Page 41

Chapter forty

Dane

D ane’s arms burned. His back ached. Sweat poured down his brow and blurred his vision.

He breathed in deep his own stink—the smell of which had long since soaked into the scarf he wore wound across his nose and mouth. Overhead, the Arathian sun peeked out from behind a rare blanket of dark clouds.

The sea of Arathian soldiers and war elephants stretching beyond the walls of Fort Mysai and out into Dry Reach remained unbroken. The inky smog still hung low over the port city, keeping the usuri grounded.

He couldn’t remember the last time they had heard anything from the mainland. There was no way of knowing if reinforcements were coming.

The siege continued.

But at least the world no longer shimmered in those strange hues. At least it no longer made the world tilt and his stomach heave.

Perhaps he had simply become accustomed to it by that point.

And though he and the rest of the archer unit had been reassigned to the catapults now they were out of arrows to shoot, they were swiftly running out of things to smelt down and scavenge for makeshift munitions for the larger weapons as well.

“Wilsham!” Thorley cried. “Load!”

Dane’s thighs and back screamed when he crouched down to retrieve another chunk of rubble scavenged from the remains of the outer wall. But before he even had time to finish rolling the mass into the bowl of the catapult Thorley was manning, he heard another shout ring out.

A shout of alarm.

“Shields! Shields!” That cry rippled down the entire length of the wall, echoed from mouth to mouth as it went.

Gritting his teeth, Dane strained, hurrying to finish feeding the rubble into its waiting catapult. He felt the seconds slipping away from him like sand through his fingers when he ducked down and grabbed the tower shield leaning against the ramparts, waiting for that very moment.

He took a knee, wedging himself between his fellow soldiers, and raised the shield overhead just moments before the incoming witchfire connected with their shieldwall. The force of the impact sent the slab of steel in his grip slamming against his right shoulder in a crash of metal on metal, jarring him to his bones .

He swayed on his knees. His eyes closed as he fought against the sudden wave of nausea churning his stomach. Lord, take me now , he begged for not the first time that month. Let me die.

But the Lord on High left him right where he was—trapped on the wall framing Fort Mysai’s Gate of Exiles. Nothing more than a slave to thirst and hunger and heat . All he could do was wait for a well-aimed arc of witchflame to blast him straight into oblivion.

But death would be sweet compared to this .

“You cut that one a little close, Wilsham,” Thorley snarled when the all clear sounded. “Maybe you don’t mind being burned to a crisp, but just remember I’m standing next to you.”

Still on his knees, Dane doubled over and panted for breath while droplets of sweat dripped onto the stone ramparts beneath him. He could almost hear them sizzling away beneath the sun’s merciless rays.

“How could I forget?” he gasped as Thorley returned to his post behind the catapult. “I can smell you from all the way over here.”

Setting his jaw, Dane lurched to his feet with a grunt and returned to his own post just as a command of, “Fire!” rang out. He braced himself and covered his ears as Elmoria answered Arath’s witchfire with the only rebuttal they had left.

But nothing could prepare a man for just how blazingly loud a catapult is up close. His ears rang in the wake of it, leaving the world all around him muffled, as if he had suddenly been plunged underwater.

He wondered if he would be able to hear anything at all after this. If there even was an after this for him .

His gauntlet-clad fingers scraped against one another as his hands clenched into fists. Don’t , he commanded his downward spiraling thoughts. Please don’t.

Hedley. He was living for Hedley.

Dane clung to that thought as he struggled to crank the catapult back into place, his body screaming all the while. If he survived this war, he could finally find Hedley.

And then they could return home.

“Riders!” someone cried out from further down the wall.

Dane’s head jerked up and his eyes narrowed as he squinted out into the hazy expanse of Dry Reach. But he spotted nothing in particular beyond the usual sight of Arath’s vast army and the crack of their red dragon banners in the hot breeze.

“Riders on the ridge!”

He dropped to his knees, frantically digging through the crate filled with miscellaneous supplies he and his unit had been provided for their day manning the wall. He tossed aside the one canteen they had to share amongst them in favor of fishing out an old spyglass he guessed was at least twice as old as he was. Rust marred its length and one lens was cracked, but it was still usable.

Bringing the spyglass to his right eye, Dane searched the red mountains stretching off to the northeast—the only landmark that broke the monotony of the desert for many leagues.

It didn’t take him long to find the riders in question.

“Riders!” Dane echoed the cry. Thorley’s hot, stale breath bathed the right side of his face as the older man tried to get a look as well. Dane shrugged him off, though. “Horseback! Too many to count.”

“Let me see,” Thorley demanded, but Dane ignored the man as he skimmed further along the ridge, searching for any distinguishing markings. They were too far out still for him to make out many details, but he finally spotted a banner fluttering above them.

It was one he didn’t recognize.

“They’re flying a…feathered lion?” Dane cried out to his unit. “A feathered lion…wearing a…crown?”

“Give me that ,” his commanding knight, Sir Conall, growled from overhead.

The spyglass was wrenched from Dane’s fingers before he could even attempt to comply.

Like the rest of his unit, he waited in tense silence for the knight to study the riders on the ridge just as he had mere moments ago.

“Drakmor. It’s Drakmor’s griffin,” Sir Conall whispered under his breath, the spyglass lowering.

Dane knew about Drakmor. He wasn’t a learned man. He couldn’t read or write. But he certainly knew about Drakmor. Drakmor was their ally.

At least, Drakmor had been their ally until the moment Queen Seraphina told Drakmor’s king she wouldn’t marry him.

Dane wasn’t entirely sure what Drakmor was to them now.

Behind him, Thorley cheered at the news, but Dane simply glanced back up to Sir Conall, who still loomed over him and asked, “What does it mean, sir? ”

Sir Conall let the spyglass drop back into the crate of supplies and explained, “It means our queen has done it. It means we have reinforcements coming.” The weight of the other man’s hand clapped against Dane’s shoulder when the knight added, “It means you might actually get to go home, boy.”

Home .

“Shields! Shields!”

Still in a daze, Dane scrambled for the tower shield in front of him. Given he was already in position, he was one of the first to make up the shieldwall that time. He locked himself into place, his shoulders braced against Thorley on his right and Sir Conall on his left.

A moment later, a strangled scream sounded from further down the wall, announcing that one of their soldiers hadn’t been quick enough in making it to his position.

They had lost another of their number.

But for the first time in a long time, Dane felt a spark of hope welling inside of him. Drakmor was coming . Reinforcements would be there soon. They might be able to break the siege at last. They might be able to win .

And then he could go home…

Just him and Hedley.

“What’s that?” Thorley suddenly asked at the same time he felt it, too. A single droplet of water striking the bridge of his nose.

Dane squinted and shot a glance upward at the unnaturally dark sky above. “ Was that…?”

It was. Rain .

“Back to your stations,” Sir Conall shouted over the sudden, glorious tink-tink-tink of rain striking against metal armor. “Ready the catapults for another volley. Drakmor is coming! Carve them a path.”

For a few more moments, Dane just knelt there and let the cool rain wash over him. It slipped beneath his armor and soaked into his undershirt. Rain.

Could witches even launch their fire in the rain?

He breathed in of the scent of wet stone as best he could through his face covering before he finally lurched back to his feet. One final push. That’s all he needed. Just one more push.

And then it’d all be over.

At last.