The world narrowed to blood and steel.
Kaelen swung until his arm went numb, until his sword felt like a bar of molten iron in his hand. He blocked, shoved, cut, each movement pulled from the marrow of exhaustion. The masked soldiers pressed in without pause, without breath, a tide that did not ebb.
The mercenary line had shattered. What was once a shield wall was now fragments, knots of men clustered around standards, fighting back to back in the churn of mud and corpses.
Kaelen stood in one such knot, shield braced against two men at once. He pushed them off, cutting one down before the second’s spear nicked his thigh. Pain flared. He snarled, shoving forward again.
“Keep them off me!” Mira shouted from behind, dragging a fallen spear out of the muck. She braced it against her should
