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CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

T he underbeast roared as it powered through the tunnels my people had carved over generations, the time to utilise them finally upon us.

The contraptions my army rode upon were a marvel of metal and magic, its long body having carried us through the tunnels beneath Avanis and then into Pyros at high speed.

We’d spent years perfecting them in secret in caverns far beneath the mountains where not even the enemy spies had been able to discover them.

They were powered by blazing coal and a hundred sharpened legs imbued with earth magic activated by runes which drove us through the tunnels like a millipede racing from a bird.

But we weren’t the prey in this encounter. We were the enemy they’d never see coming and as we sped through the rocks deep beneath their land, I couldn’t help but think about how right that was.

The people of Avanis had always been destined to rule over the entire continent because we were masters of the land itself.

Without rock and stone, root and soil, fauna and forest, they had nothing to squabble over.

The wind might blow and the flame might burn, the river may run but without the earth they had nothing to show for any of it.

We would remind them of such and the despicable Flamebringers who owed me so much would be the first to fall beneath the axe of that truth.

“Rah! Rah! Rah!” The repetitive strike of the pincers which flung us through the tunnels were echoed by the war cries of my warriors. I bellowed along with them as the underbeast took a sharp and sudden turn towards the surface.

The ascent grew steeper and I pulled my golden war hammer from my back, holding it aloft as I gripped the metal bar before me so that I wouldn’t go tumbling back through the centre of the underbeast as it angled ever upwards.

We slowed a fraction as we reached the end of the tunnel, the warriors before me all lifting their hands to blast the earth and rock aside as we made to embark upon the land of our enemy.

“Cinder Vale will fall to us this day!” I boomed and my warriors cried out their agreement. “Leave none alive in your wake!”

My pulse thundered in my ears, the screams of my family echoing through time itself to haunt me even here.

They were the reason I fought on, the reason I never backed down, the reason for all I did.

And today I intended to finally reap the justice they deserved from the land of the heathens who had caused their demise.

The cries of bloodlust and fury echoed out as the dirt before us exploded into open air and we emerged from the ground like a great serpent cresting a wave, the first of the underbeasts to pierce the land and make our presence known.

Cinder Vale stood just beyond the edge of the volcanic plains we’d just breached and the panicked cries of their guards met my ears alongside the roar of a battle already taking place.

I looked out at the warring Fae, taking stock of the carnage before us and smiling darkly. Taurus was on our side this day.

Ironwraith hung in the sky above the plains and over the palace in the volcanic basin, raining down hell on the city from above while the Cascadian fleet attacked it from the Blackthorn Canal on the other side of the plains.

The Flamebringers were trapped between the three of us, scurrying like panicked ants whose rock had just been turned to reveal every crevice of their nest.

A booming laugh escaped me as I took in the destruction, weighing how long this battle had already waged.

“We find three hobbled mules awaiting us instead of one defiant crow!” I boomed, my voice magically echoing out across the land to all of my people as more and more underbeasts punched through the rock to bolster our forces.

The other Earls had joined me in this attack and the sight of Avanis united made pride burn through my chest. “I say we put them all down!”

The bellow of agreement that followed made my ears ring and I laughed wildly as I took off at the head of our army, charging out onto the black lava rock which made up the field before us, ready to watch the world fall to our fury.