“Oh give it a rest, Arden,” William called back. “You know damned well that you don’t scare me.”

He walked towards the Knights of Brae alone and unafraid. There was no hesitation in his determined march but neither was there any haste. He strolled across the gap confident and secure in his power, letting the men opposite him remember just who it was that they faced. Demons and fanatics be damned, he was William Arcus. He had torn the heart out of a magical conflagration that had threatened to flatten Scara Brae and had made its power his own. He had hunted a building-sized creature through the capitol streets, a creature whose skin William still wore as a badge of honor.

William finally stopped twenty meters from the front lines. Close enough to be an uncomfortable presence but not close enough to push someone into testing their luck as a hero. He scanned the front line and then shrugged and looked down to idly knock a bit of mud from his boots.

“Believe it or not I don’t want to be here,” he said in a tone that another would use at the market while ordering bread. “When I told you and Ruby that I wouldn’t come back to Scara Brae, I meant it.”

He looked up finally and locked eyes with Arden. “What I want seems to be irrelevant, though. Circumstances have put me here just as they’ve put you in my path.”

“I’m here for the village of Stansford.” He shrugged, making sure to keep his hands well away from the hilt of his weapons, “Or at least I’m here for what’s under the village.”

“Arden, I’m not sure if you know the place, but it’s a small little backwater with only a couple hundred people living there. I’m not going to beg or barter with you because we both know how well that’d work,” he said with a grimace. “I’m giving you this offer because of the respect I have for you and your knights. Stand aside and send your army home, give me the village of Stansford, and I will keep the cult well away from Scara Brae City.”

William held up a hand to forestall the hasty reply that he could see forming on Arden’s lips.

“Two, maybe three hundred villagers for the lives of the thousands of men you have behind you, Arden. Surely that’s a worthwhile trade? You know you can’t actually stop me, don’t you? I’ll get what I want in the end no matter how many of your people you throw in front of my claws. And them,” ” William looked behind him to the horde on the opposite side of the field. “They’re so conditioned and religiously blind that they’ll fighting until the last of them falls dead.”

Back in the ranks of the cult Kharas watched William and as soon as the revenant turned to them he signaled for the army to begin its advance. A bell tolled an ominous ring and six thousand voices rose as one in a single writhing chant. Seams creaked under strain as the beasts of burden began the plodding movements that would set the juggernauts moving and behind them the forge demons bellowed. The Army of War was on the move.

William kept his eyes locked on Arden, trusting the slow, rolling movement of his army to add gravity to his words.

“Retreat now Arden and save the lives of your men.” His words came out as cold steel razors, each syllable a hard, pointed needle stabbing at his counterpart.

“I will not repeat myself.”