A fair trade.
Consciousness faded as the silver-robes carried him above the swirling red chaos.
The shadows devoured Chygara and Alisk alive while Dahrima watched, unable to help either of them. Neither her blade nor her fingers could find purchase in the non-solid flesh of the devils. She waved the Sky God’s amulet among the clawing shadows, but it did not drive them away. It had not saved mad Pyrus either, when he had taken it from his own neck and shoved it into her hand. The stone’s protection extended only to the one who grasped it or wore it.
Dahrima tried forcing it into the Windcaller’s hand as Pyrus had done to her. She would gladly sacrifice herself to save her dearest spearsister. But the devils pulled Chygara’s hand into shadow and Dahrima could not find it. The snapping of Uduri bones rang louder than the clangor of steel and bronze. Many of the Udvorg, also, died screaming in the grip of shadows. Dahrima could do nothing but watch Giants and Men die together, while the Manslayers laughed and brandished their blades in triumph.
She looked toward the mountainous Vireon. His steaming, blackened fists clutched at the sorcerers who assaulted him. The greatsword in his scabbard had grown large enough to slice a city in half, yet he had not drawn it. If not for the ever-present threat of the sorcerers he might take that massive blade and sweep it across the legions of Manslayers still charging up the beach. Yet even Vireon could not rid the valley of the bloodshadows that stole the life from his legions with such terrible speed.
Only the amulet kept Dahrima from death in that moment. She contemplated casting it aside and giving in to the hungry shadows. Her eyes caught a gleam of sunfire in the unnatural darkness. The King of Yaskatha moved alone through the shadows, slicing them apart with his gleaming greatsword. A pale fire ran along the edges of the iron blade as he saved soldier after soldier from death. In the heat of panic, Dahrima considered taking the enchanted weapon away from the Yaskathan and using it to aid her sisters.
Yet she never had to make that terrible decision. A new sun erupted into life above the valley. Dahrima stared into the glare with a bloodstained hand shielding her eyes. The after-image of the Feathered Serpent swam at the heart of the blazing orb. Its light fell across the valley and made the shadows howl. In a blinding instant every one of the formless devils was obliterated. Men and Giants rose up bleeding and grasping for their swords. Yet far too many would never rise again. Dahrima did not recognize the faces of Chygara and Alisk when she saw what a ruin the blood-shadows had made of their bodies.
Now the Khama-sun dimmed and fell from the sky. The Manslayers renewed their mad onslaught, and Dahrima clove a man in two with her axe. Vantha, bloody and smiling, lopped off a silver-helmed head. These Manslayers were enemies they could fight. Dahrima’s grief turned to rage as she waded into an armored mass of Zyung’s warriors. There was no more sign of the Feathered Serpent in the dimming sky, but the sorcerers in their flying globes of light darted above the slaughter, releasing blasts of death wherever they chose.
Dahrima killed eleven men before she heard the metallic thunder of Vireon’s greatsword leaving its scabbard. Her eyes looked up through a red haze. The monolithic Giant-King marched forward, moving deeper into the bay, smashing dreadnoughts against one another and sending waves against the arriving hordes with every step.
The true sun returned to the sky as Zyung’s eclipse faded. A strange hush fell over the battling legions. Every living eye–Men’s, Giants’, and sorcerers’–turned toward the sea. A second colossus towered now above the armada in the bay, facing Vireon and matching his gargantuan stature.
Zyung the Conqueror was a titan draped in silver, his hair a nimbus of dark light, his face terrible to behold. His eyes pulsed like violet stars above his face of chiseled marble. He raised a great blade of licking flames, pointing its tip at Vireon’s heart. Dahrima could feel the heat of that burning blade even from where she stood.
Vireon’s greatsword glimmered blue as ice to match the GodKing’s fiery weapon. Thunder split the sky above the two colossi, and a sudden deluge of rain washed the soot and gore from Vireon’s body. The Giant-King stood whole and gleaming before his enemy.
The great moment of reckoning had come.
The storm washed over the valley as Zyung struck his first blow. Vireon’s blade met the flaming sword with a crack of thunder. As if this were an unspoken signal to resume the slaughter, Men and Giants fell to battling once more in the shadow of their dueling lords. Dahrima watched the clashing behemoths between blows of her axe. She took more cuts and wounds than she should, but she could not tear her eyes from the Giant-King’s duel for long.