Chapter Forty #2
Wilder kicked the ladder from the edge, sending it careening back into the battlefield, crushing a line of soldiers beneath with a crash.
But it had been one ladder out of many, and the enemy was on the wall.
Guardians and royal soldiers alike engaged, the width of the wall crammed with whirling blades and cries of pain, bodies already strewn across the stone floor.
Wilder cleaved through enemy after enemy, all the while scanning the skies for more wraiths, and reapers —
A booming crack sounded from below.
Wilder surged to the edge of the wall, looking over to see a unit of enemy soldiers heaving a battering ram back, preparing for another blow to the castle gates.
‘Torj!’ Wilder shouted over the pandemonium. ‘We need archers to the gates!’
‘You heard the man,’ Torj bellowed, pointing to Wilder. ‘Archers to the gates!’
Within moments, Torj was there, this time hurling a spear towards the attackers. He pierced two at once, the lance skewering the second man through the first.
‘We need more arrows,’ he said.
‘They’ve not sent a volley our way yet?’ Wilder asked, thrusting his sword through a man’s belly.
‘Not yet.’ Torj threw another spear at the men holding the battering ram below, his archers raining arrows down on them. The Bear Slayer noted Wilder’s furrowed brow. ‘What is it?’
Wilder hauled an attacker off one of their men and threw him over the wall. ‘There’s nowhere near the number of wraiths I expected. There were more attacking us in the woods…’
‘This is just the first wave,’ Torj ventured.
‘It is. But how much of their forces are they holding back —’
He was answered by an explosion to the north.
The entire castle rumbled beneath their feet, huge chunks of stone soaring through the air from the rear of the fortress.
‘Fuck,’ Wilder muttered.
‘Did they just blow a hole in our defence?’
‘Looks like it.’ Wilder gripped Torj’s shoulder. ‘You good to take the lead?’
‘I was born to lead, brother.’
‘Just as well,’ Wilder replied, already surging for the northern ramparts. ‘Swordsmen, Thea, you’re with me!’ he called over his shoulder, not bothering to see who obeyed.
He slayed as many enemy soldiers as he could while he ran, beheading them, shoving them from the wall, slicing at their vulnerable tendons and leaving them screaming on the ground, ready for someone else to finish off.
This was the brutality of battle.
Already the stone steps were slippery with blood.
‘Shit,’ he muttered, skidding to a stop as he reached the northern perimeter.
The wall was gone. Or half of it, at least.
Torchlight and fires illuminated the dust billowing into the air and the masses of rubble crushing countless men, ally and enemy alike. Attackers spilt into the castle courtyard through the maimed wall.
And at the heart of it was Audra, her expression formidable, her knives carving through the madness and bringing down their foes.
‘To the breach!’ Wilder heard himself shout, already halfway down the stairs to defend the inner walls of Notos.
The Warsword didn’t think; he simply moved through the utter bedlam, slicing, cutting and thrusting his mighty blades through the weak joints of armour, into exposed sides and necks.
With his prowess on the battlefield, he rallied his own forces behind him, inspiring a fearlessness in them, for they fought with the Hand of Death.
Wilder barked orders at several commanders to secure the kings and queen, to ensure their safety at all costs, before throwing himself back into the fray.
He found himself shoulder to shoulder with Audra, who shot him a challenging glare. ‘Tell me to go back to my books, Hawthorne, I dare you.’
In spite of himself, Wilder laughed, a madman’s laugh. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he replied, cutting down an opponent. ‘Glad to have you. Sometimes I forget the warrior you were.’
Audra slayed one man, then another, blood spraying. ‘There’s no forgetting who we truly are, Warsword.’
And then she was off in another direction, leaving soldiers begging for death in her wake.
Shaking his head in awe, Wilder carried on swinging his swords, his Furies-given gifts guiding him. In his peripheral vision, he could see Thea fighting with the same brutal efficiency as he did. He had taught her well. She was exceptional; more than exceptional.
His apprentice, his Guardian, his love, didn’t hesitate, didn’t hold back as she slayed enemy after enemy, moving like a dancer of death through the chaos, becoming chaos herself as she whirled her sword and dagger.
She met his gaze across the fray, a manic grin splitting her blood-smeared face. He’d been right when he’d said to her long ago: ‘You’re beautiful as you are. And I’d wager even more so with steel in your hand and the blood of your enemies splattered across your face…’
They came together across the battlefield, fighting side by side and back to back.
The more distant sounds of the assault faded into nothing, until it was just Wilder and Thea, the clang of steel ringing out between them and their enemies, cries for mercy echoing in their wake.
Attackers surrounded them, but they moved as a single, powerful unit, cutting down anyone in their path.
A shriek sounded and the scent of burnt hair penetrated the stench of battle, the taste of it clogging in the back of Wilder’s throat.
A reaper landed in the heart of the courtyard.
Loose rubble fell all around, and the ground quaked.
Men screamed as tendrils of obsidian uncurled from its unnaturally elongated frame, its horns casting shadows in the torchlight.
It was the biggest reaper Wilder had ever seen, rivalling the ones that had hurt Malik and Tal during the battle at Islaton.
And it had eyes only for Thea, sniffing at her as though it could scent what she truly was, and the power that coursed through her veins.
Wilder’s heart stuttered as visions of Malik and Talemir flashed before him, of Thea too, limp and bleeding back in the Bloodwoods.
His gasp for breath was ragged. What was happening? Usually he could keep the nightmares the monsters inflicted at bay, enough to carve into that sinewy flesh, enough to end them.
The creature hissed, an ancient language spilling from its rotten mouth, words he couldn’t understand beyond the fact that they promised pain and despair.
The reaper’s clouded blue eyes seemed to gleam as it took in Thea, the only figure standing before it, her dagger clutched in one hand, her sword in the other as she watched the darkness streaming from its talons.
Wilder scrambled towards her, but onyx power lashed at him, sending him sprawling across the pile of bodies that had gathered atop the blood-soaked stone.
The reaper kept its piercing gaze on Thea, a hair-raising hiss of anticipation escaping its mouth.
Thea didn’t flinch. She merely twirled her blade, an invitation.
Wilder chewed the inside of his cheek. He could have leapt to his feet, he could have surged towards her and planted himself between her and the monster.
But this was not his fight, not anymore.
As much as it caused his chest to seize and her name to catch on his lips, he gripped his sword beneath its hilt.
‘Thea!’ he shouted across the ruins.
He threw his blade of Naarvian steel to her.
Thea’s hand shot out, casting her own sword aside and catching his by the grip. Her arm didn’t buckle beneath its weight, nor did she so much as glance at him.
All around, the skirmish fell quiet but for the faraway sounds of the fighting on the southern front. Here, in the rear courtyard of the castle, not a soul moved besides the reaper circling Thea.
As it did, she didn’t move, either. She let it circle her, let it believe she was prey to be snatched up and devoured by the darkness.
But as soon as it lunged, talons slashing, Thea pivoted on nimble feet.
Naarvian steel gleamed in the flickering torchlight as she sliced those blades through the air with the force of a seasons-honed warrior.
Ribbons of darkness manifested, extensions of the monster before her, threatening to bind her limbs and pull her taut, ready for slaughter, for sacrifice.
But Thea whirled and parried with the fluidity and grace of water, and the unflinching strength of a Warsword.
Then she struck a piece of flint and lit her blades aflame.
The reaper hissed in rage, surging for her again with both talons and coils of magic.
Wilder watched on, utterly transfixed as Thea delivered a glancing blow to the monster’s outstretched arm, black and red blood slapping against the cobblestones.
She didn’t stop. Thea took the opening, pressing the advantage as the creature bled, as its tendrils of power recoiled momentarily in pain.
Stepping past another swipe of claws, she threw a crooked cut to the reaper’s torso, delivering a precise stab to its ribs with her dagger, causing it to stagger back with a shriek.
Enraged now, the monster advanced with a vengeance.
But Thea met its rage with her own. Even with her fate stone around her neck suppressing that mighty power of hers, Wilder could see the storm brewing behind her eyes.
The reaper licked its lips, as though it could taste the tempest on her.
But Thea kept her cool, taking a long, almost lazy step to the outside with her leading foot, her slow pace taunting the creature, baiting it.
The movement added momentum to the expert twist of her hips as she brought the great sword around in a rising angle, thrusting it up between the reaper’s ribs.
Darkness exploded.
Wilder didn’t pray to the Furies, didn’t plead with the unknown forces of the realms for Thea’s safety, as the shadows dispersed and revealed the warrior within. He simply held his breath and watched as his apprentice danced on the precipice of legend.