Excerpt of Ashes of Khormund-ur, Book Four of the Stormfall Cycle. (Coming soon)

At the foot of the Black Mountains of Khormund-ur, thousands fought for a chance at victory. The beasts had been driven back, but fresh reinforcements sprinted and lumbered from the gaping tear in the mountain, steadily overwhelming the Northerners and eviscerating their ranks.

A soft pattering of rain fell from dark clouds, swept and pushed by powerful winds that carved shifting patterns in the sky, like mesmerising murmurations. But the battlefield below was anything but serene.

Weapons slipped from aching hands. Boots skidded over mud slick with blood. And the beasts fared no better. Towering forms toppled in the churn, only to be hacked by waiting soldiers with their swords. Their fiery cores flickered defiantly, but the rain dimmed their light and made their movements sluggish. Yet, even struggling, they were far from defeated.

Death cries echoed across the battlefield, voices pleading for an end to the agony. Some were granted swift mercy with a quick thrust of a blade; others were left to be torn apart by ravenous beasts. But the outcome was the same for all: death called, and they answered.

Jonas slammed his fist into a Xyldorath’s warped face, his breath coming in ragged gasps of a fevered mind. Mud and rain plastered his hair to his head, and his stomach growled louder than the storm. The beast gurgled something incomprehensible, its glowing eyes dimming.

‘If you’ve got something to say, then say it!’ Jonas shouted, rage crawling through his mind while he dragged the creature across the churned ground. He threw the beast against a boulder, his feet slipping in the muck. Teeth clenched, he raised his boot and stomped down hard, snapping its neck with a sickening crack.

Jonas straightened and tilted his head back, letting the rain fill his mouth. ‘Hey, Oldrick!’ he shouted after swallowing, his voice sounding strained. ‘You got something to eat?’

Oldrick fended off a dagger strike from a Vargul with his bare hands, dodging and slapping its arm away. ‘A little help here?’ He jumped away at the swoosh of an axe cutting through the air, and the Vargul pitched forward when a thud rang out, its spine severed. Oldrick stepped back and retrieved his axe from the ground, panting. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered as Jonas wrenched the axe free from the beast. ‘Lost mine in the fight.’

Jonas smirked. ‘These things are easier to kill once you know where to hit ’em.’ A lightning strike lit the sky, and rain whipped into their faces.

‘The World Storm is upon us. If these beasts don’t kill us, then it will,’ said Oldrick before handing him some hardtack from his pocket.

Jonas stared at the biscuit with disgust and said, ‘You don’t have a pot of clastra to go with this, do you? Don’t like the taste of maggots in the morning.’

A chuckle left Oldrick. ‘Sure, just let me set you a table, my good sir. Want some mead with that as well?’

‘I’d love a good mead, ’specially a warm one.’

They were part of the back markers that rotated out to take a break from the heavy fighting at the front ranks, getting rid of stragglers or those that made it through the main force. Many a man had lost his life already, and with their numbers dwindling, they were slowly being overwhelmed. The Northmen were now on the back foot, getting pushed to the cliff edge where a huge drop would see them killed on the sharp rocks of The Undying Swell with its tempestuous water.

‘We might as well head to the front line. No point in dying on the rocks below,’ Jonas said as he bit into the hardtack with a loud snap. ‘We are too few to win this war now.’ A blinding flash of lightning exploded a tree to their right, shards of it spraying, branches flying into the demon horde. 

‘I’m not dying here . . . I will find my little girl and hold her, even if it is just one last time. No creature here will stop me.’ The earth groaned and trembled with an ominous rhythm beneath their feet. The ground heaved and deformed, pushing up mounds in places, with fissures spreading from the mountain. Plumes of dust erupted as entire sections of earth fell away.

‘What the hell is that?’ asked Oldrick.