It was nearly dusk. Holy Cross detachments converging from every direction had herded Locke's fleeing troops into one mass. The blood-red sunset was bright enough to sting the eyes, while the spring wind still carried a lingering chill. Armor clattered with every step.

Noble officers rode to a patch of high ground and surveyed the field. Capturing or killing one or two thousand Locke fugitives would count as a respectable achievement. Only a handful of triangular pennants remained among them, tilting drunkenly in the spring wind. Several groups of routed troops had become so badly entangled that they looked less organized than a serf levy. The only disappointment was that the glory could not be claimed by one commander alone: the fugitives had attracted a Holy Cross force twice their size.

Nearby comrades already beat drums. The sound agitated everyone. Knights rode among tired soldiers, shouting them forward. Promises of a better meal before victory raised morale slightly.

“We attack too. We cannot let them take all the heads.” More drums sounded. Several commanders eagerly ordered their forces ahead.

Behind the fugitives, concealed within woods darkened by the evening glow, a small cavalry force made its final checks. Fernandez's close blockade made it impossible to hide the movement of a large army. A few hundred elite cavalry, however, could still slip through the cordon without alerting his scouts.

Each Elite Knight wore three layers: a thin undergarment, a padded inner defense, and a suit of black heavy plate. Attendants fastened the armor into place, then checked the thick barding that protected the warhorses. The ordinary knights and squires behind them adjusted their half-plate. Shafts of red light slipped between the leaves and gleamed across steel as the heavy knights lowered their visors and climbed into the saddle.

Elite heavy knights formed the spearhead, with knights and squires behind.

“Verut, don't be nervous,” Savage Bull said in his deep, booming voice. “Stay behind me when we move. Don't be afraid.”

This would be Verut's first true cavalry charge. The squires had not entered the knightly order merely to gild their reputations. Every day of training existed for this moment. If fate killed them, no one would waste much time mourning; even a genius soon vanished from memory once dead. Survival and victory were the only answers that mattered.

Verut had fought during the barbarian invasion, but protected by his family’s knights and at a distance as a nominal commander. He had never charged. A knight who had never felt a cavalry clash could not forge courage to break everything.

Thirty years of relative peace had made a northern knight's life too valuable in the eyes of his house, and that caution had steadily eroded the North's fighting strength. Verut drew a deep breath, but his nerves had driven every lesson from his mind. He could only nod furiously, as though Savage Bull could somehow see him through the dark. Receiving no reply, the knight offered no further reassurance. The entire formation had begun to move.

The horses stretched into speed. Muscle memory made every man follow the group. Anxiety vanished beneath the charge. Heavy armored hooves struck the earth with a dull sound, deeper than drums and faster than rain, growing louder and faster.

The advancing Holy Cross troops heard the rising thunder and at first mistook it for a furious roll of war drums. The noble officers who had experienced a knightly charge knew better. Turning into the dazzling sunset, they saw a field of crimson reflections racing toward them.

For seven or eight stunned seconds, an officer went pale. “Knights... knightly order... charging!” His cry broke with terror.

The reality was worse than they had imagined: the supreme battlefield weapon of the age, heavy cavalry. Heavy knights could be countered. They were no guarantee of victory, and severe limitations governed where they could be used. But once their charge gathered momentum, nothing stopped them except a sufficient wall of human lives. The army before them did not contain nearly enough lives to fill the abyss beneath those hooves.

The heavy knights crashed headlong into the formation, each gripping a solid iron lance. Men were skewered in strings—three, sometimes five bodies lifted upon a single shaft. Only an Elite Knight possessed the strength to control a weapon of such weight. By the time the armored wedge burst from the far side, the Holy Cross formation had already disintegrated. A churned trail of blood and crushed flesh marked the cavalry's passage.

Few soldiers remained standing. Verut followed mechanically, swinging his weapon, then helped clear the surrounding men at the heavy knights’ urging. When the heavy knights turned to reform, no second charge was needed. The Holy Cross force had broken completely.

“No prisoners! Noble or soldier, take every head!” The order rang out with merciless clarity. It would drive some trapped men to fight harder, but that did not matter. Derek wanted Holy Cross blood and severed heads to awaken the killing spirit in his own ranks. Repaying blood with blood could not remain an empty slogan. Even a disciplined army sometimes needed violence through which to release its fury.

Verut had experienced war fully for the first time, close and overwhelming. His eyes became brighter. His posture was not as rigid as before, but his bearing changed completely. The earlier straightness had been stiff; now it became natural, like a capable fighter. Other squires changed as well. Only experience showed the difference. Some companions died, but survivors were no longer the same.

Northern knights were not made in a training yard. Blood, achievements, and enemy fear forged their name. The restoration of northern knight glory began here.

The fleeing Locke troops had not entirely lost organization and helped clean the field. Verut and the other squires became executioners. Surviving Holy Cross soldiers were pressed to the ground and killed in lines. With time available, soldiers even cut logs into crosses.

Captured nobles screamed before the crosses. “What are you doing? I am a baron! I demand noble treatment! I want your commander!”

“Noble?” a knight laughed. “I have killed many nobles. Hang him.”

“Madmen! Do you not fear capture? You will be hanged too!”

“Northern knights have no cowards. Either kill me in battle, or I hang you.”

Augusta's knights fulfilled Derek's promise. Every captured Holy Cross noble was hanged from a cross. Compared with the mounds of severed heads piled beneath them, that truly did qualify as noble treatment. Cruel? The serf soldiers might have suffered cruelly when they were first dragged into the army, but death had ended that suffering now. In any case, war offered little room for sermons about mercy. Victors wrote the histories; righteousness survived most reliably on paper. Few men would dare answer the northern knights with excessive reprisals while the North still possessed the strength to retaliate.

After calmly dealing with the field, the knights took spoils and withdrew. Holy Cross troops should be reacting; wait longer and they might bite the tail.

When Fernandez’s men found the execution site at night, the first torch-bearing soldier froze in terror. Even the noble tasked with finding the force vomited. When they lowered the hanged nobles, rage and fear grew. How dared Locke do this?

Afterward, Holy Cross units moved far more cautiously. They no longer pursued casually and marched with care. Defeat meant lowborn died; hanging meant their own noble lives. The two were not comparable to them. Their advance slowed sharply.

“Locke’s purpose is simple,” an adviser told Fernandez. “Delay until domestic reinforcements arrive and reverse the situation.”

“Their reinforcements will not arrive quickly. The barbarians are not fools.” Fernandez understood. The barbarians had created this great scene not to be benefactors. Both Holy Cross and Locke were targets. Locke’s strength now needed weakening; only a fragile balance between the two kingdoms benefited the barbarians.

Fernandez believed time remained on his side. Looking out at the sparse spring rain, he said, “Let them drag this out. The more formidable the Locke men appear, the less willing I am to lower my guard. Spring planting is almost upon us. They are in a greater hurry than I am.” A few thousand deaths meant nothing to him. Only the final victory mattered.

A full month passed. Several waves of spring rain came and went, while at least half of Saint Miller's spring planting remained undone. Even an emergency summer planting could no longer prevent a disastrous reduction in the year's harvest. The Holy Cross army lost one minor engagement after another and sacrificed several thousand men in that single month, yet its advance never truly stopped. Half of Augusta Domain had fallen, and Augusta City now lay directly ahead.

Locke attacks also weakened. Three to five thousand Locke soldiers had died. Intelligence judged Derek’s army had lost at least a fifth, more if Birch Fort’s trapped forces were counted. Fernandez became thinner, but commanding hundreds of thousands taught him rapidly. Soon he could handle a ten-thousand-man army easily, and the Holy Cross’s deployment grew orderly. His confidence rose.

The other columns had advanced just as steadily. Sheer numerical superiority allowed the Holy Cross to reclaim half of Saint Miller Province. For the farmers living on that land, the return of their old kingdom only made life harsher. After several more light rains, the Holy Cross army finally used enough human lives to batter open unfinished Augusta City.

Fernandez entered the city and saw its finished buildings. Derek’s ambition was obvious. “When Saint Miller falls, this will be my main city,” he laughed. Talent still had to bow before power.

Then more good news came: large supplies remained, including dozens of suits of heavy armor. Locke had withdrawn in haste and left critical material.

One commander remained uneasy. “The Locke men had ample warning that this city would fall. How could they possibly forget dozens of suits of heavy armor? It feels deliberate—bait meant to mislead us.”

Fernandez believed the armor had been abandoned during a desperate retreat, but he did not dismiss the warning. “You are right. Increase scouts. Every plot leaves traces. As long as we make no mistakes, we win.”

The scouts found nothing, only evidence that Derek had built his domain well. During a rare stretch of clear weather, Fernandez took former Saint Miller nobles out to inspect the land.