The Storm's Own Son (Book 2) by Anthony Gillis

response, the response soldiers of Hunyos used when accepting a formal order. With it, they saluted him, and it was returned by him.
    "There is one more thing, men," said Talaos. "You've earned a title of your own, just as we Madmen did against Drosta. We took this place like a wolf on the fold. As of now, you are the Wolves."
    Ferocious cheers followed. Talaos raised his hand, and they waited on his word.
    "Now men, to it!"
     
    ~
     
    Behind the gates of Avrosa spread a broad paved square, and that square ran with rain and blood as Kurvan and his men fought their way through massed ranks of defenders. Talaos hurtled out from a door at the back of the left of the keep, and into the enemy. With the Madmen at his sides and his Wolves behind. At the now-cleared keep, they left fourteen dead of their own, and three hundred or more of the enemy.
    Here in the open was a very different kind of battle. Talaos and the Madmen wreaked havoc before them. Further on the flanks, enemy spearmen, some in formations with long pikes, slew some of his Wolves. Squads of enemy cavalry in the gray of Avrosa flanked the plaza, and they charged. On the far side, Kurvan's men simply swarmed around them, taking losses, but pulling them off their horses with axes and knives doing bloody work.
    "Leave the cavalry to Kurvan! Men, follow me!" roared Talaos.
    He cut a scything path before him, with Vulkas to his left, smashing and hurling unfortunate foes. Like the point of a wedge, they advanced with the other Madmen at their flanks and the Wolves behind.  Then they were through, with only buildings and the driving rain before them.
    Behind them, Kurvan's men poured up the stairs of the walls, and the heavy infantry marched behind to finish the defenders in the plaza. Talaos smiled as he ran. The commanders knew their business, he thought. He'd done his part. They were in and through the gates. Now, he had business of his own. Business with his only true enemy here. Business with the followers of the Living Prophet.
    Down the streets he ran. Close-spaced buildings of three to five stories formed blocks much like those in the Republic, with shops below and housing above. There were few civilians on the streets. Most of the doors they passed were closed, and the windows above were shuttered. Here and there, small squads of enemy soldiers or militia ran to join the battle. Talaos and his men cut them down, hardly pausing. Others simply fled before them.
    He was getting closer. They came to an area where the buildings were made of fine stone. They had little walled courtyards between them and their neighbors, and towers rising above from their centers. Talaos guessed they were the homes of the wealthy, but unlike the friendly townhouses of the Republic, these looked to him like fortresses in miniature.
    Then they reached the civic buildings. There were statues on columns fronting  tall colonnades in the old Imperial style. Just like home, thought Talaos. It was not far, could not be far. Then, they heard singing. Even in the rain, the driving wind, and the thunder, they could hear singing by many voices. They rounded a corner.
    "What the...!" snarled Kyrax.
    Before them was a great plaza, surrounded by the largest of the civic buildings. Around that plaza massed crowds of people, many, but far from all of them, in simple woolen or linen clothes. Some of the men had white caps and some of the women white shawls. They sang. In the midst of rain, wind and death, they sang a song of peace and redemption.
    On the far side of the plaza stood a House of the Prophet. It was larger by far than the one in Ipesca. Here and there in the crowd were soldiers. In front of the House of the Prophet stood a small group of men and women, all in simple clothes and white caps or white shawls. They sang as well, the same song of peace, of redemption, and of forgiveness in the next world.
    In the midst of the crowd, at the center of the plaza, atop a wide brick platform of eight