Chapter 41

Pol later tells how roughly six thousand Ispanthians crossed the Bridge of Promises and the southern Owlet Bridge, including himself. Segunth‑General Samera dom Vinescu consolidated Far Banner survivors and drove the first goblin wave back over Goltay’s fallen east walls. Despite lamp‑signals from the Pragmatist at Highseat to withdraw, Quarut‑General Portescat took two thousand elite knights in pursuit toward Onion Market by the Arve, and dom Vinescu followed rather than abandon him.

In the fields, Portescat’s heavy knights pressed goblins against the river, but the biters executed “stacking,” sacrificing ranks to build a living wall high enough to leap down onto the knights and halt the charge. When ordered to pull back, Portescat complied; archers and spear‑wings bloodied the unstacking goblins, yet momentum was lost and the enemy withdrew in order.

A rumble revealed a goblin reserve with palisade‑chariots pushed by war boars—platforms lethal on open ground. The Pragmatist had foreseen this and signaled south to Owlet Bridge. Dom Vinescu sent Terce‑General dom Braga’s light troops toward the bridge while she and Portescat’s remaining knights held to buy time.

As the palisades closed, the hired taurines panicked and broke. Attempts to stop them failed; two enraged bull‑men burst through the guard and one wrenched dom Vinescu’s neck, killing her before being cut down. With command shattered, the line collapsed. Heavily armored knights, hard to kill but easy to capture when spent, were massacred or taken in numbers.

Pol escaped over the bridges, but Onion Market—afterward called Butcher’s Bank—became a killing ground. The chapter closes with the narrator bracing the reader for a final, darker account yet to come.