9 WITH THE DAWN
LARA LOWERED HERSELF back onto the stool and tried to ignore the dull throb in her wrist. Alar was right: he hadn’t hurt her overly. All the same, some things stung more than a cut to the skin.
She’d just agreed to bind herself to a man of questionable morals. She’d accused him of lusting after power, yet was she any different?
Bile surged up, stinging the back of her throat. What have I done?
Too late, she wished she’d taken the advice of her council—and her friends—and accepted defeat. Now, whether she wanted it or not, she shared a bond with the Half-blood.
She was glad Mirren and Bree hadn’t been present to see her perform the blood oath, to witness just how low she’d stoop to get what she wanted.
She’d have to watch Alar. He’d assured her he didn’t covet Duncrag, but she didn’t believe him. She’d put measures in place once she returned home to ensure he and his wulvers couldn’t stage a rebellion.
Viewing the man whom she’d just made a pact with—as he retrieved his wine, yet didn’t drink any of it—she decided to focus on practicalities. Perhaps if she did, this sickening sensation would retreat. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel as if she’d just put her head in a noose.
“Is your army … and your Fire Wyrm … ready to attack with the dawn?” she asked briskly.
Alar nodded. “We have been waiting for your command.”
“Good.” She rose to her feet, wishing her belly would stop churning. “We must now meet with my chief-enforcer and the captain of my army … to discuss tactics for tomorrow morning.”
Lara’s skin prickled as she watched the wulvers advance.
These creatures were reclusive by nature, and so she’d never actually seen one.
They stalked rather than walked, moving with rounded shoulders and a loping gait.
Rangy in build, they dressed lightly. The males were clad in leather trews and heavy boots, with knife belts strapped across their naked chests, while the females bound their breasts with leather.
Pelts of different hues—from smoke or ash grey, to tawny brown, peat, and black—covered their shoulders, necks, and heads.
Lara noted their powerful canine jaws and their feral golden eyes, which fixed ahead at where the first glimmers of light warmed the eastern sky, gilding Doure’s walls and turning the Sea of Sorrows molten bronze.
Like most of her people, she’d believed wulvers were a craven lot—but they didn’t look like cowards this morning.
And the snarls and barks they made chilled her blood. Pride gleamed in their eyes.
As promised, they’d been ready to attack with the dawn.
Alar strode by then, flanked by two male wulvers—one of which was huge, his grey and black hackles raised.
The Half-blood was clad in leather breeches, a breastplate, and arm bracers.
His long black hair had been braided at the sides and pulled back from his face, and he was armed as she’d seen him on their first meeting, with two fighting daggers strapped to his back.
He nodded to her as he passed, and she mirrored the gesture, acknowledging him too.
They didn’t speak though. Enough words had passed between them for the moment.
She’d regretted every one of them.
But now, as Alar and his wulvers strode toward Doure, her regret slid into something else. Hope. Maybe this would work out. Maybe she hadn’t made a huge mistake.
Lara watched him go until the swelling ranks swallowed him.
Her wrist started to tingle then, and she turned her hand over and drew back her sleeve.
The cut he’d given her the night before had scabbed over, yet it had prickled intermittently ever since.
She’d deliberately not told anyone about the blood oath and had covered up the cut.
She wasn’t sure how her council would react to what she’d done—on top of her obstinance the day before—and so she decided to keep it secret.
In the aftermath, all her advisors had been aloof with her, even Bree and Cailean, but once Doure was taken, they’d realize that she’d done the right thing. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
Pulling her sleeve back down, she raised her chin, her gaze travelling to where the Fire Wyrm emerged. She murmured an oath under her breath as she tracked the path of the battering ram.
It made those they’d constructed look feeble indeed.
The weapon was pulled in on wheels, by lines of heaving wulvers.
It was long, around twelve feet, and swung on heavy chains.
And as Alar had described, it had been forged of iron.
Pitch burned within, flames erupting from the wyrm’s open jaws and slitted eyes.
The weapon rolled on, while the wulvers—wearing heavy iron helmets and plate armor—hauling it chanted in a rough tongue that Lara didn’t understand.
The iron began to glow. Before her eyes, the Fire Wyrm illuminated the dawn.
Her heart started to pound.
Beside her, Bree breathed a curse. “I’ve never seen the like.” They were the first words her friend had spoken since they’d left the camp.
“Let’s hope that the Shee have seen it too … and are now shitting themselves,” Lara replied huskily.
Bree snorted, making it clear that the enemy wasn’t so easily cowed.
Shifting in the saddle, Lara peered into the carpet of leather and mail-clad bodies moving toward the gates. Somewhere in there was her husband-to-be. Alar had advanced with the front ranks, along with Cailean and Roth.
And then, the great horde surged forward, a vast wave that rolled down the defile. Iron glinted dully as sunlight caught the edges of shields and blades. The shouts of men and women, and the chants of druids, mingled with the growls and snarls of wulvers, shook the sky.
But they didn’t waste time trying to scale the walls this morning. Instead, they fell in behind the Fire Wyrm and headed toward the gates.
Arrows slammed into the battering ram as it rumbled up the other side of the defile, flying from the ramparts.
Rows of figures clad in gleaming silver wielded longbows.
They aimed at the Fire Wyrm first, but when their quarrels merely ricocheted off the glowing iron, they focused their attention upon the rows of wulvers that drew the weapon ever closer to their destination.
Just a few yards remained now.
But these wulvers had come prepared. Their heavy helmets and plated shoulder guards protected them. Heads bowed, they plowed on, and although some of them fell under the onslaught, the Fire Wyrm kept up its slow, inexorable progress.
Lara held her breath now, her heart kicking against her breastbone.
Just a few feet more.
With a lurch, the battering ram halted.
Fiery debris now rained down on it, as the Shee tried to set fire to the wooden scaffold that held up the Fire Wyrm .
However, the wulvers had covered the scaffold with a canopy of wet animal hides.
Steam rose as fireballs hit, but the battering ram under it swung back on chains, pulled by the wulvers.
Lara’s ears started to ring, and she let out a sharp exhale. Breathe, you idiot! She’d look like a fool indeed if she fainted and toppled off her horse into the mud.
Boom!
Solid iron hit the gates.
Of course, although the Shee hated iron, they couldn’t escape it in Doure. The gates themselves were made of iron and oak. They were sturdy, yet they’d already taken a hammering over the past days.
Boom!
“Come on,” Lara growled as sweat now slid down her back between her shoulder blades. “Break, you bastards!”
Boom!
The scream and creak of both metal and wood sundering ripped through the smoky air, and a great roar went up.
But the Fire Wyrm wasn’t yet done. It swung on its heavy chains once more, and this time—even from this distance—Lara saw the gates give way.
A whoop tore from her throat, and Bracken danced under her. And then, the army outside the walls surged forward into the breach, pushing into the fort.
The roar from the Marav and the wulvers broke over her in waves, and the air vibrated from the force of it. Presently, the rows of Shee archers on the walls disappeared, rushing down to the lower levels to fight.
Lara cut Bree a glance then. Her warder was staring at the fort.
Cailean was in there, no doubt fighting in the thick of things.
The tension in Bree’s body, the way her hand gripped the pommel of her sword, betrayed her hunger to be at his side.
“What now?” Lara gasped, excitement pitching in her gut.
Bree tore her gaze from the fort and met her eye squarely for the first time that morning. “Now the real battle begins.”
Lara rode into the smoking fort, flanked by her Guard. The army had cleared a path for her, dragging debris and corpses out of the way so that the High Queen could enter.
Heart pounding, she urged her mare across the large open ground at the base of the fort, an area lined by storehouses and stables. Victory. Her breathing grew shallow, her skin prickling with elation.
Alar had done what he’d promised.
Riding on, she found herself peering into shadowed wynds, steps, and the doorways of turf-roofed roundhouses and cottages.
They’d won—the surviving Shee had surrendered—although it paid to be cautious.
They could never be underestimated. Her warriors had scoured Doure and had assured her that the enemy was either dead or captured.
But she was on edge, all the same. Bree traveled alongside her, one hand still resting on the pommel of her sword.
As she made her way up the narrow road that snaked up to the top of the promontory, the people of Doure—the Marav who’d continued to live here under Shee rule—ventured out to see their queen. Thin, haggard faces turned up to the pale sun.
She wondered how greatly they’d suffered under their Shee overlords. She’d expected to see relief in their eyes at being liberated, yet many of them just looked stunned. And those who didn’t wore sullen expressions.
Lara’s lips thinned, her jubilation fading. Were they angry the wulvers were here? The arrangement didn’t suit her either, but it couldn’t be helped.
Nodding to her people—and trying to overlook their accusing stares—she urged her horse on. Anger sparked then, its heat rolling over her. Ungrateful turds. You’ll thank me one day .
Still scanning her surroundings, for she half-expected a Shee clad in steel armor to leap out from behind a wall or emerge from one of the narrow vennels—walkways that provided shortcuts for those on foot to reach the summit of the fort—Lara crested the top of the crag.
Here, the beehive-shaped broch, a smaller version of her own in Duncrag, rose against the sky.
The tightly-packed dwellings drew back, and she rode across a wide dirt square before the gates of the broch.
Her banner, a white wolf’s head against a field of black, fluttered from the wooden palisade that surrounded the broch.
Dark splotches stained the ground up here—blood—although the bodies had been dragged aside.
The Marav and wulver dead now lined the northern wall, while a pile of Shee corpses rose on the southern side of the square.
Steel scale armor glinted in the sunlight.
Queasiness rolled over Lara, and she swallowed hard.
So many dead—on both sides.
What did you expect? This is only the beginning. If she wished to take back The Uplands, she’d have to do this again, many times over, before she drove the Shee back. She’d have to get used to death.
Tearing her gaze from the corpses, she straightened her spine and focused on the gates ahead.
And when she rode through them, she found the three men who’d led her to victory standing on the steps to the broch: Cailean, Roth, and Alar.
A large fae hound, her green coat ruffling in the wind, stood with them.
Skaal’s coat was singed in places and clumped with gore. Fortunately, she appeared unhurt.
The chief-enforcer, captain, and the Half-blood were also blood-splattered, and they bore what looked like superficial cuts on their arms and faces, yet their gazes gleamed. Cailean and Roth weren’t happy with her decision, but hopefully, today’s win would ease things a little between them.
Maybe they’d understand why she’d done this.
“Well fought,” she greeted them, pride flushing through her.
Cailean nodded brusquely, and Roth flashed her a tight smile, while Alar inclined his head.
“Where is the Shee commander?” she asked, trying not to let their muted responses bother her.
“Dead inside the broch,” Cailean replied. “He’s on the dais. I think you’ll recognize him.”
Lara tensed. Would she? Sliding her feet from the stirrups, she prepared to dismount.
Behind her, she heard the thud of boots hitting the ground then, as one of her Guard swung down from the saddle to help his queen.
Irritation flared under her ribs. “It’s all right.
” She waved the man away. “I told you I can manage.”
“Allow me then.”
Lara’s attention snapped right to see Alar descending the steps toward her.