Page 413 of Of Empires and Dust

Alina stayedtight to Rynvar as the wyvern swooped and ripped two Lorians from the walls, dropping their bodies into the trenches on the other side. She had long used her last javelin, and the sword in her scabbard was bloody. She signalled her Wyndarii to rise – those that were left. Eighty or so in her squadron, almost half dead, slaughtered by the Lorian mages.

Amari’s and Mera’s squadrons still fought tooth and claw both in the air and on the ground. She’d seen Lukira and Urin fall, the wyvern pierced in the neck by a spear. The bulk of her army and the Narvonans fought on the walls in the yard, and they had already taken heavy losses. Even with the gates down, besieging a fortress of this scale took its toll. And so thick was the fighting that the Narvonan beasts were not yet through to the yard.

Rynvar let out a roar beneath her, his muscles twitching. She braced herself, and the wyvern rolled. A javelin whipped past her face, and a scream from behind let her know that one of her sisters had taken the steel meant for her.

“Down!” Alina shouted. Rynvar ignored her. Instead he cracked his wings and surged forwards towards the group of traitor Wyndarii that charged them in the sky. He twisted, raking his talons along a soft underbelly and spilling entrails onto the battle below.

“Down!” Alina roared again, but the wyvern had blood in his nostrils and a fury in his heart at seeing so many of his kin die. He tore three more from the sky, tearing out throats and snapping wings. As the wyvern spun, Alina pulled her sword free and sliced through the arm of a traitor Wyndarii, the world pulling at her as Rynvar dropped into a freefall.

Both Syndel and Audin swept in beside her, Amari and Mera on their backs.

“We need to break the lines!” Alina roared, the wind swallowing her voice. She looked down towards the main yard, where Loren’s forces had consolidated and were protecting Lorian mages behind a shield wall. Belina had smashed open the gates, but the trenches were slowing her forces and the traitors were holding fast. The walls were chaos, and archers rained death from the towers and murder holes in the keep.

A sound like a thunderclap erupted to Alina’s right, and she watched in horror as enormous boulders rolled down the side of the mountain at the Keep’s eastern wall. A score of the giant chunks of stone swept down the mountainside and smashed into her forces traversing the trenches.

As she watched this new destruction, Rynvar let out a horrific shriek, and Alina saw a spear jutting from his shoulder, buried deep. The wyvern flapped his wings and screamed, trying desperately to stay in the air, the world spinning.

They spiralled towards the ground, the wyvern thrashing to stay up, his wing failing him. Flames swept past Alina’s vision, and before they crashed down into the yard, everything jerked upwards. Alina looked up to see Mera and Audin, Rynvar’s harness in the other wyvern’s talons.

Audin could only hold on for a second before Rynvar dragged them both down.

Rynvar let out another shriek and then spun, turning himself with his good wing so that Alina sat upright in the saddle when the wyvern slammed to the ground.

Chapter 95

The Wyverns of Valtara

25thDay of the Blood Moon

Achyron’s Keep – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

Roars and shouts rang out,flames flickering in Alina’s blurred vision. She shook her head, trying to loose the ringing. Beneath her, she felt Rynvar whine, and panic flared in her veins. She scrambled for the buckles and straps that held her in place on the wyvern’s back, ripping them free. She slid to the ground, her ribs groaning as her feet touched stone.

Alina sprinted around to Rynvar’s head, running her hands along his scales, his deep blue eyes searching hers.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” she whispered, staring into those eyes that had been her solace for so long. She looked down the length of his body to see one of his legs snapped and a broken spear shaft jutting from his shoulder. “You’re going to be all right.”

The wyvern hissed and whined, his chest wheezing.

“You fucking hold on, you understand me? You do not have permission to die. It’s my turn to keep you safe. By blade and by blood.” Alina slid her sword from its scabbard and pressed her head to the side of Rynvar’s snout. “Do not hesitate,” she whispered to herself, repeating the words she had heard Dayne speak every day. “Do not contemplate mercy.”

She moved around Rynvar’s flank to find eight warriors in bronzed cuirasses and white skirts standing with ordos and valynas in their hands, their backs to her. Aeson Virandr and three of his companions stood with them.

“Nothing gets past this line!” Savrin roared, beating his valyna against his ordo. Beyond him, over a hundred Koraklon warriors had broken away from the fighting and marched on them in a tight shield wall. “Protect your queen!”

Alina walked to join them, drawing in a long breath and letting it out slowly, her fingers tensing around the hilt of her sword. She slid her dardik shield from her back, small and light.

“How did you get to me so quickly?” Alina asked as she pushed between Savrin and Aeson, readying herself.

“He never let you out of his sight,” Aeson said, tilting his head at Savrin without turning his gaze from the approaching warriors.

Savrin shrugged his ordo from his shoulder and handed it to Alina, taking her smaller dardik in return.

Alina tried to refuse, pushing the man’s hand away, but he insisted.

“My purpose is to be your shield, my queen. Let me fulfil that purpose.” The man cracked his neck and turned back to face the Koraklon warriors. Alina looked down the line to see which of her guard were missing: Saralis and Ravan.

“May Achyron welcome you into his halls,” she whispered. She looked back at Rynvar, who had pulled himself upright, blood streaming from his shoulder, his weight on his right leg.

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