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The pendulum continued to swing in their direction, the odds tipping. The skeletons seemed to dwindle while the Treckish war band held firm, brutal in their work. The hope Corayne hated so much grew like a weed, springing up in her heart. She tried to ignore it, tried not to curse the battle before her eyes.
Hundreds lay dead, skeleton and mortal both, but the bones far outnumbered the bleeding flesh.
“Make ready your sword, Corayne,” Charlie whispered, dazed. His eyes shone with disbelief.
She grappled for the Spindleblade, reaching down to touch the worn leather hilt. Again she felt the echo of her father’s hand. His failure, and her triumph.
And then the bell tolled.
Crows scattered from the bell tower, cawing as they flapped into the iron-gray sky. Corayne watched them, wishing too for wings.
I was not there before. I never saw my father die,she thought, a pain splitting her head. She clutched at her forehead, all but falling from the saddle.But I know enough. The bell brought them.
Through slitted, watery eyes, she watched the doors of the temple. The light within flickered, wavering between gold and hateful red. It pulsed with the sharp pain in her skull, matching time like a beating heart. Whatever wind there was in the Ashlands picked up, blowing smoke and dust through the Spindle and onto the battlefield. It seemed to embolden the Ashlanders, who roared as one, their voices hollow and whistling, their impossible breath hissing through bone.
Dom stumbled with the bell, falling to a knee. Sorasa kept up her rhythm, standing over him with sword in one hand and dagger in the other. But she wasn’t enough, and the circle closed in, the Ashlanders hungry for a kill.
Sorasa’s voice carried over the toll of the bell. “Sigil!”
The Temur bounty hunter was already there, maneuvering her horse through the scrum. She leapt from its back with ax in hand, rolling to her feet on Dom’s opposite side. Still on his knees, heclutched at himself, but there was no blood Corayne could see. He flinched with every toll of the bell.
She could only guess what he saw, what he remembered.
Andry.
Despite the fiery hammer threatening to split her head in two, she raised her eyes to search for the blue star. There was Oscovko, wounded but still fighting, his mercenaries rallying around him. But no Andry. No blue star of a Gallish squire, barely more than a boy but better than every man around him.
On the temple steps, the doors still yawned, the red light growing. Shadows skittered within, and the first of the Ashlander reinforcements lurched through. They were worse than the ones on the battlefield, more decayed, turning to dust as they walked.
But they would be enough.
“Oh gods, save us,” Charlie mumbled.
Corayne swiped the tears from her eyes again, her skin prickling as the air turned hot. She snapped her reins.
“We must do that ourselves.”
Before he could stop her, she flew down the hill, her mind on two things.
The Spindle—and the blue star.
She heard nothing, smelled nothing. She felt the pain but blurred it out, letting it numb her. She saw only the line in front of her, between the ears of her horse. Her thighs tightened on the mare’s sides, gripping hard as Sigil had taught her. She left one hand free to hold the hilt of the Spindleblade, the other outstretched with her long knife, held at an angle to slice through any Ashlanders who might attack her flank.
The Treckish horse crashed down the hill, hitting the mud without losing speed. It was a sure-footed beast, strong enough to charge through rows of battle. Corayne tightened her thighs and dug in her heels. The mare quickened at her command, surging on.
“Corayne!” a voice roared, sounding miles away. She couldn’t distinguish who it belonged to, man or woman, immortal or mortal. She only knew it wasn’t Andry.
Then there he was, crumpled in her path, the blue star like a lighthouse across the ocean.
The agony in her head tripled, but it paled in comparison to the searing gash across her heart.
A yell ripped from her throat. “Andry!”
At her voice, he lurched, struggling to push himself up even as the mud tried to pull him back down. He was wounded but alive, a long cut across his face, another bleeding above his knee.But alive.
“Andry!” she said again, letting the long knife drop from her hand.
Her fingers remained stretched out, her arm reaching its full length. She gritted her teeth, willing him to move a little faster, to rise a little higher. Willing her own body to hold.
