The fields east of Zariphon had once been serene — low hills blanketed with golden wheat, small shrines dotting the countryside with the sea on the north. But now, as the sun rose blood-red, the land shook under the footfall of war.
Markos sat atop his destrier, visor raised, scanning the valley ahead. From the northern ridge to the south where the river curved, the Pazzonian banners stretched in black rows — a tide of 20,000 men as they landed in the shores of Zariphon. Their armor glinted like a dull stormcloud, and war drums echoed like distant thunder.
Behind Markos, a patchwork force of 7,000 stood. Nafonians with curved sabres and silk sashes. Scolacians in mismatched mail, axes and pikes in hand. Florentine knights — heavy, proud, tense — riding under emerald banners bearing the double-lion. And at the center, Markos' own detachment of 140 trained recruits, flanked by the newly wheeled Skorpios, a terrifying siege weapon that made even the Florentine captains pause.
To their right, riding tall and radiant in polished silver, was Stratega Alethena — no longer hiding behind human subtlety. Helena's golden eyes surveyed the battlefield as if she already knew its outcome.
The Pazzonians began with a heavy infantry push, pressing into the Nafonian center with tower shields and long spears. Horns blasted across the hills as archers darkened the skies with a volley that struck down scores.
"Shields! Down ranks, up shields!" Markos bellowed, his voice carrying across the line.
The Nafonian line buckled, untrained levies falling back in panic. Their discipline, already strained by internal rivalries, began to shatter.
But Markos had anticipated this.
He rode hard to the Florentine reserves at the rear. "Now! Break right and smash into their flank! Cut them off before they envelop the Nafonian center!"
With a single nod from Alethena, the Florentine Guard — 600 heavy horse — thundered downhill into the fray. Spears met shields in a crash of carnage, the disciplined Florentine charge slicing through the Pazzonian right like a scythe.
The Nafonian line steadied.
"Florentine steel wins the right!" cried a soldier near Markos. "Long live the Eagle!"
The left flank, manned primarily by the Scolacian levies and raw Florentine footmen, had begun to stretch thin. Their commander, Magistrate Caelmar of Virellia, an aging noble known more for his pride than for tactics, had refused Markos' earlier suggestion to reposition closer to the woods.
"I will not take orders from some foreign mercenary with fanciful armor," he had said with a sneer.
Now, that mistake threatened to break the entire army.
The Pazzonian 3rd Vanguard, a wing of nearly 4,000 light infantry and horse-archers, had performed a daring maneuver — cutting through a shallow gulley to the north, then looping down to strike the Scolacian flank and rear with terrifying speed.
The cries of slaughter began as the outermost villages were set alight, smoke curling in the air like fingers clawing the sky.
"Sir Markos! The Scolacians are folding — they're in retreat!"
A young runner from his unit reported in breathless panic. Markos felt the shift in air pressure, the rhythm of battle collapsing like a broken drum.
He scanned the slope — he had maybe five minutes before the enemy swept down the hill and hit their own vulnerable position.
He had to hold the hill.
"My men! to me!" he roared, galloping up on his fresh mount. "Form hollow square around the Skorpios! Archers, prepare stakes! Infantry, brace!"
The 140 men of his unit — though young — moved like a machine, their training evident. Swords, spears, shields locked in with precision. Behind them, the Skorpios was wheeled into place, crewed by four men Markos had personally trained.
The hill they chose was narrow but steep — perfect for a choke point.
"Fire!" Markos shouted.
The first Skorpios bolt cracked the air like thunder, striking a charging Pazzonian horseman through the chest — lifting him from his saddle and hurling him backwards, smashing two others in his wake.
Another volley. Then another. And still they came.
Markos drew his spatha and turned to his archers.
"Loose in arcs! Disrupt their line — don't wait for my order!"
Their Scolacian recurved bows, though lacking power, were effective in mass. Hundreds of arrows peppered the enemy — enough to sow confusion.
The Pazzonians, momentarily stalled, began circling the hill, seeking an opening.
Then came the real test: a detachment of their elite — the Burned Blades, known for slaughtering infantry with ruthless precision, approached from the north.
"Close ranks! Hold until the cavalry is ready!" Markos barked.
His 30 mounted men — all recently trained in a combined Latin-Cataphract drill that he himself thought to them stood by at the rear of the hill.
"Now!" he called. "First line, couch lances! Second and third, maces and swords, RIDE AS ONE!"
The cavalry charged downhill in three staggered waves, the front lowering lances while the rest followed in tight formation. They struck the Burned Blades from the side — breaking their momentum and scattering them like wheat before the scythe.
Markos, in the center of the square, cut down a spearman who breached the line, blood soaking into his tunic.
"Markos! They're turning back!"
The enemy began withdrawing. Their advance was blunted.
The hill was held.
The center of the coalition force was held by the Nafonian Spearline, a formation renowned for its discipline in urban defense, not open-field battles. Numbering just over 2,000, they were led by Commander Hesyrios, a bureaucrat-general whose experience lay more in tax law than in war.
Markos had already voiced concern in the war council:
"They're not angled to receive a cavalry charge. If the enemy flanks and punches through here, they'll split us in two."
But the council, torn by Florentine and Scolacian political bickering, overruled him.
As the sun reached its zenith, the Pazzonian Armoured Knights, clad in scale and plate, charged across the dry riverbed toward the Nafonian center. The ground shook like thunder as their heavily-armored horses trampled everything in their path. Markos reminded them to the Latin Knights when he faced them in his old campaigns, they can tear down any gates in that ferocity.
"Shields! SHIELDS!" Hesyrios cried—but too late.
The Nafonian line had no time to brace. Their spears wavered, their shields too light, their spacing too tight. The first wave of Pazzonian cavalry hit with devastating force, shattering the line like brittle glass.
"The center's breaking!" came the cry from a Florentine scout.
"Markos—our flanks will be encircled if they cut through!" shouted Stratega Alethena, still commanding the Florentine infantry nearby.
Markos took one look and knew:
If the center fell, the battle would turn to a rout.
Without hesitation, Markos mounted and rallied his remaining cavalry and what infantry he could pull from the left.
"We ride to the breach!"
Helena disguised as Stratega Alethena met his eyes.
"You'll die out there."
"Then I die standing, not watching."
She didn't stop him.
Markos and 23 horsemen thundered across the field, dodging stray arrows and slashing pikemen. Behind them came a platoon of 90 infantry, running behind the cavalry which is most from his command.
They arrived just as the Pazzonian second wave was pushing deeper into the collapsing Nafonian line.
"Wedge! Form wedge on me!"
Markos led his horsemen in a narrow wedge formation, slicing through Pazzonian rear lines, aiming straight for the standard-bearers and officers.
"With me, into hell!"
They crashed through the chaos like a blade into flesh.
He killed a captain with a thrust to the heart, parried a blow from a sword, and knocked a lancer clean off his mount using the hilt of his sword as a warhammer or mace.
His men fought like lions and more importantly, the Pazzonians began to panic. Their momentum broke, their lines wavered.
Then, like the gates of a fortress shutting with divine force, the Florentine Guard arrived.
A horn sounded—deep and resonant.
From the rear reserve came 600 Florentine heavy infantry, their tower shields gleaming with sunlit brass. Formed three lines deep, they advanced in perfect synchrony, stepping over corpses, pushing Nafonian survivors behind them, and filling the breach.
"To the front!" roared their captain. "For the Empire!"
"Finally, your guards have arrived!" Markos looked at the Stratega for a moment seeing a smirk from her as he went back to the fray.
Shield to shield, they crashed into the confused Pazzonians, buying enough time for the battered Nafonian units to reform behind them.
"Markos, fall back!" cried one of his riders.
"Not yet!" he shouted, parrying a blade. "We hold until they stop bleeding!"
The center held—but barely.
The Florentines saved the day, but the name on every soldier's lips that evening was Markos.
"He rode into the maw of death and came out bloodied, not broken."
Even Alethena — Helena in disguise — found herself whispering aloud in her war tent later in that night:
"Damn him... he's turning this world against me by simply being good."
A cold wind howled through the banners of the Council Hall of the Schwarzkapelle — the High Black Cloisters. Torches lined the dark stone walls, flickering against grim iron sigils. The war-table was carved from a single slab of obsidian, etched with maps of Yaegrafane.
Present were the highest lords of Pazzonia — clad in black steel and fur — surrounding Hochfeldmarschall Gerlach von Brechter, a towering man with a face like a carved rune and eyes of pale frost.
The messenger dropped to one knee before the table, blood still drying on his uniform.
"Mein Herr... der Angriff auf Zariphon... hat versagt."("My lord... the assault on Zariphon has failed.")
Silence.
Gerlach leaned forward. His voice was low and coiled like a snake.
"Sprich das nochmal, aber ohne zu stottern, Hund."("Say that again, but without stuttering, dog.")
"Der zentrale Angriff wurde zerschmettert. Die Nafonian Linie hat kurz gefallen, aber... ein Heerführer, ein Fremder—Markos—führte einen Gegenstoß mit Kavallerie... und dann kamen florentinische Wachen... wir mussten zurück an die Boote."
("The central attack was shattered. The Nafonian line fell briefly, but... a commander, a foreigner—Markos—led a counter-charge with cavalry... then the Florentine Guard arrived... we had to retreat to the boats.")
A noble slammed his fist on the table, rattling tankards.
"Ein Ausländer? Ein Fremdling hat unser Hauptstoß gebrochen?"("A foreigner? A stranger broke our main thrust?")
Another growled:
"Und wir haben zwanzigtausend Männer geschickt! Was ist das für eine Schande?"("And we sent twenty thousand men! What shame is this?")
The Hochfeldmarschall slowly stood.
"Genug."("Enough.")
All voices died.
"Der Krieg hat begonnen. Zariphon war nur ein Vorstoß — ein Prüfstein. Und jetzt kennen wir ihren Helden. Markos."("The war has begun. Zariphon was only a probe — a touchstone. And now we know their hero. Markos.")
He turned toward a shadowed alcove where a figure in gray armor and a white veil stood silently, face obscured.
"Schickt den Schleierorden. Lasst sie den Mann beobachten. Jeder, der mit ihm spricht. Jede Frau, die ihn anblickt. Jeder Ort, an dem er ruht."("Send the Veil Order. Have them watch the man. Everyone who speaks to him. Every woman who gazes at him. Every place he sleeps.")
The figure bowed and slipped into the shadows.
"Und unsere Flotte?"("And our fleet?")
"Zurück nach Schwarzhafen. Für jetzt."("Back to Blackhaven. For now.")
"Aber wir greifen nicht zurück. Wir greifen neu an."("But we do not retreat. We strike anew.")
Back in the the deepest layer of the Abyss, where light died and eternity rotted, Scelestus stood still — her wings furled, her silver-black armor shimmering beneath an ocean of shadow. Her throne, jagged obsidian and shaped like a thousand screaming souls, loomed behind her like a monument to sorrow.
Her golden eyes, glowing like twin eclipses, snapped open.
"They're here."
The dark around her rippled. The Abyss bent. Time flinched.
From behind the molten iron columns of her sanctum, several lesser demon-lords appeared — cowed, whispering.
"My Lady…?"
"Pazzonian steel has broken, but they send worse than blades. The Veil Order creeps toward Zariphon. Their whispers are poison. Their breath carries the stench of null magic."
She moved like a storm in a woman's skin — graceful, wrathful. Her voice dropped into divine warning:
"They think I do not see. I see all. I feel every blink of his soul."
At her side, a conjuring orb flared to life — an image of Markos, wounded but smiling as he wrapped a cloth around a woman's shoulder — Stratega Alethena, her disguise.
Her fingers tightened on the orb, claws indenting its surface.
"If they harm a hair on his head…""…I will teach them what true veils are — the veils of oblivion."
With a gesture, she summoned a spectral black wolf — Velgrath, one of her spirit-hunters.
"Go to Zariphon. Do not be seen. If they so much as whisper his name in blood — devour them."
The beast vanished.
And then she whispered, to no one:
"He must not know what I truly am... Not yet."
The scent of soot and crushed iron still clung to the ruins of the field. As soldiers buried their dead and mended their wounded, Markos walked among them like a quiet sentinel.
He stopped at a tent where Stratega Alethena lay — pale, but alive.
"You fought like a lioness," he said with a tired smile, kneeling beside her.
"You... fought like a fool," she whispered, wincing as he examined her shoulder wound. "Charging when the center fell? You could've died."
"I've died before," Markos murmured with a small grin. "Well — I nearly did. Constantinople taught me to lose everything. I'd rather lose myself again than abandon those who believe in me."
She stared at him, eyes unreadable — not Helena, not Veltrana, not Scelestus, but something deeply and profoundly human for a flicker.
"You're too good for this world," she said softly.
He paused. Something… shivered in his chest.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing," she said, sitting up. But her voice dropped to a serious whisper."Markos. Something is coming. I can feel it. Shadows with no faces. Words without mouths. They are watching."
Markos looked outside the tent instinctively.
"You sound like you're describing wraiths."
"No," she said. "Assassins. Sorcerers. Voiceless killers."
A chill coiled down his spine.
"Pazzonians?"
"Worse. Pazzonian faithless. The ones who serve no god but conquest."
Just outside the tent, a raven landed on a pike and stared at them.
Helena met its gaze — and her golden eyes flared briefly behind Alethena's veil.
It fluttered away. She exhaled.
"Be careful, Markos. The next blade won't come from the front."
"Then I hope it comes for me first, not the men."
She closed her eyes again — and when he took her hand, she didn't pull away.