Artur winced, his guts wrenching at the stench of rotting flesh. The fading light of dusk cast an amber glow over what was once a battlefield. Once an expanse of emerald grass lazing in summer’s breeze. Now the skin of the earth was laid bare and raw, red stained mud seeping like puss from a sick wound. And one with …

The throne room shook as Caeberis parried the incoming strike, the marble tiling beneath him cracking, the air howling, his blade whining metal shrikes as sparks flew. There was the whistle of a thousand cuts, then in an abrupt moment a stone column off to Caeberis’s side fell apart into thinly sliced rubble. Caeberis glanced up and dived in time …