Neris, the Left Hand of the God-King Amunn, cut through the battlefield like a glittering eel The screaming chaos of battle surged around her. The air hung thick with the scent of bodies and blood. The heat of the desert sand baked her silver-tipped boots. Her slender tulwars flickered like the tongues of wolves, dipping into the cracks of heavy bronze armor as smoothly as a needle.

Neris wore the jeweled hauberk of the God-King’s Immortal Guard, the near-mythical warriors upon whose blades rebel barons and foreign princes died alike, wild-eyed in agony. Bodies slumped where Neris passed. She slipped unharmed through the enemy ranks, turning blades and dodging arrows with preternatural speed.

She stopped dead. The twin blades slid from her fingers as blood burst from her lips. In the screaming chaos, none saw the light pass from her eyes, none but Harok, the farmer conscript, staring incredulously at the black-haired woman impaled on his wildly thrust spear.

Neris gasped out her last words. “Well, crap.”