CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
C HAPTER F IFTY- F OUR
Ryon tears his eyes from Dawsyn’s back.
It seems he is always made to let her go in the moments he wants to fly her away. She waits by the treeline, out of sight from the Glacians circling above. Ryon turns to face his friends, his allies, one last time before he leaves them, too. “Take to the skies and retreat if the tide turns,” Ryon tells Rivdan, Tasheem and Brennick. The former two nod gravely, shuffling quietly away to spread the word amongst the rest. But Rivdan stays. He looks steadfastly back at Ryon, his stare determined.
“I’ll be following you, Mesrich,” he says evenly, as though the matter isn’t to be argued.
Ryon sighs. “Riv–”
“I’ll be following you,” he says again.
Ryon presses his forehead to his clasped hands. If Alvira’s army awaits beyond them, there is little to be done. The human army will outnumber the mixed. Adrik’s men will defend any aerial attack. The fight will be long, and it will eventually be lost, and he cannot imagine one such as Rivdan withdrawing his honour. He will fight to the end too, whether it is at Ryon’s side or not.
If this is Ryon’s last stand among enemies, he can at least face it in the company of a friend.
Ryon lifts his head. “If I fall,” he murmurs to Rivdan, “find Dawsyn. Take her with you. Please.”
Rivdan nods once, the weight of his promise heavy in his eyes.
“Thank you,” Ryon says, laying a hand on his shoulder. “For everything.”
“If there are two in this valley worthy of following, they are not out there,” Rivdan says, looking to the Fallen Village. “They are here in this wood. I will follow you again, Gervalti . We will be victors today. Fortune from misfortune,” he says, a small grin appearing. “If you will it, it will be so.”
Ryon thinks of the Colony and all the times Rivdan and Tasheem appeared at his shoulder, by his side. He wonders if he will be granted the chance to thank them after, for a lifetime of loyalty. “Fortune from misfortune,” Ryon repeats, shaking his head incredulously. “Let us hope the name holds this night.”
With a contingent of mixed waiting in the shadows, Ryon and Rivdan step into the clearing, their wings visible but tucked, their weapons drawn, but not raised.
The Glacians in the sky see them immediately. They begin to descend, as Ryon suspected. They will likely retreat to Adrik. Warn him. Receive his next orders.
Ryon and Rivdan stalk past the pen of humans, some old, some so young it sends cold-blooded rage to every extremity.
“Ryon!” someone calls from within. Ruby’s face appears in the space between wooden beams, she presses her cheeks firmly to the timber. “Ryon, Alvira–”
“Get everyone toward the north corner,” Ryon tells her quietly. He hopes she hears it over the din of moving bodies, of panicked cries. “Look for Dawsyn.”
Ruby’s eyes sharpen, she nods and disappears, quickly calling to those closest within their holding.
Ryon however, has his eyes ahead, where the opposing corner of the human enclosure nears. Rounding it will reveal the expanse of the army that lies in wait. It will tell him the outcome before the fight begins.
But round it he must.
He looks over his shoulder and nods one time.
Dawsyn runs for the fence.
And Ryon steps out into the open, where the rolling hills of Terrsaw unfold for as far as the eye can see.
The sun is a sliver of orange sinking into the knolls. It glints off a thousand pieces of armour, a thousand different helms. It burns pink through the filmy skin of Glacian wings. Row upon row upon row of Terrsaw guards, fronted by mountain creatures.
Closer to him and on horseback at the foot of the hill is the Queen of Terrsaw and Adrik, King of Glacians.
They are swarmed by several white-winged Glacians, gliding low toward Adrik while Alvira’s horse paces and shrinks away, clearly afraid. They fly next over the hills of armed soldiers, both man and not, calling their warnings, readying them to fight.
“Mesrich,” Adrik calls loudly to him and the sound bounces from the landscape, echoing across the planes. It fills the valley with the promise of violence. Of destruction.
Ryon cannot help the quickening of his blood at the sound of his voice, the sight of him standing there, so assured by the many men that wait beyond him.
If they all die this day, it will not be before Adrik. Ryon must make sure of it.
They halt well before Alvira and Adrik both, so that whatever they might say will be called into the wind and heard for miles around. “Archers sit on the hills,” Rivdan murmurs to Ryon, his sights in the distance, scrutinising the scene. “To the east and west as well.”
“When the time comes,” Ryon says. “Pick them off first.”
Adrik stretches his lips into an unconvincing smile. His eyes widen in something like disbelief. “You live, deshun,” he calls loudly, and his teeth seem unwilling to part. “Tell me, how is it that you always manage to crawl your way out of death’s clutch?”
Black hatred climbs Ryon’s throat. “It is no hardship. I simply give him your name and promise to bring you in my stead.”
Adrik’s gaze darkens considerably. A flash of wing appears over his shoulder, but it disappears just as quickly. “I should have kept you in the Colony, deshun,” he says now, voice cold. Gone is the careless tone. The only thing left is annoyance, a gnawing sense of irritation at being unable to foil this one recurring foe. “I’ve given you the misconception that you were worth more than your bastard breeding suggests.”
The comment does not rankle Ryon as it once did. After all, he is the son of a Ledge woman. If there is anything righteous in his blood, it was bred of her. “It was not I who put on a stolen crown and called myself royalty. That is a trespass only the two of you share,” Ryon looks to Alvira as he says it, spotting the crown on her head, dull and tarnished in the dusk.
“Where is she?” Alvira asks now. Her watery eyes have lost their hardened edge. She seems almost untethered. Skittish. Her sights dart to every corner of the Fallen Village, to the forest beyond. They search frenetically and find nothing. “Where is the girl?”
Ryon smirks despite the gravity of the affair, despite the whisper of death swirling around their ankles. “Which girl?”
“ Sabar, ” the Queen spits. She alights from her horse clumsily. She paces to gain a better vantage of the land over Ryon’s shoulder. She barely takes heed of the Glacian beside her, the ones before her, the army behind. Every facet of her seems intent on finding Dawsyn. “I know she is here. Where is she? ”
“Is she dead, Mesrich?” Adrik says, grinning hopefully, as though this one factor might cheer him.
“Of course she isn’t dead, you fucking imbecile,” the Queen rants, her breaths coming heavier, faster. “Of course she isn’t! DAWSYN!” the Queen screeches. “FACE ME NOW! DO NOT HIDE IN THE SHADOWS LIKE A COWARD!”
Ryon tilts his head to the side. He gives a huff of laughter to see the Queen’s cheeks ruddy, her eyes bulging with the force of her cry. “She will wait in the shadows until she is ready to greet you, Alvira,” Ryon allows, and he watches the flash of panic grip her momentarily. “I dare say she watches you now.”
The Queen’s mask is gone. Only a mad woman remains, her collar and bodice speckled with blood so dark, it could be ink. She blanches again and turns her back to Ryon. “READY THE ARCHERS!” she cries and Ryon hears the order passed on down the line, reaching into the hills.
His stomach jolts. “Where is your wife?” he asks, the attempt to distract made successful when Alvira’s shoulders bunch, when her feet halt in place. And Ryon needs no further information than that. He need only see the way the Queen’s chin drops toward the spattered fabric on her chest. “We expected to find Cressida in these hills,” Ryon continues, hoping fiercely that Dawsyn has found a way through the fence, that she is leading its prisoners into the trees.
Alvira turns to him, her eyes alight with hatred, with bitterness. “I am sure you did,” she says, her voice shaking with the force of her rage. Tears slip over her cheek, though she pays them no mind. Ryon is unsure if the Queen notices how she teeters where she stands, if she feels the shaking of her frame. “Did you and the Sabar girl laugh together, knowing my own wife was plotting to overthrow me?”
Ryon says nothing, he merely waits as the Queen unravels, ribbons of her unspooling at her feet.
She nods, as if to herself. “Yes. You must have. How you must have celebrated to learn of it! You must have thought yourself victorious before the battle had even begun. She made a fool of me, ” she growls, spittle collecting at the corners of her mouth. “You made a fool of me,” she says, not to Ryon, but to the wind. She runs clawed fingers through her hair. “You abandoned me.” Alvira’s face collapses in pain for a moment. She breathes against the waves of whatever emotion tries to overthrow her, but they do not win. Soon, the lines on her face vanish, her eyes become dangerously large and unblinking. “I ran a knife through my wife’s heart,” she tells them all, detached and hollow. “I’m afraid she will not be here this night.”
Ryon wonders what colour her blood will be when they cut her, or whether she has bargained it all away to make her wretched deals. He wonders if it will be as black and cold as the heart that homes it.
Thunder rumbles.
It is the type of thunder that moves slowly, grows discreetly, until it eclipses all other sound. Until it shakes the ground beneath your feet.
Ryon raises his sword, fearing the battalion of men on the hills have begun advancing, but a thousand heads are turning to the direction of the sound. They look toward the south, where the first torches become visible. A handful of orange specks, that soon become a sea, spilling over the unoccupied hills.
Alvira and Adrik call for the men to halt, shouting incessant orders as the people come. As the sea nears, faces become discernible beneath torchlight. Men, women and children of Terrsaw, in their labourers’ clothing or noble attire. By cart or wagon or horseback or on foot. Hundreds and hundreds of them are added to the hills before the Fallen Village, some with knifes at their belt, but most without a weapon at all. They are not dressed for battle. They arrive in no formation, and as they spot the winged creatures in the failing light, they halt. Some scream and back away, unaware of the battlefield they have invited themselves upon.
Ryon sees Alvira dither, sees her try to retreat into the folds of her guards, and he means to call to her, but he is saved the trouble.
“Alvira!” comes Dawsyn’s voice from his back. And he looks to see her approaching him, her ax resting upon her shoulder. “Do not go so soon.”