Emperor Austin Lively—now merged with the resurrected monarch’s power—leads a desperate aerial assault against Curtin’s demonic Legion, dissolving its red-haze form with troll daggers and knightly strikes. Maud joins the cavalry to free Natani, while Carnation races to breach Jane’s tower before midnight. Victory comes at a cost: fallen knights and shattered demons reveal Curtin’s will unraveling—but the narrator materializes in LA, three hours from Jane’s assassination, disoriented and racing against time. The battle for Galeana’s skies becomes a frantic modern-day rescue as alliances fracture and curses collide. [Automatically generated summary]
The following contains strong language and adult themes and is intended for a mature audience.
Why are you looking at me like that?
No reason.
All right.
Well, I mean, who are you anyway?
You know who I am.
Do I?
It's just me.
All right.
Who was the man then?
The man you called on the phone after Serge Razgo died.
The detective.
A modest Carnation?
Why did he know the Emperor?
That's what I had to find out, wasn't it?
That's why I went to meet him in an alley behind the Hollywood cop shop.
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Episode 15, The Battle for the Skies.
I met him in an alley behind the Hollywood cop shop.
It was a grim stretch of pavement, damp with old sewer water, dark as night even now in the spring afternoon.
The moment I turned the corner off the sidewalk, I saw Carnation standing at the alley's far end.
He was a silhouette among shadows.
I could not make out his face.
I walked toward him slowly.
I did not think I knew the man.
But as I came near, he stepped forward and a stray patch of sunlight fell across him.
I let my breath out.
I remembered who he was.
After I had killed Orozco's first assassin, Sarah, after I sent him falling to his death off the construction site near the shopping mall, I had been arrested and hauled into this very police station.
Graciano and Lord had been there.
They had made a lot of noise about prosecuting me for Sarah's death, threatening me, you know, intimidating me, trying to get me to keep my mouth shut about Orozco.
But there was another cop who was different.
He was the guy who had arrested me in the first place.
He'd put the cuffs on me when it looked like the other cops were itching to shoot me dead on the spot.
Essentially, he had saved my life.
Then later, when I walked out of the station, the same cop had been there again.
He was a great big guy with a big gut, a hard face, sandy hair, and a bushy mustache.
An undercover guy, he seemed like, dressed in a Spartan sweatshirt and torn jeans.
He had shepherded me to the door.
And just before I left the station, he had murmured to me, Go your way.
I wasn't sure at the time whether he was speaking the Queen's password or simply warning me to blow town.
Now I knew.
Because here he was again, dressed in slacks and a striped shirt this time, but still sporting the hard face and the big stash.
We came toe-to-toe in the alley.
I examined him closely.
I tried to put my mind into emperor mode so I could see if there were any evil soul leeches crawling on him.
None appeared to me.
I decided I would trust him.
I didn't really have much choice.
He, meanwhile, was looking down at me from his much greater height.
He stuck his tongue in his cheek.
He looked skeptical, I guess is the word.
You're the emperor?
I looked away, embarrassed.
I think so.
Sort of.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I shrugged.
The Emperor is living inside me somehow, I think.
I think I carried him out of the world of the dead and now, I don't know how to say it exactly, but he seems to be part of me, or maybe vice versa.
Carnation sniffed.
A big sniff that scrunched up a whole half of his face.
Then, to my surprise, he nodded, almost as if I were making sense.
She said something like that might happen.
She?
He nodded.
I knew what he meant.
The queen.
She said it might be you who brought him here to save her.
How do you know about all this?
He heaved a big breath and put his hands on his hips, looked over my shoulder with that far-off stare you sometimes see in cops and soldiers, that long stare of a man who's seen too much of what life really is.
I know the queen.
We've met.
She told you about everything?
He nodded.
Are there more like you?
More who know?
You'd be surprised.
There were not enough of us, but there are more than you'd think.
We link up.
We find each other.
We do what we can for her.
And did you know about Orozgo?
Orozco's Confession00:05:10
Did you know he was calling you?
His gaze returned from the distance and lowered to me again.
What do you mean?
Orozgo said he called you.
He was trying to confess.
But there were too many murders on his conscience.
He couldn't face the consequences.
Is that who that was?
Yeah, Serge Orozco, a billionaire who, oh, I know who he is, believe me.
And he told you this?
About calling me?
Calling me and hanging up?
I was wondering who it was.
He's dead.
He told me just at the end.
Oh.
Dead.
Huh.
He sounded disappointed.
I began to understand what had happened.
The whole story began to unfold itself in my mind.
You were investigating him, weren't you?
Carnation wagged his head.
He was being investigated by a task force.
I was a small part of it.
I get it.
But you questioned him at some point.
I talked to him on the phone once.
It didn't get me very far.
But that's how he knew who you were.
So he started to call you.
I gave a little snort at the idea.
What?
What's so funny about it?
It's just funny, you know?
Funny to think about.
A guy like Orozgo, a guy so powerful, who has so much, calling a cop and trying to confess.
It's a strange idea.
Not really.
A lot of these guys, these big guys, who run businesses, who run countries, who run the world, they're just perps in the end.
They're just con men, killers, thieves.
They want what all perps want, to beat the system, to control people, to feel like big shots, like they got away with something.
And it eats at them.
What they are.
They want to confess.
They want to get it off their chests before it drives them nuts.
They got nice clothes, nice cars, everything nice, but they're just perps in the end.
Do you know what Orozgo did?
You and the other investigators.
Do you know about the 730 Club and all that?
He cocked an eyebrow at me with real interest.
Why don't you tell me?
I hesitated a second, but only a second.
Buy me a cup of coffee.
We sat in a WeHo coffee shop around the corner.
Me and the big cops surrounded by frizzy bearded wannabe screenwriters and shapely aspiring starlets all pounding on their laptops, wasting their afternoons, not to mention their lives.
I had to work hard to keep my eyes away from them.
to keep my mind from going into emperor mode and seeing what, if anything, was crawling on them, sucking out their souls.
I drank coffee and talked.
I told Carnation what I knew about the 730 Club, about the powerful people Orozco had killed and ruined, and about the loyalists he had hired to replace them.
Detective Carnation listened without saying a word.
Sometimes he jotted a note in a little notebook he had.
Finally, when I was done, he said, That's a big story.
And now my brother Richard is in charge of it all.
Governments, news agencies, movie studios.
Police forces too, I think.
Oh yeah, definitely some police forces.
But not everyone, I guess.
Not everyone, no.
So there are still good guys.
There are more like you.
You can still get to them?
It's not easy.
It's a hard case to prove.
You have to prove it down to the ground so no one can bury it.
No one can lie about it.
It's a hard case.
Especially if the police work for the other side and the courts are corrupt and the press cover for them.
Carnation got that far-off look again.
He stroked the white foam of a cappuccino off his mustache with one hand.
There were some like that.
Some have gone bad.
A lot of them have, yeah.
But no, not all.
Not me.
Not some others.
Like I said, there are more of us than you might think.
Can you beat them, Carnation?
Can you expose them?
Get around the ones who were in on it?
Get around the journalists who sweep it under the rug?
And the politicians and all the rest?
Can you ever expose this and make it count?
Carnation's big shoulders rose and fell.
If you were a cop, you do what you do.
You do what you can.
You look for the truth.
You tell the truth.
You take your chances.
Every day is a chance.
Every day is another day.
Level Up Again00:05:59
I nodded.
One corner of my mouth lifted.
All right.
That sounds like a plan.
His mustache lifted back at me.
So what do you need?
What do you need to save the world?
Emperor Austin Lively.
I hid my blush in my coffee cup.
I need Jane, first of all.
I need to get her out of the tower alive.
Can you do that?
Can you help me?
It was a long time before he answered.
He thought for a while, then he rubbed his eyes for a while.
Then he sighed for a while.
Finally, he said, Just how powerful are you anyway?
Or how powerful is he, the emperor?
How powerful is he in you?
I don't know.
I thought of how I drew my sword and cut off the hand of the priest of death.
I thought of how I saw the monsters devouring the people all over the city, and the occasional angels, too.
I think there's still another level I can get to, but I don't know what it is yet.
Well, you better find out, my emperor.
I know some people.
People who can help us.
We might be able to get you inside the tower before the killers get to your girl.
But how you're going to get her out of there?
That I don't know.
I drew a deep breath.
Me either.
But maybe.
Well, like I said, maybe I can level up again.
Another moment and he nodded decisively.
You better get to it then.
Meanwhile, I'll make some calls.
Get back to me when you think you might be able to pull this off.
We stood up.
We shook hands over the table.
Suddenly, all around me, I could sense the red, hungry, lizard-like leeches prowling through the coffee shop, looking for souls to sink their teeth into.
I tried not to see them, but I knew they were there.
They were everywhere.
The city belonged to them.
The world belonged to them, for all I knew.
But not the whole world.
There were still men like Carnation.
Not enough, but more than you'd think.
Thanks, Detective.
Amadis.
Amadis.
Amadis Carnation.
That's a good name.
I'll be seeing you, Emperor.
Soon, I hope.
Before midnight.
Right.
Before midnight.
I turned away and walked to the coffee shop door and pushed through it back into Aona.
Moments later, I was standing behind a table with a canvas map of Galeana and the 11 lands spread out on top of it.
Favian was on the other side of the table, still dressed in his prisoner's ragged brown robe, still grimy and bruised from his imprisonment.
Maud, though.
Maud was radiant, brand new, all new, a graceful sylph in her whiter-than-white shift, her blonde hair spilling forward over her adorably impish face as she bent to the map and traced a path to Galeana with her finger.
Favian stood close beside her, leaning over her shoulder, watching.
Outside, I could hear the sound of laughter and music, thousands of voices raised in joy and song.
The people were still celebrating the Emperor's return from the dead.
I say we go by air.
It means a smaller army, only the flying cavalry.
But to travel overland will take too long.
Agreed.
Maud's voice was no longer a rodent voice, but sweet and musical and mischievously ironic, even when she was being serious as she was now.
Favian and I both looked at her, surprised.
A teenage girl talking like a general.
She glanced up and caught our looks and returned them defiantly.
What?
I was behind enemy lines in Torretanio's resistance.
No one notices a squirrel outside the window.
I've spied on the enemy.
I know how Curtin operates.
I lifted one eyebrow at Favian.
Then I gestured at Maud.
Go on.
The thing is, if we travel by land, we'll be opposed at every pass and castle, our stragglers waylaid in every wood.
Curtin will wage a war of attrition, sword and illusion, siege and temptation, every trick he has.
She's right about that.
By the time our infantry reached Galeana, we'd be fewer than we would have been if we'd just flown with the cavalry.
Maude nodded beside him.
They both looked up, looked at me, waiting for my decision.
And I, I returned their gazes, fighting to focus.
Mind-wise, I was still in the coffee shop, mulling over what I'd heard from Carnation.
But Favian and Maud were waiting for an answer.
So I said, The cavalry goes by air.
We'll force Curtin's armies to battle us in the sky.
That will leave the Overland Passage open.
Favian, you'll lead the infantry below, and we'll join forces in Galeana to retake the throne.
He straightened, proud of the assignment, ready for it.
My emperor.
Now go back to your family.
They need you and get some rest.
He bowed once, briskly, and marched out of the pavilion.
I watched him go, and you know what I was thinking?
I was thinking how nice it was to have a brother I admired.
What would my life have been like?
Who would I be now if my family had not been a gang of villains?
It was another moment before I noticed Maude was still standing there, giving me a look, that look she gave.
Maude's Look Means Trouble00:08:37
I knew it meant trouble, but there was no avoiding her forever.
I turned to her.
Beautiful Maud, former rodent girl extraordinaire, with her ironic eyes pinned hard on me.
What is it, Mouse?
Why are you still here?
Why are you looking at me like that?
My emperor.
And I truly couldn't tell whether she was being sarcastic or not, whether or not she fully understood my bizarre double nature.
I have a request.
Uh-oh.
I want to fly with you, with the cavalry.
I made a dismissive noise.
Forget it.
She was insulted.
She groused at me.
Why?
Because I'm a girl?
Yes, exactly.
Exactly that.
I need men, Maud.
This isn't a movie.
It's war.
I need big men.
Soldiers, centaurs, ogres, strong men who can fight other men who are also strong, with big, strong arms that can wield swords all day without growing tired.
She scowled angrily.
What is a movie?
It's a kind of lie in which things are the way people want them to be instead of the way they are.
This is not that.
She went on scowling.
I was actually kind of hoping she'd storm out in a huff.
Never mind the huff, never mind the storm.
I was just hoping she'd leave me alone.
But she didn't.
She didn't move.
She just kept that scowl trained on me.
She wasn't an annoying rodent girl anymore, but she had retained her near-magical ability to make me feel like crap whenever I disagreed with her.
I know you, she said finally.
I know who you are.
I lifted my chin.
All right.
I can see the emperor is inside you now, but I know who you are all the same.
All right.
But you're still not flying with the cavalry.
I've been a good advisor to you, haven't I?
I'd have been lost without you, Maud.
Which was only the truth.
Without the squirrel girl, I'd have long ago been tortured, executed, or murdered.
Or worse, I'd have been back in Hollywood, rich and famous with a green-lit movie and an unseen soul leech digging into my bosom and sucking my soul out through my heart.
Let me go with you and advise you now.
I rolled my eyes.
Would you stop?
I'll stay out of harm's way.
The hell you will.
You'll protect me then.
But I know more about the evil of the enemy than any other friend you have.
I can help you win.
I raised my hand and was about to respond, but the words turned to breath and silence, and my hand went down to my side again.
Maud wasn't always right, but she was right just enough to make a genuine pain in the ass of herself.
And this time, well, I wasn't sure.
The trouble was, deep down, I wanted her with me.
It was only my fear for her safety that kept me from allowing her to come.
It was true, lithe girl that she was, she'd be useless in a fight.
But as an advisor, there was no one like her.
From the very beginning, she had been my friend and my support, my guide through the mad hallucination my life had become.
Just being with her, right here in the tent, right now, anchored me to the moment.
Even quarreling with her was better than being without her.
In her presence, my fractured and divided mind began to calm and clear.
My focus, the focus she herself had taught me in the sewers of Galeana, was beginning to return.
Why do you want this so much?
And before she could answer, I said, And don't tell me it's because I need you.
You do need me.
She averted her gaze.
But you're right.
It's not that.
She took a deep breath and faced me squarely.
The man I love is trapped in Edimund, cursed by Curtin.
Ah.
Of course.
Natani.
He had slipped my mind.
He was the magician who had disguised Maud as a squirrel so she could escape Curtin's conquest of their country and the massacre of the women there.
In response, Curtin had cursed Natani so that he became the water of a forest lake.
Natani had helped me when I was lost in that dark land, and I had promised to return and reunite him with the girl he loved.
Maude spoke as if she had read my thoughts, which, knowing her, she probably had.
You broke Natani's spell on me.
You can break Curtin's curse on him.
Damn it.
She was probably right.
My emperor.
He's everything to me.
My love.
The father of my children.
You don't have any children.
Because he's stuck in that damn lake.
Get him out and you won't believe how many children I have.
I laughed.
I shook my head.
Mouse, you drive me crazy.
The slender girl flitted around the table to me like some agile phantom.
She went down on her knees beside me.
She took my left hand in both of hers.
Don't kneel to me, Maud.
Not you.
She gazed up at me.
Take me with you, my emperor.
Let me help you.
Bring me to my love.
Have I ever told you you're the single most annoying person I have ever met?
Kneeling there, she kissed my hand.
She pressed my hand against her cheek so that her tears dampened my skin.
Thank you.
My emperor.
Stop doing that.
Please, stand up.
Please, Mouse.
She climbed to her feet and stood before me, knuckling her eyes dry.
That Natani is one lucky body of water.
She laughed through her tears.
Go get some sleep, Mouse.
We ride at dawn.
So much had been so strange, so long, that that strange last night before the war seemed hardly strange at all.
And yet.
And yet how strange it was, really.
I lay awake in my pavilion and drifted as if in sleep between the two worlds.
I heard the people celebrating on the cliffs, and I saw my brother Richard in Orozgo's mountain mansion, saw him consolidating his power, contacting his minions around the world to spread the word that Orozgo had been dragged into the fiery nothingness of hell.
I worked out my strategy for the reconquest of Galeana, and at the same time, I stood beside Detective Carnation in the cop shop as he spoke into the phone, gathering his allies to help me break into the tower.
All night it seemed that way.
I seemed to float in space and out of time, like a cloud of consciousness in an endless and ever-changing sky.
The two worlds were one inside my mind, the emperor's mind, and everything seemed to be unfolding in both of them at once.
As dawn grew near, I lay on my cot, worn out with worry.
I found myself speaking to the emperor inside me.
I found myself communing with his will and vision, now mingled with my own.
I knew I didn't have the wisdom or the power to do what had to be done, neither here nor back home.
But he had them, the wisdom and power both.
And I thought if I could only surrender my consciousness to his, if I could only let him take charge within me, this anxiety might lift a little and let me rest.
Maybe it did lift.
In any case, just as the sky began to brighten outside the pavilion, I finally drifted off to sleep.
Then, as if a moment later, the trumpets sounded outside on the cliffs.
I sat up groggily and looked around me, thinking, where?
Which land?
I saw the tent, the table, the map on the table, the emperor's banner, my banner, a sword with a halo, hanging on one wall.
Battle Above the Clouds00:15:40
Aona.
A beam of sunlight poured in through the tent flaps.
It was time to go to war.
I groaned and rolled out of bed.
I stretched.
I yawned.
I rubbed my eyes.
I went to the pavilion door.
I stepped through still wearing the emperor's outfit, but I emerged into the open air fully clothed in Elinda's armor.
It flowed over me in a single second, and in a single second, the Queen's sword was in the scabbard at my side.
Now too, magically, the armor had been transformed.
My breastplate sported the emperor's insignia, the haloed sword, and his red cape was secured at my shoulders and fluttered at my back.
A thunderous hurrah greeted me.
It shook the air.
There on the plain before me was an amazing sight to behold, my armies in their vast array.
The knights in silver armor on their winged horses, the trolls on horseback too, with their long beards and their peaked caps and their crossed belts of throwing daggers.
The centaurs with their muscular bodies and their gleaming scimitars.
The giant ogres, each with a ferocious single eye and a spiked club in his massive hairy hand.
The graceful sprites with their big bows, and rows on rows of infantrymen with shields and spears.
The mighty mass of them rolled away before me like the sea itself, glittering like the sea with the sun on their blades and their bright armor.
The banners and pennants fluttered like sea waves well into the blue distance.
And beyond them, on the walls and scaffolds of the crystal city, I could see the people with their hands upraised.
I could see they were cheering, though they were so far away from us, their voices were lost in the wind between.
As I stood in my armor and gazed at my forces, my heart pounded hard with fear and excitement.
Let me be the emperor, I thought.
Let his mind be mine.
Fabian and Maud stepped up beside me.
Fabian was dressed and ready to lead the infantry, clothed in mail now, a red plumed helmet on his head, his sword at his side.
Maude was in a studded brown leather vest with a studded brown leather helmet under her arm.
The black stallion stood just behind her, and beside him stood a small, elegant gray filly, which would serve as a mount for Maud.
Favian pressed his fist to his chest.
My emperor.
I nodded with more certainty than I felt.
The emperor's certainty, not mine.
Let's do this.
The battle for the skies was about to begin.
I swung into the stallion's saddle.
Maud mounted the sleek gray and sat to my right.
Favian stood on my left.
I surveyed the ocean of faces rolling away from me, it seemed into infinity.
I drew my sword and raised it high.
The army cheered again, a sound like a storm.
I knew I had to speak to them, but I had no idea what to say.
Still, I opened my mouth and began, and the emperor's voice came out of me, so loud it seemed to reverberate across the heavens.
Look around you.
What a lovely day.
If I could stay and while away my hours in the sun, then I would stay.
But our backs are to the sea, and the armies of death are advancing.
Death and slavery, which is death and life.
To live in peace is now no more than a form of surrender.
Every chance of freedom we have lies in victory, and every chance of victory lies in battle and in blood.
I won't tell you we'll be remembered by name.
But if we win, our name will be the People's Liberty, and that will be remembered.
If we fail, our fight will be a secret song in the hearts of the defeated until they find a way to fight again.
Either way, for the sacrifice of this day, and even all our days, we will live forever.
Let us fear nothing then, and do what we have to do.
To Galiana!
I pointed my sword at the sky.
The horses spread their wings.
I wish I could have stood on some lofty height and watched as the whole cavalry lifted as one from the earth and rose as one into the bright blue dawn.
At Fabian's cry of, Advance!
The armies on the ground began their march as well.
I looked down as my stallion rose and saw them, metal flashing and flags fluttering and bodies surging forward as if the whole plane had come to rolling life.
I looked around me and the sky was full of flying horses.
What a sight it was.
Breathless with excitement now, I turned to Maud where she rode beside me on her sleek gray.
She let the horse rise up and drop back, expertly maneuvering so that its wings could lift and fall just above the massive body of my stallion.
That brought her closer to me, close enough so we could speak to one another over the noise of the rushing wind.
It was easier to chat when you could ride on my pommel as a squirrel.
I glanced back to see her smiling a rueful smile.
Now that I was the emperor, she couldn't call me names anymore, but I suspected she was thinking them.
Go on, go on and speak.
That's why I brought you with me.
All right then.
You remember the red haze we saw as we were coming here?
I remember.
I had to admit it was good to have her voice in my ear again.
It gave me confidence.
You told me it was Curtain's forces unleashed from another world.
That's right.
That will be our first real fight.
But the form of them.
How do you do battle with a haze?
That haze from below, it looks like a form of pollution, a miasma, maybe some kind of plague.
But when you get above it, you can see it's really Curtin's creatures, the ones you imprisoned after they rebelled against you when you gave Ilinda the Galeana throne.
To fight them, you have to divide your forces and take them from both below and above, both as a miasma and as a legion of demons.
You can't defeat them in only one of their forms.
How do you fight a haze, though?
The trolls.
They are masters of chemistry and the science of war.
Their daggers are soaked in potions that can clear the skies of this pollution.
All right.
The knights will follow me and fight the armies from above.
The trolls will stay below and fight the haze.
Make that my order.
My emperor, said Maud, almost as if she meant it.
Her filly veered and headed back toward the bulk of the army so she could spread the word.
We didn't have long to wait before the fight began.
When next I surveyed the earth below, I saw we had outstripped the infantry and left them several miles behind.
The rolling plains stretched out before us, empty, and the white mountains were growing larger in the distance.
As the ground rose under us, the air grew rough around us.
The weather began to deteriorate.
A thin white mist rushed over us, chilly and damp.
As we flew through it, the mist thickened.
A heavier, darker system gathered, green-black thunderheads, gravid with lightning.
The stallion whinnied as we hit turbulence.
The horse lifted and plunged with sickening suddenness and tilted at dangerous angles to keep its wings in the wind.
I held on hard and worked the reins to keep the big beast steady under me.
The thunder growled in cloud after cloud like a prowling beast circling us.
The black haze ignited and flashed here and then there, and the horse bucked and snorted, frightened.
Here they come.
That was Maud at my shoulder again.
I looked from her into the obscure distance and saw the dark clouds turning the color of blood.
The red haze had used the cover of the storm to creep close to us.
Another minute and they would be everywhere on every side.
Stay below the fight, I commanded Maud.
Go down to the earth and don't return to me until it's over.
But I can advise you here, go!
Now!
She sighed, but she obeyed.
The gray filly dropped down into the gray distance until it was out of sight.
I drew my sword.
I raised it high for a signal.
Take them!
But my words were washed away by a crash of thunder.
I spurred the stallion.
It lifted its wings.
Up we rose, straight into the heart of the tempest.
All the knights rose while the trolls on their horses dropped down to fight from below.
For a moment, one moment that seemed to go on for hours, we were in the thick of the storm, the horses screaming and rearing as deadly forks of lightning lanced across our paths, and the thunder made the air shake violently.
The blood-red stain was spreading and surrounding us, turning everything scarlet.
I roared at my stallion, ha!
And spurred her on.
Then I, then all the knights on horseback, broke through into the blue-white sky above.
And when we looked down, we looked down in horror.
It was as Maud said.
What from below had seemed a sort of red fog bleeding into the cloud cover was, when seen from above, a nightmare army.
Beloated lizards with thrashing tails and fang-studded jaws.
Giant squirming centipedes with the heads of harpies.
Vampire bats the size of airplanes.
and gibbering orange imps with flashing eyes and evil grins and flaming tridents gripped in their sharp claws.
The storm clouds flashed and roared and roiled as we charged down toward them through the whirling wind.
We met the enemy above the clouds and inside them.
They met our attack with their own attack, full force.
It was an ugly fight and desperate from the start.
The creatures swarmed us.
The lizardy things were the worst.
Huge they were.
and they could snap with their jaws and lash with their spiked tails at the same time.
The very first one I encountered caught my horse's haunches with a glancing snap of its tail that nearly knocked me from my saddle into its waiting maw.
I clapped my legs hard against the stallion's sides as the horse tilted over, its wings flailing.
I clung to the reins with one hand and jabbed down at the lizard's eyes with my sword point.
The thing was just about to lash again when I skewered it.
The blade plunged deep into its brain and out the back of its head.
It screeched and died and plummeted, twirling, down into a black thunderhead where it vanished in a flash of lightning.
An imp leapt at me with frightening agility, and I cut it in half with a single swipe even as it hurled its pitchfork at my head.
As the flaming prong sailed past my helmet, I was assaulted by a centipede that wrapped itself around my sword arm, holding it stiff and helpless as the creature's gray hag face screamed laughter at me.
I let go the reins and grabbed the squirming thing in my open hand just beneath its chin.
My fingers sank deep into acid goo as I clawed the centipede's throat open.
The still shrieking head dropped sideways, then tore off and went flying as the body gushed black gore.
I snapped my arm to get the dead corpse off me, then wheeled my mount to return to the melee.
All around me it was the same, the knights battling the unimaginable creatures that sailed up out of the black maelstrom, as if borne on the wild wind.
My men were men of valor, cutting to the left and right of them, each killing more than his share.
But some, too many, were overwhelmed.
Centipedes wrapped themselves around their bright armor, pinning their arms, while imps leapt for their heads and drove their burning pitchforks into their eyes.
Lizards ripped the bellies from their horses and caught the knights in their jaws as they tumbled through space and swallowed them.
Above the noise of the thunder, I heard the sound of men screaming in terror and agony, and the gloating hiss and sting of these creatures out of hell.
Below, though, where we couldn't see at first, the trolls were making headway with the red miasma.
Darting beneath the clouds, dodging around the lightning, the little bearded men in their funny caps whiplashed their envenomed daggers up into the haze.
Whatever the blades retreated with, it hit the red haze and smoked and sizzled.
The haze dissolved and was sucked into the knife, which then went spinning and flashing down to earth.
Sometimes, if the troll was quick and battle-tested, he would catch the falling dagger by its handle, give it one short shake that spilled the juice of what had been the haze into the air.
Then, with the same motion, he would hurl the same dagger at the haze again and take out another patch of red.
And each one of these fog patches was also, when seen from the higher angle, a demon dying.
We knights, as I said, didn't see this at first.
But as the trolls worked their way up into the heart of the miasma, as they came into the clouds and rode through the thunder to purge the storm of the red stain, we, the knights above, began to see reptiles and imps and centipedes and even the enormous vampire bats dissolving below us with screams of agony before they dropped down to the earth in a rain of blood.
I gave a cry.
To me!
To me!
And heartened by the sight of the trolls fighting their way up to us, the knights rallied around.
I led them charging down into the demon's swarm and began fighting through them to meet the trolls.
Curtain's creatures, caught in the vice, could not decide which way to turn their violence, up or down.
The lizards tried to lash at the trolls with their tails while lunging upward at the knights with their fanged jaws.
But that only divided their efforts and made it easier for us to hack away at their heads and bodies until they lost their strength and fell.
And now, the black storm began to pass over.
The thunder and the lightning ceased.
The gathered clouds became tendrils of light mist again.
I could see the sky battlefield more clearly.
The trolls and the flying cavalry were fighting in two lines mere yards from one another.
The thrashing demons were caught between us, dropping everywhere as they were cut to pieces by the knights above and dissolved and destroyed by the trolls below.
Soon I looked around with wonder to see that the hideous things were dying on their own.
Everywhere the beasts were just rolling over in the air, their eyes going white, their bodies turning to blood and evaporating even as they dripped down through the sky.
Breathless, I steadied my foaming stallion in mid-air and watched the red army collapsing.
Maud flew up from below on her gray filly and hovered at my side.
What's happening to them?
Why are they all dying?
Demonic Decay00:02:13
You've killed the Legion.
They only seemed like individual creatures.
They're really all one thing, the slave of Curtin's will.
It's over, my emperor.
You've won.
A feeling like no other I had ever had rose up inside me.
A flare of triumph like a roaring flame with, at its heart, a white-hot pang of grief for all the knights who'd fallen.
What victory could be worth even one of their lives?
But what would their lives have been worth without this victory?
The world should not be so sad and impossible, and I wished I'd never learned it was.
With bright, damp, burning eyes, I watched the demon army die.
Then, exulting and mourning at the same time, I nodded to Maud and led the way downward.
The field of mist below me had parted to make a clear way to the earth, a portal rimmed with golden sunlight.
I flew down into it.
And to my absolute shock, a car horn shattered the air around me.
Headlights whisked by me, and I only just managed to jump off the street into the sidewalk and avoid being run over.
Where the hell was I?
LA.
But not in Hollywood anymore.
And not in the afternoon.
Not at the time or place I'd left.
It was night and I was downtown, standing beneath the towering white mausoleum of City Hall.
I glanced at my watch.
To my horror, I saw it was nearly 9 p.m.
My God.
Jane.
Suddenly, I only had three hours before the assassins came for Jane.
I stood motionless in complete confusion, trying to understand what had happened.
Then I did understand, or at least I thought I might understand, or I thought the emperor understood and was trying to explain it to me.
But I knew there was no time to wait.
I had to move.
Fast.
Now.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Amadis Carnation.
Three Hours Left00:00:43
Another Kingdom, the final season.
Written by me, Andrew Clavin.
Performed by Michael Knowles.
Voice work for the Secretary, Caitlin Maynard.
Episode 15, The Battle for the Skies, was directed by Jonathan Hay, produced by Austin Stevens, executive producer Jeremy Boring, supervising producer Mathis Glover, visuals by Anthony Gonzalez-Clark and P.K. Olson, audio, music, and sound design by Kyle Perrin, associate producer Katie Swinnerton.