The impact was inevitable.

  The Black Directive’s cavalry was charging at full speed. The wedge held until the very last moment, but the riders could already see the pikes—too late, too close. Horses began to panic. Some tried to veer aside, others yanked hard on the reins. There was no room to maneuver.

  The pikemen stood firm. The pikes were set in a dense wall, gripped with both hands—no shields, no movement. They didn’t shout or rush forward.

  They waited. And then the mercenaries crashed into the pikes.

  They punched into horses’ chests, shattered helmets, and punched through riders together with their saddles. Bodies were flung forward, sideways, down. Some fell instantly. Some were still alive, pinned beneath their own mounts.

  Riders went down in chaos—breaking on the ground, trampled under the hooves of those behind them. Those in the rear had no choice: they too tried to avoid the pikes, swerved sharply, slammed into one another, fell together.

  The formation collapsed.

  Screams, neighing, metal—everything merged into a single moment.

  The clan’s charge ended almost as soon as it began.

  Some fell on the very first line of pikes. Others broke through to the second rank. The rest rode too far—and immediately found themselves surrounded.

  The formation was shattered.

  What was meant to be a fast, decisive strike turned into a bloody snarl.

  The mercenaries managed to crush only a small section of the defense.

  Instead of a breakthrough—a narrow breach. Instead of forward momentum, a fight for every step.

  Now they had to literally hack their way toward Rianes’s clan.

  Slowly. With heavy losses.

  A few riders plunged deep into the ranks of the Cast Aside. They fell together with their horses, shoved bodies aside, struggled to get back up, desperate not to be finished off while prone.

  Atrion was among them.

  The Blue Cohort—already strained to the limit—began to lose morale. They saw it. Saw how those meant to come to their aid had ended up in an even worse encirclement.

  Hope cracked.

  Ranuver waited.

  He watched as the mercenaries’ gamble slowly turned into their death. As a plan that had seemed daring and bold broke against cold calculation.

  He had outplayed Rianes.

  And now all that remained was to finish it.

  But the Black Directive fighters had not broken.

  This was, perhaps, the most combat-capable force on the entire continent. Discipline here did not shatter with the first blow—it held even in chaos. Despite the heavy losses at the very start, they recovered quickly, regrouped, and did not lose their fighting spirit.

  Unlike Rianes’s clan.

  Those who had been thrown forward, past the enemy’s backs, managed to get back on their feet. Blood, broken bones, shattered armor—all of it faded into the background. They formed a pocket of resistance right in the middle of the Cast Aside.

  At the center of that pocket stood Atrion. He killed one enemy after another. His twin blades moved without pause—fast, precise, lethal. No one had time to block or retreat. Defense against him simply did not come together.

  Grimcross joined him quickly. He tore through the enemy ranks, leaving broken bodies and ruptured lines in his wake. The pocket began to expand. What moments ago had looked like an isolated group of the doomed was turning into a pressure point.

  The Black Directive infantry—until then not fully committed—moved forward.

  They pressed the Cast Aside methodically, meter by meter. Not fast, but relentless. Their goal was first to reach the pocket of resistance, and then to break through toward the Blue Cohort.

  The fighting was heavy and drawn out.

  But over time, Atrion’s clan reconnected. They formed a corridor—narrow, blood-soaked, but passable—and began to force their way slowly toward Rianes’s forces.

  Hope, which Ranuver had already buried, stirred once more.

  At the same time, the Blue Cohort—seeing the breakthrough—began moving toward them.

  This was no longer an advantage. It was an attempt to reach out. To tear free from the pressure. To link up while there was still someone left to link up with.

  Katarina actively supported the infantry. She was still full of strength—unlike Velm, who was nearing his limit. His movements were slowing, his suggestion growing rarer, heavier. So it was Katarina who had to take his place wherever the pressure became critical.

  At last, the corridor was opened.

  Both clans began to withdraw—not simultaneously, not in perfect coordination, but in jolts. Fighters from the flank closest to the forest gradually shifted toward the Black Directive. Step by step. Through fighting. With losses. And after several such shifts, almost the entire command core of the Cohort ended up on that flank.

  Almost all of it.

  Velm remained in the middle of the mercenaries’ control zone.

  He was already too exhausted to actively support the flank. Part of his role was taken over by Skeld, who also shifted there and became a living anchor for those still holding the line.

  That was exactly where Hukan pressed the hardest.

  There were fewer and fewer suggestions now, and he felt it. If he could push just a little more, he could eliminate the entire leadership of the Cohort in a single blow.

  From the other side, Ranuver kept throwing in new, fresh forces without pause. They came in from the rear, from the flanks, from every direction. But without overall coordination, the fight was gradually turning into a meat grinder.

  Dead bodies lay everywhere.

  They hindered attacks, broke formations, and forced soldiers to stumble. Men tangled with one another, tripped, and fell. The wounded couldn’t retreat—they were crushed, pressed, finished off by their own ranks.

  If not for the line of pikemen that had stopped Atrion at the very beginning, the battle might have looked entirely different—almost a victory for the mercenaries.

  But it didn’t happen.

  Ranuver was still sealing off the retreat.

  And in the attackers’ rear, there were more and more Cast Aside.

  The ring was tightening.

  At a distance from the battlefield stood the camp of the Oaken.

  They saw everything. The smoke. The shifting formations. The flashes of steel. Their fighters were ready to enter the battle at any moment. When only the Blue Cohort stood on the attackers’ side, the Oaken merely watched.

  It was not their fight. But now others had appeared. Those whom many of them despised. The Black Directive.

  Karasel observed the clash from atop a bison. The massive beast stood calmly, as if unaware of the tension in the air. Karasel, however, felt it in every thought.

  He had to decide—intervene or not.

  On one hand, he was part of Ranuver’s army. On the other hand, the Compacts had been their allies for many years.

  Varek stepped up beside him.

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  “Whatever you decide,” he said quietly, “my fighters won’t take part in this.”

  Karasel didn’t even turn his head.

  “You offered him non-intervention,” he replied. “He didn’t listen. He chose his fate himself.”

  “Maybe,” Varek agreed. “But I won’t be the one who becomes part of that fate.”

  Karasel remained silent.

  He looked over his ranks. The fighters were waiting. No one spoke, but everyone understood—the decision would be made now.

  He turned to his officers and let his gaze settle on one of them.

  The man’s face was disfigured by scars—coarse, uneven, the kind that never fully heal. Mercenaries had left them years ago, when he’d been captured after accusations of theft on Compact territory.

  Atrion had refused to hand him over to Ovamir. Instead, he sentenced him to half a year in prison. That was where the man had returned from—with scars.

  Karasel knew the story. And he knew what he could do now.

  One order—and the Oaken would slam into the flank of the Black Cohort. That would almost certainly break their retreat. The mercenaries’ chances would drop to nearly nothing.

  He was already about to raise his hand. And in that moment, he saw movement from the direction of Korosten. Not smoke. Not dust. Not running figures. Movement. It was the Red Breach.

  Unexpected to everyone, they appeared from the north of the kingdom—too fast, too coordinated. It seemed they had managed to approach unseen: no reports from scouts. No warnings. No signals.

  They were simply there.

  Among the fighters of the Breach were Oaken as well.

  It made Karasel hesitate again.

  He still did not give the order to enter the battle. One more moment—and the decision was postponed yet again. Karasel respected Balrek, and because of that, he chose not to issue a contradictory command.

  The battlefield was changing faster than he could weigh the consequences.

  Balrek’s clan moved differently.

  Heavy. Slow. Their cavalry could smash almost any formation through sheer mass and momentum. But they would not get the benefit of surprise.

  Ranuver’s scouts spotted their approach early. The warning came in time.

  The plan was the same as against Atrion: hide the pikemen until the last moment. Let the cavalry push deeper. Stop it all at once. Then finish off the shattered formation.

  Once the first assault was broken, dealing with the clan would become much easier.

  The Red Breach was already nearing the battlefield.

  Once again, they reached the same hill—the one from which the Black Directive had recently gathered speed before their fatal charge.

  And once again, the hill looked down.

  At a battle that was growing larger. And more merciless. And it showed the same sight again.

  The same one Atrion had seen earlier, standing on this very hill. But now there were two clans below—and far more corpses. The ground was trampled, darkened with blood, littered with broken weapons and bodies no one was taking away anymore.

  The clans that were still holding managed to pull back a little.

  They found themselves much farther from the siege engines, which were burning down slowly, helplessly. Only two trebuchets were still truly ablaze—tall tongues of fire rising high, standing almost in the middle of the corridor the mercenaries were holding.

  Balrek formed his fighters up.

  He raised his hand—and the command to advance rang out.

  The cavalry began to gather speed. Slowly. Heavily. But inexorably. All other soldiers who could still move turned toward them, preparing either to support the strike or to exploit its aftermath.

  Everyone knew what awaited the riders.

  The same thing as before. Pikes to the chest. A brutal impact. And swift death—at best.

  The ranks of horsemen closed in on the camp’s defenders.

  And again—almost exactly as before—pikemen suddenly burst out from among the defenders. They snapped into a tight formation and leveled their pikes forward.

  Long. Sharp. Unmoving. They could already smell the blood of new riders. And this time, no one had any illusions about how it would end. Only a few meters remained before the collision.

  Another heartbeat—and the pikes were meant to take the impact.

  But at the very last moment, the cavalry suddenly began to turn.

  Right in front of the spearpoints.

  The movement was organized and drilled. The left flank snapped hard to the left. The right to the right. The formation opened like doors, leaving emptiness ahead—where riders had been charging just a moment before.

  And into that emptiness, arrows flew.

  The archers had been lying flat on the ground until the last second, blending into the terrain. Now they rose in unison and drenched the pikemen in dense fire. Arrows fell one after another—no pauses, no target selection—just into the mass.

  The pikemen had no shields. And no protection. They dropped their pikes, turned, and tried to run back. They fell. Tripped over the dead and wounded. The formation collapsed instantly, as if it had never existed.

  Behind them, gaps opened. Places where there was no one left to hold. Those who were supposed to finish off the fallen riders slammed into one another, pressed together, and fell beneath their own comrades’ feet. Men slipped in the mud, drowned in chaos, lost weapons and bearings.

  This was no longer a formation. It was a mass.

  It became clear: Balrek had not come onto the battlefield blind. Disguised scouts had been here for a long time. They had seen how Atrion’s cavalry was destroyed. They had managed to pass the information on. And the Red Breach had prepared.

  This time, the trap did not work. And now the battlefield began to change hands.

  And the Red Breach was preparing to press on.

  The cavalry climbed to the crest of the hill and re-formed into a wedge. This time, there was no one left ahead of them to brace pikes. The defense the camp’s defenders had relied on had vanished into the chaos of the previous minutes.

  Balrek did not hesitate.

  The horses surged forward.

  The Cast Aside scattered in panic. Some fled outright. Some tried to stop the charge by throwing themselves beneath the hooves—only to be swept aside. The formation fell apart before the impact even came.

  Behind Balrek’s cavalry, the infantry moved at once. They advanced in a tight mass, ready to seize the corridor and hold it. Archers remained on the high ground, drenching the field with dense fire, denying the defenders any chance to regroup.

  The cavalry slammed into the camp’s defenders.

  Heavy, disciplined riders carved through the enemy ranks like a sharp blade through soft flesh. There was almost no resistance—only isolated attempts that died instantly.

  They broke straight through to the Black Directive.

  Space opened.

  Balrek’s infantry snapped into formation at once and began to hold the corridor, widening it with every passing second. The Blue Cohort and the Black Directive did not hesitate. They began to withdraw—fast.

  Balrek did not stop. Still mounted, he rode along the line of battle and then cut sharply toward the flank—toward where Rianes was still holding.

  The fight was not over. But now the mercenaries had a chance.

  Rianes spotted Balrek and shouted toward him, forcing his voice over the roar of battle:

  “Take him! Take him! We’ll hold here!”

  He pointed sharply at Velm. Balrek spurred his horse and closed the distance at once.

  “Velm!” he bellowed. “Get on the horse, Velm!”

  There was no answer. Velm stood leaning against a rock. Motionless. As if he wasn’t using it for support, but simply to keep from falling. Balrek rode closer, already preparing to haul him into the saddle by force.

  The first thing he saw was the mace. The transparent glass had darkened—turned deep green, almost black. It looked as if it had absorbed something living and refused to let it go.

  Balrek yanked back Velm’s hood. Instead of a young, pale face, he saw an old man. Gray brows. Gray hair. Deep wrinkles. Clouded eyes. Skin darkened, as if scorched from within.

  This was no longer the Velm he knew. Suggestion had eaten him from the inside.

  Balrek said nothing. He moved fast—lifted Velm, threw him across the horse, and waved to the nearest fighters.

  “Take him. Get him off the field. Now.”

  They took the order without a single question.

  The route of retreat was still open. Ranuver hadn’t managed to organize new units to seal off the mercenaries’ rear. Chaos, losses, and the Red Breach’s intervention had broken his momentum.

  The Blue Cohort and the Black Directive were already evacuating the wounded. The withdrawal was in full swing—heavy, bloody, but controlled.

  The battle was slipping behind them. Its cost was only beginning to sink in.

  Katarina became the mercenaries’ primary Suggestor.

  Two more Suggestors from the Red Breach quickly joined her. Together, the three of them took Velm’s place—stretching the influence zone and reinforcing the fighters’ support. The Suggestion flowed more evenly now. Not as deep, not in violent surges, but steady—exactly what was needed at this stage of the fight.

  The battle was nearing its end.

  Fresh infantry held the line as a solid wall. Behind their backs, exhausted comrades withdrew—limping, supporting one another, not looking back.

  Tuneta, Balrek’s right hand, took a small detachment and moved to reinforce Rianes’s flank. They were closing in on the burning trebuchet that marked that flank when several infantrymen holding the corridor suddenly screamed and fell.

  The breach opened instantly.

  The Cast Aside surged into the corridor at once, trying to widen the gap. Tuneta had to stop them on the move—she slammed into the breach, denying them space to deploy, sealing the gap with her own unit.

  Only seconds passed before a similar attempt flared near Katarina. Another push, another try to break through. This time, the Suggestors reacted faster. A joint strike stopped the breakthrough before it could even unfold.

  Katarina understood at once. The enemy had brought up their own Suggestors.

  “Withdraw!” she shouted to Rianes. “Now! Fall back immediately!”

  Rianes didn’t argue. He grasped the situation just as fast.

  Together with Skeld, Feren, Naelis, and Syra, they began to fall back—covering one another, still holding formation, still controlling their movement.

  And that was when the swarm hit them. Locusts.

  They came from nowhere—black, dense, alive. The insects smashed into faces, crawled into eyes, mouths, and beneath armor. They bit, tore at skin, clogged breath.

  It was a suggestion. Mass Suggestion.

  Rianes dropped to his knees and started fighting it off, flailing his arms, trying to rip away something that wasn’t really there. For a few seconds, the swarm vanished—the mind pulled itself together, the brain pushed back, forcing the illusion out.

  He rasped out a shout:

  “Archers! Take him down! Drop him! Drop him!”

  But the swarm returned. Thicker. More painful. The Suggestion was too strong, too wide, too well executed. Resistance to Suggestion had always been a priority for the mercenaries. Every one of them had spent hundreds of hours training—breathing, focus, pain, mental control. They knew how to fight it.

  But not something like this.

  Without resistance, they would have died immediately—choked by panic, torn themselves apart, run straight into enemy blows. Because of their training, they got something else. A few minutes.

  A few minutes to fight for their lives. And to hope that someone would save them.

  But the Suggestion did not reach everyone on the flank. Syra was farther from its epicenter.

  She was hit less—and that was enough.

  She broke sideways at once and, without slowing, scrambled up the rocks, searching for the source of the attack. Not the illusion. Not the swarm.

  The one holding it. And she found him. It was Sivash.

  He stood in an open section deep in the allies’ rear, far inside the camp—on a barricade. Before him was a stone plinth, and on it lay a large mace. Suggestors needed to see their victims, and so they always sought height, visibility, and dominance over space.

  Sivash stood calmly. Above him was a canopy, thrown together from planks and canvas. Arrows arcing in simply couldn’t reach him.

  Syra pointed out the direction to the archers.

  “There,” she shouted, never taking her eyes off him.

  The archers aimed—but it became clear almost immediately: the canopy held. The angle was wrong. The distance is too great. The cover ate the trajectory.

  There was only one way.

  A direct hit. No arc. No curve. No mistake. For most archers, it was too far. But not for Syra.

  She stayed alone on the rock, exhaled slowly, raised her bow, and took Sivash into her sights. She knew it. There would be no second chance.