Page 107 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

I always knew when my arrow would hit the target. My bow dropped from my fingers as I saw it, felt it, tear through the air, flying true towards him. But he didn’t move, nor flinch out of the way. He seemed to meet his fate with some kind of smug self-assurance.

To me, dread queen, I muttered. Give me your favour and withdraw it from him.

Her low chuckle should have been warning enough. But my eyes went wide as his hand snapped up, snatching the arrow out of the air before it could slam home, his smile spreading.

I’d left my shield some ways back, needing the extra speed that gave me. But I drew my sword now, then strode forward, scooping up the shield a fallen soldier had dropped and fitting it to my arm without looking away for a second. So I caught the moment when his hand snapped the arrow’s shaft, dropping the pieces to the ground before he pulled his own sword free. The metal gleamed black as ebony and I heard the flutter of raven’s wings as it emerged.

Somehow the distance between us disappeared and there I was, standing within his range, shield up, sword at the ready, but his eyes slid sideways to the companion he’d brought up from the battle, alongside me.

“Still wasting your time on weak queens, Nordred?” Callum asked. “Nice to see the passage of time has done nothing to develop actual wisdom in the famed Nordred the Wise.”

“And you’re just as bloody minded and utterly without redemption. Your grandmother should’ve drowned you at birth, just as the priestesses urged.”

I watched Callum’s smile falter then, although he reapplied it quickly enough.

“Why? Because I was a threat to my sister’s ‘reign’? To this… pretender queen’s rise?”

“To the very people you were sworn to lead and protect. You think you were smarter, a far better king than Eleanor was queen.” Nordred looked around him at the carnage that raged around us, then back at the bodies of the Reavers he’d sent out to us first. “You slaughter those you were raised to protect. And for what? You do the Granians jobs for them. They’ll ride across the border once they catch word of this dispute, seeking to divide and conquer what’s left of Strelae. Then our people will be no more. Subjugated by the Granians, having no lands, no name other than slave.”

“Better they die like that than live in this half existence, tucked away in the north, beaten back like unruly curs,” Callum spat. “That’s what I bring. Death or glory. It took me decades to create my first Reaver, then centuries to create the host of them, but once I worked out the secret of it?” His fangs flashed as he grinned at us. “It’s a power I’ll share with all in Strelae that are strong enough to bear it.”

“And those that aren’t?” My voice sounded thin, plaintive.

His grin was rakish, just like some lad getting cheeky with the serving maids in the pub, something that made his words all the more horrifying.

“They’ll be burned away like the dross they are. A better, stronger Strelae will rise from their ashes, ready to meet the challenge of any people who dare to encroach upon her borders.”

Callum dreamed of creating a wall around the entirety of Strelae and Grania, made of the bodies of those he deemed too weak or of the wrong cultural background. He’d endure the stench of their rotting bodies, the sounds of their screams in his ears, as long as he could create that barricade from their bones.

“But enough of this,” he said with an almost casual air. “There is no place for Nordred the wizard in my court.”

And with a small twist of his hand, I watched Reavers all across the battlefield leave off their attack and turn his way, brought to heel like dogs. My heart pounded in my ears as I saw my people turn with them, striking the Reavers as they turned, but only bringing some of them down.

“Wait!”

Both men looked my way and in that moment, I felt every inch the little girl, sporting her father’s weapons, playing at being a warrior. I sucked a breath in, then let it whistle out before I continued.

“You want me, not Nordred.”

“No, lass, this has been coming for some time,” Nordred said.

“Kill him if you manage to take me down. I won’t be here to stop you, but…” I paused as Callum ambled closer, smirking when I lifted my shield higher. “But I’m the one in your way. You need the Morrigan’s blessing.”

“I have that,” he told me, eyes blazing blue. “I burn the world for her.”

“But you give her nothing you hold precious. You walk the earth so lightly, yet so heavily. You care naught for what you burn. I offer her what I hold dearest.”

Callum looked at Nordred warily then, obviously reconsidered making my sacrifice easier and gifting the death goddess what I had promised.

“Just you and me,” I said.

“No, Darcy!”

“We’ll decide this now. If you manage to cut me down, then you’ll have no one to challenge you. The others will still try. They don’t want to become one of your Reavers, but you’ve had no problems pushing past that, until me.”

I watched him consider my words, then knew I had him when his black sword was lifted.

“And I won’t once I’ve slit your throat in Her name,” Callum said, his head tilting to one side as he took a step towards me, the tip of his blade trained on me. “I was deprived the chance of killing my stupid sister when Nordred ferried her across the border and into the bloody Granians’ hands. There seems to be a kind of symmetry to disposing of her descendant now.”

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