Kingdom of Ash
Page 99
The bolt went wide, slamming through the mountain rock.
It would have pierced Salkhi’s chest, straight into his heart.
Stomach churning, Nesryn soared up again, assessing the soldiers below.
Sartaq signaled from nearby, Weave in through two different directions. Meet in the center.
The winds screamed in her ears, but Nesryn tugged on the reins, and Salkhi banked in a wide arc. Sartaq turned Kadara, the mirror image to Nesryn’s maneuver.
“Fast as you can, Salkhi!” Nesryn shouted to her ruk.
Gaining on the dam, on the soldiers, Salkhi and Kadara soared toward each other, crossed paths, and arced outward again. Weaving fast as the wind itself. Denying the archers an easy target.
An iron bolt fired for Sartaq and ripped through air above him, nearly grazing his head.
The battering ram slammed into the wood again.
A splintering crack sounded this time. A deep groan, like some terrible beast awakening from a long slumber.
Another iron bolt shot for them and missed. Nesryn and Sartaq wove past each other, flying so fast her eyes streamed. The wind sang, full of the voices of the dying and injured.
And then they were there, Salkhi’s talons outstretched as he slammed into the iron machine that had launched those bolts, ripping it apart. Soldiers screamed as the ruk fell upon them, too.
Those at the battering ram got in another thundering boom against the dam before Sartaq and Kadara slashed into them. Men went flying, some hitting the dam. Some landing in pieces.
Kadara hurled the battering ram onto the nearby mountain face, wood splintering with the impact. It rolled away into the rocks and vanished.
Heart thundering, the battle on the plain below still raging, Nesryn wheeled Salkhi around and took stock of the dam wall, Sartaq doing the same beside her.
What they saw made them soar back to the keep as swiftly as the winds could carry them.
Lorcan had battled his way down the first siege tower’s dim, cramped interior, slaughtering the soldiers in his path. Gavriel followed behind him, soon catching up as Lorcan found himself holding the entrance to the tower against the countless soldiers trying to get in.
The two of them stemmed the tide, even as a few of the Morath grunts got past their swords. Whitethorn and the queen would be waiting to pick them off.
Lorcan lost track of how long he and Gavriel held the entrance to the siege tower—how long it took until their forces were able to dislodge it.
Their magic would be useless. The entire damn thing was built of iron. The ladders, too. As if Morath had anticipated their presence.
Only the groaning of collapsing metal warned them the tower was coming down, and sent them racing onto the battlefield.
Where they’d found themselves outside the gates. Fenrys and Lord Chaol had appeared at the battlement walls with archers, and fired at the soldiers who’d rushed for Lorcan and Gavriel.
But he and the Lion had already marked their next target: the battering ram still slamming into those ever-weakening gates. And with the archers covering from above, they’d begun slaughtering their way to it. And then slaughtering their way along the ram itself, until it thudded to the ground, then was forgotten in the wave of Morath soldiers who came for them.
Lorcan’s breath had been a steady beat, a grounding force as the bodies piled around them.
They need only hold the gate long enough for the khagan’s army to overrun the Morath host.
From above, a swift, brutal wind added to the dance of death, ripping the air from the lungs of soldiers charging at them, even as he knew Whitethorn kept fighting on the battlements.
Lorcan again lost track of time. Only vaguely knew the sun was arcing across the sky.
But the khagan’s army was gaining the field, inch by inch.
Enough so that the ruks wrenched the siege ladders from the keep walls. Enough so that Lord Chaol shouted down to him and Gavriel to scale a siege ladder and get the hell back up here.
Gavriel obeyed, spotting the iron ladder cleared of Morath soldiers, being held in place only long enough for them to climb back up to the battlements.
But the khagan’s forces were near. And a nudge at Lorcan’s shoulder told him not to run, but to fight.
So Lorcan listened. He didn’t bother to shout to Gavriel, now half up the ladder, before he plunged into the fray.
He’d been bred for battle. Regardless of what queen he served, whether she was Fae or Valg or human, this was what he had been trained to do. What some part of him sang to do.
Lorcan plowed his own path toward the advancing khagan lines, some Morath soldiers fleeing in his wake. Some falling before he reached them, his magic snapping their lives away.
Soon now. They’d win the field soon, and the song in his blood would quiet.
Part of him didn’t want it to end, even as his body began to scream to rest.
Yet when the battle was done, what would remain?
Nothing. Elide had made that clear enough. She loved him, but she hated herself for it.
He hadn’t deserved her anyway.
She deserved a life of peace, of happiness. He didn’t know such things. Had thought he’d glimpsed them during the months they’d traveled together, before everything went to hell, but now he knew he was not meant for anything like it.
But this battlefield, this death-song around him … This, he could do. This, he could savor.
The golden helmets of the khagan’s army became clear, their fiery horses unfaltering. Finer than any host he’d fought beside in a mortal kingdom. In many immortal kingdoms, too.
Obeying the death-song in his blood, Lorcan let his shields drop. He did not wish it to be easy. He wanted to feel each blow, see his enemy’s life drain out beneath his sword.
He didn’t care what came of it. No one would care if he made it back to the keep anyway. He didn’t balk as he engaged the ten soldiers who charged for him.
Perhaps he deserved what happened next. Deserved it for his pathetic thoughts, or his arrogance in lowering his shields.
One moment, he was handily sending the Morath grunts back to their dark maker. One moment, he was grinning, even as he tasted their vile blood spraying the air.
A flash of metal at his back. Lorcan whirled, sword rising, but too late.
The Valg soldier’s blade swept upward. Lorcan arched, bellowing as flesh tore along his spine. No armor—there had been no armor to fit them across their torsos.
The Morath soldier moved again, more adept than the others. Perhaps the man he’d infested had some skill on the battlefield, something the demon wielded to its advantage.
Lorcan could barely lift his sword before the soldier plunged his own into Lorcan’s gut.
Lorcan fell, sword clattering. Icy mud sucked at his face, as if it would swallow him whole. Pull him down into the dark depths of Hellas’s realm, where he deserved to be.
The earth shook beneath thundering hooves, and arrows screamed overhead.
Then there was roaring. And then blackness.
CHAPTER 59
The khagan’s army took no prisoners.
A few of Morath’s soldiers tried to escape into the city. Standing beside Aelin on the keep battlements, Rowan watched the ruks pick them off with lethal efficiency.
His ears still rang with the din of battle, his breath a rasping beat echoed by Aelin. Already, the small wounds on him had begun to heal, a tingling itch beneath his stained clothes. The gash he’d taken to his leg, however, would need longer.
Across the plain, stretching toward the horizon, the khagan’s army made sure their kills stayed down. Swords and spears flashed in the afternoon light as they rose and fell, severing heads. Rowan had always remembered the chaos and rush of battle, but this—the dazed, weary aftermath—this, he’d forgotten.
Healers already made their way over the battlefield, their white banners stark against the sea of black and gold. Those who needed more intensive help were carried off by ruks and brought right to the chaos of the Great Hall.
Atop the blood-slick battlements, their allies and companions around them, Rowan wordlessly passed Aelin the waterskin. She drank deeply, then handed it to Fenrys.
An unleashing and release. That’s what the battle had been for his mate.
“Minimal losses,” Princess Hasar was saying, a hand braced on a small section of the battlement wall that was not coated in black or red gore. “The foot soldiers got hit hardest; the Darghan remain mostly intact.”
It would have pierced Salkhi’s chest, straight into his heart.
Stomach churning, Nesryn soared up again, assessing the soldiers below.
Sartaq signaled from nearby, Weave in through two different directions. Meet in the center.
The winds screamed in her ears, but Nesryn tugged on the reins, and Salkhi banked in a wide arc. Sartaq turned Kadara, the mirror image to Nesryn’s maneuver.
“Fast as you can, Salkhi!” Nesryn shouted to her ruk.
Gaining on the dam, on the soldiers, Salkhi and Kadara soared toward each other, crossed paths, and arced outward again. Weaving fast as the wind itself. Denying the archers an easy target.
An iron bolt fired for Sartaq and ripped through air above him, nearly grazing his head.
The battering ram slammed into the wood again.
A splintering crack sounded this time. A deep groan, like some terrible beast awakening from a long slumber.
Another iron bolt shot for them and missed. Nesryn and Sartaq wove past each other, flying so fast her eyes streamed. The wind sang, full of the voices of the dying and injured.
And then they were there, Salkhi’s talons outstretched as he slammed into the iron machine that had launched those bolts, ripping it apart. Soldiers screamed as the ruk fell upon them, too.
Those at the battering ram got in another thundering boom against the dam before Sartaq and Kadara slashed into them. Men went flying, some hitting the dam. Some landing in pieces.
Kadara hurled the battering ram onto the nearby mountain face, wood splintering with the impact. It rolled away into the rocks and vanished.
Heart thundering, the battle on the plain below still raging, Nesryn wheeled Salkhi around and took stock of the dam wall, Sartaq doing the same beside her.
What they saw made them soar back to the keep as swiftly as the winds could carry them.
Lorcan had battled his way down the first siege tower’s dim, cramped interior, slaughtering the soldiers in his path. Gavriel followed behind him, soon catching up as Lorcan found himself holding the entrance to the tower against the countless soldiers trying to get in.
The two of them stemmed the tide, even as a few of the Morath grunts got past their swords. Whitethorn and the queen would be waiting to pick them off.
Lorcan lost track of how long he and Gavriel held the entrance to the siege tower—how long it took until their forces were able to dislodge it.
Their magic would be useless. The entire damn thing was built of iron. The ladders, too. As if Morath had anticipated their presence.
Only the groaning of collapsing metal warned them the tower was coming down, and sent them racing onto the battlefield.
Where they’d found themselves outside the gates. Fenrys and Lord Chaol had appeared at the battlement walls with archers, and fired at the soldiers who’d rushed for Lorcan and Gavriel.
But he and the Lion had already marked their next target: the battering ram still slamming into those ever-weakening gates. And with the archers covering from above, they’d begun slaughtering their way to it. And then slaughtering their way along the ram itself, until it thudded to the ground, then was forgotten in the wave of Morath soldiers who came for them.
Lorcan’s breath had been a steady beat, a grounding force as the bodies piled around them.
They need only hold the gate long enough for the khagan’s army to overrun the Morath host.
From above, a swift, brutal wind added to the dance of death, ripping the air from the lungs of soldiers charging at them, even as he knew Whitethorn kept fighting on the battlements.
Lorcan again lost track of time. Only vaguely knew the sun was arcing across the sky.
But the khagan’s army was gaining the field, inch by inch.
Enough so that the ruks wrenched the siege ladders from the keep walls. Enough so that Lord Chaol shouted down to him and Gavriel to scale a siege ladder and get the hell back up here.
Gavriel obeyed, spotting the iron ladder cleared of Morath soldiers, being held in place only long enough for them to climb back up to the battlements.
But the khagan’s forces were near. And a nudge at Lorcan’s shoulder told him not to run, but to fight.
So Lorcan listened. He didn’t bother to shout to Gavriel, now half up the ladder, before he plunged into the fray.
He’d been bred for battle. Regardless of what queen he served, whether she was Fae or Valg or human, this was what he had been trained to do. What some part of him sang to do.
Lorcan plowed his own path toward the advancing khagan lines, some Morath soldiers fleeing in his wake. Some falling before he reached them, his magic snapping their lives away.
Soon now. They’d win the field soon, and the song in his blood would quiet.
Part of him didn’t want it to end, even as his body began to scream to rest.
Yet when the battle was done, what would remain?
Nothing. Elide had made that clear enough. She loved him, but she hated herself for it.
He hadn’t deserved her anyway.
She deserved a life of peace, of happiness. He didn’t know such things. Had thought he’d glimpsed them during the months they’d traveled together, before everything went to hell, but now he knew he was not meant for anything like it.
But this battlefield, this death-song around him … This, he could do. This, he could savor.
The golden helmets of the khagan’s army became clear, their fiery horses unfaltering. Finer than any host he’d fought beside in a mortal kingdom. In many immortal kingdoms, too.
Obeying the death-song in his blood, Lorcan let his shields drop. He did not wish it to be easy. He wanted to feel each blow, see his enemy’s life drain out beneath his sword.
He didn’t care what came of it. No one would care if he made it back to the keep anyway. He didn’t balk as he engaged the ten soldiers who charged for him.
Perhaps he deserved what happened next. Deserved it for his pathetic thoughts, or his arrogance in lowering his shields.
One moment, he was handily sending the Morath grunts back to their dark maker. One moment, he was grinning, even as he tasted their vile blood spraying the air.
A flash of metal at his back. Lorcan whirled, sword rising, but too late.
The Valg soldier’s blade swept upward. Lorcan arched, bellowing as flesh tore along his spine. No armor—there had been no armor to fit them across their torsos.
The Morath soldier moved again, more adept than the others. Perhaps the man he’d infested had some skill on the battlefield, something the demon wielded to its advantage.
Lorcan could barely lift his sword before the soldier plunged his own into Lorcan’s gut.
Lorcan fell, sword clattering. Icy mud sucked at his face, as if it would swallow him whole. Pull him down into the dark depths of Hellas’s realm, where he deserved to be.
The earth shook beneath thundering hooves, and arrows screamed overhead.
Then there was roaring. And then blackness.
CHAPTER 59
The khagan’s army took no prisoners.
A few of Morath’s soldiers tried to escape into the city. Standing beside Aelin on the keep battlements, Rowan watched the ruks pick them off with lethal efficiency.
His ears still rang with the din of battle, his breath a rasping beat echoed by Aelin. Already, the small wounds on him had begun to heal, a tingling itch beneath his stained clothes. The gash he’d taken to his leg, however, would need longer.
Across the plain, stretching toward the horizon, the khagan’s army made sure their kills stayed down. Swords and spears flashed in the afternoon light as they rose and fell, severing heads. Rowan had always remembered the chaos and rush of battle, but this—the dazed, weary aftermath—this, he’d forgotten.
Healers already made their way over the battlefield, their white banners stark against the sea of black and gold. Those who needed more intensive help were carried off by ruks and brought right to the chaos of the Great Hall.
Atop the blood-slick battlements, their allies and companions around them, Rowan wordlessly passed Aelin the waterskin. She drank deeply, then handed it to Fenrys.
An unleashing and release. That’s what the battle had been for his mate.
“Minimal losses,” Princess Hasar was saying, a hand braced on a small section of the battlement wall that was not coated in black or red gore. “The foot soldiers got hit hardest; the Darghan remain mostly intact.”
