38. Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
Keera
Wind screamed in my ears and stung my eyes as Daiti carried me toward the gate of Kelvadan.
Hooves pounded behind me and the screams of gravehawks sounded above me.
A flash of light and heat grabbed my attention and as another flaming missile flew overhead, flung by Viltov’s catapults.
Screams erupted behind me as a swath of riders was wiped out by its landing, but the charge did not slow.
A crash and more screams told me that the gravehawks had taken out another trebuchet, and Viltov’s archers were too distracted by the tricriths to focus their fire on our riders. Of course, the gate still stood between us and the Heart.
As it drew closer, I sat up on Daiti’s back and drew my arm back, before flicking it forward.
A ball of fire flew from the end of my saber—a trick I had learned from Dhara.
It whizzed an impossible distance through the air before slamming into the gate.
The wooden panels began to smolder and smoke, but it was not yet enough to penetrate it.
I threw a second fireball, and a third as our forces drew closer and closer, and Erix added his efforts to mine. With the iron bars Viltov had added to the gate though, it wasn’t enough. We could not summon flames hot enough to melt metal.
A horrible shriek overhead stole my attention for just a moment, and I glanced up.
A gravehawk twisted and plummeted through the air, a bolt the length of a javelin piercing clean through its skeletal neck.
Daiti swerved to the side just in time to avoid the creature’s corpse as it crashed to the earth.
Erix and Doka swerved the other direction, the charging lines forced to split around the obstacle as even more bolts flew overhead.
The gravehawks screamed and wheeled, trying to avoid the fire of the lethal ballistae, and more flaming rocks flew over us as the remaining trebuchets renewed their attacks.
Sparks of light that were the lives of horses and riders were snuffed out, plunging the magic of the desert even further into the seductive dark of her madness. I grit my teeth as the wind burned my eyes
We needed to get inside the walls where their weapons of war could not so easily target us. Otherwise, the battle would be lost before it even began.
There was only one thing I could think of hot enough to melt the metal bars of Kelvadan’s gate.
I closed my eyes, trusting Daiti to navigate me through the battle.
Reaching for the power I had found when Erix and I fed our blood to the sand, I called up memories of my own melting flesh and the smell of hot sulfur.
In the madness, I found one of the points where the flows of magic swirled and eddied—a pocket of dark and angry power. I poured myself into it, willing the creature I needed to be nearby.
Even as my skin tingled with the phantom pain of burns, a roar answered my call. My eyes snapped open just in time to see another creature burst from the earth—as if the desert herself suddenly birthed this monster. Perhaps she did.
The lava wyrm shook itself, spraying sand and earth everywhere that landed in smoldering patches, heated by its own scorching skin. Then, it turned its attention toward the walls of Kelvadan.
Viltov’s archers on the walls, having successfully subdued several of the tricriths, turned their arrows toward this new threat, but they bounced harmlessly off its armored scales with impotent pings.
The wyrm reared its head back, and steam billowed from its nostrils. Then, it vomited up a gout of molten rock straight on to the surface of the gate. It melted like paper that had been lit aflame. It creaked before crashing down in a pile of lava and ash.
The lava wyrm wasted no time walking through the newly opened arch, disappearing into the city’s courtyard. It moved not a moment too soon as now we were only twenty yards from where the gate had once stood but now was only a narrow river of lava.
Daiti’s muscles bunched under me before he gave a massive heave.
My heart paused for a long moment as he leapt the distance over the moat of fire.
Then, his hooves hit the ground on the other side, clacking onto the stone of the ground in a way I had not heard in far too long.
Doka and Erix landed just after us, but we did not halt.
The riders behind us began to follow suit—all the horses of the Ballan desert would have no issues making such a jump.
The walls on either side of the gate began to buckle as their foundation melted, and Calix’s men shouted to retreat to where they could engage us on solid ground.
Warrick’s foot soldiers would be able to clamber over the collapsed portion of the wall without navigating a rain of arrows.
I did not turn to make sure they followed. Instead, Erix and I raised our swords and crashed into the soldiers of Viltov who awaited us in the courtyard.
Some already lay on the ground, their corpses smoldering from the lava wyrm’s sudden appearance, but it seemed to have continued up into one of the many roads leading into the courtyard as it was nowhere in sight.
Erix and I crashed through the first lines of soldiers easily, letting our momentum carry us onto the largest thoroughfare that would lead us up toward the palace.
The buzz of battle filled my head as I cut down those who stood in my path.
The noise grew in my mind, echoed back to me by Erix who growled and roared as his half of Kelvar’s saber dripped with blood.
An attacker thrust his spear toward Daiti’s head, but I knocked it aside with my own weapon from Kelvar’s saber before slashing him across the throat.
Blood sprayed into Daiti’s golden mane, but he didn’t seem to mind, tossing his head and kicking out toward a soldier who tried to attack my blind side.
As the smell of blood filled my nose and the heat of the sun overhead made my mind fuzzy, I started losing myself in the flow of magic.
It rushed faster and deeper inside me than I was used to, as if the dam separating me from the power of the wider desert had been broken and it threatened to sweep me away completely.
Then my thigh brushed against Erix’s as we were forced into close quarters by the narrowing of the streets.
I came back to myself with a gasp just in time to hear an arrow whistling past my ear.
I jerked to the side as the wind brushed the bare side of my scalp, only to wince at the scream as it found a new target behind me.
With an angry howl, I cut down the fighter from Viltov that had fired it, but another instantly appeared to take its place.
Daiti and Doka were no longer leading a charge but simply bucking and kicking our enemies as we tried to press forward.
But it was no use. The lines of our enemy were thick and impenetrable.
Anger swelled inside me, telling me to tear the mountain down upon them if I had to, but I swallowed down the feeling as best I could. The citizens of Kelvadan were still trapped within these walls as well, and I could not risk them.
“The side roads!”
Aderyn’s voice shouting above the din called my attention.
“The main road is too well defended! We can split up into the smaller streets to make our way up through the city.” She gestured with her sickle blades at the smaller thoroughfares branching off near where we were halted, the action causing blood to drip on the tunic stretched over her belly.
I didn’t know how she even sat on a horse, but she was as deadly as ever as she parried a blow from an attacker.
Erix and I exchanged a glance. She was right.
“You go left, I’ll go right,” I commanded him. “We know our way through this city, but the riders don’t. We’ll regroup at the palace gates.”
He hesitated just a moment before nodding sharply. “Warrick! You and your men follow me,” he shouted back at the forces who followed us. “This way is easier for foot soldiers.”
“Lords, with me!” I rallied them to my sword and kneed Daiti toward another road branching off the main path weaving up through the city.
Erix’s eyes met mine for the barest of moments before Doka turned away and we headed in opposite directions.
The tether between us pulled taut, but it was still bright and strong, the only thing that felt solid in the dark twisting of the magical landscape around us.
Even leading our forces in opposite directions, we fought as one.