Chapter 45
VARIDIAN
It had been hours. So many hours fighting in the cold, rain-drenched sky over Woodsurn that I’d lost track of time.
There was no end to the rows of Zalaam wyverns.
For every rider we took out, for every riderless wyvern we knocked onto their army below, an endless stream of creatures patched the holes.
We’d lost wyverns from our front line, and our second, and our third.
Lost warriors and civilians below as the dying beasts crashed into their tight lines.
I forced myself not to look, but there was no blotting out the urgent yells, the screams, and the shocked silence that fell for only a few moments after—all that those fighting could allow, with the Zalaam army driving into them like a battering ram.
Our wyverns clashed with theirs in a messy tangle of teeth and talons, until my head was a drone of static and silence, my body a machine I operated on instinct.
The fight was so close, those fire-filled throats so close.
To unleash the flames would engulf themselves as well, so wings tore through wings, talons struck talons, and teeth sank into leather and wing and hide.
And if those wyverns bore riders, my lightning or the fire, air, ice, or aether of the riders around us would tear them from their mounts.
I didn’t acknowledge why that magic was being saved for the riders, for the killing blow that made the wyverns easier to knock from their flight. I didn’t want to think about the magic that had begun to run thin, especially when the front lines distorted, buckling as enemy and ally tangled.
Only the white leather tied around the arms of riders marked our allies—an idea from my brilliant wife.
It saved Shula from being gored by one of our own wyverns.
Saved me being spiked by a deadly hot whip of flame wielded by a wide-eyed rider it took me a moment to recognise.
She was one of our house guard from the Red Star. Kamila.
“Come back here, you weasel bastard,” I heard Zaarib shout in a split-second pause of the roaring noise.
I allowed myself a split second to look, to see him chasing after a commander with his arms raised and hands in fists.
The rider’s black wyvern slowed, unable to fight the drag of Zaarib’s magic.
And in the rider’s mouth was the silver gleam of a whistle.
He was one of the riders compelling the wyverns, calling yet more of them into the skies.
And the reason I couldn’t sink my claws of control into them.
If I could, this battle would have been over hours ago.
They’re falling back, the lightning soul said warily, glimpsing something beyond my sight.
“Good,” I grunted through gritted teeth, dragging a thin bolt of crackling magic from the dark cloud above and driving it into the heart of the rider Zaarib held still, then into the wyvern’s mighty chest.
A grin crossed my friend’s face, a wolf’s smile, and our stares connected for a moment—all I dared allow—before Mak growled at me to keep my head where it belonged. His jaws had snapped around the neck of a silvery green wyvern, his head shaking with brutal violence until the creature went still.
The wyvern’s descent was inevitable, but we’d pushed further and further forward, so the silver-green crashed into the Zalaam army, carving a hole through their ranks. Flattening warriors, breaking bones, snapping necks on impact.
Dahab bellowed, and I whipped my stare back to him to see his broad head slam into the side of the black wyvern I struck with lightning.
It wasn’t enough to push it away, to stop its angled fall.
It would land on our own army, shattering spines and paralysing the brave people who’d answered our call. Or simply killing them on impact.
A lump crushed my throat. Ached viciously. I tore my stare away from its falling body, and told myself killing its rider, killing the wyvern had saved more lives than we lost. One more whistle removed from play.
And like it had the other times we’d taken one out, enemy wyverns began to shake their heads, not in a deadly snaking motion, but like they were waking up from a deep and disorienting sleep.
Some of them ducked below the frantic clash, evading the fight.
And that was interesting. If we destroyed the whistles, the commanders, some of the wyverns would flee of their own accord.
A threat to be sure, but not as immediate as the fangs bared as a dark purple wyvern opened its jaws. Heat made the air shake. Fuck.
“Take it out!” someone yelled. “It’s going to breathe!”
Aliah carved a path through the chaos with a gauzy fog, and black-eyed wyverns simply fell from the sky as she passed. They didn’t land below, whisked away into the mist as she and Habiba fixed their attention on the purple wyvern.
The moment she was close enough, a white stream of aether reached the wyverns. It happened instantly; its throat darkened, fire guttered, and black eyes emptied of life. In seconds, the mist had surrounded it. When it moved back, nothing remained except the rain.
They’re retreating, the lightning soul said with more urgency. Varidian, a second wave is coming.
“Scout,” I yelled, and three riders soared above our heads to observe the enemy, our visibility of those back lines blocked by the messy chaos of the battlefield.
Below, nothing had changed. The dark lines of soldiers were an endless stream flowing into the distant mountains. But what had the lightning soul seen?
A dark brown wyvern snapped its jaws at Mak’s wing, and he snarled, the throaty rumble moving through my legs, making my heartbeat scatter.
He angled himself to avoid those many, jagged teeth, and the breath went out of me as I tipped on his back.
Gravity clasped me in unforgiving hands, but I pressed my knees into Mak’s side, tightened my thighs until the muscles screamed, and dropped lower to avoid the pull and tear of the wind.
“There’s another wave,” a voice boomed, hoarse after a day of shouting. The scouts had returned.
“Reform the front lines!” I yelled, my voice carrying across the snarling melee. “Magic users, take out any wyverns close to you. Close the gaps.”
If that second wave reached us and found a disorganised army instead of a disciplined legion, we were fucked.
The crackle of a dozen different types of magic coated the back of my tongue as riders followed my commands. I tried not to cringe as wyverns crashed onto our soldiers below, as Zaarib and others with the same power did their best to push the dead onto our enemy.
“Fall back,” a command floated up from below. “Fall back.”
Because they knew even more wyverns would fall, and if we lost many more ground warriors, we would lose this entire damned battle. Lose Ithanys itself to a queen who had ruled through control and blood and would do so again.
Sweat crawled down my back as my skin burned, the lightning’s mark spreading over my body as I called on bolt after bolt.
A grey wyvern crashed from the sky, my magic piercing its heart, but there were more.
There were always more. Air scraped in and out of my lungs, and it became a struggle to keep breathing when a powerful tail slammed into Mak’s side and knocked us into the wyvern behind us.
Snarls and warning grumbles arose, but Mak didn’t reply and it took me too long to realise why.
To realise that he had to fight to force away the green’s tail because barbs covered every inch of it. They’d gored a deep line down Mak’s side, and my heart stumbled, my stomach dropping when I saw how much blood poured from the wound.
A shape blotted out the light, and I gritted my teeth, ripping another fistful of magic from the sky, but the lightning soul’s cool touch halted me in time to see that the shadow was Kamila. Not another enemy, not the green wyvern delivering a killing blow.
Kamila, my house guard, stood atop her vermillion wyvern, its scales dancing like firelight as lightning tore across the sky, splintering into multiple bolts to strike the hearts of four wyverns at once. But it cost me, and I panted, a wash of dizziness making me slump forward.
Kamila’s wyvern sank its teeth into the green’s flank, biting deep enough that it faltered. When it evaded Mak’s snapping bite, Kamila’s wyvern delivered the killing blow, sharp teeth deep into its throat.
The house guard met my eyes over the wild violence of her wyvern spitting out the green’s throat, gore splattering Mak’s side, and she grinned. A defiant, wild grin that reminded me so much of her grandfather. He too was a wild-hearted fighter.
I managed a small answering smile, but my head was full of so much static silence that it didn’t come naturally. Still, I shouted, “Thank you,” over the noise.
She opened her mouth to reply, brown eyes still full of that wildness when teeth the size of my arm clacked shut around her head and tore. A small, startled sound left me when the wyvern spit her head onto the ground below and lunged its blunt head at Kamila’s mount.
Mak wheeled us away, driving his legs into a wyvern’s chest to shove it back. I twisted to watch, my heart collapsing, as Kamilla’s wyvern seemed to face the green wyvern, seemed to accept their death with grace, choosing to join their rider instead of fighting. My eyes burned when they fell.
I clenched my jaw and ripped magic from the air, driving so much lightning into the green wyvern that its body lit up, skeleton visible from within, and only bones fell upon the ground below.
Careful, the lightning soul hissed. You’ll burn yourself up, you fool.
I didn’t reply, slumping further over Mak’s shoulder, panting as my head swam and an uncomfortable heat began to pulse under my skin.
When a gap opened in the skirmish, I saw the enemy wyverns were falling back, retreating behind a fresh aerial force of wyverns twice the size of the initial wave. Fuck.
“Reform the lines,” I roared, dragging myself off Mak’s back and sitting straight even as my head spun.
Mak bellowed a command to the wyverns around us as gaps in the line were patched, strangers lining up around us, our own legion scattered.
At the edge of the lines, our riders still fought their wyverns, my command either lost before it reached them or the fighting too immediate, too desperate to push back.
This new wave was riderless too, no matter how much larger they were.
And unlike the first wave, they didn’t fight in a solid line; groups flew in arrow formations to break apart our rows of wyverns.
And we were all too scattered now to find our legions to match their strategy.
It had to be intentional, a tactic on their part—or their queen’s.
“Summon magic,” I yelled. Other orders went up, commanders no longer strategically dotted through our forces, but voices rising, nonetheless.
I heard Kamaal, far closer than he’d been before. “Draw your weapons. Kill anything that moves.”
I ignored the wash of dizziness through me and reached for another bolt of magic, shushing the lightning soul’s warning. What choice did she think I had? Any slip, and I’d be dead like Kamila.
I had just enough time to fill my tight chest with air, to draw Dusk-Breaker from my back, and they were upon us.
My world narrowed to the next threat, the next kill, the next talon swiping for us.
The legendary blade sang through the air like it had been hungry for blood for centuries, heavier than my usual sword but comfortable enough in my hand that its wicked tip easily sank into eyeballs and shredded wings.
In my other hand, I called upon the sky to spit lightning on our enemy, but it was like punching a brick wall; any magical blow slid off their scales with no impact.
Like those wyverns Ameirah and Kamaal faced in Morysen.
These were more powerful than the first wave.
What would the third wave be? Would we even live to see it?
I rose, my ass leaving Mak’s back as he roared, spitting embers in the face of a pale wyvern at the same time I drove all my weight into my next blow, propelling Dusk-Breaker’s blade through the head of the wyvern beside us.
They were immune to magic, but they died by fae steel sure enough. Protected, but not immortal.
“Save your magic for the commanders,” I shouted to anyone in earshot, swinging my body around. My ass slammed back onto Mak’s rough hide, and I wielded Dusk-Breaker with both hands, facing the black wyvern sneaking up behind us.
The ancient sword punched through the roof of its open mouth, and my hand shook as saliva dripped down my arm.
My breathing turned laboured when I tried to free it, only to find Dusk-Breaker had wedged into the wyvern’s flesh and bone.
And we were losing. Not just Mak and I—the army.
Our forces. Our desperate attempt to save our home.
I didn’t need to see the rest of the battlefield to know we would lose this battle.
And I was glad Ameirah had gone to the tower, that she wasn’t here to witness the defeat.
To watch the way I weakened when I finally tore Dusk-Breaker’s mighty blade from the wyvern’s mouth and dove to strike down the next threat.
Too late. My arms were heavy, my head full of a dull beating that was too rapid to be my own heart.
The bronze wyvern was bigger than Mak. Stronger and lacking the exhaustion I felt pull at my mount.
The creature slammed into Mak’s side right where he was injured hours ago, and his wingbeats faltered.
His pained moan would haunt my last moments.
“Mak!”
His response was quiet, a slur. I’m sorry, Varidian.
“No. We’re going to be fine.”
You hear me, you stubborn ass? Keep your wings pumping; we’re going to be fine.
But blood streamed through the clouds at an alarming rate, and I felt it—cold spreading through him. “Khalid!” I screamed, as if God would have placed the healer close to us. “Khalid!”
I’m glad it was you, Mak murmured as he tipped in the sky, his right wing giving out when the bronze wyvern slammed us and darted back. Its low rumble of laughter made me sick. The beast didn’t even go for Mak’s throat. It didn’t have to. I’m glad you’re my rider.
“Fight, Mak!” I roared, ignoring the crack in my voice. But he’d given everything, and he’d been losing blood for an hour, fighting valiantly even though pain had carved itself into his body.
And now as his wings failed, as we fell like a star to the ground, he had nothing left.