Here Stormbringer spies the Stepsons, the Theban fighters, and the 3rd Commando, attending to their own. In the face of such unflinching determination and unswerving devotion, the hurricane pauses and calms. Its ravings turn to mutters.

Death's easy to find. If She wants you, you'll meet Her here as well as anywhere.

Live to fight on other days.

Gods colliding, ethos and mythos trying to combine. The Sacred Band caught up in a whirlwind not of any god's devising: he and Niko had wanted to save twenty-three pairs of fated Theban fighters. Now everything feels fated and fighting oversweeps its boundaries of time and place and plane.

You count up your dead, every one. Always. Recall them, each and all - every face, every heart.

Something awful is always going to happen, Arton. It's Sanctuary. You're a Stepson. Awful is a big part of your job.

What wastrel mankind destroyed takes time for nature to put to rights.