Nesryn ran out of arrows too soon.
Morath did not flee, even with the might of the Darghan riders and the foot soldiers upon them. So they slowly advanced, leaving bodies clad in black as well as gold armor in their wake. More Morath soldiers than their own, but it was hard—near-unbearable—to see so many go down. To see the beautiful horses of the Darghan riderless. Or felled themselves.
The rukhin took losses, but not as many. Not now that an army fought beneath them.
Sartaq led the center, and from where Nesryn commanded the left flank, she kept an eye on him and Kadara. An eye on Borte and Yeran, leading the right flank to the far western side of the battle, Falkan Ennar in ruk form with them. Perhaps she imagined it, but Nesryn could have sworn the shifter fought with renewed vigor. As if the years returned to him aided his strength.
Nesryn nudged Salkhi, and they dove again, the riders behind her following suit. Arrows and spears rose to meet them, some Morath soldiers fleeing. Nesryn and Salkhi rose back into the air coated in more black blood.
High overhead, twin rukhin scout patrols monitored the battle. As Nesryn wiped the black blood from her face, one rider dove—right for Sartaq.
Sartaq was soaring away a heartbeat later.
Nesryn knew he’d kick her ass for it, but she shouted to the rukhin captain behind her to hold formation, and steered Salkhi after the prince.
“Get back in line,” Sartaq ordered over the wind, his skin unusually ashen.
“What’s wrong?” she called. Salkhi flapped harder, falling into line with the prince’s ruk.
Sartaq pointed ahead. To the wall of mountains just beyond the lake and city.
To the dam that he’d so casually mentioned breaking to wipe away Morath’s army.
With each flap of Salkhi’s wings, it became clearer. What had sent him into a mad dash.
A group of Morath soldiers had taken the night not to rest, but to sneak through the abandoned city. To scale the foothills, then the mountain wall. To the dam itself.
Where they now, with battering rams and wicked cunning, sought to unleash it.
Salkhi swept closer. Nesryn reached for an arrow. Her fingers curled around air.
Sartaq, however, had two arrows left, and fired both upon the thirty or so Morath soldiers heaving a mammoth battering ram into the center of the dam. Wood, and stone, and iron, ancient and foreboding. A few cracks, and it would come down.
And then the upper lake and river penned up behind it would rage across the plain.
Morath did not care if its own forces were washed away. They would lose today anyway.
They would not allow the khagan’s army to walk off the plain, either.
Both of Sartaq’s arrows found their marks, but the two soldiers who went down did not cause the others to drop the battering ram. Again, they heaved the ram back—and swung it forward.
The boom of wood on wood echoed up to them.
They soared near enough that the iron enforcements at the tip of the battering ram became clear. Thick iron casing, capped with spikes meant to shred and pierce. If Salkhi and Kadara could reach it, they could rip the ram from their hands—
Metal groaned and clanked, and Sartaq’s warning cry shattered across the air.
Salkhi banked on instinct, spying the massive iron bolt before Nesryn did. A bolt fired from a heavy-looking device they must have rolled up here. To keep ruks away.
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 p
ath 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.”
Rowan nodded. Impressive—more than impressive. The khagan’s army had been a beautifully coordinated force, moving across the plain as if they were farmers reaping wheat. Had he not been swept into the dance of battle, he might have stopped to marvel at them.
The princess turned to Chaol, seated in a wheeled chair, his face grim. “On your end?”
Chaol glanced to his father, who observed the battlefield with crossed arms. His father said without looking at them, “Many. We’ll leave it at that.”
Pain seemed to flicker in the bastard’s eyes, but he said nothing more.
Chaol gave Hasar an apologetic frown, his hands tightening on the chair’s arms. The soldiers of Anielle, however bravely they’d fought, were not a trained unit. Many of those who had survived were seasoned warriors who’d fought the wild men up in the Fangs, Chaol had told Rowan earlier. Most of the dead had not.
Hasar at last looked Aelin over. “I heard you put on a show today.”
Rowan braced himself.
Aelin turned from the battlefield and inclined her head. “You look as if you did, too.”
Indeed, Hasar’s ornate armor was splattered with black blood. She’d been in the thick of it, atop her Muniqi horse, and had ridden right up to the gates. But the princess made no further comment.
Irritation, deep and nearly hidden, flashed in Aelin’s eyes. Yet she didn’t speak again—didn’t push the princess about their next steps. She just watched the battlefield once more, chewing on her lip.
She’d barely stopped during the battle, halting only when there had been no more Valg left to kill. And in the minutes since the walls had been cleared, she’d remained quiet—distant. As if she was still climbing out of that calm, calculating place she’d descended into while fighting. She hadn’t bothered to remove any of her armor. The bronze battle-crown was caked with blood, her hair matted with it.
Chaol’s father had taken one look at her armor, at Rowan’s, and gone white with rage. Yet Chaol had merely wheeled his chair to his father’s side, snarling something too soft for Rowan to hear, and the man backed off.
For now. They had bigger things to consider. Things that drove his mate to gnaw on her lip. When Prince Kashin’s army might arrive, if they would indeed head northward to Terrasen. If today had been enough to win them over.
Two shapes took form in the sky. Kadara and Salkhi, soaring for the keep at an almost unchecked speed.
People scrambled out of the ruks’ way as Sartaq and Nesryn landed on the battlements, sliding off their saddles and stalking right up to them.
“We have a problem,” Nesryn said, her face ashen.
Indeed, Sartaq’s lips were bloodless. Both of their scents were drenched in fear.
The wheels of Chaol’s chair splashed through puddled blood. “What is it?”
Aelin straightened, Gavriel and Fenrys going still.
Nesryn pointed across the city, to the wall of mountains. “We intercepted a group of Morath soldiers toward the end of the battle—trying to bring that dam down.”
Rowan swore, and Chaol echoed it.
“I’m assuming they didn’t succeed thanks to you,” Aelin said, gazing toward that too-near dam, the raging waters of the upper lake and river it held at bay.
“Partially,” Sartaq said, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “But we arrived after much damage had already been done.”
“Out with it,” Hasar hissed.
Sartaq’s dark eyes flashed. “We need to evacuate our army off the plain. Right now.”
“It’s going to break?” Chaol’s father demanded.
Nesryn winced. “It likely will.”
“It could burst at any moment.” Sartaq gestured to the khagan’s army on the plain. “We need to get them out.”
“There’s nowhere for them to go,” Chaol’s father said. “The water will roar for miles, and this keep cannot hold all your forces.”
Indeed, Rowan realized, the keep, despite its high position, couldn’t fit the size of the army on the plain. Not even close. And the keep, towering high above, would b
e the only thing that could withstand the tidal wave of freezing water that would sweep from the mountains and across the plain. Obliterating everything in its path.
Hasar fixed her burning stare on Chaol. “Where do we tell them to run?”
“Summon the ruks,” Chaol said. “Have them gather up as many as they can, fly them out to this peak behind us.” He motioned to the small mountain into which the keep had been built. “Put them on the rocks, put them anywhere.”
“And those that don’t make it to the ruks?” the princess pressed, something like panic cracking through her fierce face.
Rowan’s own heart thundered. They had won the battle, only for the enemy to get the final say in their victory.
Morath would not allow the khagan’s army to walk off the plain.
It would destroy this army, this shred of hope, in a simple, brutal blow.
“Was it a trap all along?” Chaol rubbed at his jaw. “Erawan knew I was bringing an army. Did he pick Anielle for this? Knowing I’d come, and he’d use the dam to wipe our host away?”
“Think on it later,” Aelin warned, her face as grave as Rowan’s. She scanned the plain. “Tell them to run. If they cannot get a ruk, then run. If they make it to Oakwald’s edge, they might stand a chance if they can climb into a tree.”
His mate didn’t mention that with a wave that size, those trees would be submerged. Or ripped from their roots.
Gavriel asked, “There’s no way to fix the damage done?”
“We checked,” Sartaq said, throat bobbing. “Morath knew where to strike.”
“What of your magic?” Fenrys asked Rowan. “Could you freeze it—the river?”
He’d already thought of it. Rowan shook his head. “It’s too deep and its current too strong.” Perhaps if he had all his cousins, but Enda and Sellene were up north, their siblings and kin with them.
“Open the keep gates,” Chaol said quietly. “Any nearby are to run here. Those farthest out will have to flee for the forest.”
Rowan met Aelin’s stare.
Her hands began shaking.
This cannot end here, she seemed to say. Panic—panic indeed flared in her eyes. Rowan gripped her trembling hand and squeezed.
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