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Dom leaned forward in the saddle, eager to fight.

They could be wounded.

They could be killed.

And that was enough for Domacridhan.

30

Dead Roses in Bloom

Sorasa

Her sword slid back into its sheath with a neat click and Sorasa drew her bow, the horse still galloping beneath her. She nocked an arrow to the string, taking aim between the riders ahead of her, her eyes narrowed on the impossible monsters guarding the gate. The arrow sang from the bowstring, flitting past Sigil’s ear, so close it ruffled her black hair. She didn’t flinch. Sorasa put another arrow to the string and fired again. She managed to get off four shots before the main gates loomed, yawning wide. It was like riding into the mouth of a hot oven.

The Infyrna hounds keened and howled, their muscles bunching beneath their furs. They moved as one, lunging into a charge to match the army. Sorasa tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have her throat ripped out by a monster made of flame.

Such was her way, taught in the Guild so many years ago. Her mind shrank to hold only what she needed. She killed everyuseless emotion as soon as her brain could birth it, tossing away all thoughts of pain or fear, regret or weakness. They would only slow her down.

Oscovko kept his sword high, howling with his men, leading the entire charge. Sigil rode right behind him, alongside his lieutenants. And then the Companions charged together, knotted around Corayne. Sorasa sensed her now just behind her horse’s flank, bent low over her mare’s neck.

“Charge through them—don’t let the horses slow,” Dom shouted somewhere, his voice distant though he rode only a few feet away.

The blizzard tore at Sorasa’s back, blowing hard against the oncoming wall of fur and flame. The wolves opened their jaws, the air before them wavering with the lines of heat.

Sorasa drew her faithful sword and kissed the flat of the blade.

The charge felt like riding the crest of a massive wave, with the shore rising up to meet them. The hounds were a wall of oncoming flame, their eyes glittering with menace.

Sorasa braced, gripping the reins in one hand and her blade in the other.

The fastest of the hounds gave a mighty leap, launching up over the first line of the Treckish charge. It landed hard, taking down two riders and their screaming horses. The monster tore them apart, the flesh of their bodies sizzling as it worked, cooked by its own flame.

Bile filled Sorasa’s mouth but she swallowed it down.

The other monsters of Infyrna slammed into the charge head-on, their burning bodies as dangerous as their claws and teeth.Horses and men screamed, their skin blistering with burns even as they rode through. Dom acted as a battering ram, his greatsword sweeping back and forth to cut a path through the wolves. The Companions followed, pressing together, Corayne within them. Heat blazed along Sorasa’s cheek as she passed a hound, her sword slicing through the flesh at its shoulder. The blade hissed as if cutting through cooked meat. The hound screamed but she was already ahead, knowing better than to look back. Blood dripped from her steel, black and smoking in the snow. Another hound lunged and she pulled hard, the horse moving with a sharp jerk of her reins. The hound missed them by inches, colliding with a Treckish mercenary.

The two charge lines braided together, each overwhelming the other. Both sides were made of flesh, succumbing to flame and steel in equal rhythm. Howls filled the air, both human and monster. Flame, smoke, snow, and blood swirled before Sorasa’s eyes until all the world was red, black, and white, burning and freezing, her body sweating and shivering at the same time. The terror she held back peeked its head over her inner walls, threatening to break through.

“Keep moving!” a voice shouted over the fray.

Sorasa spotted Sigil’s head behind the line of hounds, within the splintered gates. She stood squared to the battle, boots planted. Her horse was gone, and black blood streamed down her body. Her ax hung heavy in one hand, dripping smoking blood onto the ground.

It was the push Sorasa needed.

“This way,” she snarled out, urging her horse toward Sigil, withCorayne and Andry close behind. She felt like a mother hen leading chicks through a tornado.

Dom’s blond head gleamed at the edge of her vision, bringing up the rear. The immortal took a hound’s head off with a single swipe of his Elder steel, its body collapsing to ashes beneath his horse’s hooves.

And then the Elders reached the hound line, the immortal warriors weaving through the cavalry like lethal dancers. Dom’s cousin led them, her black hair loose and streaming, splaying out behind her in an ebony cape. The Elder swords flashed, shedding smoking blood like rain. The Jydi crashed through after them, ferocious, a pack of wolves themselves, clad in fur and leather. Their axes and arrows arched, leaving ashes in their wake.

The burned earth turned to stone beneath her horse’s hooves as Sorasa rode through the gate. Sigil grasped her by the elbow and leapt, swinging up into the saddle behind the assassin without so much as a grunt of exertion. The horse slowed but didn’t stop, adjusting to the new weight as best he could.

“I think you’re missing an eyebrow,” Sigil shouted in Sorasa’s ear.

Sorasa winced, touching the space above her left eye. She felt a gap in her brow, hot to the touch and stinging.

“At least I didn’t lose my hair this time,” Sorasa hissed back.