Page 112 of Shadow & Storms

‘Now’s your chance, Princess,’ Wilder murmured at her side. ‘Told you that you might make a speech of your own one day…’

With the battering ram as her war drum, Thea surveyed their ranks. Sure enough, the eyes of the allied forces did not fall to Talemir Starling, nor to Anya, the Daughter of Darkness, and not to Wilder Hawthorne either. They looked to her.

A former child of Thezmarr, a girl turned warrior, Althea Nine Lives, the Shadow of Death, the wraith slayer. The storm-wielding Warsword. Althea Embervale.

Thea took a deep breath and lifted her chin, urging her mare forward so she could address the final fighting souls of the midrealms.

Unsheathing her sword, she projected her voice across their ranks. ‘Today, we face a reckoning,’ she called. ‘I do not need to tell you that we are outnumbered, that our forces are outmatched, and that the shadows of annihilation loom large.’

The battering ram collided with the gates again, shaking the very foundations of the fortress.

‘With the odds stacked against us in every way, this battle will test the very heart of us. But it is in these moments of dire peril that legends are born. It is battles like these that forge warriors with blood and steel. I stand before you now not as a Warsword, nor an heir of a kingdom, but as a sister of the sword. You may not know me well. You may not know me at all… But I know you.’

Thea braced herself.

‘You are the true warriors of the midrealms – those who have been knocked down time and time again, only to rise up stronger than before. What those bastards behind these walls fail to comprehend, what they can never grasp, is the indomitable spirit that resides within each and every one of you. Together, we are a tempest that will rage. A storm that gathers must break, and by the Furies will we break upon them.’

The battering ram broke through the gates, splintering the iron-bound timber. It caved in with a roar.

Thea raised her blade and shouted her final words for all the world to hear. ‘If this is to be our final stand, let us make it worthy of legend!’

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

WILDER

The gates of Thezmarr had splintered apart, a sight Wilder had never thought he’d live to see. As Thea led the charge into the fortress, their horses’ hooves thundering over the fallen gates, Malik’s fighting words came back to him, as they always did: Glory in death, immortality in legend. It seemed a fitting motto, today of all days.

As they burst into the fortress, horror sank its claws into him. Around them, vine blights strangled the ivy across the walls, seeking out new hosts, creeping across the ground.

Thezmarr had been made into a lair: a deep, despairing lair, home to everything it had been created to fight against. Darkness had their home in its clutches, and the proof was harrowing.

Night had well and truly fallen and the moon hung low, shrouded in dark clouds and shadows, casting an ominous glow upon the battlefield and the masses of monsters before them. The ear-piercing wails of the howlers echoed as they banded together and hit the midrealms’ unit in a wave. In seconds, Wilder was assaulted by the cacophony of battle – the clash of steel, the screams of their fighters, the haunting shrieks of the shadow wraiths that lay in wait within the walls. The creatures’ acrid scent tangled with the sickly-sweet perfume of fear that clung to their own forces.

Wilder steered his stallion into the fray, the bitter taste of desperation coating his tongue. It was pandemonium. Shadows lashed out at them from the wraiths on the parapets above, while the howlers took advantage of the distraction, cleaving into their men with gut-wrenching screams.

Gripping his saddle with his thighs, Wilder unsheathed both swords and let his steel sing. He cut through the howlers like butter, one by one, not even deigning to watch as they fell onto the blood-slicked cobbles; he was already onto the next. As he fought, he could feel the pulse of evil in the fortress, an otherworldly malevolence echoing through the very fabric of the place – and yet he could see no reaper at the heart of the fray, no sire of darkness watching on from the turrets; only chaos and carnage.

In the centre of the courtyard, Thea, Vernich, Talemir and Drue were fighting back an onslaught of howlers, defending against those curling whips of power dredging nightmares to the surface. Their forces were splintered already, a great many dead, a great many more injured. By the entrance to the Great Hall, Anya, Dratos and Adrienne battled three wraiths who’d deigned to partake. Terrence flew overhead, aiming his talons at the monsters’ eyes.

The fortress was overrun. And there was still no sign of the reapers.

‘Where’s Cal?’ Wilder shouted at Torj, who was wielding his war hammer to great effect, leaving a trail of bloodied pulp in his wake.

‘Should be in position by now,’ Torj said, slamming his hammer into the face of a howler with a sickening crack, blood spraying.

But when Wilder looked to the walls, where their archers were meant to be in place, there were only wraiths and their shadows.

‘Fuck,’ he muttered, scanning the raging turmoil. ‘We need to get up there!’

Torj motioned towards one of the watchtowers. ‘That way.’

As the battle raged on, the Bear Slayer and the Hand of Death carved a path through the enemy, their Naarvian steel creating a symphony of destruction and pain. Wilder relished the feeling of throats opening beneath his blade, the sound of the screams that pierced the air at his will. It was brutal and bloody, but also a rallying cry to their forces. Both he and Torj knew well enough that a show of strength could harden the resolve of broken warriors, and they needed all the resolve they could get.

At the foot of the tower, Wilder leapt from the saddle and started for the stone steps, Torj close behind. They should have seen the first volley of arrows by now, which meant that something was terribly wrong atop the walls.

Heart pounding, Wilder sprinted up the stairs, thrusting his swords into the soft bellies of the howlers in his path, cutting off a head, then a second one. They had to get to Cal, and fast.

The steps became slippery with blood, but determination grounded Wilder as he reached the door at the top. The fortress trembled, and he wondered what Thea and Anya were unleashing below. They’d agreed not to use storm magic until the reapers made themselves known, for they would come in force, and the storm wielders would need every ounce of lightning and thunder to fight back.

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