Page 32 of The Shadow Path (Shadowlands #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

W ithout waiting another moment, Dru shouted something at the top of his lungs and charged toward the center of the Saris Plain with the wild fae army behind him.

“What do we do?” Carys shouted at Lachlan. At this point, blood on Saris Plain seemed inevitable, but that didn’t mean Carys couldn’t at least try to stop it.

“Hold!” Lachlan shouted as the soldiers behind them began to stomp their feet. He raised his fist. “Hold!” His face was leached of color, and his eyes were fixed on the center of the field. “The only thing powerful enough to defeat this enemy is the dragons.”

“I thought Fomorians were a legend even here,” Carys shouted.

“Nothing is a legend here.” Winnie’s mount was restless, tossing her head and trying to surge forward.

Nêrys, I am coming to get you.

“Cadell is coming to get me.” Carys jumped off her horse, grabbed her bow and quiver, and patted Leuca’s neck. “Go! Head back to the river and wait for me.”

Without a word, the horse turned and slipped away through the columns of soldiers.

“What are you doing?” Winnie asked. “We have to wait for orders.”

“I’m not your soldier,” Carys said. “My dragon is coming for me, and I’m not going to ignore him.” And if there was anything Carys could do to stop this battle—or at least end it quickly—she was going to find it.

Lachlan eyed her quiver and bow. “Don’t do anything rash.”

“Who, me?” Carys walked forward, spotting Cadell in the distance. “I’m just hitching a ride with a dragon.”

A moment later, Cadell landed, dropping a narrow war coracle that rocked for a moment before the door flipped down and it braced.

Duncan popped out from the open door and held his hand out. “Get in here!”

Carys ran.

As soon as she was in the coracle, Duncan cranked the door closed and waved his arms over his head. “Go!” A moment after that, they were in the air again, Cadell plucking them from the ground and swooping up to the sky.

“I never thought I’d be so grateful to be back in the air.” Carys pulled out her bow as Cadell flew over the battle below. Maybe if they could take out some Fomorians, then the human battle could be prevented.

A grim dread settled in her belly, but the adrenaline coursing through her system quickly overrode everything other thought. She nocked an arrow and peered out of the arrowslit at the chaos in the middle of the plain.

“Fomorians,” Duncan said grimly. “I’ve only ever seen pictures, and they’re so much worse than I thought.”

“Your sword isn’t going to do much against them.”

“Lucky I brought this.” Duncan picked up a bow and quiver and walked to the arrowslit across from hers. “I’m not as good a shot as you, but I can try.”

When Carys imagined the mythical race of superhumans, she had always imagined giants, but what she saw when she peeked through the arrowslit was so much worse.

There was a massive creature with claws like a badger ripping through the white chalk soil and tearing open the plain, grabbing fae from the battlefield and tossing them into his cavernous maw.

There was a three-headed wolf as big as an elephant, its claws ripping up the ground as it plowed through Dru’s lines.

Dru was fighting back, his followers defending their leader as he planted his hands in the soil and pulled water from the ground beneath the surface.

As Fomorian giants ripped up the ground, the water came swiftly behind them, pulling the giants back under the earth and flooding the fissures they left behind.

“Is Dru bigger somehow?” Carys asked. “Is that just a trick of the light or?—”

“No,” Duncan said. “He’s almost as big as they are.”

The fae prince is the son of the sea god, Cadell said in her mind. If anyone can defeat these monsters, he has the power. He has only been reluctant to use it until now.

“Cadell says Dru can win.” Carys nocked an arrow and pointed it at a Fomorian monster with the head of a goat and the body of a giant.

As dragons circled overhead, Carys saw arrows raining down and knew that other nêr ddraig had the same idea she did. They might not be able to strafe the plain with fire without harming Dru’s people, but they could rain down arrows from the sky.

Cadell began to send positions to her as he flew over the battle. Position four, one sixty degrees.

Her first shot at a giant goat-man bounced off his curled horns, but her second hit him square in the eye. He reeled back, grasping for the arrow in his eye, and while he was distracted, one of the tree-fae rose up, shooting a branch from his arm through the belly of the Fomorian, then wrapping that same branch around the goat’s body and squeezing until the monster was pulled to bloody pieces.

Alafair picked up a massive leg and kicked the head of the goat-monster away from the battle.

“Cadell, go burn that head!” Carys shouted.

Yes, Nêrys.

“Why?” Duncan yelled.

“I don’t know for sure, but if he has elemental magic, he might be able to regenerate.”

But there was no regenerating from ash. The dragon bellowed a stream of fire at the rolling goat head, scarring the plain with blackened grass and turning the Fomorian’s remains to nothing more than a pile of ashes.

Carys heard Dru shouting.

“Turn back!” she said.

Cadell wheeled around, and it was obvious Dru had seen what Cadell had done. He was shouting at his people, who seemed to catch on quickly because one by one, they all targeted a Fomorian and tried to draw it away from the center of the battle, ripping off pieces where they could and tossing them as far as they could manage.

Like Cadell, other dragons swooped down, shooting fire at the pieces of Fomorians and turning their bodies to ash.

“It’s working!” Carys had no sooner said it than she felt something massive knock the side of the coracle, and she flew across the wooden carriage, her head smashing against the wall.

Everything went black.

Carys woke to see Duncan driving his sword through an arrowslit while blood poured into the coracle. There was a great beating wind driving down on her face, and she could feel something dripping down her neck.

She touched her throbbing head, and her fingers came away wet with blood.

“Carys!” Duncan roared.

She was confused, blinking at the giant black-brown feathers floating into the coracle. Massive wings nearly as wide as Cadell’s body beat against the side, and she saw Cadell’s belly red with fire.

An odd, disembodied voice whispered in her mind. …cannot believe you are doing this instead of me.

Duncan pulled his sword from the arrowslit and ran to her. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s stuck to the side.” He put his hand on her head. “Can you move?”

Get your bow, idiot.

Carys blinked, still confused by what she was seeing when a long, black face with bloody, tangled hair peeked over the high wall of the coracle and opened its mouth.

It screamed, and Carys saw blood dripping from its fangs.

Shoot it.

Cadell was shouting in her mind: Nêrys, there is a harpy attacking the coracle!

The Fomorians brought harpies?

Duncan was bending over her, blood all over his clothes. “Carys, can you talk?”

“Help me up.” She struggled to sitting and reached for her bow. The air around her grew strangely still, and her peripheral vision grew dark.

Aim for the eyes.

Maybe it was the head wound that was making her hear voices, but Carys nocked an arrow, drew it, and all she could see was the eyes of the monster trying to climb into her coracle as she drew back her string.

Thwoosh. The arrow hit one eye and the harpy screamed.

Again.

Carys quickly drew another, aimed, and fired faster than she ever had in her training.

Its center of gravity is thrown back, stab it now.

The harpy was still clinging to the side of the coracle with two clawed wings, but its head was flailing and one claw was slipping off.

“Get your sword!” Carys yelled. “Stab it!”

Duncan picked up his sword, ran to the arrowslit, stabbed the harpy through the opening, then pulled back and swung the blade up and over his head.

Thunk! The sword cut clean through one claw and sank into the wood.

The harpy screamed again.

Duncan yanked the sword from the solid oak and swung it at the other claw.

Thunk!

The harpy shrieked and fell back, and as soon as it released, Cadell wheeled to the side, surged into the air, and Duncan was thrown against the side of the coracle where Carys lay as the dragon let loose a stream of fire that lit up his belly.

The searing heat cut across the coracle, and Duncan threw himself over Carys to shield her from the blast.

The scent of burning feathers filled the air.

There are harpies attacking the dragons, Cadell said. There are dozens of them.

Carys struggled to her feet as the coracle evened out. “There are dozens of harpies,” she told Duncan. “As many as there are dragons.”

He ran to an arrowslit and looked out. “I see them. They look like a flock. They’re grouping and clinging to the coracles.”

Release the coracles. Carys was still hearing the strange voice in her mind.

“Some of the dragons are landing,” Duncan shouted. “No, they’re just dropping the war coracles and flying again.”

We cannot kill the harpies with the coracles in our grip, Cadell said in her mind.

“Drop us if you need to,” Carys shouted.

She ran to an arrowslit and saw Demelza, Anwyn’s great red-skinned dragon swooping down over the harpy-covered coracles and plucking a feathered beast from where it clung. Then she lifted the harpy into the sky and tore it to pieces with her claws.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Duncan said.

“Cadell, are there any around us?” Carys felt a rush in her blood.

The harpies appear to be congregating around the Fomorians and fae in the field below. At this altitude, we do not have their attention. Shall I continue circling?

“We’re fine, go lower!” Carys knew that Cadell was trying to protect her, but she wanted to return to the fight. “Have Lachlan and Winnie charged yet?”

Carys heard horns in the distance and knew the Alban and Anglian troops wouldn’t be long from the fight.

The wolves are on the plain, Cadell said.

“There’s something dark— Wolves!” Duncan yelled. “The North Wolves are here.”

Carys ran to another arrowslit and spotted them.

Like a dark cavalry, the wolves charged ahead of the human soldiers, Anglian foot soldiers running with them as the Alban cavalry fell back.

“What’s Lachlan doing?” Duncan cried. “He’s off to the side now, the idiot!”

Flank the enemy, the voice in her head whispered. Divide their attention.

“The fae have the front lines with the Fomorians and the wolves have their back now.” Carys ran to another arrowslit as Cadell began to circle lower. “Lachlan is flanking them.”

“I suppose he’s not as big an idiot as I thought then.” Duncan stepped back and used a piece of his coat to clean his sword.

The harpy blood was sizzling on the blade. It looked like harpies didn’t like iron much either.

“We’re going down again.” Carys picked up her bow and nocked an arrow, ready to start shooting again. “Keep your sword handy in case the harpies try again. Eyes and claws.”

“Eyes and claws.” Duncan braced himself along the wall of the coracle and kept his eyes up as Carys aimed and started to fire at more Fomorians on the field.

Carys’s arrow found a bloody monster’s eye a moment before the badger-headed giant swung down, slashing a wolf with its massive claws.

Around them, the Saris Plain was wet with Fomorian and fae blood. Wolves and humans charged forward, and dragons ripped harpies apart in the sky as Cymric longbowmen fired toward the back of the Fomorian line.

Chaos reigned, and the éiren soldiers had not even joined the fight.