After dispersing the mob from the field, the Gladians shored up their ranks to prepare for the next movement. Mark and Sonia were able to reunite with them and were waiting to hear back from the heralds they dispatched to receive word from their fellow commanders.

Mark and Sonia exchanged salutes with their swords and he then made his way toward the rear.

As they were riding, Sir Emerich grumbled, "I should have stayed where I was..."

Sir Emerich did not say anything in reply. In truth, after all their antagonism toward each other, he seemed to be embarrassed to accept simple gratitude from Mark. Perhaps once they lived through this, things would be better between them.

Mark did not get to think long on happier prospects beyond the battlefield, for a great cry rose up in the ranks. Mark looked to see what was happening and it was the same sight all around him. Some men were doubled over holding their heads while others threw themselves to the ground and writhed about like snakes. By Mark's estimation, nearly half their number was so afflicted, while the remainder were left standing there in bewilderment.

In the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach, Mark suspected that he knew exactly what devilry this was. But to affect so many at once? As he continued to look around him, he saw as many Shield-breakers on the right wing of their formation in the same throes of torment. Worse yet, Petrus was stricken as well, and also young Floki. Brother Matteus struggled to rein in Floki's horse, who was frightened by the state of his master and threatened to throw the lad. Petrus' mount was more disciplined, but in his fit, Petrus threw himself off his horse's back and onto the ground.

Mark would have joined him, but he was stopped dead in his tracks as he felt a change in the air. It was no natural force. The invisible miasma that filtered through their ranks, taking one man and leaving another, it was growing in power. The gears moving the art at work here were being fixed in their position and taking the shape of its completion.

Another great cry rose up as the torture of hundreds of men reached its crescendo. The noise around them faded and there was an eerie quiet that may have only been the briefest moment but felt much longer.

Mark's eyes just happened to turn back toward Sir Emerich in time to see one of the stricken men of the levy take up his spear and make a decisive thrust. The point expertly navigated its way into the narrow space between the knight's helm and gorget. It was a stroke worthy of a master spearman. Sir Emerich was not likely to be so appreciative, however, but nothing could be done for him.

The man who attacked Sir Emerich was not the only one. Almost everyone who had been stricken was lashing out at whoever was in reach. As Mark raised his shield to deflect a couple spear thrusts that would have had him share Sir Emerich's fate, he saw the eyes of the men who attacked him—eyes red as crushed cherries—and he remembered. How could he forget? He remembered his friend Stefan corrupted by Brenok's accursed arts. Though these men's bodies were not twisted into a monstrous shape as Stefan's was, their minds were poisoned with the same blood-madness, perhaps even more so, as Stefan still retained some semblance of reason, even if it was twisted by blind hatred and rage.

What was Mark to do? He did not wish to raise his hand against men whose only sin was to fall prey to Brenok's witchcraft, but he could not stand idly by and watch the men in his charge be slaughtered in this chaotic melee.

Mark had never wielded his power without the intention to kill, but now he tried to restrain himself, to throttle the flow of energies from the Gems to his sword. He loosed what he hoped to be a significantly weakened lightning bolt at one of the spearmen attacking him, then the other. Only when the fighting had settled could he see if his efforts to spare the men had succeeded.

Now that he had put down the most immediate threat, he needed to take charge of the situation and rally the troops who had not succumbed to madness. However, before he could do that, there were other concerns closer to him. First was the sight of his two squires wrestling with each other. A maddened Petrus was trying to draw his sword and Heinrich was doing everything in his power to keep him from doing so.

Mark struck Petrus with the pommel of his sword as he went by. He very well could have brained the poor boy, but if he did not risk one of his squires, he could very well lose both.

As he turned his horse back around, it appeared that if Petrus was still alive, he was unconscious for the time being.

Naturally, Heinrich did not take well to being ordered to flee, but he would not disobey his master's order. He bowed his head and replied, "Yes, milord."

While Heinrich was doing as he was told, there was a pained cry as Brother Matteus was being stabbed over and over again by Floki. Even so, he held fast to the reins of Floki's horse to keep it from throwing him. Mark cursed himself for not acting sooner.

In spite of his dogged show of fortitude, Brother Matteus' strength left him at last and he released the reins as he fell from his horse. Floki sprang from his own horse to do further hurt to his tutor's body, but Mark caught him mid-air with a lightning bolt. Despite his many wounds, Brother Matteus dragged himself over to the now presumably unconscious Floki to shield him with his own body in one final act of service.

Mark would have gone to them, but he told himself there was little he could do for them. There were hundreds of other lives he might yet save. He raised his sword aloft and struck at the sky with a lightning bolt fully powered. The bright flash and the deafening thunderclap yielded a moment of still and silenced, for the common fighting man and his curse-maddened brother alike.

As he was saying that, his horse let out a terrible shriek as an arrow plunged into her neck. She thrashed about as another went into her chest. Her hoof slipped and she fell onto her side, pinning Mark's leg, likely breaking it judging from the pain. And though the pain would had driven him as mad as those under the curse, he still had the presence of mind to recognize the Rowanite fletching on the arrow sticking out of his horse's neck. Even bewitched to madness, a Rowanite's aim was true, it would seem.

Mark steadied his breathing and suppressed his sense of pain so that he could think. Even if he could free himself, with a broken leg he could do little more than crawl on the ground. He would not last long that way, and if any of his men came to his rescue, they would leave themselves vulnerable to attack. So long at he could keep his wits, he could use his powers to fend off any aggressors. It was something at least. It was better than just giving up and surrendering himself to the end.

Indeed he could and in his current plight, there were not many whose hand he would refuse.