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More like eight thousand, streaming in a never-ending river from the desiccated forest, the blood-soaked plain rumbling beneath my feet as they swarmed the flatlands, my soldiers rallying yet again.
A hail of arrows—courtesy of Tristan and his archers—flew overhead, and blue-cloaked soldiers dropped like flies, only to be replaced by twice as many.
One of them fell on the soldier beside me and ripped out his throat, swallowing the hunk of bloody flesh before I sliced my blade through the enemy’s throat, a shower of blood soaking the desert-dry earth.
The Oracle would get her wish today.
Gallons and gallons of blood would be shed, and unless we stemmed the deadly tide coming out of those trees, few of us would be marching back to Solarys. It was up to me to ensure as many as possible returned to the only home they’d ever known.
These men—my men—weren’tbad.
They just didn’t know the world could be better.
They’d never known a day of peace or a bit of hope that the world could be different than it was. That this bloody war would stop claiming fathers and sons, that they had other choices than to fight.
But first, they had to survive today.
Two Caladrian soldiers charged, teeth gnashing, and I spun, taking the first one’s head, slicing the second’s calf to the bone before I stopped. My shoulders ached when I stabbed my sword straight through his skull into the dirt, yanking the blade back out, parrying and slicing through a third.
The Shadow King was a monster and his reign of terror was a thousand-year long travesty, but these men were my responsibility. They had families and lives that they deserved to return to. While the Caladrians had spent days waiting among the dead trees, we’d traveled for five days to reach this place.
We’d been fighting for hours.
Our energy was flagging.
And they still kept coming.
We fought and fought, but I couldn’t stop looking up at the city above us, where somewhere, Anaria—and Tavion, too, since he hadn’t returned—was saving Raziel. Whatever happened down on this battlefield, they would escape this place.
A great shout went up and men began fleeing, enemy and ally alike, then I spotted the hounds towering over the clashing armies. The foul beasts ripped through men and horses like they were water, giving no quarter to their own men, until Tristan saw the threat from almost a mile away, and a barrage of arrows thick enough to block out the sun fell, pinning the beasts to the ground.
Soldiers went through and finished them off, driving sword and spear through their heads until they stopped moving, but the distraction had been enough for enemy lines to advance, their leading soldiers ducking behind braced shields, the second line hurling spears with deadly precision.
My front line shredded apart, then enemy soldiers spilled into our ranks, slashing through the lines with deadly ease. And beyond them…our enemy stretched as far as I could see, the broken forest masking their superior numbers, and I cursed myself for relying on the Oracle’s warning when I should have done my own scouting.
“Move to the front,” I shouted. “Keep the line solid.”
Still, Caladrius kept coming, wave after wave, driving us back to the east, toward base camp, as if we were sheep to be herded. But I was a warrior. I’d fought bigger armies, faced worse odds. And I was good at this shite.
The next few minutes were little more than muscle memory.
Step, step, stab. Turn, pivot, slash.
Blood splattered until I was dripping with it, layered with the dust, I soon had a crust of rust-colored mud over me, my boots caked solid.
A group of us had fought until we stood back-to-back, shields up, swords ready, surrounded by a circle of Caladrian Fae, hunger in their eyes, mouths already stained with blood.
Tavion and Raz would get Anaria out of this realm and back to Solarys. A hellish pit for sure, but better than here.
“We’re fucking surrounded. Won’t get out of this one,” The soldier to my right muttered, his sword wavering.
“Keep your shields up. Do not falter,” I warned them before I disappeared.
My magic flowed through me like water, seamless and cold, ripping me through space from one place to another, landing only long enough to slice through a throat, slide my sword between a ribcage, hack through a hamstring.
By the time I landed, more out of breath than I should have been, the knot of my soldiers was surrounded by a circle of bodies, none of them moving.
But it was a temporary victory.
