Page 77 of Blood of Wolves

Oh no.

Revna cocked her head to the side, smile plucking at her lips, one made sinister by the angle of the light. “Why ‘oh no’?”

Oh no, she’d said that aloud!

Tessa tried to pull the covers a little higher, face flooding with heat, pulse knocking hard. “I’m – I didn’t – that is –wedidn’t–”

Revna chuckled, and swept into the room. She went to the candles at the bedside, and lit them with the lantern and a spill. As light began to fill the room, what Tessa had read as a threat on Revna’s face was revealed to be simple humor, tinged with fatigue at the edges, because the battle had yet to begin, and already, they were tired.

“Hush, lamb,” she chided gently, moving to sit on the side of the bed when she was done.

Tessa tried to shrink away, shame flushing hot and unpleasant beneath her skin. Of all the people to be caught by…

But Revna took her chin in a gentle grip and forced their gazes to meet. Hers was far from angry. “Tessa. It’s all right.”

“But…” Tessa’s eyes begin to sting. “We were supposed to – to wait, and we–”

Revna rolled her eyes, but softened it with a smile. “Yes, well, that was before we had an army at our doorstep, now, wasn’t it? Oh love, don’t cry. No one’s upset by this, least of all me. Young lovers should be together on the eve of battle.” She tilted her head. “All lovers should be, come to think of it.” Her smile widened a fraction – and then slipped to one gentler and more comforting. She dashed a tear from Tessa’s cheek with her thumb.

“Don’t think of all the bad that could happen,” she ordered. “Think of a wedding. Of winter roses in your hair and snow on your shroud. It’s time for us to braid our hair, and go down to stand strong with our people.”

Tessa took a few deep breaths, and managed a nod. As silly as it seemed, the idea of a weddingdidhelp. She said a silent prayer, gathered all her meager bravery and will, and got out of bed.

~*~

It was cold up on the ramparts, but that didn’t account for the chills chasing up and down Rune’s spine. Sword heavy on his hip, Bow and quiver on his back, he gazed across the flickering torches of the outer wall, and in the first silver rays of dawn, beheld the enemy.

They lay like shadows on the ghostly-white snow, four blocks of them fifty wide, and seventy deep; a tight formation that resembled great stone slabs laid before the palace, rather than companies of men. The siege engines and catapults crouched like beasts between them, coiled and ready to strike. There were still men back at the camp, that warren of torches and braziers and silk tents gleaming in the first light, the men moving between them flowing like inky waters over what had once been a vast stretch of empty farmland. Far distant, still smoking faintly, was what had once been Aeres, but was now only a wound at the edge of the harbor.

All along the ramparts of the palace, and the outer wall, men were falling into formation, armor clinking, voices calling commands, breath steaming white in the chill air.

Bjorn touched his shoulder, and Rune realized that he’d been breathing in ragged, open-mouthed pants. “Think about your lessons,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “Where should we strike first?”

A drumbeat started up, a dozen drummers, two, three, until the air was filled with the regular, relentless thunder of the Sel army.

Rune gulped, and tried to think of Olaf’s white beard, and crooked back, bent over a library table and telling him only dunderheads ignored their studies. He took a breath. “We have to cripple their long-range attacks,” he said, and it was easier, then, to think of it like a page in a book, like a training exercise. “Catapults, and archers. We can’t let the siege engines reach the wall. After that, it’s a matter of repelling the ladders and hooks, and holding the wall.”

“Good.”

“Bjorn. There’sso many.”

“Aye. And you know how we kill them?”

Another gulp, another forcefully slow breath. In and out. This was what he’d been born for, reared for, trained for: Leif was the heir, and he was the spare, and oh gods, Leif, what if he never came back…? But, no. This was now. Rune was to be the warrior. The battle prince.

His next breath came easier. “One at a time.”

“Good,” Bjorn said again, voice darkly approving. “Give the order, then.”

Out on the field, there came the drumming, drumming, drumming.

Rune took a deep breath and let his voice ring out, his best impersonation of his uncle. “Archers!”

The call went up down the line, and down, and down.Archers! Archers! Archers!

“Indirect fire!” The called echoed again, in the throats of the men – ofhismen.

The drumbeat shifted. The light swelled a little, over the land, and movement rippled through the Selesee ranks.

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