Page 139 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

Though the sky above is clear, the forest from which the Martials will emerge is cloaked in mist. And before our eyes, the mist thickens.

“What in the bleeding skies is that?” Afya points to a thick bank of cloud, rolling up along the river from the south. There is a sulfuric fetor to it, and it is completely at odds with the wind, which blows in from the north, favoring our arrows.

“The Nightbringer,” Elias says. “He knows we’re here. Runner!”

A young Scholar appears immediately at Elias’s side. “Call the wind efrits,” he says. “Tell them they’re to scatter the fog.”

The boy disappears, and now the fog has enshrouded the river below. We hear splashes in the water, but looking down is like looking into a bucket of milk.

“They’re crossing,” Afya hisses. “We have to do something.”

“Not yet,” Elias says. “We wait for the efrits.”

Trails of stinking mist approach the ridge where we’ve taken cover, and we hear shouts now, orders given as Keris’s army makes its way across the shallows. From there, they will travel along a cleared area that runs in a strip between this ridge and the jinn city. And then, up the short escarpment to battle our troops.

I fidget as the minutes drag on. “Elias—”

“Not yet.” His pale eyes are trained on the mist. The soldiers shift uneasily, and he calls down the line, “Steady.”

Then a whoosh over our heads, and the shrieks of the wind efrits as they arrow through the mist, swirling and ripping and tearing, scattering it as a child scatters fall leaves.

Elias lifts his hand and signals for the archers along the ridgeline to nock and aim. The cloud thins enough that we see men below, crossing the river in large groups.

Elias swings down his arm, and the thrum of a thousand arrows launching at once sings through the air. One of Keris’s men shouts a warning, but waterlogged as the soldiers are, they cannot raise their shields in time. They drop in waves. Elias lifts and drops his arm again, before signaling to fire at will. Another wave of soldiers goes down, and then another.

We could stop them right here. Perhaps a thousand Tribal longbows are enough to finish the Martials. To make Keris crawl back to Navium, licking her wounds. To make the Nightbringer think twice.

Then a knife, its hilt still glowing as if fresh from the forge, whistles out of the sky and lodges itself into the chest of the person standing beside me. Afya.

She grunts and steps back, staring down at the blade in surprise before crumpling into my arms.No, oh skies, no.

“Afya!” Gibran screams and gets his arm around her in an instant.“Zaldara, no.”

“Get her to triage,” I say. “Quickly. It didn’t hit her heart. Go, Gibran!”

But the clouds above burn orange and then a deep angry red as jinn streak out of the sky. Umber, with her fiery glaive, is among them. She thuds to the earth not thirty feet away, flattening the trees around her. Afya andGibran both go flying as her glaive sweeps out, setting fire to two dozen of our soldiers at once.

“Retreat!” Elias calls, and we expected this. I know we did. But I am still unprepared for the swift deaths the jinn mete out. The way they tear through our troops like wind through paper. A score of our men go down. Two score. Five score.

“Run, Laia!”

“Afya—Gibran—”

“Run!”

Elias pulls me away, rage in his voice. Instantly I know his anger is born of fear, for here I stand, unmoving as death inches closer.

But though Umber is before me, though she could strike me down with her glaive, she only snarls and turns away. Elias windwalks me through the trees and back to the jinn grove, even as the soldiers we have left behind trickle from the woods.

Our camp is an organized sort of chaos, and Elias is instantly barking orders. The catapults are loaded, the sea efrits hovering above them to defend them from the jinn. The war machines are aimed not at the approaching army, but at the Sher Jinnaat. We will hurl not fire or stones, but massive blocks of salt, to keep the jinn in the city from joining their brethren and deciding the battle before we’ve had a chance to fight it.

“How many down?” the Shrike calls to Elias.

“Nearly two hundred on our side,” he says. “Perhaps a thousand on theirs.”

“We sent the messenger as you requested,” the Shrike says. “Keris sent the head back. Body tied to the horse.”

“Soul Catcher!” Rowan Goldgale materializes before us. “The Martials are here. The Nightbringer—”

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