They madeus wait five hours. In the drowning rain, in the cold that sapped the strength of both rider and soldier. Unease grew like a disease with every hour that passed, spreading from person to person, shored up by a yelled,Hold your nerve, it’s your fear these bastards want, but why should we make it easy for them?But not for long.
On the fifth hour, the wyverns hovering like a dark swarm over the edge of the mountains finally moved. They showed no sign of exhaustion, fear, or cold biting through to the bone. I marked the riders that flew among them, scattered through the ranks with enough of a pattern that I estimated each one commanded a hundred wyverns.
“The commanders first,” I shouted to my legion, to the riders around us, to whoever was listening. “Take out the riders, aim for anyone you see with a whistle or anything that shines silver.”
We’d filled the front lines with the battle-hardened riders, with the wyverns who’d flown to guard the wall for decades, the phalanx on the ground full of warriors who’d walked on and off so many battlefields it was a miracle they still lived. I remindedmyself of that as the Zalaam army marched with such precision their boots fell like a drumbeat on the ground.
It was a cliché—their ink-dark uniforms, their unnaturally synchronised movements, their expressionless faces. I’d known evil for long enough to know it hid behind pretty faces as easily as empty or cruel ones, but something about seeing an army in black marching for us made a shiver ripple down my spine. As if the night itself had sent its shadows to fight us.
The wyverns flew too fucking quickly. There was no room for thoughts of Ameirah, for worries about my mother and sister, for anything except the sheen of rain across scales and talons and eyes as black as a starless sky.
“Ready,” I roared, and the order echoed from commander to commander, all the way to the back of the lines. Below, with a groan of leather and metal, our soldiers began to march.
I forced my breathing to remain steady, forced air in and out of my lungs as I marked a rider in the front. The rain carried the scent of hot iron and fire as the order to draw up fire echoed from Kamaal.
Ready?I asked Mak.
His reply was a low growl.Let’s roast these fuckers.
The armies below us clashed first, the sound of scraping metal like shrieks on the air. A thrum settled in my blood, nerves running through me like a shudder as I lifted my hands and called on the lightning. My skin itched as the mark grew, my back cold as if the lightning’s scar burned its way around my sides, making my back its canvas. It didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, when these wyverns would conquer my home for their queen.
It wasn’t Woodsurn I fought for, wasn’t even the Fortress or the fallen wall. With the first bolt of lightning I drove into the rider I’d marked, light shattering off a shield around the man, I thought of the Red Star, the kasbah that had saved and shelteredme. The fortress city where I fell in love with my wife. I wouldn’t let a single damn wyvern through this line. I wouldn’t surrender those memories, that home.
I called another bolt of crackling lightning, and I struck. And struck.
CHAPTER 45
VARIDIAN
It had been hours. So many hours fighting in the cold, rain-drenched sky over Woodsurn that I’d lost track of time. There was no end to the rows of Zalaam wyverns. For every rider we took out, for every riderless wyvern we knocked onto their army below, an endless stream of creatures patched the holes.
We’d lost wyverns from our front line, and our second, and our third. Lost warriors and civilians below as the dying beasts crashed into their tight lines. I forced myself not to look, but there was no blotting out the urgent yells, the screams, and the shocked silence that fell for only a few moments after—all that those fighting could allow, with the Zalaam army driving into them like a battering ram.
Our wyverns clashed with theirs in a messy tangle of teeth and talons, until my head was a drone of static and silence, my body a machine I operated on instinct. The fight was so close, those fire-filled throats so close. To unleash the flames wouldengulf themselves as well, so wings tore through wings, talons struck talons, and teeth sank into leather and wing and hide. And if those wyverns bore riders, my lightning or the fire, air, ice, or aether of the riders around us would tear them from their mounts.
I didn’t acknowledge why that magic was being saved for the riders, for the killing blow that made the wyverns easier to knock from their flight. I didn’t want to think about the magic that had begun to run thin, especially when the front lines distorted, buckling as enemy and ally tangled.
Only the white leather tied around the arms of riders marked our allies—an idea from my brilliant wife. It saved Shula from being gored by one of our own wyverns. Saved me being spiked by a deadly hot whip of flame wielded by a wide-eyed rider it took me a moment to recognise. She was one of our house guard from the Red Star. Kamila.
“Come back here, you weasel bastard,” I heard Zaarib shout in a split-second pause of the roaring noise. I allowed myself a split second to look, to see him chasing after a commander with his arms raised and hands in fists. The rider’s black wyvern slowed, unable to fight the drag of Zaarib’s magic. And in the rider’s mouth was the silver gleam of a whistle. He was one of the riders compelling the wyverns, calling yet more of them into the skies. And the reason I couldn’t sink my claws of control into them. If I could, this battle would have been over hours ago.
They’re falling back,the lightning soul said warily, glimpsing something beyond my sight.
“Good,” I grunted through gritted teeth, dragging a thin bolt of crackling magic from the dark cloud above and driving it into the heart of the rider Zaarib held still, then into the wyvern’s mighty chest.
A grin crossed my friend’s face, a wolf’s smile, and our stares connected for a moment—all I dared allow—before Mak growledat me to keep my head where it belonged. His jaws had snapped around the neck of a silvery green wyvern, his head shaking with brutal violence until the creature went still.
The wyvern’s descent was inevitable, but we’d pushed further and further forward, so the silver-green crashed into the Zalaam army, carving a hole through their ranks. Flattening warriors, breaking bones, snapping necks on impact.
Dahab bellowed, and I whipped my stare back to him to see his broad head slam into the side of the black wyvern I struck with lightning. It wasn’t enough to push it away, to stop its angled fall. It would land on our own army, shattering spines and paralysing the brave people who’d answered our call. Or simply killing them on impact.
A lump crushed my throat. Ached viciously. I tore my stare away from its falling body, and told myself killing its rider, killing the wyvern had saved more lives than we lost. One more whistle removed from play.
And like it had the other times we’d taken one out, enemy wyverns began to shake their heads, not in a deadly snaking motion, but like they were waking up from a deep and disorienting sleep.
Some of them ducked below the frantic clash, evading the fight. And that was interesting. If we destroyed the whistles, the commanders, some of the wyverns would flee of their own accord. A threat to be sure, but not as immediate as the fangs bared as a dark purple wyvern opened its jaws. Heat made the air shake.Fuck.
“Take it out!” someone yelled. “It’s going to breathe!”
