Leaving Morath wide open for the golden army as it slammed into them with the force of a tidal wave.
CHAPTER 107
Rowan’s breath was a steady rasp in his throat as he charged through the lines of Valg soldiers, screaming ringing out around him. Nearby, cutting a swath through Morath’s masses, Aelin and the Lord of the North fought. Soldiers swarmed, but neither queen nor stag balked.
Not when Aelin’s flame, reduced as it was, kept any in her blind spots from landing a blow.
The Darghan cavalry shoved Morath back, and above them, ruks and wyverns clashed.
Beasts, feathered and scaled, crashed to the earth.
Still Borte fought above the queen, guarding her from the Ironteeth who spotted that white stag, as good as a banner amid the sea of darkness, and aimed for her. At Borte’s side, her betrothed guarded their flank, and Falkan Ennar, in ruk form, guarded her other.
His Darghan horse fearless, Rowan swept out his left arm, hatchet singing. A Valg head tumbled away, but Rowan was already slashing with his sword at his next opponent.
The odds were against them, even with the planning they’d done. Yet if they could liberate the city, regroup and restock, before Erawan and Maeve arrived, they might stand a chance.
For Erawan and Maeve would come. At some point, they would come, and Aelin would want to face them. Rowan had no intention of letting her do so alone.
Rowan glanced toward Aelin. She had plowed farther ahead, the front line spreading out, swarms of Morath soldiers between them. Stay close. He had to stay close.
A Crochan swept by, shooting past Rowan to rise up, up, up—right to the unprotected underbelly of an Ironteeth witch’s wyvern.
Sword raised, the witch raced along its underside, swift and brutal.
Where she passed, blood and gore rained.
The beast groaned, wings splaying, and Rowan threw out a gust of wind. The wyvern crashed onto Morath’s ranks with a boom that sent his own damned horse plowing away.
When the shuddering wings had stilled, when Rowan had steadied his horse and felled the soldiers rushing at him, he again searched for Aelin.
But his mate was no longer near him.
No, charging ahead, a vision of gold and silver, Aelin had gotten so far away that she was nearly beyond sight. There was no sign of Gavriel, either.
Yet Fenrys battled near Rowan’s other side, Lorcan on his left—a dark, deadly wind lashing out in time with his sword.
Once, they had been little more than slaves to a queen who had unleashed them across the world. Together, they had taken on armies and decimated cities.
He had not cared then whether he walked off those distant battlefields. Had not cared whether those kingdoms fell or survived. He had been given his orders, and had executed them.
But here, today … Aelin had given them no order, no command other than the very first they’d sworn to obey: to protect Terrasen.
So they would. And together, they would do so, cadre once more.
They would fight for this kingdom—their new court. Their new home.
He could see it in Fenrys’s eyes as he cut a soldier in two with a deep slice to the middle. Could see that vision of a future on Lorcan’s raging face as the warrior wielded magic and blade to rip through the enemy ranks.
Cadre, yet more than that. Brothers—the warriors fighting at his side were his brothers. Had stayed with him through all of it. And would continue to do so now.
It steeled him as much as the thought of his mate, still fighting ahead. He had to get to her, keep close. They all did. Orynth depended upon it.
No longer slaves. No longer raging and broken.
A home. This would be their home. Their future. Together.
Morath soldiers fell before them. Some outright ran as they beheld who battled closer.
Perhaps why Maeve had gathered them in the first place. Yet she had never been able to fully harness it—their potential, their true might. Had chosen shackles and pain to control them. Unable to comprehend, to even consider, that glory and riches only went so far.
But a true home, and a queen who saw them as males and not weapons … Something worth fighting for. No enemy could withstand it.
Lorcan and Fenrys battling at his side, Rowan gritted his teeth and urged his horse after Aelin, into the chaos and death that raged and raged and did not stop.
Aelin had come.
Had escaped Maeve, and had come.
Aedion couldn’t believe it. Even as he saw the army that fought with her. Even as he saw Chaol and Dorian leading the right flank, charging with the front lines and wild men of the Fangs, the king’s magic blasting in plumes of ice into the enemy.
Chaol Westfall had not failed them. And had somehow convinced the khagan to send what appeared to be the majority of his armies.
But that army was inching toward Orynth, still far across Theralis.
Morath did not halt its assault on Orynth’s two gates. The southern held strong. But the western gate—it was beginning to buckle.
Lysandra had shifted into a wyvern and soared with the desperate, final push of Manon Blackbeak and the Crochans toward the Ironteeth legion, hoping to crush it between them and the ruks. The shifter now fought there, lost amid the fray.
So Aedion charged down to the western gate, a battle cry on his lips as his men let him right up to the iron doors and the enemy army just visible through the sundering plates. The moment the gate opened, it would be over.
Aedion’s drained legs shook, his arms strained, but he held his ground. For whatever few breaths he had left.
Aelin had come. It was enough.
Dorian’s magic snapped out of him, felling the charging soldiers. Side by side with Chaol, the wild men of the Fangs around them, they cleared a path through Morath’s ranks, their swords plunging and lifting, their breath a burn in their throats.
He had never seen battle. Knew he never wished to again. The chaos, the noise, the blood, the horses screaming—
But he was not afraid. And Chaol, riding near him, breaking soldiers between them, did not hesitate. Only slaughtered onward, teeth gritted.
For Adarlan—for what had been done to it and what it might become.
The words echoed in his every panting breath. For Adarlan.
Morath’s army stretched ahead, still between them and the battered walls of Orynth.
Dorian didn’t let himself think of how many remained. He only thought of the sword and shield in his hands, Damaris already bathed in blood, of the magic he wielded to supplement his strikes. He wouldn’t shift—not yet. Not until his weapons and magic began to fail him. He’d never fought in another form, but he’d try. As a wyvern or a ruk, he’d try.
Somewhere above him, Manon Blackbeak flew. He didn’t dare look up long enough to hunt for a gleam of silver-white hair, or for the shimmer of Spidersilk-grafted wings.
He did not see any of the Thirteen. Or recognize any of the Crochans as they swept overhead.
So Dorian kept fighting, his brother in soul and in arms beside him.
He’d only let himself count at the end of the day. If they survived. If they made it to the city walls.
Only then would he tally the dead.
There was only Aelin’s besieged city, and the enemy before it, and the ancient sword in her hand.
Siege towers neared the walls, three clustering near the southern gate, each teeming with soldiers.
Still too far away to reach. And too distant for her magic.
Magic that was already draining, swift and fleeting, from her veins.
No more endless well of power. She had to conserve it, wield it to her best advantage.
And use the training that had been instilled in her for the past ten years. She had been an assassin long before she’d mastered her power.
It was no hardship to fall back on those skills. To let Goldryn draw blood, to engage multiple soldiers and leave them bleeding out behind her.
The Lord of the North was a storm beneath her, his white coat stained crimson and black.
That immortal flame between his antlers didn’t so much as flutter.
Overhead the skies rained blood, witch and wyvern and ruk alike dying and fighting.
Borte still covered her, engaging any Ironteeth who swooped from above.
Minutes were hours, or perhaps the opposite was true. The sun peaked and began its descent, shadows lengthening.
Rowan and the others had been scattered across the field, but an icy blast of wind every now and then told her that her mate still fought, still killed his way through the ranks. Still attempted to reach her side once more.