The Giants fought in the shadow of their titanic King, yet even they were helpless against the flashing bolts that incinerated flesh, bone, and metal in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of Udvorg had already been slain by the silver-robes, but the bulk of them remained, smashing Manslayers into heaps of pulped flesh and steel. When the sorcerers had eliminated Khama, they would turn all their efforts to burning away the rest of the Giants.
The Giant-King’s flesh was blackened from the same searing spells that tore at Khama’s body. Yet Vireon’s great mass was infused with a dense sorcery that these petty wizards could not truly harm. Where the Vodson’s skin had gleamed bright as polished bronze, it was now soiled with blood and ashes. Yet Vireon himself did not bleed, or cry out in pain. He had broken a dozen dreadnoughts, crushed at least forty sorcerers, and trodden ten thousand Manslayers beneath his boots before Zyung’s eclipse stole the sun.
The gloom of early night fell across the valley and the world beyond it. The only lights were those of sorcerers locked in combat with Khama, or flitting between Vireon’s mighty fingers, or raining devastation upon the ranks of Men and Giants.
The valley filled with a flood of deeper darkness, and the howls of dying men grew louder. A second horde, one of blood-hungry shadows, invaded the battleground. They pulled men down and drank their lives, ripping flesh and shattering bone as they feasted.
Bloodshadows! Remnants of Ianthe’s sorcery!
Khama had not expected this danger in the middle of the day. Yet Zyung had outsmarted him by ridding the sky of sunlight. The God-King had awakened these nocturnal beasts by offering them a red feast with the blessing of a false night. His Manslayers must be protected by charms engraved into their armor. This was his true reason for choosing the ruins of Shar Dni. The blood-shadows were an extra weapon in his arsenal.
Blots of darkness flowed up the legs of Giants, pulling them down among the dying Men. Neither sword nor spear could touch the bloodshadows. Only Khama had the power to end this attack against which there was no defense but sorcery. The battle would be lost right here and now if he did not dispel the swarming shadows. Every second a hundred more men died beneath masses of writhing darkness. One tiny light persisted in the false midnight of the battleground: D’zan with his bright sword, somehow slicing shadows to bits. Again the Feathered Serpent wondered at the Yaskathan King’s powers. D’zan was no sorcerer, but he surely carried sorcery in his body, and in his blade.
Khama whirled in a spherical pattern, releasing the energies at the core of his being. He ignored the hail of biting, burning bolts his enemies cast again and again through his spinning body. In seconds his light had grown bright as the sun, as it had done above the Jade Isles. The silver-robes recognized his power and glided away from him. They had seen Damodar and several dreadnoughts reduced to nothingness when his sunburst erupted over the Golden Sea.
Zyung had stolen the true sun, so Khama took its place.
He spun faster and faster, losing all sight and sound, retaining only a core of formless awareness. His golden light flooded the valley, but he did not see it. Neither did he see the bloodshadows curdling and disappearing in the glow of his cleansing light, or the thousands of lives he saved from their clutches. Yet he sensed the dark spirits burning away like torched parchments. He burned and spun until the last of the bloodshadows was gone.
Then his coiled body slowed, warped, and fell.
His inner fires were spent. He plummeted into the corpse-choked valley, striking the ground like a felled tree. The many agonies that he had kept at bay now washed over him. His great eyes closed. About him Men and Giants cheered and picked up their blades, charging once more into the Manslayers whose numbers dwarfed their own. Khama lay among the piles of dead as the battle coursed around him.
A number of silver-robes descended to stand upon the mounds of corpses. Khama could not raise his head or open his eyes, but he sensed them closing in on him. If they killed him, his spirit would return to his hidden sanctum in distant Mumbaza, although manifesting a new body might take days, weeks, months, or even years.
Yet he knew they would not kill him now. They would capture him for Zyung’s pleasure, keeping him trapped in this powerless, broken body that was little more than a tube of shredded flesh. Soon Zyung would tear Khama’s spirit from this ruined shell and trap it inside some sturdier prison. Or, Zyung might choose to devour Khama’s essence, granting him oblivion at last. This was how the Old Breed, who could not truly die, warred upon their own kind.
The silver-robes wrapped him in chains of congealed light, searing his flesh further. Like spiders spinning webs of flame, they encased his helpless form. Perhaps this had been the true reason for summoning the shadow horde. Zyung knew Khama would spend the reserves of his power to drive out the bloodshadows. And Khama had done so, sacrificing himself so that Vireon’s legions were free to fight on.