The shah’s party attempted to withdraw from the battlefield, but their escape came to a halt on a narrow road running beside the Mirbaran River.
The clash of swords and spears faded behind them, and for a moment it seemed they had finally broken away from the fighting.
An arrow flew out of the mist and buried itself in a knight’s face. The man screamed as he tumbled from his saddle.
Taking the scream as a signal, a storm of arrows poured down upon them with a roar like a swarm of locusts taking flight. An ambush.
Men and horses collapsed around the shah and the eran like brittle pillars of stone. Arrows struck both king and general, punching through armor and tearing into flesh.
When the rain of arrows finally stopped, no one remained standing around them.
Only a single mounted knight waited before the shah and the eran. He wore Parsian armor, not Lusitanian. But one thing seized their attention at once. A silver mask.
Narrow slits opened only at the eyes and mouth. From the eyeholes shone a fierce, icy light.
Under the bright sun, the shah and the eran might have laughed at the sight. The silver mask looked theatrical, almost unreal.
But beneath the gray-white veil of fog, with the daylight smothered and the world sunk into shadow like an ink painting from Serica, the mask seemed forged from every horror in existence and frozen solid.
“So,” the masked man said in Parsian, his voice cold enough to chill the blood, “you shamelessly abandoned your men and fled, Andragoras. Exactly what I’d expect from you.”
“Y-Your Majesty, flee,” Vahriz rasped. “I will… hold them here.”
With five arrows still protruding from his body, Vahriz drew his sword and moved his horse in front of the shah, shielding him from the masked rider.
The silver-masked man’s eyes blazed with fury and hatred. “Out of my way, old fool!” His shout crashed like thunder.
His longsword flashed white through the fog and smashed Vahriz’s head with a single blow.
Even wounded and old, Vahriz was still the Eran of Pars. Yet the masked man killed him in one stroke without giving him a chance to fight back. His skill was astonishing.
Andragoras stared blankly as the body of his aged retainer toppled heavily to the ground. His sword arm would not move. One of the arrows through his arm had severed the muscles. Unable to resist, the shah sat helplessly in the saddle, like a clay doll.
“I won’t kill you.” The masked man’s voice trembled. Not with fear, but with emotions too violent to contain. It sounded utterly different from when he spoke to Vahriz. “I won’t let you die so easily. I’ve waited sixteen years for this day.”
At his signal, five or six knights dragged Andragoras from his horse. Pain exploded from his wounds, but the shah endured it in silence.
“Who… are you?” he demanded hoarsely as they bound him, armor and all, with thick leather straps.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” the masked man said. “Or have you committed so many crimes over the years that you can no longer remember who might hate you this much?”
A harsh noise slipped between his words, like metal scraping against metal. He was grinding his teeth. It sounded as though he were chewing apart the long years he had spent biding his time.
Noticing the look of cold dread that spread across his men’s faces, the silver-masked rider silently turned his horse.
Surrounding the captured shah, the group rode on down the narrow riverside road. Not in triumph, but in grim silence.
On the battlefield the shah had left behind, the bloodshed continued.
The flames raging across the plains showed no sign of dying down. Smoke billowed upward, the heat stirred the wind, and the fog twisted wildly in every direction. Pars was a land blessed with sunlight and clear skies, yet even the weather itself seemed to have abandoned the kingdom.
Riding on their momentum, the Lusitanian army attacked and slaughtered without pause. The soldiers of Pars no longer fought for their king. They fought for their own lives and honor.
Hollow as their strength might be, the Parsian cavalry was formidable. Even as they advanced, the Lusitanians paid dearly in blood. Since leaving the safety of their fortifications and launching their counterattack, their casualties had begun to surpass those of the Parsians. Dariun alone might have deserved half the hatred of the entire Lusitanian army.
Amid blood and fire, he encountered a unit led by Marzban Qobad. They barely had time to acknowledge each other’s survival before Dariun asked, “Have you seen Prince Arslan, Marzban Qobad?”
“The prince? No,” Qobad replied curtly. He studied the younger man more closely and frowned. “What happened to your unit? Don’t tell me all ten thousand of your riders are dead.”
“I’m no longer a marzban.” The words left a bitter taste in Dariun’s mouth.
Qobad looked like he wanted an explanation, but held his tongue instead. “Come with us,” he said. “We’re pulling out of the battlefield.”
“I appreciate it, but I gave my uncle my word. I have to find Prince Arslan.”
“Then take a hundred of my riders with you.”
Dariun declined the offer and rode off alone once more. Ten thousand cavalry might change something. A mere hundred would only draw attention and die for nothing.
As the wind gradually swept the fog away, the battlefield revealed itself in all its horror.
Between the piles of corpses, overgrown grass was soaked in blood. Dariun noticed that the smells of blood, smoke, and sweat no longer registered properly in his senses, but there was nothing he could do about that.
The appearance of five Lusitanian knights in his path was equally beyond his control. If possible, he would have ignored them and ridden past. Unfortunately, they seemed entertained by the sight of him. Five against one, a convenient toy to play with.
“A Parsian survivor wandering around,” one of them sneered in Lusitanian. “Looks lost. Why don’t we show him the way?”
Dariun could not understand the words, but their mocking tone needed no translation.
The five riders lowered their spears and charged. For the Lusitanian knights, it became the worst—and last—day of their lives. Dariun’s sword carved them a shortcut to heaven.
As the fourth man arched backward in a spray of blood, Dariun caught sight of the last survivor throwing away his sword and fleeing. He made no attempt to pursue him.
Among the riderless horses wandering the battlefield, one carried a blood-soaked wounded man tied to the saddle. A captured Parsian knight.
Dariun rushed over, leaped from his horse, and cut through the leather bindings with his sword. He did not know the man’s name, but recognized his face. He served as a commander of a thousand under Marzban Shapur.
Dariun removed a leather waterskin from his saddle and splashed water over the man’s blood- and mud-caked face. The wounded soldier groaned faintly and opened his eyes.
From the injured man, Dariun was able to learn Prince Arslan’s whereabouts. The prince had broken through the ring of fire and smoke and fled eastward under the protection of only a handful of knights.
“Marzbans Manuchehr and Khayr have already fallen,” the man wheezed in pain. “Marzban Shapur… suffered terrible burns and wounds. I don’t know… if he’s still alive.”
News of his comrades’ death pained Dariun deeply, but he still had a mission to accomplish. He helped the wounded man sit properly in the saddle again and placed the reins in his hands.
“I’d take you somewhere safe if I could,” Dariun said, “but the Eran ordered me to find Crown Prince Arslan. You’ll have to escape on your own somehow.”
For a badly wounded man, staying mounted drained strength quickly. But leaving him behind on the battlefield was no option either. Dariun had heard that the Lusitanians slaughtered every wounded enemy they found, believing it to be proof of devotion to their god.
After parting ways, Dariun rode about a hundred gaz before a sudden impulse made him look back.
The wounded man’s horse no longer carried its rider. Instead, the animal stretched out its long neck and mournfully nudged something crouched upon the ground.
Letting out a quiet sigh, Dariun turned forward again and continued riding east without another glance back.