"Eyes up! If you're looking at your feet, you're already dead!"
Zarius's voice cut through the freezing air, sharp enough to make the younger knights jump. He wasn't yelling out of anger; he was just trying to keep them alive. He'd seen too many good men get cornered in these ditches because they lost their footing in the slush.
A Velkyn lunged, its jagged, flint-like shell scraping against a frost-shattered boulder with a sound like grinding teeth. Zarius didn't even think. He stepped into the beast's guard, his greatsword finding the soft seam beneath its mandibles with a wet, heavy thud.
He watched the monster crumble, and a strange sense of relief washed over him. When the curse had first taken hold a few months ago, his first thought hadn't been for his life, but for his sword. He'd genuinely feared that this subjugation would be his last, that he'd be a liability to his men, a Duke who couldn't even swing his own steel without the curse in his mind dragging him down.
