The Crow Rider

by Kalyn Josephson

  “Now, Thia!” Ericen’s call came from the battlement above.

  Res took flight.

  As we soared high into the air, I quickly assessed the result of our ploy. Ericen had been right. The Illucian troops were trained to prioritize the crows. The moment Kiva appeared on the fake crow, all the archers’ attention had followed her.

  Leaving the earth Sella undefended.

  Three top towers spread before the wall now, protecting pockets of archers. Below the center one sat the Sella on horseback. His hand was raised, his focus on a new swath of wall, likely thinking Res and I occupied. Someone yelled, pointing at us, but I’d already nocked an arrow.

  As Res angled downward, granting me a clear shot beneath the high top of the tower, I drew and loosed.

  The Sella lifted a hand to knock the arrow aside, but the black gold was too refined a material to bend. His eyes widened a fraction before the bolt took him in the heart.

  He crumpled to the ground.

  Res rushed for the wall as the archers’ attention swiveled back to us. Bowstrings snapped. Glass shattered midair from the cry of the horns.

  An arrow skimmed my arm.

  I cried out, and Res banked hard, simultaneously brushing aside another wave of wooden arrows. The last thing I saw before Res dove beyond the wall was the empty sky where the shadow crow had been.

  Kiva was gone.

  Thirty

  Res dove behind the wall even as I screamed at him to pull up. He alighted on a low perch that’d been built for easy crow landing, images of flying arrows mixing with pulsing questions along the link. I leapt off his back, bolting up the stairs to the battlement.

  Ericen met me at the top. “She fell when that arrow skimmed you. Res lost control of the shadow crow.”

  I barreled past him to the edge, but he seized me, pulling me back behind the wall as arrows crested the ridge. One pierced a Rhodairen soldier through the neck; another took a Trendellan in the arm. I stared at the blood that coated them.

  “She was flying low when she fell,” Ericen said swiftly. “We can’t see what’s happening, but a squad of soldiers went after her.”

  “I have to go after her.” I pushed off the wall.

  He stepped in front of me. “And do what? Fly Res over an army of archers? You’ll both get killed. Kiva wouldn’t want you to go after her now and you know it!”

  “I can’t just leave her!” I screamed. She could be injured or—No! The thought threatened to tear me open. If only we could neutralize the archers. Then I could get Res into the sky safely and find Kiva.

  Ericen’s expression hardened. “How many people can Res conceal?”

  “Two, maybe three? And I don’t know for how long.” I watched the sea of soldiers, hoping for a glimpse of Kiva. “But there might be another way to hide more. What are you thinking?”

  The prince freed his swords from his back. “I’m going to get you your opening.”

  * * *

  Clinging to the hope of Ericen’s plan, I flew down the stairs to the base of the wall where I sent a runner with orders to open the main gate on my mark. Then I called Res.

  He landed beside me, head nudging mine as concern thundered down the cord. “We’re going to get her back,” I told him as I swung into the saddle.

  For now, let’s give them a storm unlike anything they’ve ever seen.

  Res cawed as power surged along the cord. Dark clouds veined with lightning began to materialize in the sky, rain bursting forth in a heavy downpour, but it was all only a distraction for the gathering fog. Res coalesced it above the edge of the battlement atop the gate, then slammed it down like a second wall. At the same moment, Rhodairen archers laid down cover against the cavalry.

  Res took off.

  With the cover of the fog wall, Ericen and a small team consisting of two Trendellan monks, Lady Kerova, and two Rhodairen soldiers slipped out the front gate.

  I heard the Illucian archers dying before I saw them.

  We rose above Res’s fog wall just as Ericen and Lady Kerova reached the first tower. The archers’ guards were ill prepared for the head-on assault, and they fell to a flash of steel. The Trendellan monks hit the second tower, the Rhodairen soldiers the third.

  Seeing the posts under attack, the front line of cavalry struck forward. But the rain had already puddled on the hard ground formed by the Sella, and Res’s power seized it. It thrust upward in a wave of spikes, spearing the legs of the front line of warhorses. Bestial screams filled the air at the animals’ pain, turning my stomach, but the effect was immediate—the following lines of cavalry couldn’t move forward with the front line collapsed before them.

  It wouldn’t take them long to circle around, but the earth Sella hadn’t solidified the entire area, and the uneven rocky ground would slow them down. By the time they made it through, Ericen and his team would already be retreating. Even now, they struck down the final archers, freeing the skies for Res and me.

  Then an earsplitting crack rent the air.

  Res wheeled about in midair. A huge section of the wall had crumbled. Two Sellas stood before the opening, the water they’d slammed into the weakened wall like a battering ram pooling around their ankles.

  The city was exposed.

  * * *

  The Illucian cavalry charged, led by a hooded Sella.

  Ericen and the others retreated behind the closing gate as arrows flew at the charging force. The Sella deflected them all with a flick of his hand.

  “He’s a battle Sella,” I breathed.

  The cavalry splashed past the water Sellas and through the opening in a rush of hooves and yells.

  “Strike the water!” I yelled to Res.

  Lightning snapped, hitting the shallow pool as a wave of soldiers shot through it. Horses and people screamed as they were electrocuted, arrows striking the stunned soldiers the shock didn’t kill. The current caught one of the water Sellas, stunning her, then an arrow took her in the heart. Bodies dropped in a natural barrier against a second charge, but several of the soldiers made it through, including the battle Sella.

  He deflected the sword of the first soldier who came for him with a sweep of his hand. With another, he turned it against its wielder, sending it through the soldier’s neck and through the necks of several soldiers behind them. His strength was incredible.

  The Sella advanced on a fallen soldier. A column of silver torcs lining his upper arm turned liquid, melding into each other and sloughing down his arm into a sharpened blade. He pulled it back.

  Then Estrel was there, a black gold blade in hand. It didn’t respond to the Sella’s attempts to control it, and she landed a strike across his bicep before he realized.

  It took everything inside me to turn away from that fight. In the aftermath of the lightning strike, the first pang of fatigue had slid down the bond from Res. Constantly resealing the wall had drained his magic, which was probably exactly what they’d wanted. In fact, this whole battle seemed an exercise in drawing out Res’s magic.

  Why not attack with the earth and water Sellas at once? Where was Valis to burn through stone? Instead, they took turns, letting Res waste his magic against one before turning out another, all with the steady, controlled pace that indicated they knew they had the upper hand.

  Something was wrong, but without an idea of what, I had to play their game.

  It would take time and a lot of energy to fix that large an area of the wall, and with one water Sella still alive, they’d only tear it down again, so in the end, I left the infantry to hold the opening, choosing instead to deal with the Sella first.

  Ripping my bow free, I nocked an arrow and directed Res down to the battlement. Leaping from his back, I raced along the wall as he caught an updraft, soaring high into the air and disappearing into the cloud cover.

  The water Sella had erec
ted a shield of ice to protect itself from arrows, and though Res had tried to take control of it, the Sella’s power was stronger than his, and he couldn’t budge its control.

  Which meant we had to break it another way.

  At the edge of my vision, the remainder of the Illucian army prepared to rush the opening once it was free of bodies, black warhorses rearing and frothing at the bit.

  I felt a flash of exaltation from Res before he dove.

  The clouds tore free of the sky, swirling around him in a dark tornado ablaze with lightning. It glinted off the gleaming metal of Res’s armored feathers as he barreled through the water Sella’s ice wall, shattering it.

  I loosed my arrow a split second later.

  It pierced the Sella through the eye.

  Res tried to pull up, but he misjudged the speed with his armored body and slammed into the front line of cavalry. I screamed for him, flinging myself at the wall, but hands pulled me back. Panic resounded along the cord between us as I clawed at the people restraining me.

  Swords flashed, striking the spot where Res had been consumed by the warhorses. It was as if a dark sea had swallowed him. I could feel his fear, his pain. He struggled to right himself, to find which way was up and escape.

  Hold the armor! I screamed down the cord, praying he could maintain control. Only fear echoed back. Swords flashed, and more soldiers joined the fray.

  Then a spray of silver exploded upward. Horses reared back, sending riders tumbling to the ground, where their fellows trampled them. The earth surged beneath Res. It rolled up like a wave to toss him into the air, his metal armor fading as his wings spread wide.

  A sword caught the side of his leg. Res’s pain hit me like a blow to the chest. I stumbled back, the hands going from holding me back to holding me up. Another sharp wave coursed through me as something nicked his wing, and then my bow was in my hands and I was firing arrow after arrow after arrow into the crowd of soldiers, the other archers stepping up alongside me.

  Bolstered by a powerful wind, Res spiraled high into the sky, then dove fast for the ground on the far side of the wall.

  I tore from the battlement to meet him. He pulled up from his dive, wings flaring wide, but a flash of pain blazed from him. He cringed inward, feathers flickering silver a second before he hit the ground like a falling star.

  Then I was at his side, my hands searching his body, unable to do anything but strangle my panic into silence as I sought his mind. “You’re okay, you’re okay. Tell me you’re okay.” The words poured out of me even as I struggled to send reassurances along the cord, to grant the peace and comfort he needed to heal.

  Res cawed weakly, slowly shifting his wings out from under him, trying to pull back onto his feet.

  I forced a hard breath out, then in again, willing myself into a calm that felt so impossibly remote. I pictured my fear and anxiety as a snake, imagining it slithering off my shoulders and far, far away from me. Then I projected that serenity to Res.

  He seized hold of it. A moment later, a soft golden light rose from his feathers. It flickered, fading out, then back in, and with every spurt of it, his exhaustion echoed, but slowly, his body healed.

  Then the Illucian cavalry flooded the city.

  Thirty-One

  Ericen appeared before me, his face sprayed with red—someone else’s blood. “Can he move?”

  “I don’t know.” The words were half sob as he pulled me to my feet.

  “Come on, you bloody chicken!” he snapped. “You don’t see me lying around.”

  Res cawed, his power surging alongside a flash of indignation. The golden light flared, and he wrenched himself to his feet.

  “There you go,” the prince said with a smirk. “How injured is he? We need him to close that opening.”

  “He doesn’t even have enough strength to heal,” I said. “I don’t think he can close it.” Even if Res had been at full strength, forming something that large out of the earth alone would have been a true test of his earth crow powers.

  The Rhodairen and Trendellan cavalry had lined up at the opening and now engaged the incoming flood of Illucian soldiers. Horses slammed together. Soldiers fell screaming. Thunder beat the sky alongside their cries.

  Eventually, our cavalry would be overrun, and our infantry wouldn’t be able to stop the tide of warhorses.

  Someone broke free of the fighting, heading toward us. I had an arrow nocked before I recognized Estrel.

  Her left arm was stained red, and she cradled it close to her body. She readjusted her grip on her blade. “I lost track of the Sella I was fighting. How many of the damn things are left?”

  “That’s the last one,” I said with a small flicker of relief. “If the other two are here, I haven’t seen them. We just have to last until the reinforcements arrive or Res has enough energy to re-form that wall.”

  Estrel grunted. “Easier said than done.”

  As if in recognition of her words, our line broke.

  * * *

  Illucian infantry flooded through the wall gap on the heels of the cavalry line. Rhodairen and Trendellan soldiers rushed to meet them, but their organization had failed, and we could only last so long against the sheer Illucian numbers.

  A contingent of soldiers broke off, rushing for our group. Ericen and Estrel turned to meet them. I nocked an arrow, laying down cover for them as they fought, and we formed a protective arch around Res.

  Time slowed. My muscles burned. I thought only of the next arrow, the next swing. Of the forward and backward momentum of Estrel’s and Ericen’s strikes. Attack, step back, arrow. Attack, step back, arrow. Breathe.

  Soldiers fell.

  My thundering heart filled my ears. I became aware of every breath, every movement. The world fell away as blood splattered my pants, my hands, my bow.

  A Trendellan monk and two Rhodairen soldiers had joined Ericen and Estrel, but Res was too noticeable of a target. More and more Illucians broke off, making straight for us. Our line was wearing down, and my open shots were few and far between. Every time we fell back deeper into the city, they pursued us, Res limping just ahead of us.

  We couldn’t hold out much longer.

  “Fall back!” Lady Kerova’s voice sounded above the tumult. “To the lake!”

  The lake. It was a death trap. With only the thin strip of stone across it, our troops would bottleneck and be slaughtered.

  But they were already being slaughtered.

  We fought and ran and struck and fell back. Ericen killed two Illucian soldiers in a row. Estrel took down a third. Six more took their place.

  Somehow, we reached the far end of the town, drained and bleeding and with muscles burning. The city was overrun. A tide of black and blue slid inevitably toward us.

  A Rhodairen soldier stumbled back beside me, her dark eyes wide. “It’s gone.”

  I seized her shoulder. “What’s gone?”

  “The path.”

  I spun. Over the heads of the backed-up infantry, I could see through the arch leading out to the lake.

  The earth Sella had destroyed the stone pathway.

  They’d cut off our retreat.

  A sword caught the monk in the stomach, the tip piercing through his back. Another cut across Estrel’s leg, sending her to the ground.

  The battle Sella grinned down at us.

  Ericen stepped in front of Estrel, downing a Vykryn as he moved. I put an arrow in the one coming for his back. But there were too many. The battle Sella’s makeshift sword caught Ericen along the side of his arm, then he slit the throat of a Rhodairen soldier. She fell, a sickening wheeze cutting through the thunder in my ears.

  My fingers sought another arrow—and found only air.

  The battle Sella stepped back and threw something wide over our heads. A net fell over Res. He let out a piercing screech and
flared his wings, but they only tangled in the ropes. Two Vykryn moved in, tugging him down. A third lifted a sword.

  A scream tore through me as I threw myself at the Vykryn. My shoulder rammed into his chest, knocking him back. I swung through with my bow, catching him across the face with its sharpened edge. The other Vykryn closed in on me, and I backed away, panting hard.

  Over their shoulder, I met Ericen’s gaze. Saw him fighting viciously to get to me. Saw the tide of soldiers swallow him up and knew that it was over, that we’d lost.

  The battle Sella raised his sword over Estrel’s exposed neck.

  Then a black gold blade pierced through his chest.

  He dropped, the Vykryn turning too slowly. Kiva killed them before they realized what she’d done.

  Relief nearly sent me to my knees as Kiva, bloody and scratched and bearing a wild grin, said, “I brought some friends.”

  Over her shoulder, a ripple went through the Illucian soldiers. One by one, they turned, forced to face something charging through their ranks from behind.

  Our reinforcements had arrived.

  * * *

  The Jin and Ambriellan forces flooded across the field.

  Unlike Rhodaire’s, Jindae’s cavalry had been second only to Illucia. That might showed in the line of horses rushing the exposed infantry’s backs. Soldiers turned too slowly as horses barreled through them, blades flashing.

  Ericen broke between two soldiers, shoving his way to Kiva’s side as Estrel and I tore the net away from Res. He let out a low caw, tugging at me along the line. He wanted to fight.

  I swung back around and into the saddle. He straightened, his leg finally healed.

  “Get those ranks formed back up!” I shouted to Kiva. “And stay out of Res’s way!”

  Then we shot into the sky.

  Magic stuttered down the bond, then flared to life. He coasted out along the sea of Illucian soldiers.

  Then lightning began to rain.

  Soldiers screamed and ran for cover beneath the towers, but there weren’t enough to shelter them. Res’s storm tore through their ranks.