Page 103 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“Ready the archers!” Ulfric barked, even as General Rath passed the order. “Fire at will!”

But they didn’t, not until Rath spoke. “Draw!” he shouted, and we heard the sound of hundreds of bows being drawn as one. “Shoot!”

On cue, a rain of arrows was released in the air. My eyes followed their path, my soul feeling like it soared along with them. I shot through the atmosphere, I kissed the sullen clouds Nordred had stirred, I passed through the increasingly large flock of ravens circling above, the sound of their caws and the thrum of the arrows competing with the rumble of the storm. And then I came slamming down into the Reavers below.

“That’s good Strelan steel in your guts!” Axe shouted to those that writhed on the ground.

I watched the ones that fell, their progress stopped, their bodies twitching as they hit the earth, their blood spilling on the crushed wheat. I caught the light dying in the eyes of some, watching every second of their passage from this world with rapt attention, hearing a dark snicker at the back of my skull, the flutter of feathers.

“And we’ve more if you’ve developed a taste for it!” Weyland added, the two brothers looking at each other from behind the wall of their shields. There was a flash of a grin, the kind that comes when you face certain death, but you laugh anyway, and I found my lips twitching, wanting to share in that.

But not for long.

“Fire again!” the king shouted and as I looked down the line, I saw the whites of his eyes plainly. “Fire, damn you!”

All of the cool calm control Ulfric had previously demonstrated had been shattered somehow, before the battle had even started. Nordred found my eyes down the line, holding them for a second. He’d schooled me about this, about the moment when your nerve fails you and the primal part of your brain, the bit that just wants to survive no matter what, kicks in, pushing all of your training aside.

“Draw!” Rath shouted. “Shoot!”

Reavers were struck down one by one, dead or injured, and I paid attention to each one, but out of the mists came more. Of course they did. The archers were told to fire at will now, arrows flying, flying, but despite the hailstorm being directed down at our enemies, they still came. Some crawled along the ground, their claws digging into the earth to haul themselves closer, some devilish impulse forcing them onwards even after any sane man would’ve given up and died. That forced a mumble of discontent among the formation.

“Stupid fucking bastards,” Selene sneered, her voice cutting through the sounds of concern. “Haven’t the wit to know when to stay down.”

The brief chuckle broke the rising tension.

“We’ll teach them the lesson, won’t we, lads?” Axe shouted, his eyes shining as he stood tall, pure vicious pleasure vibrating in his voice. He was a wolf on the hunt and that energy was far more infectious than fear. “We’ll show them that when we put them down, that’s where they should stay.”

The light inside me swelled as my focus narrowed down, the rest of the column fading away apart from the background noise of their shouts, the jostle of their bodies against me, the pressure of my mates’ shields locked against mine. We took a collective breath, it felt like, and with it came the other parts of our souls. Fur prickled across our skin, our bodies becoming harder, stronger as our heads lengthened, becoming snouts with sharp teethed jaws in response to the threat. Because more of them came now, Reavers running through the rain of arrows, blood streaming from their flesh as they ran, but they didn’t stop. Their focus was the centre of the shield wall.

Their focus was me.

“Hold firm!” Dane barked. “Hold until I give the signal. Steady. Steady.”

His orders were law and our bodies obeyed, his alpha bark taking away any need for choice or worry. We surrendered to his rule and were glad for it. Because when the first wave of Reavers smashed into the first line of shields, we tensed as one, a long groan going up and down the line as we dug in.

I’d read about shield walls in the treatises that Nordred had slipped me, unbeknownst to Linnea. The logic of them, the required coordination had fired my soul as a young girl, but the reality was quite different. It went against nature, against our finely honed instincts for survival. I wanted to scramble free of the suffocating press of my body into the front lines, the shove of those behind me, keeping me in place, no matter what I might have to say about it. I could see myself dancing across the walls of shields and meeting the enemies as our second line raised their shields above their heads, stymying any attempt of the Reavers to claw their way over the top. I wanted to vault off of those metal reinforced wooden surfaces and draw my sword, lay waste to each and every one of those bastard beasts in front of me. Instead, I had the breath forced from my lungs and had a hard time sucking in anything other than the smallest of gasps as we pushed, pushed, pushed, holding firm until Dane barked the order.

“Raise shields!”

I knew what was coming, what they would do, and yet the moment when the front line lifted their shields, bashing the heavy weights into the Reavers’ bodies, sending them flying, then stabbing out with the spears they sported, I felt a moment of exultant shock. The front line moved as one, perfectly synchronised, the rest of us surging forward to hold them firm and prevent any particularly skilled Reavers from breaking through. Then the front line snapped their shields back down again, forming an impenetrable wall.

“Forward!” Rath shouted at the side flanks and I watched the soldiers to our far right and left begin to press their advantage, curling around. Each inch of earth was hard won, the grunts and groans of the soldiers filling the air, a brutal song that overlaid the melody of the whirling winds above us.

Nordred’s eyes jerked up and they glowed the most ferocious blue as he muttered the words. Brief, sharp imprecations, demands of the elements themselves, and the clouds answered him with prevarications, swirling and muttering their rumbling thunderous replies. But whatever quibbles they might have, Nordred would not allow them. His words got faster, sharper, harder, just as we did the same on the ground, then he barked out the last phrase, the incomprehensible words breaking over the formation, right before lightning hit.

“Fuck, yes!” Axe howled and then his raucous laughter filled the air as a great bolt of lightning struck the earth. Fire started far off in the field, but before I could worry about that, yet more lightning shot from the skies, striking Reavers and the wheat by turns. “The heavens themselves throw their support behind us. Ready, lads?”

Based on our successes, you’d have thought what we did next to be a strange thing. It took many a heated conversation in the camps last night to ensure people understood.

“Only the centre retreats,” Rath had explained, moving rocks around on our dirt model battlefield. “The reinforced wings wrap around as the Reavers surge forward, thinking they have us on the run.”

“And that’s when we create the kill box,” Dane said, studying the plan with keen eyes. “We’ll crush the bastards, like a hammer hitting an anvil.”

So that’s what we did.

“Pull back!” Dane said, and that was harder than it seemed. We had to still hold the line, taking short, coordinated steps. Selene looked around her in concern, but she and her Maidens followed along with me as we slowly backed off. Just as predicted, the Reavers rushed in and the wings of our formation wrapped around them.

I heard their savage snarls, saw blood splash as they managed to get past some of our defences, the next man surging forward to fill the gap. They raked their claws down shields, trying to shred the heavy, reinforced wood to try and get to us and when that didn’t work, they tried to clamber over them. But when the shields dropped momentarily, they seemed caught by surprise, right before the spears stabbed into them, gutting them, piercing their hearts so blood bubbled free of their jaws.

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