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The morning sun rose red and cool, a reminder that the end of summer was not so very far away. Will was there first thing, the first I’d seen him since Midsummer. He hugged me and told me to look after myself.
Then I donned my armor, took my sword—the one I had brought with me from Adros—and found a horse. The ballistas were already ready, as were the troops, standing in straight columns, waiting for the order to march. We weren’t taking them all. About forty percent of the camp would remain in case Brenna tried to push in through the pass.
I had decided we would take five ballistas. Six would have been ideal, but when weighing the travel time against the advantage of having six, it made little sense. With luck, it would take only one to kill the dragon.
“So, you came to fight, after all.” Morlash spat into the dirt, eying me from his own horse as I climbed up into the saddle. “Surprised to see you upright. Heard there was an incident with a few of my Headhunters the other day.”
I leveled a glare at him. “If you ever try that shit with me again, I’ll slit your throat when you fall asleep.”
He scowled at me, but twisted around in his saddle, saying nothing.
Cian and Nisang came up the dirt road shoulder to shoulder, speaking quietly to one another, Hellion trailing behind. Nisang glanced in my direction but quickly away. They stopped just out of earshot and embraced arm to arm before Cian and Hellion came to me.
I leaned to kiss Cian.
He held my nose against his for a long moment. “Come back to me. I need you, Nevahn.”
Hellion’s tail curled around my neck and yanked me away from him. A little thrill went through me as they nibbled on my bottom lip. “Fight well and remember what I taught you.”
“I will,” I promised.
“I love you,” they whispered and, before I could return the sentiment, they let me go.
Cian gave Nisang a hard look, the meaning clear.Look out for him.
Nisang nodded once and let his wings flare. In a blast of air, he took to the sky, a shadow against the red dawn.
Morlash snorted. “Fuckin’ gargoyles.” He spat on the ground one more time before giving a whistle. “Soldiers! Forward march!”
My horse lurched forward, almost without command. The great wooden wheels of the ballista carts groaned and turned. A column of Nightmares and Skaags two thousand strong, took its first step, crawling slowly along the river toward distant hills. There, we would engage Brenna’s army of fire.
I felt Cian and Hellion’s eyes on my back as I rode away, but didn’t dare turn around. If I looked back, I’d lose my nerve. Butterfly wings beat in my stomach to the sound of marching feet. I looked down at my hand and concentrated, trying to will the little blue sparks back into existence, but nothing happened.
Itwastwoday’smarch to the river crossing called Lach Ban-Lenon. Our path took us straight up the shore, the river always to my left. In places, it was so wide we couldn’t see to the banks on the other side. Other places, it slowed to barely a trickle, the bulk of the flow moving underground.
We passed a dozen abandoned farms on the way, spending our first night on the outskirts of one. The commanders—Morlash, Nisang, and I—waited for a small group of Skaag Bloodhounds to scout the grounds before moving in to sleep in the barn. It was empty, with no sign that anyone had been there in quite some time. Morlash had wanted to sleep in the abandoned house, but out of respect for whomever had left the place, Nisang and I agreed not to set foot there. Once the war was over, the inhabitants might return, and we both knew the Skaags would not leave the place livable.
Halfway through the next morning, we came upon the aftermath of a previous skirmish. Bodies too decayed to identify lay on both sides of the river and strewn across the skeleton of a broken bridge. Flies buzzed among the dead, competing with crows for the meat. Horse carcasses, split open with rot, had before been home for maggots. Now, they were yawning bones picked clean. Most of the skeletons, too, had been cleaned of anything useful. Armor, weapons, and standards had all been carried away, either by our side or by scavengers. Brenna, I was told, did not bother retrieving her dead, or picking through the battlefields after in search of useful things.
The battlefield seemed to stretch on and on for miles, the earth trodden and red with stains. The smell was worse and seemed to follow us the rest of the day.
We arrived at Lach Ban-Lenon the following day in late afternoon.
The narrow river crossing sat on a patch of lush green land. Grassy shores rolled back to patchy forest on either side. The river itself was only twenty feet wide and three feet deep, easily crossable unless there was heavy rain.
I immediately took command of the ballista force while Morlash put the Skaags to work fortifying their position. Nisang worked with the rest to ready the field, removing trees, brush, and debris.
Two dozen Nightmares had been trained to work the ballistas and half as many Skaags as loaders and runners, all of them Bloodhounds. Between them, we got the ballistas moved into place. I sent the Nightmares best suited for it up into the trees to thin out the branches while the Bloodhounds mixed their camouflage paint.
Up close, the painted ballistas were easy to spot. Whirls and streaks of brown and green curled over the wood, the metallic parts coated with yet another mix of a more reddish brown. The Bloodhounds assured me that, from above, they would look like underbrush. We used some of the cut branches to enhance that appearance, strapping them to the wood with a thin wire.
“It will limit the range and speed of pivot,” I warned the operators, but there was no help for it. If Brenna spotted the ballistas before one hit their mark, we would lose our only advantage.
A shadow shot down through the trees and landed right behind me. I turned to address one of Nisang’s scouts, a faceless Nightmare with eyes on its wings and a mouth in its throat. “Iridyn’s forces were spotted headed for the crossing, coming from the southwest, two hours out.”
I did the math. That put them arriving at the crossing just at dusk. That’d make aiming the ballistas a lot more difficult.
“How many?” I asked.
