped his sword tightly and turned to face the ghost, now just a few feet away.

     “Foul spirit!” he cried at the top of his voice. “This is the sword of Samnos! Begone from here if you value your rotten soul, or you will feel my righteous wrath and you will suffer in torment for ever and ever! I swear it!”

     The ghost hesitated, a look of uncertainty and confusion on its face, but then it came on as the Shadowlord increased his power over it. Drake realised that it couldn’t have left even if it had wanted to. It was not a free spirit.

     “So be it,” cried the young priest, and he swung the sword with all his strength. The power of Samnos was in the blade, the young priest having spent many long hours praying over it, and the ghost screamed as it passed through its ephemeral body. A jolt of icy cold ran up the blade into Drake’s hands and arms, numbing him and robbing him of his strength, but he gritted his teeth and swung again and again until the ghost’s agony was so great that not even the Shadowlord’s power could hold it any longer and it vanished with a final howl of unearthly torment.

     Drake was now worked up into a real battle frenzy and went berserk among the Shadowsoldiers, ignoring minor cuts and wounds to his own body as heads and limbs flew around him. A river of blood flowed down his blade to stain his hands and soak the sleeves of his robes. The Shadowsoldiers took one look at his face and fled in terror, but he chased after them, leaving the Skorvosian ring of steel, which was beginning to break up in any case. Behind him, he was vaguely aware of more unearthly howls of torment as Fangrap dealt brutally with the three ghosts that had attacked him, before turning all his attention to the red hooded wizard himself.

     “Not bad,” he heard the wizard say, its voice somehow carried to the ears of everyone within a hundred yards despite the noise of the battle. An intimidation tactic, Drake realised, and a distraction. The Skorvosians would be tempted to look, to see who had spoken, giving their opponents a momentary advantage. “But let’s see how you fare against Krassban himself.”

     The wizard pulled back his hood to reveal a shrunken, mummified head with empty eye sockets in which tiny ice cold points of light were blazing fiercely. The huge priest recoiled unsteadily, gathering his unholy wards and charms to fend off the rak’s power, but then he grinned and attacked, praying to the evil God of Conquest, who responded with a massive burst of unholy power. Fangrap reeled as the power entered his body, and then he converted it into fiery bolts of death and destruction which he hurled at the undead wizard, catching several common soldiers, both Skorvosians and Shadowsoldiers, in the crossfire and destroying them as the priest and the rak fought.

     Drake took a moment to rest and catch his breath as the last of a company of hobgoblins fled from him leaving half their number dead at his feet. He looked back at the spectacular pyrotechnics where Fangrap and Krassban were fighting. The underside of the cloud of smoke from the burning war camp was lit up in brilliant oranges and reds, and rolling claps of thunder were echoing back and forth between the hills around them. Everyone for miles around must be wondering what in the name of hell is going on, he thought in wonder.

     “How ya doing, human?” said a nearby voice and the young priest jumped in alarm, bringing his sword up, but it was only Shragnaz and he relaxed, cursing himself for letting the huge sholog priest sneak so easily up to him. That’s what happens when you stop to admire the view when you should be concentrating on the battle, he thought bitterly. If it had been a Shadowsoldier, he’d be dead now.

     “Well enough,” he replied. “The battle’s lasting longer than I expected it to.”

     “Never lasts long enough,” said the sholog, his doglike, bestial eyes blazing with excitement. “If only it could last forever! Come on, human, let’s get stuck in!”

     He ran back into the battle with a howl of sheer animal exhilaration and Drake followed, the two priests fighting side by side as a company of human Shadowsoldiers hurled themselves at them only to die in massive numbers on the holy and unholy swords.

     The last remnants of the ring of steel were now disintegrating and the remaining Skorvosians were scattering in disarray, falling one by one as they were surrounded and hacked to pieces. Drake was also tiring rapidly, and the Shadowsoldiers closed in eagerly, sensing that his end was close. He prayed silently as he summoned the last of his strength for a final supreme effort, and beside him he heard Shragnaz panting heavily as every blow and parry took a greater effort than the one before. “Die, faithless ones!” the sholog howled as another Shadowsoldier fell headless at his feet. “Go to Skorvos!”

     The Shadowsoldiers were pressing in close now, and the two priests stood back to back in an effort to hold them off for as long as possible. Drake was now fighting three men at once, and the situation was made worse by the fact that one of them was a tiny goblin, forcing him to defend his lower body against its tiny, daggerlike sword as well as his upper body against the taller humans. It was only a matter of time before one of them got under his guard, he knew, but at least his end would be a quick, clean one. He wouldn’t be taken alive, as so many in Fort Battleaxe had been.

     Then he heard a trumpet blowing, and he realised with astonishment that it was Beltharan bugle code, the order to attack. The defenders of Tatria! he realised as another army swept down the hillside into the fray. They’ve left the city undefended! The Shadowsoldiers wavered in sudden fear, and the two priests waded into them with renewed vigour.

     The effect on the Shadowsoldiers was dramatic. They’d thought they’d all but won the battle and many of them had already begun the victory celebrations, gathering up the bodies of the fallen and subjecting them to the ritual mutilation that prepared them for revival as mindless zombies. Now, though, everything was in doubt once more and the new arrivals were fresh and rested whereas the Shadowsoldiers and Skorvosians were almost exhausted.

     Drake looked up to see that even Krassban had paused uncertainly in his battle with Fangrap and that he was looking back at the hillsides in confusion. The rak levitated upwards to scan the entire battlefield with his blazing, fiery eyes and Drake imagined his brilliant mind working out what his new chances of victory were.

     Drake took a moment to look around at what the rak was seeing. He looked at the Beltharans, charging in organised companies and regiments, shouting and cheering at the prospect of turning the tables on their enemies, and he looked at the Shadowsoldiers, almost dead on their feet in their chipped and dented bone armour, milling around in confusion as the Shadowcaptains madly shouted orders in an attempt to rally them to the new threat. A great many Shadowsoldiers had already had enough, though, and Drake saw Krassban cursing furiously at the sight of hundreds of tiny white specks hurrying fearfully across the plain toward the opposite hillside.

     “Another time, priest!” the rak promised, and then he spoke a word and vanished. Fangrap cursed violently with disappointment before turning his attention to the remaining enemies.