That was likely due to the sheer simplicity of the trap she’d fallen into. Her target always sat just out of reach, safe behind a few ranks of draugr heavy infantry. Any time it looked like Cinna’s forces were beginning to thin them out, more emerged from the sea to push her knights back. The only silver lining she could find was that the number of liches seemed far more limited; after the Selkarcian nobles destroyed the lot of them no more had come to take their places.

  “First rank, disengage! Second rank, forward!” Cinna ordered. Like a well-oiled machine, the knights currently in combat stepped back and allowed those behind them to fill their spots in the line of battle. Once they’d withdrawn, the knights that had just withdrawn fell back to the rear of the formation to rest.

  “This is getting us nowhere. You should fall back with the rest of us,” Gunnarsen advised. Cinna sighed, turning to the man standing beside her above the gatehouse.

  “Should you not be organizing the retreat right now?”

  “Everything has already been arranged. The units which have lost their lords are assembling outside the main gate as we speak. I’m sending them ahead with the injured,” Gunnarsen reported.

  “We’re out of time, then,” Cinna murmured. “No. This is an opportunity. If I’m correct…”

  “Ma’am?”

  “It’s nothing. Go lead your troops, captain. This war is far from over and we’ll need every man and woman under your command to hold the Stryk line,” Cinna ordered.

  “But—”

  “Go.”

  Bowing his head in submission, Gunnarsen finally left. Cinna appreciated his loyalty, but his prioritization of one life over that of his entire army made her question his future as a commander. She could admit that her death might be a heavy blow to morale, but Selkarc was a land of warriors. The harder they were pressed the harder they would fight back.

  If Cinna died here, Selkarc would bounce back. In time she would become a martyr. However, if the Saltrvatrmarr garrison took heavy losses in order to spare her from danger, the loss of personnel could be catastrophic.

  So she would do what had to be done to ensure the greatest number of soldiers made it back to friendly territory.

  “Begin the retreat on my count. Three, two, one, step!” Cinna called out to the knights fighting below. As one, the formation took a step back, remaining shoulder to shoulder as they did so. Cinna only needed to do the initial count; from then on, the knights took over, retreating one step at a time at regular intervals.

  Normally Cinna would have descended to ground level and joined them, but she had one last task to fulfill. She tightened her grip on her battleaxe and looked down on the draugr below. From her vantage point she could easily locate the suspected necromancer in their ranks. Many necromancers in Selkarc had been burned on the pyre on the Day of Revelation and the same had likely occurred elsewhere, so its charred body served as a dead giveaway.

  Cinna ducked down below the battlements and waited, only peaking out just enough to confirm her target was on the move. Just as it had since its appearance, the necromancer maintained a steady distance from the draugr currently engaged with Cinna’s knights. As they retreated, the necromancer advanced. Soon it stood before the gate nearly twenty meters below.

  Sucking in a deep breath, Cinna stepped up onto the edge of the wall and gripped her axe in both hands. Then she took a single step forward and let gravity take over. As she fell, Cinna poured mana into her axe, increasing its weight to the limit.

  The necromancer noticed too late. It had only enough time to command its draugr minions to shield it, but nothing short of the fortress’s ramparts would stop this blow. Cinna struck with all the force of a meteor. Her axe blade cut through two shields and the draugr holding them to cleave the necromancer from the tip of its skull to the base of its pelvis.

  A thunderous impact shook the fortress as Cinna’s axe continued on into the paving stones below. Pulverized rock filled the air. Draugr were thrown aside. Then pain flooded Cinna’s body as feedback ran up her arms. Only then did her feet finally touch the ground. Blinded by pain, Cinna fell to her knees an instant later, too stunned to move.

  Distantly, Cinna heard her knights calling her name, but no matter how much she willed her body to move she remained rooted in place. As the dust cleared, Cinna slowly became aware that her hands remained plastered to the shaft of her battleaxe, or at least what remained of it. Only jagged fragments were left of the blade that hit the ground, and the shaft had bent at nearly a right angle just below the head.

  But she’d done it. The necromancer leading these undead was no more.

  Battlecries rose up from all around Cinna as her knights surged forward, plowing through the ranks of the very draugr that had been giving them so much trouble moments earlier. Then Cinna found herself rising.

  “On your feet, general. You’re not dying on us yet,” Sylvia barked as she hauled Cinna to her feet. Only then did Cinna’s grip on her ruined weapon finally slip.

  “You should have continued the retreat,” Cinna pointed out. She flexed her fingers experimentally, but only her right hand responded.

  “No need. You did it; the instant the necromancer fell, all the draugr under its command lost coordination. They’re still fighting like skilled warriors, but they’re not an army anymore. We can afford this much of a delay,” Sylvia assured Cinna.

  “Be that as it may…return to formation!” Cinna ordered the Selkarcian knights, falling in with them as they retreated. She drew the sword sheathed at her hip. Losing her primary weapon and the use of one arm wouldn’t be enough to keep Cinna out of the fight. “We make for the front gate!”

  ***

  Cinna swung her sword.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been fighting at this point, but her limbs burned with exhaustion and that alone told her a lot. Even rotating out had ceased providing enough rest. Before she knew it, Cinna always found herself on the front line again, swinging her weapon with less strength than before.

  The undead had only numbers on their side, but those numbers were insurmountable for a mere few dozen knights no matter how skilled the latter were. Limiting the width of the battle line to the fortress’s gatehouse had allowed them to hold out for far longer than would otherwise have been possible, but now both Cinna and her elite knights were growing exhausted.

  When she finally heard a horn sound over the din of battle Cinna nearly collapsed in relief.

  “There’s the signal! We’ve done enough; drop the gate and retreat!” Cinna commanded. Gunnarsen had arranged to have the gate propped up by nothing more than a rope on his way out. One of the knights cut it with an axe the moment everyone was through and the portcullis dropped like a stone, pinning a handful of draugr to the ground in the process. For the first time in hours all combat ceased.

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  Leaving the fortress behind, Cinna and her entourage moved south with all the haste they could muster—which, by now, wasn’t much. Unfortunately their troubles were only just beginning.

  “Something’s wrong. We should have reached the horses by now,” one of the knights muttered.

  “Lars would never have forgotten to leave them for us,” another commented, referring to Gunnarsen. “We should spread out. They must be around here somewhere.”

  “No,” Cinna said firmly. She eyed the evergreens to either side of the road. There were few settlements this far north, so the forests were practically untouched save for the single road heading south. “There’s no reason for him to have hitched the horses anywhere but the main road. Someone or something must have beaten us to them.”

  “Undead? Did some slip by us somehow?” Bjorn asked, stroking his beard nervously.

  “Maybe undead, maybe trolls. They had undead trolls fighting for them, so they were clearly targeting them on their way through the Geirarj?tnas. Some may have fled south to escape,” Sylvia pointed out.

  “But to leave no trace…?”

  “Either way it appears we’ll have to proceed on foot,” Cinna said. Groans followed her statement. Truthfully, Cinna would have liked to groan as well. Her obviously broken left arm made it hard to think and she’d exhausted her stamina in the earlier battle just like the others. “I know you’re all tired, but we can’t stop here. We need to catch up with the main force as quickly as possible. Before the undead crossing into Selkarc from further east can cut us off.”

  Cinna and her guard marched south along the road. They had no time to worry about what had happened to their horses; any delay might be fatal. Afternoon soon turned to dusk. Even as the sun dropped towards the horizon they continued. The moon rose to replace the sun, but still the Selkarcian knights did not stop to rest. Though they could see only a few feet in front of them they marched onwards.

  Mounting exhaustion took its toll. Some of the knights began to slow, kept going only by the encouragement of their fellows. Others became jumpy, startling at any sound coming from the darkness surrounding them. Few spoke. No one had the energy. That only made the fear grow stronger.

  “General. We need to stop for the night before someone collapses. Even sleeping on the ground and in our armor is better than no sleep at all. Lars must have pushed his troops hard with the expectation that we could catch up on horseback; we’ll never find them at the pace we’re setting,” Sylvia said eventually, placing a hand on Cinna’s shoulder to get her attention.

  Cinna stopped in her tracks and turned to look at her lieutenant. She knew Sylvia was right. At the same time, her gut told her that stopping now would be a mistake. Something had her feeling unsettled, and she didn’t think it was just the darkness. But she’d grown too tired to analyze the situation properly.

  “…thirty minutes. That’s all we can afford right now. Any longer and…” Cinna stopped, then spun to face the road behind her. “I thought I heard—”

  “Troll!” someone yelled a fraction of a second before a bellowing roar drowned out any and all other sounds. A dark shape flew out of the darkness from Cinna’s right, bowling over several knights in an instant. She had to strain her eyes to identify the object as a mere log.

  “General!” Slyvia yelled, shoving Cinna to the ground. An instant later a massive figure emerged from the night, club raised. It swung before Sylvia could even raise her weapon. Cinna watched helplessly as a woman she’d known for years was struck upon the head with enough force to cave in her helmet.

  “Knights of Selkarc, on me! We’re under attack!” Cinna roared, climbing to her feet just in time to avoid the troll’s follow up swing. Only then did she realize this attack hadn’t come from a single direction. Screams erupted from every side as shadowy assailants fell upon her exhausted guards.

  She didn’t have the luxury of stepping back to get a grasp on the situation. Cinna ducked under the troll’s next swing, drawing and slashing with her sword simultaneously. Her blade, enchanted with an enhanced cutting edge, sliced through the troll’s tough hide like paper. Even the troll’s thick muscles failed to stop Cinna’s sword from cutting all the way down to its tendons.

  Crippled, the troll released its hold on its club, but it didn’t utter a sound despite the enormous amount of pain it should have been feeling. Nor did it bleed. Cinna knew then that on of the very things she’d sought to avoid had happened. Her knights had been too slowed by fatigue to escape the undead at their heels.

  Cinna’s eyes struggled to follow the troll’s movements in the darkness as it pressed the attack, ignoring its own injuries. But trolls stood nearly twice the height of a man and were three times as broad. She knew her best option would be to get in close and attack its legs. She dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the troll’s boulder of a fist, then circled around to its back.

  One slash, then two. That was all it took to ruin the troll’s heels. It stumbled, barely catching itself on one hand as it whirled about to strike Cinna with the other. Between the darkness, fatigue, and surprise, Cinna failed to react in time. For a moment she blacked out.

  When Cinna came to just a second later, she felt her back against the ground and something pressed against her face. As she struggled to breathe, she realized that something was her own helmet, dented so badly as to block her airways. With her one good hand, Cinna reached up to unclasp her helmet and tore it off her head, desperately gasping for air.

  The troll now loomed over her.

  Cinna rolled to the side. A fist slammed into the ground where she’d lay a moment earlier, sinking into the earth from the force of the punch. She glanced around for her sword, spotting it several feet away even as she dove out of the way of another punch. Crawling on three limbs, Cinna barely reached her weapon before the next attack came.

  When the troll next swung its fist, Cinna was ready. She spun around the attack and slashed at the troll’s underarm, causing its arm to go limp. An adrenaline spike carried her into her next sequence of attacks in combination with years of combat experience. Cinna didn’t think; she simply moved, dancing around and under the troll’s wild swings and reducing its options one set of tendons at a time.

  Finally the troll collapsed, unable to move its limbs even in undeath. With the troll defeated Cinna looked back to her knights to find them holding steady against a tide of what looked like wild animals but must have been draugr. She hurried over to join the fight.

  Animals were far easier to slay than trolls. Every swing Cinna made removed a wolf’s head or a bobcat’s claws. She blitzed through the undead animals in moments, then spun to place herself back to back with one of her knights. Looking out at the undead animals advancing under the cover of night felt like staring into the starry sky, so many were the green-tinged eyes staring back at her.

  A bear descended on Cinna the instant she slid into place. She removed its paws and head with three quick slashes. Then she cut a raccoon in half straight down the middle, followed by an entire group of squirrels that climbed over the bear she’d left squirming on the ground to leap at Cinna.

  No matter how many she cut down, more came.

  “General, this is as far as we go,” said someone to Cinna’s left. Bjorn, she realized after a moment. “We’ll hold them off as long as we can. You have to escape. Now.”

  “I will not flee and leave my comrades to die!” Cinna argued, cutting off the wing of a fanged duck as it swooped down on her.

  “You’re the crown princess. Your life is more valuable than any one of ours. Please. We can fight better knowing we’re buying you time anyway. It’ll give us a reason to hold out as long as we can.”

  “They’ll just follow me anyway!”

  “No, they won’t. You were at the back so you couldn’t see it, but there’s a bridge just ahead. If we hold the line here they won’t be able to go around us.”

  “We’ll fight with our backs to the bridge, then. Exhaust their numbers!”

  “Don’t be a fool!” Bjorn yelled, spinning to grab Cinna by the shoulders. He pushed, walking with her as he forced her away from the fighting. The remaining knights quickly moved aside and then closed ranks behind them as if they’d known what was coming. “General, if you don’t leave now I will kill you myself. Choose. Die a pointless death or give our sacrifice meaning.”

  “Damn it Bjorn!” Cinna cursed, knowing he could easily follow through on that threat considering her current state. Her sword would be of little use against Bjorn’s armor and she had a broken arm. She was in no state for a fight against her fellow knight.

  “Go. You’ve fought hard enough. There’s no shame in living to fight another day. None of us will think any less of you for it,” Bjorn assured her somberly. “Besides, someone needs to live to tell our story, yes?”

  “Khh.” Cinna stared Bjorn in the eye, or at least tried to. It was hard to tell in the moonlight. “I’ll be sure to tell everyone what a bastard you were for this.”

  “Haha! I couldn’t possibly ask for more. I’ll see you on the other side, General Selkarc. It’s been an honor.” With one last clap on Cinna’s shoulder, Bjorn walked back to rejoin the battle.

  Cinna burned the sight into her mind and then turned away, escaping across the bridge.