Peril’s voice reached Herald before the hesitation around him could become relief. The shout came from somewhere ahead, followed by the wet scrape of the Vel tearing free from flesh.
"Herald! Move!" Herald looked up in time to see Peril hook an Asura beneath the ribs and throw it over his shoulder, the body striking the sand hard enough to spray dark blood across another creature’s legs.
Three more rushed Herald through the opening. He raised the Yama Danda willingly this time, though the memory of the dark green light still sat cold beneath his palms and the carved skull had returned to lifeless ebony, its jaw closed as if nothing unnatural had happened.
A violent gust tore past his shoulder before the first creature reached him. All three Asuras vanished from the ground in the same instant, their shrieks rising until Herald found them twisting twenty feet above Kurukshetra.
Ludicrous landed beside him with his robes snapping around his legs. Sand curled away from his feet as he lifted one hand toward the approaching horde, his lips moving through an ancient mantra while the wind tightened around them.
The answer came with weight. Asuras left the ground by the dozens, one smashing sideways into the enormous ribs protruding from the dunes while two others collided above the battlefield and vanished into a rolling curtain of dust.
Another creature went headfirst into a dune, and sand folded over its kicking legs until even those disappeared. Ludicrous spared Herald only a brief glance before turning toward the next cluster.
"Move," he said as he walked back into the violence. Herald followed, boots sinking where blood had dampened the sand and the Yama Danda settling more naturally into his hands now that he had stopped questioning every movement his body remembered.
An Asura swung low. Herald stepped inside the arc, caught its wrist against the ebony shaft and drove the opposite end beneath its chin, but before the creature could recover, a compressed gust struck its chest and carried it away from him.
Ludicrous never looked back. Across the frontline, the charge that had arrived as a single wall of bodies was breaking into smaller knots around the Siddhas, leaving strips of bare Kurukshetra visible between them.
Erudite saw the opening from his chariot. "Keep pushing! They’re losing momentum!" His command rode above the clash of weapons, and the front answered by moving half a pace together, shields advancing with the spears instead of waiting for the next impact.
A different sound gathered behind them, hundreds of bowstrings being drawn at once. Herald glanced over his shoulder and found Yuddharajya’s archers arranged along the higher ground, their bows bent beneath the strain while Siddhas moved between the rows.
Golden sigils burned across the sand around their feet. Heat shimmered above one rank, blue-white sparks crawled over another, and farther down the line moisture gathered around the waiting arrows despite the dry air.
The commander raised one hand. "Aakramand!" Hundreds of fingers released together, and the sky above Kurukshetra disappeared beneath arrows.
The first barrage passed overhead with a rush of displaced air that brushed Herald’s hair across his forehead. Fire struck the Asura ranks moments later and rolled across the dunes, the heat reaching him strongly enough to dry the sweat along his face.
Lightning followed in violent white flashes. The smell of ozone cut through blood and burnt flesh before stone erupted beneath another cluster, jagged slabs throwing bodies sideways while water crashed through those still standing and dragged them beneath the feet of the next wave.
Herald lifted an arm against the hot wind rolling back from the barrage. Through the smoke, one arrow broke from the rest and curved in midair. Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
It was not aimed at an Asura. It was flying straight toward Culpa, who turned only after the arrow had already crossed most of the distance.
A translucent barrier flashed into existence before her chest. The arrow struck it with a crack sharp enough to rise above the battle, then shattered into fragments that spun past Culpa’s cheek.
Across the battlefield, Erudite lowered one hand from his chariot. His eyes were already fixed on the Yuddharajya archers positioned above them, the glow of the chariot’s mantras flickering across the dust-coated wood around him.
"Aim at the Asuras! Not us!" he shouted. One of the soldiers on the ridge lowered his bow just enough to look toward the Vishishtarajya line.
"What’s the difference?" The question carried farther than it should have, flat and careless against the screams below.
Herald expected someone to answer. Instead, a warrior near him reset a chipped spear against his shoulder while another wiped blood from his mouth and stepped back into formation without even looking toward the ridge.
Their silence felt practiced, as though the insult had landed on people who had heard different versions of it too many times to waste breath on another. Ludicrous stopped beside Herald, and wind immediately began gathering around him.
Sand lifted in a widening ring before the Yuddharajya soldier understood what was happening. The gust struck the elevated firing line and tore him from his footing, his bow spinning one way while his body tumbled down the slope.
He hit the sand hard enough to lose his breath. By the time he forced himself onto one elbow, Ludicrous stood between him and several Asuras moving through the smoke.
"You think this battlefield is beneath you?" Ludicrous asked. His voice stayed quiet, and the lack of strain in it made the question sharper than a shout.
The soldier scrambled backward, fingers digging furrows through the sand. His eyes jumped from Ludicrous to the approaching creatures as the confidence drained from his face.
"N-No... Please. I was only—" His voice broke before the excuse formed, and his body betrayed him badly enough that the sour smell reached the fighters nearest the slope.
Ludicrous looked down at him while wind tugged at the edges of his robes. "So this is the courage of those who call us cursed and themselves divine."
A small turn of his wrist sent the soldier flying back toward his own ranks. He landed in a spray of sand among the archers, and anger erupted before he had even managed to stand.
"You filthy cursed monster!" one soldier shouted, while another reached for his weapon and promised Ludicrous would answer for it. The wind around Ludicrous sharpened until loose grains stung Herald’s cheek several paces away.
For one ugly moment, bows and blades began turning away from the Asuras. Herald tightened his grip on the Yama Danda as the line separating allies became thinner than the one separating them from the creatures still fighting nearby.
Someone crossed that space before either formation could break. He moved so quickly that the sand beneath his feet was still sliding outward when Herald recognized the Jack of Yuddharajya.
One soldier immediately began, "My lord, they—" but a single raised finger stopped him. The Jack did not even look toward the speaker.
"If you wish to fight, fight the Asuras. Not each other." His gaze passed from his own soldiers to Ludicrous before travelling across the bloodied Vishishtarajya frontline. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
"Enough. Save your strength." His eyes lingered on the warriors holding the lower ground. "Vishishtarajya already knows what is expected of them."
The words required no explanation. The Jack turned back toward the battle, and the Yuddharajya soldiers straightened behind him, bows returning toward the Asuras as though the confrontation had already been settled.
The warriors of Vishishtarajya offered nothing in return. Herald waited for Yamawadi to catch anger from the people around him, but what reached him carried the dull weight of something repeated until even resentment had worn thin.
〈They’re right. We’re expendable.〉
The thought passed through Herald without heat. Before he could search for its owner, another voice surfaced from somewhere deeper in the formation.
〈Just survive today.〉
A third presence pressed through beneath the clash of steel and the hiss of blowing sand. This one carried no bitterness at all, only a tired need that made Herald look across the people nearest him.
〈Please let me see home again.〉
A man with blood running from his temple reset his shield against his shoulder. Beside him, a woman tightened cloth around a wound in her forearm with her teeth, then returned both hands to her spear without looking toward Yuddharajya.
The absence of anger sat worse with Herald than anger would have. Ludicrous was already back among the Asuras, driving whatever fury remained into them as a compressed blast of wind folded several creatures backward and hurled them across the sand.
Herald moved after him, but another thought surfaced through Yamawadi before he reached the next fight. He recognized it immediately, not because he knew the speaker, but because he had already carried the words once.
〈If I die, put my ashes in the fountain.〉
His next step slowed. The rest arrived with the same quiet certainty that had unsettled him during the march.
〈The old one near the eastern houses. I spent my childhood there.〉
Herald searched the faces around him without meaning to. There were too many bloodied strangers within sight, and hundreds more stretched across Kurukshetra beyond them.
He still could not remember whose thought it had been. There had been hundreds.