They carved a wake of slaughter through the enemy lines.
Behind and beside the prince, surged the ragtag miracle Merelao had conjured from the ether. As he fought, Alpheo's eye scanned them. He saw no legionary discipline here, no sober cohesion, nor the practiced rhythm of a professional vanguard. Instead, he saw a fever.
So bright a zeal that it took the place of the very sun that hid behind grey clouds.
These men fought with a chaotic electricity birthed by the silver-tongued madness of the man in the golden horns. They were a beggar's army, unwashed and unruly, but they were the only road left to victory.
He hoped that it would be enough.
The ground here was a treacherous, even plain, softened by the season into a soup of clotted muck. They had advanced beyond the land he had watered, leaving the flooded fields behind, but the rain of the past few days had turned the entire valley into a graveyard of silt.
