CHAPTER 44 #2
He heard his father shouting orders somewhere down the line as he reached Kara’s side. A moment later, a familiar voice sounded behind him, ragged but fierce.
“Just like the Arcalon, eh, Thorne?”
Gregor.
The sight of him, axe in hand, grinning like a madman through the blood and chaos, actually made Sebastian smile.
“Wouldn’t want to do it without you,” he growled back.
Gregor stepped into place beside him, swinging his axe in a brutal strike that split a pale skull.
They fought together, back-to-back, blades clanging, holding the line through sheer force and fury.
Sebastian risked a glance – the man was relentless, every strike devastating.
No finesse, no elegance. Just a wall of muscle.
Hells, I could use him in Thorne.
A scream got his attention. Sebastian spun, catching sight of Kara, her shield flaring gold but straining under the ebony magic of three Drakens attacking at once.
She and Sienna had been forced apart. Kara was still fighting, alongside several of his men – but barely holding.
Sebastian was on them in an instant, cutting them down with savage ruthlessness.
“Thanks,” she muttered breathlessly.
He nodded once. “Where’s Sienna?”
“Got pushed back with the Lyrans, but she’s alive.”
His breath came hard, blood dripping from his blade as he allowed himself a split second’s relief that Kara was still standing. Then a roar split the air. Sebastian turned sharply towards the sound and saw Gregor on one knee with a Draken blade buried deep in his side.
No–
A second stabbed into his shoulder, forcing him lower. Sebastian tried to get to him, hacking his way through, but there were so many. Still Gregor fought on, teeth bared, rage blazing in his face.
Get up, get up–
Gregor swung his axe again, cleaving his attacker in two.
Come on, Gregor–
Sebastian hoped the man might survive out of sheer stubbornness. He just needed to get to him in time. Heal him. But Sebastian’s hope shattered as a third black-veined figure drove a sword clean through Gregor’s neck.
“No!” Sebastian roared, still fighting. He could do nothing but watch as Gregor fell backwards, blood spilling, axe slipping uselessly from his fingers.
“Gregor!” he shouted desperately, slashing at anyone in his way.
Their eyes locked across the battlefield, through the melee of bodies, stubborn fire still blazing in the other man’s gaze.
Sebastian’s mind flashed with memory – Gregor dragging him injured out of the Fire Trial.
He’d been there for him then. Gregor’s lips moved but Sebastian couldn’t hear him.
He never would.
If I’d been faster. If I hadn’t looked away.
The light in Gregor’s eyes went out.
“NO!” The sound ripped from Sebastian and golden light exploded from him unbidden, blasting every Draken within a dozen strides off their feet, scattering them across the field.
The air crackled with magic. The force nearly tore him apart – that much power threatening to shred him from within – but he held it in his grief. Mastered it.
He used the single moment of peace to shove his way through the carnage, his gaze locked on Kara. If they could kill Gregor, they could kill her. He wouldn’t leave her side now. Couldn’t risk it. Together they pressed back into battle.
“Arrows running low!” someone shouted from the mountainside ridge. Morra. “We’re nearly out!”
“Then make every one count!” Sebastian bellowed, voice hoarse. “Aim for throats – drop them fast!”
Morra and her people adjusted immediately, releasing fewer arrows – but every one that flew fell true.
The field was chaos as the fighting wore on.
Bodies littered the sand. Smoke rolled thick above them, dark and choking.
The clash of steel and screams of the dying drowned out everything else.
Sorrel men had begun pulling arrows from the fallen to fill their quivers and running back to their vantage point.
Sebastian felt another wave of clarity wash over his mind.
Caldris still doing their work. But they’d all been driven back from the beach, step by bloody step, the barricades swallowed, the sand long behind them – fighting on bloodied grass now.
Drakens still poured forward, but they’d slowed, their charge blunted by the coordinated efforts of the Vallennan forces.
The sun was lowering in the sky, casting long shadows over the battlefield.
They’d been fighting for hours.
Sebastian felt it then – a shift. Small but real. Vallennan forces were holding ground for the first time in hours. They were still bleeding, but they weren’t losing.
Maybe they could do this.
Kara drew up beside him, blood on her blade, hair tangled in her face. “We’re holding, Sebastian.”
“Just,” he said, glancing down at her. “We need to start pushing them back.”
If the day ended with a Vallennan victory, it would come at a cost. They’d lost hundreds, thousands even.
Ones the healers hadn’t been able to reach in time.
But they were still here. Still fighting.
But then the sea turned black. A shadow spreading across it like poison.
Heavier than any that had come before it.
Another ship struck shore and a figure leaped from the stern – seven feet tall, maybe more.
Broad as a wall, and every movement radiated raw, brutal strength.
His armour glowed with an otherworldly mist, and veins of black crystal pulsed across the metal.
Shadows coiled at his heels, and when his head lifted, the battlefield hushed. Even the dying stopped screaming.
Who in the hells is that?
His face was hidden behind a helm of the same black crystal, but his gaze – it wasn’t empty. Or mindless. No, it burned with something the other Drakens lacked. Intelligence. Hatred. Purpose. Sebastian’s instincts screamed.
Fuck. This one’s different.
He raised his sword.
He felt Kara reach for him across the bond, but something else stirred in his chest. Something older, ancient. Sebastian startled when he heard the Arcanth speak in his mind – its voice not sound but bone deep certainty.
That is not steel. That is the Dracanth itself. Shards of its body, forged into armour.
Cold dread settled in his gut. They had brought the Dracanth to war.
And this was the moment they’d face it. Kara’s shoulder shifted closer to his, fear rolling off her but she gazed unflinchingly on the monstrous figure as the Drakens parted for him.
Her breath came ragged, blood smeared across her face, but golden magic had already erupted across her skin – powerful and ready.
“Stay with me,” she said urgently. “We’ll fight him together.”
Sebastian looked down at her face. Memorised every line. “Together,” he vowed.