The first things out of the wave were fast.
They came low across the broken ground, four-legged and lean, made of something between flesh and smoke, and the war-lights did not slow them. Light passed into their bodies and died there. They poured out of the black tide in a flood that had no edges, thousands upon thousands, and as they closed, the front ranks saw the detail that would follow them into their dreams. The things had no faces. Just smooth dark skulls, all of them tilted slightly toward the Regalon line, as if listening for it.
"Ranged lines," Natalia called from the height, her voice cutting flat and clear over the rising thunder of their charge. "On my mark. Waste nothing."
