I flick a dagger against the leathers of my thigh and let some blood drop from there to the ground, murmuring a prayer for safe passage, and that’s all it takes to further incite the unseen beings that live within the oaks. The leaves begin to shake around us no matter how still the air is, and the singing grows louder as the witches around us scream, clutching at their heads as they fall to the ground. The voices rend the air as they rave out their madness, black lines glowing on their faces and black spittle leaking from their grimacing lips.
The fury of their forests for their betrayal can no longer be ignored.
This section of the battlefield has the least amount of archer coverage, and the moment the high fae see our horses rise from the tunnel, pouring out of the earth as though by magic, theycease firing at the battalions waiting beyond the witcheswane line and instead move to deal with crawlers inching their way up the walls.
The general lifts his sword just in time to catch the swing of mine, a grunt forced out of his chest as he struggles to stay in his saddle. The hood covering the black tresses of his hair falls back to reveal silver eyes sunken deep in the male’s face, the white lines of his own witch marks standing out clearly as his lip curls at me. There's no iron covering his body, no protections from my sword, and so when I swing again this time in a fake action, he lifts his arm only for my dagger to lodge between his ribs, a cry of agony ripping from his chest before he begins calling for his soldiers.
Roan calls out warnings from behind me as my soldiers swarm the general, pushing his horse backward to trample his own men. The general clutches his side, and I'm forced to deal with the madness around me instead of following his retreat. The sapphire embedded in the hilt of my sword glows as I hack at the witches, their magic popping and sizzling around me but nothing more than a party trick. Once, it sent a shot of fear into the blood of any Unseelie high fae, but I know better now.
I’ve seen the true power a witch can wield, and these soldiers have but a shadow of it.
The general hisses through his teeth, his horse skittish as its eyes roll, and it snorts as he hauls it back. I fight through the witches at Nightspark’s feet, my soldiers pushing on around me to hold back more of the masses, but my eyes are steady on the general. When he lobs an orb of searing light at me, I lift my shield in time to block it. The projectile was barely more powerful than the balls of power the raving soldiers employ, a questionable tactic, especially as magic thrums in the air around him. His lips move, the true strength of his magic channeled elsewhere, and even facing me fails to deter him from that task.Our trap gave us the upper hand to begin this battle, but they came equipped with their own strategies.
Shouts ring from the outer wall above us. More arrows rain down, and some of the high-fae soldiers are forced to hold up their shields to block the friendly fire, curses ringing through the air as the maelstrom of the battle grows. Visibility deteriorates rapidly as the magic thickens, and the song of the Fates reaches a deafening pitch in my ears, a warning I desperately try to heed, but there's no telling what foul magic the witches are casting.
Screeching sounds below me, and then Nightspark whinnies in a shrill protest, stomping and thrashing as one of the witches climbs around his neck. Its legs wrap around the iron armor plates that protect him, and the stink of its flesh as it burns is putrid, but it doesn't let go. Even as it screams in agony, its mouth opens and latches on to Nightspark’s neck, and I'm forced to drop my shield to defend him. I take the dagger from my thigh holster and plunge the blade into the witch's neck, then pry him off. My hand seals over the horse’s wound as I shove the dead witch away, the crunching sound of the body hitting the ground swallowed by the chaos around us. Blood wells up from the wound and seeps through my fingers, but Nightspark doesn't bolt or rear in terror. My faithful beast trusts me implicitly, even as I'm forced to pick up my shield once more and let go of the gaping wound to shove away bodies as they come forward.
From the corner of my eye, I see one of the witches clasp one of the deadened trees, not a strong oak of Elms Walk, but deadwood on the periphery. The raving soldier climbs into the branches, the wood cracking underfoot, and flings itself onto Roan's back. Its gnarled fingers rake his leatherbound armor, the witch desperately fighting to dislodge him while others at his feet threaten to overwhelm his horse.
The masses are far more dangerous when you're on foot, and with no chance to get to Roan before the swarm consumes him,I palm a dagger and throw it, watching its arc through the air before it embeds itself at the base of the witch's spine, an instant death. Slumping, the witch falls from the back of his horse and takes one of my favorite blades with it into the writhing masses. The other witches don’t pause, instead climbing over its corpse to shove closer still to the Snowsong prince. Roan doesn't stop swinging, and he cuts through the masses as they hurl themselves into his path to their own demise, oblivious to everything in their mania.
From the ground, it seems as though there's another fae door open with endless streams of witches coming through, but no calls ring out from the walls and this has always been the reality of the witches’ numbers. They’ve always been exponentially higher than our own, difficult to grasp until we’re fighting them off.
The first of the crawlers makes it up the wall, Yrell’s soldiers not fast enough to keep picking them off, and the sounds of close combat eat up their desperate calls for aid. Hasty movement on the outer wall catches my attention as the soldiers swiftly block off sections with iron cages before the witches can overrun the battlements and open the gates. The archers shift to fight them off, the steady cover lifting from the battlefield, but the swarming masses grow steadily until there’s no stopping them from getting to the top. One and then a second at first, only to grow in numbers, five, eight, a dozen, then the first section of the wall is breached.
Dozens of soldiers call out from around the wall, the first of the ground troops preparing for the fight to enter the city, but if the gate is opened, we’ve lost.
With a slash of my hand through the air, I call out to Alwyn, who nods back as he rides out of the melee and feigns a retreat. Dozens of raving witches stream after him, thoughtless and crazed, long streams of them following him straight into theforest as though they’ve forgotten the fates of the others in there. No screams follow, maybe the old gods rest once more, but a path through the battlefield finally opens before me, and I find myself staring at the general once more. Hundreds of witches lie dead between us, the ground churned up and spoiled with the toxic blood and rapidly rotting corpses, but he doesn’t spare his fallen soldiers so much as a glance.
I kick Nightspark, and he pushes on regardless of his wound, strong and relentless beneath me as his hooves crush everything in our path. When I lift my sword to the general this time, he doesn't have the energy or the reflexes to stop me, his eyes widening even as his lips continue to move in his chant as he watches my sword descend. The last vestiges of his magic snap as his head is cleaved from his body. My own shoulder, still weakened by the continuous force, holds sure as bolts of pain shoot down to my fingers before the limb finally numbs out again.
The other generals still line the perimeter of their battalions, none of them advancing, as though they are waiting for our defense. Roan and a handful of the soldiers make it to the base of the wall to protect it from more crawlers, fanning out to mirror the witches leading the raving soldiers, our strength against their numbers, our experience against their zealot nature. Without the generals here I’d be confident in our success without question, but there’s more to Kharl Balzog’s planning than what lies before my eyes.
Calls for more archers ring through the air, horror drenching every word, and as I jerk my head around to see the target that has shaken the high fae along the wall I hear the first sounds of wood screeching in protest as the ground beneath me shudders. More frantic screams from the walls as my eyes focus on the monstrosity before me, a machine of war almost the height of the wall itself and unlike any the Southern Lands have everseen. Dozens of witches work methodically within the structure’s confines, and I can only guess at its function. Aged wood beams and pylons, thick ropes, and the glow of magic binding it all together, and the fervor that takes over the battalion at its reveal is deafening.
One of the generals lifts a hand, the magic within him reverberating through the battlefield, and the machine makes a popping sound. Ropes snap and pull, wood screeches as it moves, and then, like arrows of unspeakable size and destructive power, a ball of fire arcs through the air and over the wall. As the booming sound of the flaming stone decimating a building resounds, screams fill the air. I have no doubt of the destruction being wrought, and this machine has the power to level the city if left unchecked.
Cold clarity washes over me.
Kharl Balzog has found allies outside the Southern Lands, and they gave him this machine. It’s not just my uncle supporting the witches in this war.
As I ride toward the machine, I find that the general I killed may have been the one using his magic to shield the catapult from our view, but the other generals are holding a barrier to keep us from it. I shove the eerie feeling of fingers creeping down my spine out of my mind, the innate gut feeling of being tested in a game where I alone am restricted to a fraction of the board while my enemies can view the entire thing.
Nightspark skirts an invisible perimeter, the wall of magic separating us and the witches crawling over the wooden structures. They all have black markings on their faces, but they don't screech and scream like the others. Their eyes are clearer as they glance in my direction as though checking that the barrier is holding. Whatever madness Kharl uses to twist their minds, it hasn't hindered them from learning how to operate the machine.
The pylons swing back down, ropes are reattached and pulled toward wheels and pulleys, and a boulder-sized piece of coal is heaved into the scoop with a flash of magic, the tiniest amount that crackles at the witch holding it as flames come to life over the coal. When the magic snaps again, it’s followed by a popping sound as the ropes snap and another ball of fire arcs through the air, screams of warning sounding from the fae soldiers in the booming crash as another building is hit.
The design of the shield is different to Rooke’s, no pillars digging into the earth where she had laid her talismans, and even as ignorant of magic as I am, the barrier feels weaker. If they die, their magic will surely go with them.
Heaving my shield back up, I spur Nightspark on, his blood still warm as it runs down the leathers of my pants and my boots to the ground below. It's not enough to risk his life yet, but if I can't seal it back up soon, it will.
Three more generals target the wall, each of them surrounded by the raving witches, but in the time that it took me to kill the first general the archers continued their own defenses, piles and piles of dead witches with poison tipped arrows protruding from their bodies. Those who weren't hit with a killing shot lie writhing in agony on the ground, their skin slowly changing to a gray-green as the toxins take hold and they choke on their own spittle until finally their hearts stop and death takes them.
We're still outnumbered greatly, but the odds are slowly shifting in our favor. With every swing of my sword and thump as an arrow hits home around me, we claw our way closer. The wall may have been breached, but it still stands strong, and more archers finally arrive to cover the eastern section.
There’s a screeching noise within the forest, then the sound of hooves as Alwyn finally returns to the battlefield, a hauntedif determined look in his eyes. The dozens of witches that streamed into the forest after him are gone.
“Kill the generals,” I call out, and then again, louder, as the archers all take aim.
