Then she saw it.
The ship was larger than any she’d seen before, a great three-masted monstrosity as tall as the bridge itself. She picked out the Amaridian flag, countless soldiers scurrying about its deck. Beyond, a half dozen longboats were moving toward a narrow beach on which a battle was being waged, the sand soaked with blood.
Swiftly she saw the reason the Amaridians had chosen Aela Island beyond the relatively easy landing the beach provided them. There was a pier on the western edge of the island, the bridge curving inland before heading back out to sea. And if the Ithicanians were fighting this hard to defend it, she’d bet that pier had an opening in its base. “How many men are on that ship?”
“Four hundred,” Jor replied. “Perhaps a few more.”
“And us?”
No one answered.
Aren caught her hand, pulling her close. “See the line of rock and trees?” He pointed. “We’ll get you and the other healers past that line. You stay there and the injured will be brought to you, understood?”
“Yes.”
His hand tightened. “Keep your hood up so the Amaridians don’t recognize you. And if things go badly, go with the other healers. They know how to make a retreat.”
And she’d bet that retreat was into the bridge. But gaining that information wasn’t worth the cost of Aren’s life.
Her heartbeat was no longer steady, but a wild and chaotic beast. “Don’t let it go badly,” she whispered. “I need you to win this.”
But Aren was already shouting orders. “Bring down those longboats. The rest of you, to the beach!”
The boats flanked the enormous ship, the air thick with arrows shot from both sides. Aren knelt in the boat next to her, emptying a quiver into the backs of the Amaridians climbing into longboats, their corpses falling into the water below. Lara’s fingers itched to snatch up a weapon, to fight, but she forced herself to cower low in the boat, flinching every time an arrow thudded into the thick wood.
Then they were past the ship.
Four of the Ithicanian vessels veered away from the pack, skipping over the surf to slam into the longboats full of soldiers heading to shore. Wood splintered and cracked, men toppling into the water. The Ithicanians boarded the longboats with lethal grace, blades flashing, the sun glinting off sprays of blood.
The rest of the boats drove toward the carnage on the beach. There were bodies everywhere, the sand more red than white. Maybe two dozen Ithicanians were holding the enemy to the waterline, using the narrow access and higher ground to their advantage, but they were falling back. Dying beneath the Amaridian onslaught.
They had to hurry, or the island would be lost.
The Midwatch boats dropped their sails, riding the waves as they were launched onto the shore. At the last second, Aren snatched up Lara’s hand. “Jump!” he shouted.
Lara leapt, her boots sinking into the sand, the momentum nearly sending her sprawling. Then they were running toward the Amaridians, who were now sandwiched between two forces.
Screams shattered the air, bodies and limbs hitting the sand, the stench of blood and opened guts oppressive. Lara held tight to her box of supplies, keeping behind Aren as he pushed up the hill, stepping over his victims as she went. The weapons of the fallen littered the sand, and every instinct demanded she pick one up. That she fight.
You mustn’t, she commanded herself. Not unless you have no choice.
But the warrior in her railed against the limitation, so when a soldier got past the Ithicanian line, she slammed her supply box into his face, watching with satisfaction as he toppled backward, the point of Aren’s blade appearing through his chest.
The King of Ithicana used one booted foot to shove the dead man off his weapon, the leather of his mask coated with gore. Catching her hand, he drew her at a run, dodging around the few remaining Amaridians who were on their knees begging for their lives.
“Show them no mercy!” he shouted, then pulled Lara behind a series of boulders. An older Ithicanian woman, her face drawn, clothes drenched with blood, was closing the lids of a young man, his body marked with several mortal wounds. Three other soldiers lay on the ground, wounds bandaged, their faces tight with pain.
The healer’s eyes widened at the sight of her king. “Explain to Lara what you need her to do,” Aren told her. Then he was back around the rock, shouting, “Taryn, get that shipbreaker working and sink that bitch!”
The Midwatch healers appeared, their escorts already having abandoned them. “What do you want me to do?” Lara asked.
“Wait for them to bring us the injured. What do you have for supplies? I’m short.”
Lara handed her the box, then scampered up the back of one of the boulders to watch the battle unfolding below. Her blood ran cold at the sight.
Aren stood on the beach with maybe a hundred Ithicanians, but beyond, the water was full of longboats. Dozens of them, all bursting with heavily armed soldiers, and more still waiting on the ship’s deck to be unloaded. There were hundreds of them. And no way to stop them.
The Ithicanians were firing arrows at the front-runners, but it wasn’t long until they were spent, leaving nothing for them to do but wait.
The old healer had climbed up next to her, expression grim as she took in the scene.
Lara dug her nails into the rock. “We can’t win this. Not against these odds.”
“We’ve won against worse. Though this one will cost us.”
Was it still a victory if everyone was dead? Lara thought.
It must’ve shown on her face, because the older woman sighed. “Have you ever seen a battle before, Your Majesty?”
Lara swallowed hard. “Not like this.”
“I’d tell you to prepare yourself, but you can’t.” The old woman rested her hand on Lara’s. “This moment will change you.” Then she climbed down the rocks to join the Midwatch healers.
The scene was eerily silent, the only sound the roar of the surf and the occasional cry of pain, the wounded left on the beach until the battle was won. So quiet. Too quiet.
Then the first of the longboats hit the shore, and everything turned to chaos.
The two forces slammed into each other, the air filling with shouts and screams, the clash of metal against metal and weapons against flesh.
Wave after wave of boats hurtled into shore, the heavy vessels crushing and killing Amaridians and Ithicanians alike, the waterline a teeming mass of humanity. The sailors struggled to withdraw, to get back to the ship to retrieve more soldiers, but Aren’s men flung themselves at the sailors, cutting them down. Pulling the vessels onto the sand.
Yet still more came.
The Ithicanians fought with vicious efficiency, better trained and better armed, but grossly outnumbered. They fought until they couldn’t stand, taking injury after injury until they collapsed on the beach or were pulled under waves that were more blood and bodies than water.
And still the enemy came.
It was the perfect opportunity to sneak away. To go look at the bridge pier and determine whether she could use it in her strategy, but her body remained rooted in place.
You have to do something. The voice rose up from the depths of Lara’s mind, incessant and tenacious. Do something. Do something.
But what could she do? There were no injured behind these rocks for her to tend, and there wouldn’t be until the battle was over. She could take a weapon and fight, but this wasn’t the same circumstances as Serrith. In this madness, she couldn’t turn the tide.
Do something.
Her eyes flicked back to the wounded bleeding out on the beach. Drowning in the waves. And then she was over the rocks and running.
Lara had been the fastest of her sisters—built for speed, Master Erik had always said. Today she ran like she never had before.
Her thighs burned as she sprinted down the beach, arms pumping, eyes fixed on her target. Skidding to a stop next to a young woman who’d taken two arrows in the back and one in the thi
gh, Lara bent and heaved her over one shoulder, then raced back to the boulders.
Rounding them, Lara carefully deposited the injured soldier on the ground in front of the startled healers. “Help her.”
Then she was back on the beach and running.
Necessity compelled her to choose those with injuries they might survive. As it was, most of those farther up the beach were long past saving, eyes staring blankly at the gray sky.
So she edged closer to the battle.
The soldiers able to fight were doing so on top of the bodies of the fallen. Amaridians and Ithicanians, both tangled in the mess of limbs, dead hands seeming to grasp and trip them as the crimson waves pulled and tugged on carnage.
Most everyone on the ground was dead. Either from their original injuries, or from being crushed and drowned, but still Lara prowled the rear of the Ithicanian line, water filling her boots as she searched.
“Get back,” someone shouted at her, but she ignored them, catching sight of a man, younger than her, choking as he tried to climb out of the battle, the waves rolling over his head, boots stomping on his back.
Lara dove, catching hold of his hand and holding tight so that the water wouldn’t pull him farther out.
Someone kicked her in the side.
Another stomped on the back of her leg, and she cried out.
They were pressing in on her, driving her down into the sand, but the boy was looking at her and she at him, and Lara refused to let go.
Inch by inch, she dragged him back, then a hand closed on her belt and pulled her and the injured soldier the rest of the way free.
“What are you doing?”
Aren’s voice. His face hidden behind his mask.
Over his shoulder, she saw an Amaridian raising a cudgel. Snatching up a rock, she threw it hard, shattering the soldier’s face. “Fight,” she screamed at Aren, then scrambled to her feet.
Holding the injured boy under the armpits, she dragged him up the beach and out of harm’s way. Then she threw herself back into the carnage.
The Ithicanians saw what she was doing, and they fought to give her openings. Called her name when someone fell. Guarded her back while she dragged their comrades out of the water because they couldn’t afford to stop fighting.
And the enemy kept coming.
Pushing them farther up the sand.
Step by step, the Ithicanians retreated, and Lara howled in fury, because all those she’d pulled onto the beach were now in danger of being trampled once more. Her body screamed with pain and exhaustion, her sides cramping as her lungs struggled to draw in enough air to fuel her thundering heart.
Then a familiar crack echoed across the island, along with the whistle of something large flying through the air.
Splintering wood and screams filtered up from the deeper water, and Lara lifted her head to see a large hole in the side of the ship. Someone had repaired the shipbreaker.
Another crack split the air, and this time the projectile hit one of the masts. It shattered, falling sideways, the ropes and sails falling to the deck.
Another crack, this time a hole opening in the hull, water pouring in with every wave.
The weapon didn’t stop. Boulder after boulder was thrown at the ship, then Taryn turned on the longboats, hitting them with deadly accuracy.
The Amaridians began to panic, lines breaking as they fought to save their own skins. But there was no retreat, and the Ithicanians would show them no mercy.
“For Ithicana!” someone roared, and the chant raced down the beach until it drowned out all other noise as the soldiers rallied around their king, pressing forward.
So there was no one to hear when Lara whispered, “For Maridrina,” and dove back into the chaos.
23
Aren
Aren found Lara crouched next to a tide pool washing blood from her hands and arms. Her clothing was soaked in gore, and as she lifted her head to regard him, he noted the red streaks on her cheeks from where she’d pushed aside the strands of hair that had tugged loose from her thick braid.
His soldiers were talking about her; and not, for once, about how she was a useless Maridrinian, good for nothing but bedding. Today had changed that. Time and again, she’d sprinted onto the beach to pull an injured Ithicanian back behind their lines, showing no regard for her own life as the Amaridians had fought their way forward, the battle pitched and desperate.
And once the battle was won, she’d treated the wounded with speed and efficiency, packing wounds and tying tourniquets, buying them time until the healers could reach them. Saving lives, one soldier at a time, her face tight with determination.
Today she’d won Ithicana’s respect.
And his own.
“Are you all right?” He crouched down to submerge his own hands in the water. He’d done it earlier, but his skin still felt sticky and stained.
“Tired.” She sat back on her haunches, eyes going to the corpses floating amidst the debris of the shattered ship, the water still crimson. “How many died?”
“Forty-three. Another ten aren’t likely to make it through the night.”
Lara squeezed her eyes shut, then snapped them open. “So many.”
“Would have been more if you hadn’t convinced me to bring you. Or if you hadn’t ignored my orders.” He didn’t add that he’d spent a good portion of the battle afraid that the decision would see her dead on the sand, an Amaridian sword in her back.
“It feels like I accomplished nothing in the scheme of things,” she murmured.
“The men and women whose lives you saved would beg to differ, I suspect.”
“Lives I saved.” She shook her head. “I should go back to help.”
Aren caught her wrist as she rose, his fingers wrapping around the slender bones, which seemed too delicate to have accomplished what she had. “We need to go.”
“Go?” Spots of anger rose on her cheeks. “We can’t leave them like this.”
He wanted to abandon this beach and his injured people no more than she did, but the defense of his kingdom was a finely oiled machine with a thousand different pieces. Pulling one out of place, even for a matter of hours, put the whole works at risk, and right now, his piece was very much out of place. “I moved significant numbers from the defense of Midwatch and its surrounding islands. We need to return.”
“No.” She pulled out of his grip. “Fewer than a dozen of the soldiers here are unscathed. We can’t leave them undefended. What if the Amaridians attack again?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Aren could see his guard standing by the boats, Jor giving him a pointed glare. Several of the other Midwatch teams were at the ready on the beach, waiting for his order to depart. “There are no Amaridian ships on the horizon, and reinforcements are already on the way. They’ll be here within the hour.”
“I’m not leaving until they arrive.”
She crossed her arms, and it occurred to him that he might have to drag the woman every soldier on this beach was lauding as a hero into a boat if he ever wanted to depart. Which wasn’t exactly the visual he wished to present to them.
Huffing out a breath, Aren pulled a knife from his belt and knelt in the sand, drawing a snaking line representing the bridge. “The defense of the bridge is broken into sections led by Watch Commanders, each with a subset of the Ithicanian military under his or her control. The Midwatch garrison is here”—he made a hole in the sand—“and the Kestark garrison is here. Four Amaridian ships were making motions to attack here.” He made four holes south of Kestark Island.
“The healers could use my assistance,” Lara interrupted. “So perhaps get to the point.”
“I am getting to the point,” he grumbled, hoping a convoluted explanation would convince her to leave rather than provoke questions. “Kestark moved their reserves to reinforce the locations most likely to come under attack, while at the same time, the Amaridians attacked here at Aela Island. Kestark couldn’t risk pulling back their reserve, n
or could they redeploy the teams making up the net of defense through here”—he drew an oval—“so they called for assistance from Midwatch. But now Midwatch is down the majority of its reserves, so if there are any attacks here”—he drew another oval—“we won’t be able to come to their aid in a timely fashion.”
Lara stared at the drawing, blinking only once in apparent confusion. Then she pressed her fingers to her temples. “For the love of God, Aren, none of this justifies abandoning these soldiers.” She started to pull away, but he tugged her back.
“Listen. The four Amaridian ships that were expected to attack instead withdrew —probably because they saw it wouldn’t be an easy fight—and they’ve moved east and out of sight of our scouts. So now there will be a wave of signals, with teams shifting one position north and west in order to allow the Kestark teams closest to us to move to reinforce. As I said, they’ll be here within the hour.”
“Fine.” Moving out of reach, she started up the sand to where the wounded were laid out in rows.
“Insufferable woman,” he muttered, then a whistle caught his attention. Aren turned to see Jor gesturing at a pair of Kestark boats flying across the water on a violent gust of wind that smelled like rain. He turned back to point them out to Lara, but she was already out of earshot.
Growling out a few choice curses, he strode down to the water. “Everyone go. I want you back at Midwatch before this squall hits.”
His soldiers immediately pushed off from the beach, but instead of watching them, Aren found his eyes drawn to where Lara walked among the injured, occasionally bending down to speak with one of them. The growing winds caught at the loose strands of her hair, the fading sunlight making it glow like tendrils of honey. His soldiers moved aside for her, inclined their heads to her. Respected her.
The image juxtaposed that of her walking up the road at Southwatch on her father’s arm, silk clad and eyes wide: the portrait of a queen he’d worried Ithicana would never accept. Turned out, he’d been wrong.
“And when will we be departing, Your Grace?” Jor asked, coming up to stand next to him. “When your little wife says it’s time to go?”
The Bridge Kingdom Page 19