by Shae Ford
But when the sun rose, she thought the shadow the wall cast might reach back to touch the Grandforest.
“Well, here we are,” Aerilyn said weakly. Her hand moved to grasp the top of Elena’s arm — as if that was the one thing keeping her from tumbling out of the saddle. “It’s quite … enormous.”
Elena had to swallow the panicked lump in her throat before she could mutter: “Well, what did you expect?”
The truth was that she had no idea what to expect. She had no idea what they were doing.
The news of the Countess’s death had shocked her for a few days. There’d been so many strange feelings swirling inside her heart that she wasn’t sure how to manage them — and it’d made it difficult to pay attention to her companions’ many arguments.
Gwen was desperate to find the Wright — for reasons she refused to tell them. Shamus was furious about his village, and the mercenaries they’d brought from the Grandforest were spoiling for a fight. When their stories came together, they realized a good portion of the King’s army had already been destroyed.
But they never would’ve thought of sacking Midlan, had it not been for Captain Lysander.
“The King is weakened. If we part ways now, Midlan will only turn up at our doors again — stronger and more furious than before. We won’t get a better chance to stop Crevan. There might not ever be such a force gathered together again. And if you want to find Kael,” he’d added, when Gwen started to protest, “I assure you this is the only way to do it. Without the threat of Midlan, Kyleigh will have no reason to run. She’ll come back to us, as she always does — and I’ll bet my sword that she’ll bring the Wright with her.”
He’d passed one of his charming smiles around the men, stoking them into cheers. But Aerilyn seemed far from convinced.
“Wait a moment, aren’t all of you forgetting something? The King has a dragon,” she’d said, rolling her eyes in exasperation at their looks. “No matter how many of us there are, we’ll still burn just as —”
“You worry about the soldiers,” Gwen cut in. She’d raised her golden axe and added with a smirk to the wildmen: “Let us handle the dragon.”
There’d been so much howling after she spoke that anyone who might’ve had doubts couldn’t squeeze them in edgewise. And so they’d packed their camp and sailed up the coast to Midlan.
“I’m not sure what I expected,” Aerilyn said, still gaping at the walls. “I suppose it makes sense that the King would live somewhere so grand —”
“And un-scalable, and completely packed with tinheads,” Elena added, squinting at the telltale glints of armor coming from the ramparts. They were in a rush to get somewhere — the southwestern wall, by the looks of it. “I’m beginning to doubt all of this. I’m beginning to doubt it very seriously.”
“Haven’t you been to Midlan before?”
“No. The Countess would never let me. She was afraid Crevan might figure out what I was, and then he would’ve killed me.”
Aerilyn’s grip twisted. “At least we have the whisperers.”
“The same whisperers who somehow managed to sink one of our boats while playing a friendly game of cards? I don’t know if they improve our chances.”
“I’m sure there’s more to the story,” Aerilyn insisted.
Elena didn’t doubt it, but she also didn’t care. All she knew was that the second half of their trip had been considerably more cramped than the first.
Their companions marched nearly half a mile behind them — a strange army made of pirates and mercenaries, with the wildmen and some fishermen from Harborville scattered in between. They’d begun their journey at the shores and seemed to add another few dozen men to their ranks in every village they passed.
But numbers alone wouldn’t be enough to win a fight with Midlan. Their army had swelled to the point that no one knew exactly what it was, or who was in charge of it all. Elena had begun to suspect that half of the new men didn’t even know what they were fighting for.
“I don’t like our chances,” she said again.
“Well, there’ll be plenty of time to worry about that later.” Aerilyn waved a hand at the wall. “How many are there?”
“Too many.”
“Lysander sent us ahead to scout,” Aerilyn said sharply. “And if we’re going to ride out all this way, then we might as well return with something helpful.”
“He sent me to scout. You just insisted on coming along. There are so many that I bet they could have the walls dressed with our innards by nightfall — if they were to start right away,” she added, smiling at Aerilyn’s gasp. “If they took the time to kill us before they split us open, then it might be closer to midnight.”
“If you aren’t going to take this seriously —”
“Shhh! Shut it.” Elena reached back and clamped a hand over Aerilyn’s mouth, listening intently.
There was a noise coming from the forest on their right — the thick crop of trees that faced the southwestern wall. The noise was too distant to make out what it was, but it’d certainly caught Midlan’s attention. A large number of soldiers were clustered against the ramparts’ edge. Their armor glinted as they began to squirm, jostling for position.
Something was about to happen. Elena could feel it.
She turned Braver and kicked him into a gallop for the trees. They’d just managed to slip beneath a thick canopy of an oak when she heard it: the sound of shrieks and caws, the furious beating of wings.
A cloud of birds erupted from behind Midlan’s towers — hideous monsters that twisted the forms of men with hawks and crows. They rose like the crest of a wave and swooped down, sailing in an arrow’s head for the trees. Their wave spun into a circle when they reached the forest’s heart. They swarmed above its middle, moving steadily towards the open field that led to Midlan.
“Have they seen us?” Aerilyn squeaked.
Elena shook her head. “They’ve got their eyes on something over there. I don’t know what it is,” she added, before Aerilyn could ask, “but I expect we’ll find out in a moment.”
Whatever it was would do well to stay in the trees: the branches clumped together so tight and thick that none of the monsters would risk crashing through it. But the second their prey came out into the open …
Well, that would be a different matter.
They’d been remarkably lucky not to be seen. Elena was about to turn them away when the noises in the woods began to grow. They were coming closer. Soon she could hear the rattle of armor and some deep, panting breaths.
Above all the noise rose a panicked scream: “Open the gates! They’re at our heels — we can’t last much longer! Open the bloody gates!”
But for all the shrieking, the soldiers upon the ramparts never moved. The gates stayed sealed. And soon the man’s cry was overcome by something else: an army of footsteps so heavy that they beat thunder from the earth.
The screams grew louder; the thunder swelled. The cloud of birds moved hungrily for the forest’s edge. Braver pawed at the earth and his breath blew from his nostrils in a heated stream. Elena wasn’t sure if it was the noise that froze her, or the ferocity of Aerilyn’s grip.
All at once, soldiers burst from the trees.
It was the ragged remains of a Midlan patrol — a handful of tinheads with holes in their armor and brambles stuck to their trousers. The men who trailed at the rear bore heavy gashes upon their backs. Elena could practically smell the blood wafting from their wounds.
The soldiers at the head shoved each other as they ran, each one desperate to reach the gates; the men at the rear hobbled with their helmets twisted behind them. But it was too late.
Their hunters had already closed the gap.
A man burst from the thicket hardly a pace behind the last soldier. The bellow that tore from his chest matched the thunder of his legs. His thick limbs shone with a layer of blood.
The monstrous scythe he carried made short work of the trailing soldiers. His steps were heavy
and sure, his blade hissed through their blood and bones in a deadly stream of attacks. Their bodies had barely crumpled into the grass before he took off after the rest.
“Declan!” When more giants erupted from the forest, Aerilyn’s voice rose to a scream. “No, stop — go back! There are birds! There are birds!”
But the giants didn’t seem able to hear her over their battle cries. The monsters waited until the first few ranks had charged out from the trees before they descended.
Crows swarmed, tearing with their beaks and claws. The hawks fell in streaks from the clouds. Some of the giants managed to raise their scythes in time to skewer them. Others were crushed.
Aerilyn shook Elena hard by the shoulders. “We have to help them!”
“We’d be flattened before we could do any good. Once they turn back for the forest, they’ll be safe. I’m sure they’ll turn at any moment.”
A moment passed, and the giants still hadn’t turned. Some of the crows landed at the edge of the trees, using their massive bodies to cut the giants off from safety. They moved in blinks — darting away from the scythes while lashing out with their taloned feet. Above them, the hawks swooped down upon the giants and batted them mercilessly with their wings.
One of the crows struck with such force that its claws punched through a giant’s breastplate. It panicked for a moment, thrashing its wings and stumbling the poor giant in every direction. The fall of a scythe put an end to its flails.
A giant who was a little slighter than the rest ripped its talons free and pulled his rattled companion onto his feet. “Fall back, you clods! Into the trees!” Brend bellowed.
The giants swarmed in around him and tried to shove the crows aside, but the moment their attention was turned elsewhere, the hawks gathered for a plunge. Aerilyn screamed again; the giants didn’t hear her. Just when it looked as if they would be crushed, a line of spear-toting warriors lunged from the woods.
They were clad in blood-red silk adorned with silver mail, and stood at the height of children. The warriors darted forward in a perfect line and thrust their spears as high as they could reach — jabbing the crows in the feathery smalls of their backs.
They screeched in pain, and the giants fell upon them. Their weapons swept across the monsters’ necks and split their twisted heads down their middles. The hawks pulled out of their dives with terrified screams.
Though nearly all of the little warriors fell in with the giants’ retreat, one woman fought against the tide to the open field. Elena recognized her singsong voice immediately:
“No, you must turn back! You are going too near to the castle! They will — let me go!” Nadine cried when Brend scooped her over his shoulder. “He must be stopped!”
“Let me handle the stopping, wee thing,” he grunted.
Nadine flailed madly, cursing in her strange tongue. But she couldn’t escape. Brend handed her off to one of the giants and set out towards the field.
The hawks had given up on their prey and had instead turned their wicked yellow eyes upon Declan. He slashed his way through the patrol’s remains, oblivious to the screeching of the swarm about to fall upon him.
“Don’t just stand there — move!”
Aerilyn kicked her heels into Braver’s side, shooting them out from under the trees and in the open field. His stocky legs beat the ground as he charged for the soldiers’ flank. Elena felt the weight of eyes upon them and knew they’d caught the hawks’ attention. When one of their shadows darkened the sky, she gripped the reins tightly.
“Hold on!”
Braver’s powerful legs turned at her command. His hooves left gashes in the earth as he cut to the side — narrowly escaping the grasp of an enormous set of claws. Elena’s eyes blurred and her hair whipped back from her face as the hawk whooshed past them.
Another came at them from the front. She watched its horrible, blackened eyes grow closer. One of her hands went to her bandolier while the other gripped the reins. She held their charge until the last possible moment.
When Braver tore to the right, Elena made her throw. Dirt lashed them in a stinging wave as the hawk’s enormous body crashed into the ground beside them, a knife hanging from its throat.
They wove through the hawks’ attack, moving ever closer to Declan. He’d finished the last of the soldiers and was now charging towards the castle walls. Braver turned and went into a straight sprint. If they didn’t break pace, they might be able to cut him off before he came within range of Midlan’s bows.
They were still several yards away when Elena caught something out of the corner of her eye: a flare of purple light growing upon the ramparts. Strange words filled the air, stoking the light to a blaze.
“Mage!” Elena gasped behind her. She wrenched Braver to the left, cutting him steeply towards the castle wall. “Get ready,” she roared.
Aerilyn had already begun to move. She leaned forward and lodged her heels across Elena’s ankles, wedging them in to keep from being jostled off the saddle. There was some rattling as she freed her bow and pulled an arrow from its quiver.
Midlan’s archers stepped eagerly up to the walls, every bow drawn and waiting for Braver to come within their range. Elena knew they would only be able to survive for a moment. Once they crossed that line, a hail of arrows would fall upon their heads.
At the ramparts, the light was about to burst free.
“I’m ready!”
“You’ve got one shot —”
“I know!”
“Then don’t bloody miss!”
“I’m not!”
Elena flinched as the bow’s string twanged beside her ear and the arrow shot away. She ripped Braver to the side when Midlan’s archers fired, and sent him into a headlong sprint for Declan — her teeth bared against the hissing swarm of bolts that thudded into the ground behind them.
Aerilyn missed.
Elena turned in time to see the arrow strike the wall beneath the mage’s feet. The force of the explosion knocked him backwards. It shattered the wall and set his robes aflame. The mage toppled into the courtyard, screaming as the fire engulfed his body. He managed to hold onto the purple spell as he plummeted down.
But when he reached the bottom, he must’ve lost his grip.
A second explosion cracked through the air behind them — a purple burst that shook the ground and sent the archers upon the ramparts soaring into the field. Their bodies sprayed out like foam across a ship’s bow and crunched into the grass. The walls swelled outwards beneath the force of the spell. A web of fissures raced across the stone and mortar. But remarkably, it held.
The noise terrified the hawks. They stopped their attack and scrambled off in every direction, like ducks from a stone. Braver’s eyes rolled back and Elena held on tightly as he broke into a jagged run for the trees. But at least they’d managed to stop Declan.
His crazed roaring ceased as the earth shook. The black seemed about to leave his eyes when Brend tackled him from behind.
“Calm yourself, you great silly midget!”
When Declan continued to struggle, Brend grabbed a fistful of dirt off the ground and flung it into his face. The black left his eyes immediately, widening into confused portals of stony gray.
“What —?”
“No, never you mind about what’s happening behind us,” Brend said as he dragged Declan to his feet. “Just keep your eyes straight and your feet facing the trees. Go on, now — don’t make me tie you up!”
Brend shoved Declan ahead of him, using his shoulders to block Midlan’s walls from his sight. Elena kept Braver trotting behind the giants’ jog.
They were near the forest when Brend twisted to look back at them. A grin split his wide face when Aerilyn waved. “That was a good shot, wee lass — a mightily good shot.”
Elena could practically feel the heat from her blush as she replied: “Yes, well, I have my moments.”
“And what a grand moment it was.”
They found the giants and the m
ots a little ways into a thicket. It wasn’t difficult: all they had to do was follow the crushed earth and the noise of Nadine’s indignant yells.
“Put me on my feet! I cannot help if I am dangling off the ground.”
“You couldn’t help with your feet on the ground, wee mote,” Declan grunted.
She cried out at the sight of him. Her legs were already spinning when the giant set her down. Nadine charged up to Declan so zealously that it looked as if she might fling herself into his chest. But at the last moment, she pulled to a stop.
“You are filthy.”
“Yeh, I know it. I’ll go wash.”
She touched his arm as he passed and watched as he thudded away — which made it easy for Elena to slip up behind her. “What in Kingdom’s name are you doing in Midlan?”
Nadine didn’t hesitate for a moment to throw herself into Elena’s chest. “Where have you come from? You are always turning up to surprise me.”
Most people annoyed her with their touch. But Nadine’s embrace was always warm, her arms wrapped in a way that was more comforting than tight. She seemed to understand that Elena didn’t like to be touched — but she also didn’t care.
It was a strangely … endearing, trait.
“I can’t help that our paths keep crossing. It seems as if we’ve had the same ridiculous idea.” Elena looked over the top of Nadine’s head. Her heart searched hopefully and her eyes strained to see, even as her stomach twisted with dread. The moment she thought of asking, her lips sealed tight.
Luckily, Aerilyn asked it for her. “Is Jake not with you? I expected to see Midlan burst into flame at any moment.”
Nadine’s dark eyes lost their light suddenly, and her smile faded back. “No. I thought … I thought your coming here meant that you had heard.”
“Heard what?” Aerilyn said.
Elena froze. Every drop of her blood ground to a halt inside her veins. She read the answer in Nadine’s eyes long before she spoke, long before she pulled the cracked spectacles from her pocket and placed them in her hand.
