‘We haven’t worked this hard —’
Dash turned away. It was none of his business. And the last thing he wanted was for his only friend here to think he was eavesdropping on her private conversations. But what did they need to act on? Ignoring his burning curiosity, he stepped out of earshot. Instead, he saw Queen Eydis. She was wrapped in a brilliant black pelt and beneath it shone gold women’s armour. She was surrounded by her generals, the Valians and some of the rebel leaders. He forced his way through them, ignoring their protests and irritated glares.
‘Mister Carlington,’ Queen Eydis said, her eyes meeting his. ‘There you are.’
‘I was coming to see you, Your Majesty. I —’
‘You saw something.’
He nodded.
Bleak appeared at Casimir’s side. ‘What did you see?’
Dash hesitated.
‘Well?’ The odd-eyed girl’s face was flushed from the cold, but she gave him a nod of encouragement.
‘The ground was shaking,’ he told her. ‘And there was white everywhere. Nothing but white.’
‘Shaking? What do you mean? From the march of the army?’ Bleak asked, her eyes suddenly bright.
Dash shrugged. ‘I don’t know. That’s all the vision showed me.’
‘What do you think, Eydis?’ Bleak said, turning back to the winter queen, frowning.
Queen Eydis raised a brow at the lack of formality, but with a glance towards Dash, she answered, ‘I assumed the ground shaking was due to Arden’s army. They have a large force, Bleak.’
‘What if it’s not from that?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Henri said, stepping forward, her hands resting on the grips of her katars.
Bleak chewed her lip. ‘What if the ground trembling isn’t from the army, but from us?’
‘Our force isn’t large enough,’ Nicolai said impatiently.
Dash had no clue as to what Bleak was on about. She looked suddenly wild, her eyes darting from the queen, to him, to the panthers and to the mountains, as though her words couldn’t keep up with her mind.
‘A snowslide,’ she breathed.
‘What?’ The queen was just as bewildered as Dash.
‘Dash’s vision, it was a snowslide.’
Tailor shuffled in beside Dash, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘A snowslide will kill us all.’
Bleak ignored him. ‘Those tunnels,’ she said. ‘The ones beneath the Forest of Wolves or the Twisted Trees Valley or whatever you call it.’
‘What about them?’ Eydis asked slowly.
‘Are there any below us? Any close to here?’
‘Yes.’
With a glance at Dash, Bleak took a deep breath. ‘Then we don’t need to outnumber Arden. We don’t need to contain the mist,’ she said. ‘We need to dig.’
Dash had no idea what in the realm digging had to do with anything, but he found himself pushed back to the outskirts of the group as Bleak’s words sent the others into a flurry. For a reason unbeknownst to him, new hope simmered at the surface of their actions now, a sense of urgency filling the air around them. Nicolai shouted orders and Dash mounted his horse, straining to hear the rest of the conversation between the leaders.
‘What’s going on?’ Luka asked as she joined him.
‘I don’t know,’ Dash replied. ‘Bleak said something about digging.’
‘What?’
Dash waved her away. He was still trying to listen, but his attention snagged on Casimir and Tailor standing nearby. They weren’t speaking. They stood close together, watching Bleak atop her teerah panther. There was something odd about the way they were monitoring her.
‘I need to get a better look,’ she was saying to Eydis, Henri and Sahara. ‘From higher up. See what we’re facing. If it can be done …’
Queen Eydis gave a grim nod. ‘Very well,’ she said.
Dash watched as Bleak pulled her hood around her face and gripped a fistful of the panther’s fur, pressing herself close to his back.
‘Where’s she going?’ Luka asked, alarmed.
‘To scout for us.’
‘What? She’s no scout. We should send one of the kindred.’
Bleak and her beasts had already turned towards the mountains.
‘Thornton,’ Henri’s sharp voice called out.
Bleak’s head whipped around, a question on her lips.
But the matriarch’s face broke out into a rare grin. ‘Don’t die.’
Bleak offered her own roguish smile. ‘I’ll do my best, Valian.’
Thornton. The name sent a jolt of recognition through Dash. He’d heard the rumours around the halls. One of the ruling families of Oremere …
Dash nearly called out to her himself as Bleak broke away from the group. To say what, he didn’t know. It was too late in any case. The panthers tore off across the snow, their silvery-black fur shimmering beneath the sun’s glare.
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ Tailor said softly.
‘What?’ Dash asked.
‘Alarise Thornton …’ Tailor murmured. ‘Didn’t think she had it in her.’
The sound of a battle horn obliterated all the thoughts in Dash’s head. He gripped his reins and swallowed hard.
A host of Ellestian soldiers was on the white horizon.
Chapter 42
Henri had always hated the sound of battle horns. They seemed redundant to her, and typical of the moronic armies they so often represented. As the Ellestian horn blasted through the icy air again, she cursed and urged her horse forward.
The Ellestian forces were only a few leagues away at best, and creeping in from the southern side was mist. Henri would bet her life on the fact that it wasn’t the sort of mist Sahara had walked into all those years ago. This was the fast-moving stuff, the weaponised version Arden had bottled in his cellar, that he’d released on her home.
‘Eydis,’ she called. ‘We need more time.’
‘We don’t have any,’ the winter queen called back, fear bright in her eyes.
Henri surveyed the horde before them. Ten thousand strong at least. She reached out with her magic, sending it rushing across the snow towards the enemy. She met a wall.
‘Fuck.’
‘What is it?’
‘They’re wearing talismans, or have ingested our defensive herbs. Magic can’t be used against them.’
Eydis nodded, resting a hand on Henri’s arm. ‘We expected that, Henri.’
‘Doesn’t make it any less of a pain in my arse,’ she snapped, adjusting the shield on her back. She snatched a bow and quiver of arrows from one of the Wildenhaven soldiers.
‘Archers,’ she yelled. ‘Nock!’ She pressed her horse into a gallop to join her kindred. ‘Mark!’
She reached the front lines of their force and nocked an arrow into her own bow. She called out to them, and the archers beyond. ‘Draw!’
‘What are you doing!’ barked Nicolai, halting his horse in front of hers.
‘Leading the attack,’ Henri retorted, nudging her mount to form up alongside Sahara and Fletch.
‘No, you’re not!’
Henri’s magic flared, begging to be unleashed. ‘We don’t have time for this.’
‘This is Havennesse soil, I —’
‘I don’t care. I didn’t bring five hundred warriors all the way from Valia to take orders from you. Now get out of my way, before these Heathton bastards and mist are the least of your worries.’
‘Eydis,’ Nicolai bellowed.
Eydis shook her head. ‘Henri leads.’
The general’s face contorted in disbelieving rage. He swore, and cantered off to the right flank of the army.
Henri would deal with him later. She focused. ‘Archers,’ she commanded, drawing her own bow. ‘Loose!’
The first wave of arrows shot into the sky, a blanket of darkness against the brilliant white. They whistled through the air, raining down on the front lines of Arden’s legion, finding their marks in the soft flesh of the ene
my.
‘Again!’ Henri yelled, the first thrill of battle surging through her like a drug. The energy pulsing around her from her kindred told her they felt the same.
‘Nock!’ she cried, pulling another arrow from her quiver. ‘Mark!’ She found her next target, a great hulking brute brandishing a war hammer. ‘Draw!’ She drew her arrow into the bow string, her shoulders and back straining.
‘Loose!’
She released, and watched as her arrow joined the hundred others hurtling through the wind, and found the heart of her mark.
A shadow crossed the clouds. Return fire.
‘Shields,’ she roared, wrenching hers from her back and bracing herself. The impact of three arrows quaked down her arm, the hard thud of each echoing through the base of the shield. She heard cries from around her, the enemy’s arrows finding their marks, too. None of her kindred.
She chanced a glance in Sahara’s direction. Snow dusted the crown of her sister’s head, and her cropped hair stuck to her face. She drew her sword, and feeling Henri’s gaze, she looked up and smiled.
‘You always wanted to ride into battle together,’ she called, swinging her sword.
Henri drew her own sword. ‘Forward,’ she yelled, swinging her shield back across her back and urging her horse onward. Her kindred would lead the charge, with Eydis’ forces to follow. They had to draw Arden’s forces in.
Henri’s magic thrummed against her skin and the wind whipped her face as she rode down the ranks of their host.
‘Kindred, Wildenhavians,’ she called over the thundering of her horse’s hooves. ‘Charge!’
The sound of thousands of horses surging into a gallop made Henri’s heart sing, and above it all, she heard Petra’s Valian warrior cry.
They charged at full speed towards the enemy, ignoring the mist churning in, leaving any inkling of fear in their wake. She held her breath as they closed the gap of white between the forces. Thinking not of her sister, not of her lover, not even of herself, but only of the steel that awaited her, Henri gripped her sword tightly, and launched herself into the fray.
The collision of both forces came in a roaring wave. The clang of steel, the first cries of the wounded and the tang of fresh death exploded as they struck their first blows. Henri took down two, three, four men in a single swing of her sword, their blood spattering across the snow and shining on her blade. She swung again as their bodies were still falling, and around her, her kindred inflicted the same precise brutality on Arden’s soldiers.
Henri felt hot blood slap across her exposed skin, felt life leave men as her sword left them. She met each blow with her blade, the song of steel spurring her on, as she parried and glided, the dance of the Valian warrior. She relished the different sort of fight a sword offered, but as she cut down another man and embedded her sword in another, she drew her katars. This was what she was born to do.
She dismounted her horse in a single motion. Now, from the ground, knee-deep in blood-stained snow, the battle was messier. Men swarmed Henri, their sheer numbers forcing her back into her kindred, into Eydis’ soldiers, even as she kicked their legs out from under them and sliced them open with her katars. There wasn’t enough damn room down here. She brought her elbow crashing into a soldier’s face, hearing bone crack and a muffled cry. A long shadow cast across the fallen bodies before her.
She turned to see a man towering over her, his full suit of armour gleaming, unscratched in the sun’s glare. Through the slit in his helmet, his hazel eyes were full of hatred. She leaped back as he thrust his longsword at her middle and made another swipe for her neck. She ducked and brandished her katars. He drove forward, swinging at her with all his might. The strength of him … Each time she blocked a blow, her arms trembled. He used his size against her, overwhelming her on the already crammed battlefield. An armour-covered hand collided with her face and she was sent reeling backwards. Startled, she ignored the pain throbbing at her mouth, and the metallic taste of blood on her tongue. She spat red onto the snow and lunged. Her katars chimed against iron armour, barely scratching its shining surface. In one aggressive grab of his fist, he suddenly had Henri by her braid. Pain tore at her scalp as he wrenched her into his body, his sword at her throat. It dripped with the blood of how many of her kindred?
She twisted, freeing an arm to find the gap in his armour between the shoulder and the chest plate. With all her might, she plunged her katar there.
The man gave a grunt of pain, but ripped her hair back in a vice-like grip.
‘King Arden sends his best,’ the man growled in her ear, his blade scraping her throat, ready to make the stroke of death.
He choked.
His grip weakened and Henri shoved him off, feeling his warm blood course down the back of her neck. She whirled around.
Three arrows protruded from his throat as he fell to his knees, rivers of red gushing from the wounds. Henri’s eyes fell on Sahara, who sat atop her horse firing arrows into the enemy as their kindred fought. Her sister had saved her life.
There would be time for thanks later, if they survived. Henri dislodged her katar from the dead soldier and launched herself at another.
Amidst the clang of steel and the cries of pain, Henri heard her name.
‘Henri!’ the voice shouted again. Henri looked around wildly to find the source. Luka. She was cutting down men like they were but crops in a field as she made her way towards Henri.
‘Henri,’ she panted when she reached her. ‘Queen Eydis needs to speak with you.’
Henri sliced her blade across a man’s throat. ‘Now?’
Luka nodded. ‘Yes, now.’
‘Tell her I’m a bit fucking busy.’
‘It can’t wait,’ Luka insisted with a grimace. ‘Take my horse.’
‘No. My kindred —’
‘Know well enough how to fight.’ She kicked a falling body away.
Henri faltered. She couldn’t leave them. She was —
‘Go!’ Luka said. ‘It’s important. It could turn the tide of this thing.’
Henri surveyed the bloodshed, and Arden’s numbers as they poured in. If it could turn the tide of the battle … She gave Luka a stiff nod.
Henri galloped through the slaughter, slaying the enemy as she ignored the instincts that screamed she was going in the wrong direction. Athene. Sahara. The others … She had never left her kindred on the battlefield. She felt as though a part of her was being ripped away from her.
She reached Eydis at the back lines of the conflict, guarded by her Queen’s Guard with Dash and Tailor at her side. The teenager’s eyes went wide at the sight of her, and she knew she must look a mess, covered in other people’s blood. Behind Eydis, the Ashai folk Bleak had asked for help stood shivering in the snow, terror etched on their faces. Fat lot of help they’d been.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Henri barked, glaring at Eydis.
‘I need you to go to the mountains.’
‘What?’
‘Henri. We need to try Bleak’s idea.’
‘Are you mad? Have you lost your damn mind, Eydis? A bloody snowslide will kill us all.’
Eydis merely pointed. To the left, the roiling mist was only a few leagues away. ‘That bastard Swinton did this,’ she hissed. ‘If we don’t try, we will die because of him.’
Henri shook her head. ‘Swinton didn’t release that mist. Not this time.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ Henri braced herself as the words left her mouth. ‘Mariette did.’
Eydis blinked. ‘What?’
Henri had been piecing it together for some time. Had noted the jar they’d brought from Moredon go missing. Had noted Mariette disappearing for days at a time. And she remembered the kennel master alone in the woods with lies on her lips.
‘It was her, Eydis.’
The winter queen exhaled a shaky breath. ‘It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you must try.’
‘I’m worth twenty of your men – and you wo
uld have me leave?’ Fiery rage burned through Henri.
‘Your magic is no use out there. But here. Henri, we need it here. Tailor will bring the Ashai after you.’
‘Majesty.’ Tailor nudged his horse alongside Henri’s. ‘With respect – many of the Ashai are still fighting off the effects of the herbs they were treated with in the prison. I cannot move them.’
‘I have seen it,’ Eydis told him. ‘The herbs were diluted; it should be wearing off. You need not move them far.’ She pointed to the foot of the mountains. ‘Just there.’
Tailor bowed his head. ‘If you say it can be done, it will be done.’
Panic constricted Henri’s throat. She couldn’t believe what was being asked of her. It was a fool’s hope, the plan of a madwoman.
Eydis nudged her horse and closed the gap between them, her hand gentle on Henri’s arm. ‘Shift snow and earth, Henri. Shift it, and we’ll draw them in.’
‘Gods,’ Henri muttered, locking eyes with her friend. ‘This is …’
‘Not the Valian Way.’ Eydis nodded. ‘Perhaps it’s a better way?’
Henri took a deep breath, and brushed the loose hair from her eyes. ‘Tell Sahara …’
‘Tell her yourself when we’re on the other side of this.’
Henri urged her horse into a gallop, and the thoroughbred’s hooves kicked up the snow, leaving a white cloud in their wake. The cold stung her face as she raced towards the foot of the mountains, the rhythm of the ride like the sound of war drums beating beneath her.
Shift snow and earth … Like it was that simple. Like there weren’t a hundred other elements and factors to consider. Henri clenched her teeth and squeezed her horse’s sides with her heels. Faster. She needed all the time she could get if she was going to pull this off.
If.
Gods, she thought. What if I can’t? What if I fail? Fear turned to lead in her stomach. She tried to push the questions aside. Not now. She would not falter now.
Shift snow and earth … Maybe it was that simple.
She slowed her horse as she reached the foot of the jagged mountains. The Kildaholm Alps. Breathtaking. Treacherous. Looking up at the formidable peaks in awe, she tugged the reins and finally came to a halt.
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