Page 45 of Winds of Death (War of the Alliance #4)
The vehicles plowed into his magic and halted, their treads spinning trenches into the mud as the magic coating them deflected against Fieran’s makeshift wall.
He took a step forward and shoved . All along the line, the steel vehicles skidded backward on the slick riverbed, pushed by their own protective magic deflecting off Fieran’s magic.
Fieran took another step forward, gathered his magic, and shoved with all the magical strength in him.
Vehicles lurched and tumbled onto their sides or crashed backward. Men—the lucky ones—scrambled out of the way to avoid being crushed by the falling steel behemoths.
A wave of dizziness washed through Fieran, and he had to plant his feet, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.
No. He wouldn’t give in to this weariness. He was not at the end of his power. He wasn’t at the edge of his stamina.
He was an elf. This magic was his . It wasn’t his dacha’s. But his. A part of him, as integral as blood and bone. He was not lessened because he was half-human but he was all the stronger because he was a warrior with both human and elven blood running through his veins.
His whirling head steadied, though some of the dizziness still lingered at the edges.
He snapped his gaze open and lifted the swords into a fighting guard stance.
Whether this was caused by lack of stamina or lack of faith in his own elven heritage, he wouldn’t let it impede him now, not with his dacha’s life depending on him.
With his magic so occupied holding back the line of armored, tractor-tread vehicles, he hadn’t stopped the soldiers. The first rank of them rushed forward, bayonets flashing on the ends of their rifles.
Fieran steeled himself as he faced the oncoming enemy. His dacha’s swords in his hands glinted in the rising sun, the blades coated blue with his magic.
Then he launched himself forward and tore into the enemy. The familiar sword patterns that he’d practiced nearly every morning from the moment his dacha had first placed a wooden sword in his hand no longer merely met air or his dacha’s blade. Instead, the swords met flesh and bone.
He’d thought he’d understood death. He’d caused it enough times. Felt it through his magic when he’d killed hundreds while taking down airships.
But this was death so visceral, so all-encompassing, that he couldn’t escape it. He could taste it in the spattering blood, feel it in his blades meeting flesh, see it in the eyes of his enemy, live it in a way he never had before.
There was no going back. No staying his hand. His dacha lay prone and helpless behind him. The enemy assembled before him. He carried the duty of blade and battle, and he could not flinch from it.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed as he wielded the swords as the warrior his dacha had trained him to be, cutting through the enemy with blade and magic.
The rank upon rank of incoming enemy didn’t give him time to think or feel.
There was just the mud and the death and his dacha’s swords in his hands.
With the deep whir of the propellers and the buzz of the magically powered rotary engines, a formation of aeroplanes flashed overhead, diving at the enemy lines.
The aeroplanes’ machines guns chattered, strafing the Mongavarian soldiers.
Several of the aeroplanes farthest away from Fieran dropped bombs, which exploded in gouts of flame and earth among the enemy ranks.
As the aeroplanes swooped upward once again, the rising sun glinted on the artwork painted on them, each one incorporating an elf ear somewhere in the design.
His squadron. Fieran had gained enough space in the fight to lift a sword in salute, only to realize that the sword’s blade dripped a rivulet of blood.
A wave of icy magic blasted from behind him, twining with and yet crackling against his magic in that way only the magic of the ancient kings ever did.
With the tromping squelch of boots in mud, ranks upon ranks of troll warriors in gray uniforms adorned with leather or metal armor strode forward, wielding swords and axes alongside rifles and sidearms.
“We’ve got this now.” Rhohen appeared at Fieran’s side, his hands laced with crackling icy-white bolts of his magic, a version of the magic of the ancient kings. He gave Fieran that pouty smirk that usually made him want to punch his cousin. Today he might have hugged him.
Uncle Rharreth stepped to Fieran’s other side, his sword in his right hand, his left hand wreathed with sparkling white ice magic. “See to your dacha.”
Even as Fieran nodded, taking one step back, then two, Aunt Vriska, dressed in her gray uniform and wielding a sword, shouted orders to the troll warriors as she led the front ranks arrayed to Fieran’s right.
To his left, elven warriors in deep evergreen uniforms edged in leather glided forward, interspersed with units of Escarlish soldiers in olive uniforms and carrying rifles. With Rhohen’s magic providing a shield, the Alliance army pressed forward, advancing across the riverbed.
Fieran released his magic, turned, and dashed the few yards back to where Dacha lay.
Uncle Weylind knelt next to him and was prying Dacha’s limp form from the mud. As Fieran crashed to his knees next to him, Uncle Weylind glanced up, his mouth in a grim line bracketed by deep grooves. “He is alive, nirshon.”
Alive. Fieran released a breath that came out with a shudder. “Then why hasn’t he woken yet?”
Fieran had only been out for a few seconds. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed—likely not that long, despite how it had felt to him—but it seemed like too long if Dacha had been merely knocked out by the explosion.
“I do not know. But magical backlash can be tricky.” Uncle Weylind hefted Dacha’s limp form, pulling him up and over to drape across Uncle Weylind’s shoulders.
Mud smeared Uncle Weylind’s uniform and into his hair, but he did not seem to notice as he stood, carrying Dacha.
“Come. We must get your dacha to the healers.”
Still holding Dacha’s bloody swords, Fieran trotted after Uncle Weylind, his boots squishing in mud that was now even more churned and soupy from many boots. They passed more ranks of elves, trolls, and humans rushing onto the battlefield to reinforce the first wave of warriors.
Uncle Weylind climbed up the shallow bank, and Fieran jumped up after him to stand on the somewhat firmer ground of what had once been the riverbank.
Here the bank was now clogged with various trucks, some abandoned and some with drivers working to turn them around to transport more troops to the growing battle in the riverbed.
His uncle tilted his head toward a nearby small, open-topped army truck identical to the one Fieran and his dacha had taken to the Wall.
The truck they’d driven was now lying on its side in the mud, blown off its wheels and over the side of the half bridge in the magical explosion. “You will need to drive, nirshon.”
Right. Unlike Dacha, Uncle Weylind hadn’t learned. Tarenhiel hadn’t embraced motorized vehicles the way Escarland had, and when Uncle Weylind visited Escarland, he always had someone on hand to drive him around, if needed. After all, he was a king. Even Uncle Averett didn’t drive himself.
Fieran numbly settled into the driver’s seat, resting Dacha’s swords in the footwell of the passenger side. Uncle Weylind eased Dacha down so that he sprawled across the back seat before climbing into the back, propping himself under Dacha’s head and shoulders to keep him steady.
Mechanically, Fieran turned on the engine, worked the gear shift and clutch, and sent the vehicle rolling and bumping along the road. Behind him, artillery guns boomed, men shouted, and machine guns chattered as the violence of war unleashed its carnage.