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The walls of Icantoka ran red with blood. The Inquisitor's army crushed us against them and the slaughter was terrible. Outnumbered, armed with makeshift spears and scavenged swords, our peasant rabble fell like corn before the reaper. I paid no heed, but watched from a hill, Kardita and I, and six others I had chosen to live, on stolen horses. It would be a bloodbath, an easy victory, and so the Inquisitor lead the charge, while her favoured general, Y'Taun guarded her rear against any surprise.

The battle was almost over before Y'Taun's legion fell on her.

Kardita and I charged through the fleeing remnants of my army, tearing open friend and foe alike. Ember's Fire I named my steed, and much time I had spent steeling him with sorcery. No ordinary horse to begin with, now frost sprang from his nostrils, blades from his shoes, iron and steel would turn to dust at the touch of his skin, yet whose passage would make no sound. And on top of this, I had put my bloodlust within him. The Inquisitor's soldiers here, the front line, who now the rear, but did not yet know it, saw the spectre of death ride upon them and stood aside. An easy victory in their sights, so why waste their lives on a small few who did not know they were beaten. Doubtless archers would cut us down soon enough. Except there were no archers, for Y'Taun's legion pinned them in and even now slew them to a man.

"You must reach the Inquisitor before Y'Taun," Kardita had said. "Kill her and the battle will end. Praise Y'Taun for his honour and his valour in bringing the old Inquisitor to task for her crimes. Take her armour and wear it. Name Y'Taun commander of the armies. You must do all these things before he has time to speak, and you must brook no interruption. You must show no weakness."

I, who wore the mark of Ehwan, had long forgotten what weakness was.

I spied the Inquisitor's banner. "She is trying to reach Y'Taun," I said. Kardita did not reply; none was sought. We would live or die by our speed now, for if Y'Taun and the Inquisitor met before be could reach them, either Y'Taun would prevail, and turn next to us, or the Inquisitor would enslave him and her army swallow us whole. I unleashed a spray of acid fire into the melee ahead, clearing our path through the screams and stench of blood and burning flesh. Mud sprayed in my face; I felt a tug at my foot, brief and then gone. Two soldiers stepped in my way and were ploughed to the ground, one by steel and one by the frenzy of Ember's Fire. An arrow flew by and tugged my hair. I heard the riders behind me fall, one by one, until only Kardita remained constant at my side, while my sword swung left and right ever more often, each lunge spraying another streak of blood across our skins. For a time, I dared not look up, while the Inquisitor's legions tightened their lines and rallied to face their enemy, and we were alone in a sea of hostile swords.

"We're losing," I heard Kardita shout, the lance she carried in her right hand dipping and diving like a fishing bird, each swoop sending another soul onwards on its cycle. The sword in her left span and danced with a seeming will of its own, fending away those her lance did not pierce. Ember's Fire galloped harder, spurred on by his own will, soldiers frozen solid by his breath then kicked and shattered to a thousand pieces. Fire and acid rained all around us, I saw lightning dance among where Y'Taun's men fought, and black shapes began to fall from the sky, enveloping friend and foe alike as if to such the very life from their flesh, while the earth cracked and split, and a thousand green and viney men began to crawl their way up from the earth. And then the air split with the crack of a thousand divine trumpets, and every man on the field fell to their knees and clutched their heads. Except two. Four score yards away, the Inquisitor turned to face me. No longer an ageing woman with lined face and greying hair, but some fierce avatar, her body transformed into that of a giant, ten feet high, with four bronze arms wielding four silver scimitars, each the size of a man, and a mask of gold over her face, so bright it burned my eyes to see.

"Y'Taun," she cried, and a black spear left from her mouth and flew through the air, and pierced Y'Taun through the heart where he quivered. Transfixing him. Even as I watched his death throes fade, his body turned to stone and crumble to dust.

"Y'Taun is erased from the great cycle. Never shall he return, His existence has ended for all time." And she fixed her eyes upon me. "Kardita," she cried, and another ebon spear sprang forth, arrowing towards my lover-general. I leapt through the air and caught it, felt it wrestle to free itself from my grasp and then suddenly relent, threw it aside and turned to stare defiance at the sorceress I had come to kill.

She began to laugh, a low throaty chuckle laced with sickness and malice. "Kardita is spared," she said, and laughed aloud. "Skyrie it is who has taken the spear, whose body will turn to stone, whose memory will turn to dust, who shall never have been and never shall be again."

I drew my sword. "Now you shall die." Still, the armoured legions around us cowered and clutched their heads.

"Are you bleeding, Skyrie," she asked. "The spear has marked you. It is always fatal. You are already dead." And even as she spoke, I felt a strange poison coursing through my blood, weakening me, drawing out the strength of both arm and spirit.

She drew slowly closer, her four silver scimitars pointed always at my heart. "Look upon me Skyrie. Did you think you could defeat me, you little brat? What are you? Nothing? Who are you? Forgotten. I will cut your heart out for you, so you may see its beating cease before eternal oblivion overwhelms you."

I could barely hold my sword. I fell to my knees, and she stood over me, a brilliant glittering giant. The scimitars rose to strike.

"Enjoy my curse," I whispered, and touched my fingers to the mark on my brow.

The scimitars never fell. Silent, my spectral steed fell upon the Inquisitor, felling her to the ground and slashing her open. The silver blades whirled and Ember's Fire fell, yet even as the Inquisitor rose, an arrow struck squarely through the centre of her golden mask and she fell again. With what last strength I could, I stumbled to her trembling body and severed her head from her body, before the darkness finally took me.

The Inquisitor's black spear did not destroy me, and slowly I made my recovery, through many months passed before I no longer felt its insidious poison before I fell asleep each night. I awoke to find Kardita commanding the remnants of both armies, besieging the city, and with my sorcery added to her strategies, it fell soon enough. I entered the palace of Icantoka, a place of unrivalled splendour, or so I thought, though in truth it is but a provincial and forgotten backwater among the other glories of the Fourteen Empires. The Crimson armour was re-forged, and laid at my feet.

I had become Skyrie, Crimson Inquisitor of Icantoka.