A few days later, Resalintas was back in Bula Pass, standing on a high vantage point on a jutting spur of rock and watching the activities of the Shadowarmy camped a mile away.

     The enemy had returned to the valley a few days earlier, and this time they were making no attempt to attack Fort Dirk. This time they were going to launch a full scale assault on the Beltharan troops camped in the valley and force them to use the third and last charge of the Sceptre of Samnos while the defenders of the fortress city remained passive observers. The Shadowarmy would be destroyed, of course, as the two before it had been, but the watchers in the Kronos observatory reported that the massive reserve of over a million Shadowsoldiers was at last on the move, having emerged from the Shadow, and that they were deploying themselves at strategic points along the foothills of the Copper Mountains. As soon as the Sceptre was gone they would attack, and the old priest couldn’t see any power in the world being able to stop them.

     Have faith and fear not, he told himself sternly. We are all in the hands of the Gods. They will see that the universe unfolds as it should. He rose and returned to the tent city, therefore, his face set and determined, and all the men he passed felt their hopes raised and their morale boosted as his powerful aura of holiness swept over them like the wings of a war griffin. They’d lost many good men in the war, men who’d been legends in their own lifetimes, but so long as Resalintas was still alive and fighting beside them, it was impossible to imagine that they could be anything but victorious.

     They had two options, the old priest knew. They could remain in their defensive positions, waiting for the enemy to come to them, or they could go out and meet them in the field. Skulnya, had he been with them, would have advised the former option, to make the best use they could of their defensive advantage, but the old priest had always seen attack as the best form of defence and he could sense, on some fundamental, spiritual level too deep for words, that the Sceptre did as well. The Shadowsoldiers were the evil enemy, after all. They had sinned greatly in declaring war on civilization and they needed to be punished. You don’t punish people by sitting tight and waiting for them to come to you. You go out and get them, and that was precisely what Resalintas intended to do.

     Their spies in the Shadowarmy had told them that they intended to advance on the Beltharan positions about an hour after noon, so the Beltharans would have to move at the same time in order to meet them out in the open. They were only waiting for the Shadowarmy to break camp and move out, in order to deny them their own defensive advantage. Several companies were already waiting high up on the valley walls, ready to sweep down on the enemy, but Field Marshal Haines, wisely in Resalintas’s opinion, had decided to keep most of his men in the tent city so that the enemy wouldn’t notice an appreciable reduction in their number and grow suspicious. They didn’t want the enemy to know that they were about to attack. That way, they might hopefully catch them off guard.

     Resalintas had no sooner returned to the command tent than it all began to happen. A messenger dashed in to tell him that the enemy was breaking camp and forming ranks and files ready to march. In reply, the old priest snapped orders that sent officers and messengers dashing in all directions and the Beltharan army also prepared to move out.

     “This is it, then,” said a young Captain next to him as he buckled on his sword. “Our last hurrah. One last triumph, and then they push us all the way back to Tara.”

     “I’ll hear none of that defeatist talk,” snapped Resalintas in reply. “Shut your mouth or I’ll have you arrested for morale sabotage.” The Captain turned white as a ghost and scurried away.

     Minutes later, the three divisions of the Beltharan army were lined up in ranks and files across the width of the valley, just ahead of the wall that had once blocked the valley and that had been destroyed in the first attack months before. The enemy was still out of sight around a bend in the valley, hidden from sight by the massive rocky ridge upon which Fort Dirk stood. The defenders of the fortress city communicated by semaphore with the field army, telling them that the enemy would be rounding the valley within ten minutes, and Field Marshal Haines gave the order for the army to move. They would meet the enemy just as they were rounding the bend, a manoeuvre that would put the barely disciplined ranks of the enemy into some disarray, making them vulnerable. That would be the ideal time to strike them.

     Haines remained in his command post high up on the wall of the valley, from where he and his staff could observe the whole battle and issue commands to direct it, but Resalintas stood right at the front of the army and led the way as they moved forwards. In his left hand he held the Sceptre of Samnos. In his right hand he held the Sword of Retribution. Both of the two most powerful holy weapons belonging to the faith of Samnos in the hands of a single man making him the single most powerful force for goodness and holiness the world had known for seven hundred years. The men behind him knew it as well, and there wasn’t a single one of them who wasn’t bursting with eagerness to enter battle, confident that, on this occasion at least, they would be victorious.

     Then the vanguard of the enemy came into view ahead of them, their tattered banners flying in the slight breeze. A slight tinge of crimson from the red sun halfway up the sky behind the Beltharans made it look as though the whitewash bones and skulls of their armour had just recently been torn from the bodies of living victims. There were no undead among them this time. The rak commanding the Shadowarmy knew that they would be facing the last charge of the Sceptre of Samnos, and that any undead among them would be destroyed in the first moment of its activation, so they’d been held back at the valley’s entrance, ready to be used in the next assault when the Sceptre was gone.

     The rak himself was also remaining safely out of danger at the rear, to avoid being blasted by the Sceptre's activation. He had given command of the army to a human riding on the back of a huge armoured landwyrm, a serpentine creature the size of a dragon that lacked wings and slithered along the ground with the aid of its four stumpy legs. He was still tiny in the distance, but Resalintas thought he could see a look of confidence and assurance on the man’s face. He hadn’t been told he was going on a suicide mission. The very tiniest of smiles creased the corners of the old priest’s lips and he raised the Sceptre high, feeling his heart soaring with exultation as he readied himself for battle.

☆☆☆

     The Shadowsoldiers knew what had happened to the two previous Shadowarmies that had tried to take the valley, but the rak commander had lied to them, telling them that the Sceptre's third charge had been used in the east, against one of the Shadowarmies fighting Fu Nang. The Shadowcaptain believed the lie. Unaware to him, the rak had used magic on him to make him more gullible than usual, but not even a rak could enchant an entire army. The army was doubtful, therefore. Suspicious of the rak's claim and therefore timorous and fearful and shooting wary glances all around as if wondering how far they could run before being shot in the back by their fellows.

     The Shadowcaptain could sense their fear and could see the ranks wavering as he turned his head to look behind him. Aware that he could be facing a mass desertion any minute, he decided to order the charge sooner than he’d intended, in the hope that the excitement of battle would put some spine into his trembling troops. He gave the command and spurred the landwyrm into a slithering gallop, giving thanks for the shologs whose lust for battle, no matter how great the odds, would inspire and enthuse the others.

     The first suspicion that he’d been set up as a dupe entered the Shadowcaptain’s head when he saw that, instead of charging to meet them, the old priest facing him had stopped and seemed to be praying. The Shadowcaptain was now close enough to see the staff in more detail, and he recognised the ornament on its head as a golden griffin, wings outstretched as if poised in the act of leaping into flight. He cursed as he realised how he'd been betrayed by his superiors and a lump of cold fear dropped into his stomach like a rock catapulted into a dark lake.

     Then the Sceptre began to shine with a glorious, golden light and the fear was turned instantly to full blown panic and despair. The landwyrm reared up in terror, scattering regiments of ogres and goblins, and the Shadowcaptain was thrown from its back. He landed heavily on a boulder, shattering his pelvis and most of his ribs, and then his dragon-sized steed came down on top of him, turning him into a bloody stain on its razor tipped scales. All around, a hundred thousand assorted humanoids milled in screaming panic, fleeing in all directions only to be met by grim faced humans wherever they went. The Beltharans, their faces set with expressions of disgust and determination, moved in to perform an unpleasant but necessary job...

☆☆☆

     The merciless slaughter went on for the rest of the day while the yellow sun crossed the sky and slipped below the horizon. That left only Derro to cast its crimson glow across the battlefield, so that it seemed that even the mountains themselves were dripping with blood. There were still a few scattered groups of Shadowsoldiers standing when the mystical glow left the Sceptre for the third and final time, but by then they were outnumbered by the Beltharans to such an extent that it made no difference.

     Resalintas slumped with fatigue as he felt the holy power leave him, and immediately forced himself to stand erect once more in case anyone saw him and realised he wasn’t made of granite after all. Only when he was safely hidden away in private would he be able to make any concession to the weariness that went all the way to his very soul. He wasn’t needed on the battlefield any longer, though, so with his head held high and his back as stiff as a rod of iron he began to make his way back to the tent city.

     Then the valley was lit by another glorious, golden radiance, similar to the glow the Sceptre had made but a thousand times more intense, and the old priest spun around to see a majestic, golden being materialise above the battlefield. It seemed to be composed entirely of light, as bright as the surface of the yellow sun, and everyone still alive on the battlefield, Beltharans and Shadowsoldiers alike, threw their arms over their eyes in case they were struck blind. The evil humanoids wailed in ultimate terror as they felt their souls shriveling like dry leaves in a furnace. Later, the Beltharans would find them wandering like mindless zombies across the barren, heather landscape, no intelligence left behind their sunken, staring eyes.

     Only Resalintas was able to look directly at the golden apparition, and he saw that there seemed to be a humanoid figure somewhere within the light; a beautiful figure with a smiling face that beamed approvingly down at the old priest. Resalintas knew what it was and why it was there and he fell to his knees, chanting words of praise and devotion to Samnos as the apparition dropped lower. It approached him, one hand outstretched, and the old priest held out the Sceptre. He felt it taken from him by a hand that momentarily brushed against his own as softly and gently as that of a child, and then it was gone, as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving only a purple after image in the back of his eyes and a feeling of awe and wonder in his soul.

     “What in the name of the Gods...” whispered a man next to him, looking much too young to be the Captain his rank pins declared him to be.

     “In the name of the Gods is right,” replied the old priest. “That was an emissary of Samnos, come to take back the Sceptre and replace it in the shrine, ready for the next time it is needed.”

     “We still need it now!” pointed out the young Captain. “Maybe someone can go back to the shrine and bring it out again.”

     Resalintas was almost tempted to smile. Almost but not quite. “The Shrine will no longer be in the same place,” he pointed out. “It moves every time the Sceptre is returned to it, and even if someone should discover its new location the Sceptre may not be brought out again until a hundred years have passed since its last usage.”

     “Then it’s been used for the last time ever,” said the Captain, “because if the Shadow is victorious, in a hundred years time there’ll be no-one left alive in the world to claim it. Only millions of undead, endlessly singing the praises of the Bone Prince.”

      Resalintas scowled angrily, making the young Captain shrink back in fear. “Then no doubt the Sceptre will be taken to another world where Samnos is revered, to help them fight the forces of evil, but I'm not yet ready to concede defeat and neither should you be. It is our duty to resist the forces of evil, and we must continue to do so for as long as we have breath in our bodies.”

      “Y-yes, of course,” stammered the Captain, dropping his eyes and moving hurriedly away.

     Resalintas watched him go, aware that all the other officers had to be thinking the same thing, now that the euphoria of the Sceptre's activation was fading. They were all intelligent men. They knew the situation just as well as he did. Would they hold? Would they stand their ground when the enemy returned?

     "Have faith and fear not," he said to himself, looking across the battlefield as his men combined their grisly slaughter. Then he turned and marched back to the tent city.

☆☆☆

     Some hours later, the old priest was back in his own tent, down on one knee in prayer, when Captain Vasta came to visit him.

     “I thought you’d want to know,” his fellow priest said when Resalintas looked up. “We just had word from Kronos. A massive army is approaching Bula Pass, estimated size two hundred thousand men. Estimated time of arrival ten days from now. Other armies are going north and south to Stonn and Ilandia, and east to Fu Nang. The Shads are committing everything they’ve got. Looks like the real war is about to begin.”

     Resalintas nodded, no change of expression visible on his features, and then he returned to his prayers.