Page 89 of Where Broken Wings Fly

Horror, true and utter horror, moved through me when I saw Rory charge towards them, his body soon lost amongst theirs.

Half of them carried on. Blades high in the sky, their eyes filled with nothing but savagery, I was left simply staring at the third threat to me in the last ten minutes.

Then dark brown hair, a frown where I hadn’t seen one before, and a bow pulled taut against her face. Niamh had arrived at my side, guarding my collapsed body like I was nothing more than an infant.

“Go, Niamh!” I roared, finally finding the strength to push myself up to my feet and pull the arrow from my side. She released her string, the arrow flying true and fast towards the first of the Rachainn.

She spared a glance over her shoulder. “I’m not leaving you!”

“Raegan needs you,” I begged as I lifted myself to my toes, trying to peer over the blades of grass in an attempt to see the Prince. “He’s over there. Uamhas got him!”

Niamh’s face twisted as she released a second arrow, finally tossing the bow over her shoulder and flicking her eyes between me and where I had pointed to Raegan. I took that same shaking hand and pressed it to my wound. That made Niamh shake her head at me.

“I won’t leave you here alone, Olivia.”

Just as she pulled her sword from her side in preparation for the fight to come, the Rachainn reached us. Faster than either of us had thought, because the one leading the group already had his blade out in front of him, where he quickly plunged it into Niamh’s side.

“Niamh!” I bellowed as a heavy set of wings began to beat above me, a new and darker shadow taking its place over top of us. Urram dropped to the earth only a second later, before his jaw hinged open and the Rachainn were left as nothing but ash that floated away in the harsh winds.

I dropped to her side where she had fallen, restlessly pulling at her clothes where she tried to assess her wound. Pushing her hands away, I took over and tried my best to identify where she had been hit. She wasn’t a dog or a cat, but the anatomy and the stitching together of bodies wasn’t so different from humans. Well, pixies.

It didn’t look too bad. Blood wasn’t immediately pulsing from the space, leaving just a cavernous hole in her side that looked like nothing more than a source of agony that the young pixie groaned against.

Urram finished frying everyone around us before he swivelled a slitted eye in my direction. “You were hit.”

“I’m fine,” I grunted. In all honesty, I couldn’t feel anything. It was probably the adrenaline that was pumping through my body, but I didn’t dare question it. Instead, I reached a hand up and pushed as much of my damp hair away from my face as I could, before I looked back down at Niamh. She was curled over on her side, both hands pressed to that wound, her eyes pinched.

“Urram, where did they set up the healers? We need to get her there, now.”

The beast nodded his head before dropping as low as he possibly could against the dirt. Somehow — again, adrenaline, possibly — I lifted Niamh and winced as she let out a weak cry. But then we were climbing up Urram’s back, using his scales as some sort of rock-climbing-wall, until I was seated over his spine with Niamh wrapped tightly in my arms.

~

I didn’t want to leave Niamh there, alone, with the healers, but the fight waged on. Urram and I took back to the skies, where we peered down at the chaos below with faces braced against the cold.

That was where I saw Killian arrive in front of Raegan, who was slouched down on his knees before Uamhas who was calling his armies to watch. His sword, lifted high in the air, was on a sweeping arc towards Raegan’s neck when Killian intercepted it with his own.

Raegan groaned as he slumped forward, blood pulsing from his stomach. But the Prince was nothing if not stubborn, and pushed himself to his feet just in time to see Killian meet another swing from Uamhas.

Killian had lived his whole life for this moment. None other, but this. And as his sword raised a third time, the shine in his eyes was renewed, a thirst in the crease of his brows as he swung his mighty blade.

He had been right, his name would be forever remembered by the pixies. Because that sword cut clean into Uamhas’ neck, freeing the head of the King of the Rachainn clear from his shoulders. It flew through the air, where it bounced against the meadow and found itself in a small crevice in the earth, eyes still wide open.

Honour and valor burst from Killian as he pumped his sword into the air several times, letting the words echo from his mouth across the entire battle. “Uamhas of Nothing is dead!”

Everyone stilled.

Cheers and cries of victory tumbled through the crowds, but mixed in were the screeches of defeat. Then the swords that dropped, the bows that relaxed once more. The clouds parted, the rain stopped.

It was instinct that forced the two armies to regroup once more. Those of Saoghal met across the fields, reforming tight lines of weapons and scowls. Then the Rachainn, crawling their way across the carnage until they circled around the dead King.

The battle had started off well matched. Thousands of them to thousands of Saoghal. But now…

Over half of the Rachainn had been slaughtered. They seemed to realize that, too, as they rose from the death of their leader. They all turned to face those of Saoghal, submission etched into their faces as they came to understand that they had lost.

They all dropped to their knees. Hung their heads. Released their weapons.

Raegan was on Rìoghail once more, the beast thundering across the meadow where Raegan fought against his wound, his sword in the air, victory in his eyes. Gliocas perched on his shoulder, blood dripping from his beak, feathers seared from his flesh.