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Narrowly avoiding a collision with an arachne, Wilder looked up again to see Cal signal his unit of archers.

‘Shields!’ Thea shouted.

‘Loose!’ came Cal’s cry, echoing across the clash of steel below.

The midrealms’ forces took cover as arrows rained down on the enemy with needlepoint precision.

Wilder took the opportunity to fight his way to Torj, Talemir and Vernich. They coordinated their efforts, guiding their frontlines with precision, forming a relentless spearhead that drove deep into the enemy’s formation.

When their lines had broken, Wilder signalled for Vernich to double back, to lead the next charge from a fresh cavalry unit. Wilder and Torj peeled away from Talemir.

‘Now!’ Wilder shouted. ‘Shield wall!’ All around him, the allied forces interlocked and pushed hard, forcing enemy lines down towards the ravine that Kipp had identified – the flood zone.

But the enemy was pushing back. Wilder scanned their unit. They needed brute force —

As though he’d just come to the same conclusion, beside Wilder, Torj broke from the shield wall and swung his hammer with ferocious strength, leaving masses of bloody pulp in his wake. It was not the first time Wilder had seen the Bear Slayer use the colossal weapon, but the devastation it caused hit him anew. With every swing, armour and bones crunched beneath its heavy iron head, blood mapping the intricate runes engraved into its surface. Torj was an artist, blending his raw power and the sheer brutality of the hammer with finesse, using the weapon’s weight to create a symphony of destruction while swiftly manoeuvring to evade attacks from those stupid enough to dare fight him. Every impact of the hammer sent shockwaves through the units around them, howlers and enemy soldiers alike scrambling from Torj’s path, away from the tool of annihilation he swung in his hands.

As a unit of their own, Wilder and Torj drove the enemy lines back, pushing them over the edge of the ravine into the lower-lying land, exactly where Kipp had marked —

Thunder rolled across the battlefield, the earth rumbling beneath their boots, and suddenly, the sound of rain hitting metal was upon them. Clouds gathered overhead, swallowing the gold hues of the broken dawn. A bolt of white light carved through the morning.

It felt familiar, but not quite right, like a slightly different note in a melody he knew well. Wilder marvelled at the different signature within the magic.

Wren. It was Wren’s lightning and thunder ripping through the air, Wren’s storm magic being unleashed around them.

The rain intensified, a downpour that echoed across shields and helms.

‘She’s doing it!’ Torj shouted, watching as the level of water from the nearby river rose and rose, breaching its banks and surging down into the flood zone in a terrifying crescendo. A colossal torrent descended, and the enemy, entrenched and unaware of the trap, faltered as the flood barrelled towards them. Shouts of terror arose, and they lost their footing, sliding, barging into one another as the powerful wave hit.

The land beneath them gave way to the onslaught, an enormous deluge of water and mud that swept through the entire unit, drowning the ranks completely, the current washing them away.

Hope soaring, Wilder craned his neck to see Thea and Drue leaving the flanking units to infiltrate the enemy’s rear – aiming for the key commanders, and the head of the snake.

CHAPTER THIRTY

THEA

Thea used her sister’s storm magic as a diversion and rallied her unit to close around the back of the forces Wren had swept away with her flood.

Still astride her mare, she rode beside Drue, the pair of them cutting down howlers and Artos’ men like stalks of wheat in a field. Unable to help herself, Thea continued to scan the skies for any sign of the wraiths and reapers as she fought her way towards the rear of Artos’ forces. But there was yet to be any sign of an incoming airborne attack.

Sensing Wren’s magic around them, Thea’s own power was dancing beneath her skin, but she kept a tight leash on it; if they needed her, she had to be at full strength.

Together, she and Drue decimated the back lines of the force, while in the distance something erupted. Likely another of Wren’s alchemical concoctions. Thea looked up to see plumes of smoke rippling from the heart of the battlefield and clusters of howlers sprinting from the site.

As the smoke drifted into the sky, clearing from the ground, Thea spotted Wilder amid the turmoil, wielding those twin blades, an extension of his own strength and agility. He fought with Talemir and Torj at his sides, the three of them a formidable force carving through one monster after the next, leaving a trail of blood and guts in their wake.

Eventually, Talemir shot into the sky to return to the shadow-touched infantry, forming a skyborne phalanx that advanced steadily and methodically, shielded with shadow.

Below, Thea and Drue continued their assault of the back forces, Thea craning her neck to spot any sign of the lecherous former king responsible for all this death and darkness —

Someone shouted. Wilder.

Thea looked up just in time to see an enormous arachne coming straight for Torj.

Wilder was locked in battle with several howlers. Though he fought with all his might to get to the Bear Slayer, he was just too far. The arachnes reared up, towering over Torj.

Thea urged her mare into a gallop, surging for them, her remaining throwing stars already between her fingers. If she could just —