AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I couldn’t just sit there and wait, not knowing what was about to bear down on them. By our count, Brenna had only lost a thousand of her five thousand-strong contingent, and she had left another two thousand back at the pass.
Cian had just under fifteen hundred men.
I limped out of the infirmary, tying Thorn to my side and grabbed the first uninjured soldier I saw. “I need the freshest horse. Now!”
“Yes, Maelstrom.” The Skaag put a fist to his chest and hurried off.
Maelstrom… I wasn’t sure I liked the nickname, but it had seemed to stick just the same.
I tried to calm my pounding heart, tried not to think about the battle that might be going on right now, about the death. About Cian or Hellion dying.
I had almost worn a new trail in the grass by the time they brought me a horse. He was mud-stained, his flank speckled with blood that had yet to be brushed away, but they assured me he was the swiftest and strongest.
I rode, pushing the horse as much as I dared. It would kill the beast to ride at a full gallop all the way, so I had to slow it down two or three times every hour, let it recover. Every time I did, I gritted my teeth the whole time, counting the breaths, the steps until I felt the horse’s weary breathing calm. And then we were back to a gallop, tearing through the countryside as fast as it could go.
Night struck, and I had to slow or else risk laming the horse. The road wasn’t clear. Too many things had been left, too many bodies and bits of broken wagons, the jagged wooden shafts of splintered spears. The horse’s breathing stayed hard, even when we slowed. It was the only thing that kept me upright as exhaustion crept into my bones. Everything ached or burned. My throbbing head screamed that I should close my eyes, just for a second.
When was the last time I had slept well? It had been that last night at camp in Cian’s and Hellion’s arms.
I pushed on, passing the farmhouse where we had camped the first night as dawn crept into the sky.
Closer.
At mid-day, I spied the plumes of gray smoke in the distance and knew I had come too late.
I rode into a camp of cinders, the fires long ago gone out. Bodies—theirs and ours—lay still and cold in the mud.
“Cian!” My desperate cry cut through the smoke with no answer. I brought the horse around, searching, deciding what to do next, where to go.
I only heard the distant ring of steel splintering wood because of the wind. It changed direction at the right minute, carrying the sound down from the mountain. Gilmire’s Path. I remembered Morlash pointing it out during that first strategy meeting, the narrow path up on the western mountain. With Brenna’s much larger army bearing down, their best option would have been to funnel the larger numbers through a narrow space.
There were dead and dying every step of the way up the narrow, rocky slope. More waited below in the valley, bloated with decay. The smell alone was enough to sting the eyes and nose. It would have destroyed morale to force our troops to fight up there, surrounded by their own dead. I came to a wall of bodies at a curve, the pass so thick with the dead and dying that I couldn’t progress on horseback.
I dismounted and fought to climb over them, trying not to feel burned skin crumble to ash in my fingers. The battle was just around the bend, up a small rise wide enough to allow only one to advance on either side. Cian’s black armor glistened, red with blood and gore. He had lost his helmet, leaving his bloodstained braids stark against his back. His black wings hung low, tired but ready to carry him away at any moment. Yet he stood back-to-back with Hellion, who was bloodied and bruised. One arm hung useless at their side, dripping with blood while black tendrils stabbed through armor and batted aside swords.
Odan stood between them, kicking attackers back and gutting anyone who came too close with his knives.
Phantasm came down, cleaving an attacker at the shoulder. Cian kicked the soldier back, only to have another charge up the slope at him. Brenna’s men had formed a queue that sloped around either side. As each man fell, the slope grew, providing a wider platform for Cian and Hellion. They’d climbed up to stand on their defeated enemies and cut down more.
Exhaustion was etched in their faces, in the slow and stiff movements of joints and muscles. Brenna’s forces were bleeding them, body and soul.
Why haven’t they fled? Cian and Odan have their wings.At any moment, both of them could be in the sky, flying to safety. Unless they hadn’t come up there to win.
The bodies in the pass… There were many, but not enough. The bulk of our force had to be somewhere else.
They were buying time for the retreat. They would hold that spot until they could no longer stand, and then…
Odan threw one of his last two knives, sending it into the eye socket of an attacker who had dared close on Cian.
Cian leaned back and gave me a clear sight of what had just formed on the other side of the pass. A whole company of archers had taken up position, arrows nocked. They’d kill their own men with a volley, but it seemed Brenna had no shortage to sacrifice, and Cian was a worthy target.
“Cian!” I shouted as a warning.
His sword faltered and his eyes went wide, scanning the pass. He had just found me when the order came to fire.
Black feathered rain fell on the pass, each arrowhead finding a target. Some of Brenna’s own men fell, twitching, to the rocky ground.
Odan twisted, grabbed Cian, and pulled him back. Hellion’s shadowy tentacles shot out, shielding Cian, but it was too late.
