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He’d been right. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do this, but it was too late now.
The first soldier stopped overtop me, shifted his grip on his sword, ready to bring the blade down on my chest.
I scrambled to get out of the way in time, moving to the soldier’s right side. Instinct and terror moved me more than training as I drove my sword into the man’s exposed armpit. He looked as surprised as I was, blood leaking out of him like water from a spout.
He didn’t go down, nor did I free my blade from where it went in. We stood outside of time, a killer and the dead, eyes locked.
Killing him had been easy. Too easy. Like cutting meat at the dinner table.
The man blinked and staggered back a step, freeing himself from the blade. He had eyes the color of seasoned firewood, faded brown.
Blood poured out of his wound as if I’d driven a tap into him. His face twisted in pain. I panicked, thought to call a healer, but this man was my enemy, would’ve killed me.
Instead, I had killed him.
The finality of that left my tongue coated in stinging bile, but there was no time to throw up. Footsteps came up behind me. I turned, bringing the sword down as I had done a hundred times in practice. No blade came up to catch it, like in practice, though. Instead, I cleaved a stranger’s face to the bone. He went to the ground, gurgling blood.
I turned again. Someone else charged, another of the Fire Lord’s soldiers, but someone else opened their throat before they could get to me.
One of Morlash’s Skaags screamed to my right, dying impaled on the end of a blade. More of the same on my left and in front. Everywhere I looked, the world was made of blood and death and fire. The horizon tilted. I couldn’t breathe.
And then I heard the familiarthwangof a metal cord loosing a spear behind me. I spun around, straining to see through the line of fire. Above, Brenna’s dragon hovered close to the grove, well within range. Nisang’s unit had pushed her there with magic and blades of their own. No sword could pierce the dragon’s hide, but Brenna was vulnerable. She would have had to keep moving or else risk being stabbed herself.
She wore such thin armor…
I held my breath as the spear went into the air and missed by a wide margin.Rotate! Reset!The practiced command went through me like an arrow. I should have been back there, not up here. I was never supposed to be in the thick of the fight.
Another spear shot up out of the trees, this time on target. The dragon had to bank hard to one side for it to miss. As it came back around, razor-sharp teeth snapped at the winged soldiers. Fiery breath sprayed through their ranks and claws raked at the sky, tearing them apart.
The aerial legion scattered, but instead of chasing after them, Brenna turned the dragon back to the trees.
No.
No!
Another bolt shot out of the trees, narrowly missing. It didn’t matter. I saw the way the dragon jerked its head, the way its burning eyes narrowed, tracking the source of its annoyance, the way a cat watches a fly.
Brenna and her dragon had found our ballistas.
A line of fire bit into my back. I twisted and went down, wincing and still trying to find breath. I waited for the killing blow that should have come. Instead, the enemy soldier grabbed me by the neck and lifted me off the ground, snarling. Fingers curled around my windpipe, squeezing, crushing… killing.
He was killing me.
He drew back his sword, ready to spear me straight through the gut.
I did not see the shadow shoot out of the sky, but my ear knew the song of that blade as it split the air in two.
The tip of Thorn was no bigger than a needle coming through the center of the soldier’s throat, right above his Adam’s apple. The wound wept a single blood tear before Nisang twisted the blade and pulled it back through. The fire soldier went down, releasing his hold on my throat.
Nisang reached to steady me.
“Nisang, your wings…” The very sight of his wings made my knees buckle.
They were covered in blisters. He had to be in incredible pain, and yet not an ounce of it showed on his face. Just as he had been in the woods, he was the very image of calm.
“Fight now. Talk later,” was the only answer he gave me as he cut down someone else.
He was right. The line had completely collapsed. Dead Skaags lay everywhere. Nightmares writhed on the ground in pain. Brenna’s soldiers executed them rather than chase down new victims. Burning Skaags ran for the river, throwing themselves in to douse the fires eating them alive.
