Page 123 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“And yours, Maiden,” I said, letting the arrow fly.

It flew right and true, a much harder feat at this range, but somehow I knew that didn’t matter. The world dropped away, replaced only by the whirr of my arrow, of theirs, vibrating slightly as it tore through the air, building momentum as it soared, then deploying that with deadly efficiency when it came slamming down. Right between the eyes. I caught the moment the Reaver jolted, then collapsed, the fletching of my arrow sticking out from the beast's skull.

I couldn’t devote time and energy to following each one. Instead, I had to move with a mechanical efficiency. Nock, sight, release my arrow, over and over, the wealth of the Strelan armoury at my fingertips, ready to be deployed. I shot and shot, my muscles feeling like they got stronger rather than tiring.

But then I heard Selene.

“Majesty?”

That. That tiny gasp of fear, of doubt, from a woman I’d never heard utter anything like it, had me pausing, letting my string go loose as I pointed my bow down. I could see the evidence of my efforts, of our people’s. Dead bodies littered the ground, along with injured ones. That didn’t seem to do anything to the great carpet of Reavers though. They stepped over the bodies of the fallen, or reached down, tossing their torches aside to haul their comrades’ corpses over their shoulders, but they did not stop. Reavers covered the mountainside now in numbers none of my visions had betrayed. Ravening, rabid wolves as far as the eye could see.

“We shoot,” I told Selene and the others who now looked at me. “And we keep shooting until we have nothing left.”

“Cop a taste of this, you fuckers!” Axe shouted, he and his publican troops all lobbing their bottles over the edge. We watched them smash below, the Reavers closest splashed with liquor which quickly set alight. Seeing the flames flare, seeing them tear across the forms of the nearest Reavers, swallowing them in their fiery embrace had the whole battlements cheering, it felt like. My eyes sucked in the details like water on a sunny day, wanting, needing to see these bastards falter.

You begin to understand my hunger, the Morrigan said.

For Reaver blood? Damn right, I do, I shot back. What do I need to do to gift you more?

“You want to get to get those lads aiming at the whole mass of the Reavers, not just the ones in front of them.”

My head whipped around to see Pepin standing there, her body held tight, as if bracing herself for an onslaught.

“Lady of the hunt.”

Selene’s voice was full of reverence as she and the other Maidens dropped down into the lowest of bows, making me wonder what they saw.

“I am here to hunt, as best as I can.” Pepin didn’t bother masking what she was now, a golden bow appearing from the air and in her hands. She drew it back, a flaming arrow against the string right before she let it go.

You couldn’t help but follow its path, the fiery bolt carving through the Reavers, leaving a blazing trail in its path.

“I can’t do much more than this and only for as long as I’m allowed,” she added.

“Why?” My bow was held between numb fingers, every muscle lax. “Why don’t you stop this? Why don’t you kill all of the fucking Reavers where they stand? You’re a goddess, aren’t you? Aren’t we your people? Save us!”

I injected all of the power I could into my bark, but it didn’t get me what I wanted.

“We answer the call of those of the blood.” Pepin’s voice shifted now and her form did too. The girl, then my mother, then Mother Aeve stood there, flickering back and forth, back and forth, the shifts coming faster and faster. When she spoke, it was with all three of her voices. “I told you to claim your pack and your throne. It would’ve gone easier if you had.”

“So she’ll claim me now.” Dane’s voice cut through hers, all of hers, as he stepped closer. “I’ll get Axe over. We’ll do this, finish this.”

“A bite on the neck is not a claiming, Queen’s Consort. Such things have a power in and of themselves and that does not come from a hasty nip on a battlement.” Pepin’s, the goddess’ eyes flickered as she turned back to me. “And she would need to claim all of her mates to gain the advantage she needs.”

“All…?”

My whispered reply was lost to the sound of battle and my eyes jerked back to see a monstrous sight. The bodies of the fallen were tossed against the wall, dead or dying, creating a grotesque ramp of sorts, one the Reavers were about to deploy. The smell of burning had my eyes jerking left, seeing the torches pelting the gates over and over, not enough to set the gate alight in themselves, but when they fell in a pile at the bottom? The mass of torches became a pyre of burning logs, one whose flames roared higher. Men moved frantically from the battlements to douse the flames with buckets of water and sand, but the Reavers kept on coming.

And now they were clawing their way up the walls of the city, thrusting their claws into the mortar. A sharp stab of pain had me bent over double. Gael moved closer in concern, but I waved him away. When I drew my bow, it wasn’t mine though, it was hers. I turned to see Pepin standing there, wearing her Maiden form now.

“I am the weakest and the strongest form of the goddess,” she said. “I’m the strength of young bodies, the keenness of your minds. I’m the face of her that will not accept things as they are.”

I let my flaming arrow fly, seeing it spear through several Reavers climbing up the sides of the wall, somehow cutting through them like butter.

“I am the part of she that fights!”

At the crack of her voice, I looked down the line, seeing all of the people, my people, moving as one. We lobbed whiskey bottles, shot arrows, rocks were dragged over the edge and dropped down from a great height, other heavy things repurposed as projectiles. The men of Strelae moved faster, harder, trying to beat back the invaders. And when the first Reaver clawed his way over the top? My men surged forward, blades outstretched, stopping the beast’s attempts with cold steel, then shoving the body back over the side. As more was tossed over and more Reavers died, my consciousness fanned out. Flying on raven’s wings over the battlefield, able now to see the sheer magnitude of the force Callum had brought, my heart sank.

He’d been a fool not to bring his entire host to Ironhaven. He’d have obliterated the Strelan army just as efficiently as the Granians had. There were just so fucking many of them. And a strange kind of logic drove them. Each Reaver they sacrificed, each time one of their brothers fell, I saw how this was all part of the plan. They hadn’t brought siege engines or even ladders, useful things when attacking a walled city, so they used what they had: their sheer devastating number. More and more Reavers were scaling the walls now, helped up by the pile of bodies, knowing that they were probably just going another rung in the grim ladder they were creating, but completely undeterred by the knowledge. Because Callum had a luxury I didn’t.

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