30. Chapter 30 #3
I drew my saber and held it aloft. “Never before have we suffered invaders to take our land—let those who do not love her harshness and respect her danger chain and ride her sacred creatures.”
The quiet and tense group began to grumble in agreement, and I knew the call of battle rose in their chests, just as magic began to rise in mine.
Daiti reared up onto his back legs for a moment as dust began to swirl and eddy around me.
The desert awakened at my call—or maybe she was calling me to rid her of these invaders.
“We will teach them the true fury of the desert, and she will drink their blood and know that we are strong,” I shouted. “The desert gives, and it takes!”
The riders all unsheathed their swords with a deafening ring holding them aloft to echo me in a cacophony of voices.
“The desert gives, and it takes!”
Daiti wheeled around on his back feet to face me back down toward the army of Viltov before plunging ahead. I lowered my sword before me, pointing straight toward my enemies as the pounding of hooves crescendoed behind me. Aderyn was on my right and Elion on my left as we thundered toward enemies.
They pointed their spears straight toward us, but their lethal points would not slow my charge.
Nothing would. The pounding of our charge sounded like a heartbeat in my ears, drowning out all thoughts but the feel of the desert and the tie I shared with Erix.
I barely noticed the arrows whistling overhead, fired from behind Viltov’s lines.
At some point, my half of Kelvar’s saber had found its way into my left hand, and I leveled it at my enemies too.
Beside me, Aderyn let out a feral yell, and I let my voice join hers in an unrestrained shout just as we crashed into the opposing army.
With my short sword, I batted aside the thicket of spears, slashing at their wielders with my sabers.
They fell with screams, but I did not watch them tumble, instead pushing forward to find my next opponent.
Daiti fought as fiercely as I did, his hooves smashing in helmets and trampling hapless foot soldiers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I registered the deadly whorl of Aderyn’s sickle blades and a sickening crunch as she used them to slice an assailant’s arm clean off.
Blood splattered everywhere, and the air filled with dust and chaos.
The haze of battle built in my mind, an overwhelming red mist that Erix had described fully overtaking his consciousness. I fought against it even as my arm rose and fell, almost without my instructions. If I let it take me, I might be lost to Erix, and we had promised to fight together.
An unknowable amount of armored men from Viltov fell before us, no match for the force of an oncoming charge. Still, more and more took their place in a seemingly endless tide.
The clear border of two sides crashing together melted into a chaotic sea of fighting, waves crashing and falling back just as the ocean had beat against the beach. With the cavalry slowed, Warrick’s men pushed forward from behind us toward the front lines.
The horrible screech of metal being crushed and torn filled the air as the soldiers of Doran swung their heavy axes and war hammers.
Their weapons crushed the armor of the Viltov soldiers in a way a rider’s thin saber never could.
Nausea threatened to cut through the haze of battle as a Doran soldier off Daiti’s flank used his hammer to crush the helmet of a man of Viltov with his head still inside.
I grit my teeth and urged Daiti forward alongside Warrick and his men, grateful for the clean cuts of my two blades.
The momentum of our assault eventually slowed.
Arrows whistled overhead and screams echoed around me as they found their marks.
Horses whinnied, and I winced as jolts of pain shot through my head—as I had opened myself up to the magic of the desert, I felt each life around me snuffed out like a physical blow.
I was sure my arm must be aching from the exertion, but I could barely feel it.
Instead, I desperately reached down the tether in my belly, mental fingers stretching out to Erix.
Now was the moment. The fighting was the thickest around me and the lords, as I had hoped. We had drawn their forces to the center of our lines, and an attack from behind would completely envelop them.
Erix.
The tether shivered, but I could not discern what it meant with the chaos raging around me.
The ground beneath Daiti’s hooves was stained with blood and gore, and sweat streamed down to burn my eyes. I tried to blink it away, when a closer scream then the rest stole my attention.
I whirled around just in time to see Aderyn slide sideways, pulled from her horse by a grip on her leg. Slashing out, I tried to cut down her attacker, but I was too far away. She was about to be pulled to the ground where she would be lucky to avoid being trampled by our own oncoming riders.
Just before she was about to fade from view, magic flared in my chest. I thrust my saber skyward, and the world was split by a deafening crack.