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“Five thousand. The ivory dragon is with them.”
I tried not to react. The troops were watching me. It wasn’t news that we were outnumbered. We had known that going in. Cian had already won several battles with worse odds. A stab of loss went through me.I wish you were here, Cian. You would know what to do.
“Just one dragon though,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
That drew a few relieved chuckles.
I forced my shoulders back. “Tell Nisang we’re ready here. Remind him about the spell. Visibility was going to be shit either way, but we’re blind in the dark.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else for General Nisang?”
“Tell him…” I hesitated. We’d barely spoken since the incident in the training yard. Nisang had kept his distance. I’d wanted to talk to him ever since we left, tell him things were good between us. Yet, even at camp, he was always busy elsewhere. This conversation through his scout was the closest we’d come to speaking, but I couldn’t relay an apology through an underling. Not only might he see that as an insult—and cowardly—but our disagreement had been too personal to involve someone else. “Tell him good luck.”
The Nightmare messenger nodded its blank face and shot up into the sky.
I turned back to the small force Cian had entrusted to me. Thirty-six faces stared back, all of them weary.
Some of them would be dead before morning. The thought nearly took the wind out of me. I pushed it away, forced myself to focus on the here and now. They needed me to say something.
“I see the worry in your faces,” I said, still scanning them. “And you just heard what we already knew. We’re out numbered, and we’ll be shooting blind.”
“Better than shooting blanks,” shouted one of the Skaags.
Half of them laughed. The other half still looked like they wanted to run for the hills.
I climbed up onto one of the ballista platforms. “You’re right to be worried. After all, I’m not one of you. This is my first command. I’ve never even fought in a battle before. I have no scales, no wings, no extra eyes, or limbs. But I have lived among you, and even in half a year I have seen braver men here than any in my homeland. I’ve seen their steel, melted it myself. I can tell you there’s a reason they’ve needed their dragon to come this far.”
A few nods and grunts of agreement.
“We aren’t here to stop their advance. We are here to cut off their balls. We only need one bolt to hit. One. Considering the number of bolts and spears I brought… Well, let’s just say they gave us theeasyjob.” I pointed to the trees. “Look around you and remember this place. Tomorrow, the trees will be ash, the ground red with blood. When the sun rises and the ash settles, a dragon’s corpse will lie in the field beyond. You—” I pointed to one operator. “What’s your name?”
He looked around, unsure if I meant him at first. “N-Nir.”
“How does Nir the dragon slayer sound?”
He sprouted a toothy smile. “Sounds pretty damn good to me, sir.”
“And you?” I asked, pointing to another.
He pounded his chest with three arms. “Villic!”
“Villic dragon’s bane. Morey the sure-shot. Gundri eagle eye.” One by one, I pointed them out. “Whoever you were before, whatever your breed or background, tonight, I only care about one thing. Shoot that oversized lizard down! Earn your names!”
A rumble of agreement went up from the troops. Not quite the victory cry I was hoping for, but they were visibly more settled.
“I want those ballistas loaded and in position within the hour.”
A chorus of “Yes, sir,” answered.
It took everything I had to keep my stomach calm until I had walked a suitable distance. I found a spot by a vine-covered oak and heaved there where the men wouldn’t hear me. The vomiting left me shaking and struggling to breathe, fighting off the icy fingers of panic closing around my throat.
“So, you’re a vomiter.”
I froze at the sound of Nisang’s voice above me. Slowly, I lifted my eyes to a tree branch about five feet overhead. There he sat, sharpening one of his daggers. If I hadn’t been so busy throwing up, I probably would’ve heard him because he didn’t seem to have stopped.
He drew his knife slowly over the sharpening stone, his face the picture of serenity. “I remember my first big battle. Someone told me I should eat a big breakfast. He thought it was funny to see me heaving behind a tree later that day. Eggs are not fun the second time around.”
My stomach surged, and I bent over the tree root again, unable to hold it back.
