Page 36 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

My words were more than just an articulation of my thoughts. Instead, as soon as they escaped my mouth, they became a living breathing entity. One that grew and grew as they floated in the air, my command lashing every single one of them, driving out doubt and indecision, confusion and pain and leaving only this.

One of the reasons why I loved to train so very much with Nordred, and why my father allowed it, was the quiet it brought. Both externally, as I stopped asking questions and pestering people endlessly, but also internally. It was like for once there was a moment of perfect peace, where my insides and outsides settled. Strange that that would happen while wielding weapons, yet it did. When I had a bow in my hand or swords, I could lose myself, lose all my worries and pains and just be. A sharp cutting blade, slicing through the air with perfect precision, an extension of my will.

Which is exactly how I felt now.

The manor, the people inside, they became abstract concepts now, things I knew I needed to defend, even if I didn’t remember why. And as I sprinted across the earth, running through buildings of the town at first, then the fields surrounding the manor, I threw my head back and howled, some irrepressible need burning inside me. But others joined in my call to arms, howling with me and that’s when I understood something about the other side of my soul.

She howled to declare her intent, her presence in the world, and most of the time it was out into an open, empty sky, into a darkness that watched, but did not answer back. But sometimes when she cried out with her very soul, something cried in return. My mates talked about being a pack a lot, but it was only now that I really felt like I was a part of that, each one of my mates striding forward, catching up and then matching my pace. We ran together to face imminent doom, but we did so together.

And then they came.

How many Reavers are there? I thought as I saw them stand at the treeline; the commander on his horse, waiting there with them. But I already knew that, having seen enough of them in my dreams to cover the world. For a second, I felt a pang, not of fear or a need to run away, but of the sweetest kind of pain. We were utterly outmanned, but if we were going to go down in a fight, I was satisfied that this was the one to fall in.

“For Del…” I whispered, seeing the boy’s face, feeling his arms wrapped tight around me as I raised my swords, as another howl from the Reavers readied them. I gripped the hilts of my swords tight, heard the clunk of shields being dropped to the ground as our people massed at the rear wall of the manor, and then they came.

Like a sea of fur, they ran down the slope of the valley, shifting into half wolf form as soon as they were close. Some leapt into fields, slashing open frantic cattle, or gutting bleating sheep, but the rest zeroed in on us. No one needed to give a command, to say a bloody thing, because somehow, we all knew. Protect, save, it throbbed inside us like a heartbeat. But when the Reavers got closer, we began to move, stepping up to this wall of savage beasts, ready to meet them head on.

“I love you,” Weyland said. “I don’t care what Gael says, I know how I feel and if we are doomed to move onto the next life, I want you to know that.”

I just stared for one heartbeat, catching the moment when those blue eyes were jerked away from mine, when he donned his wolfish form in preparation, just before the Reavers hit.

Everything Nordred had ever taught me made sense now. What they called the berserk state or battle fever was deceptive. It made it sound like untrammelled savagery, wild swinging limbs and devastating rakes of claws and there was some of that. But there was so much more. It was an absolute certainty that burned within, that extinguished all fear and doubt in me, and in the others. I could lead them, I knew that now. All they had to do was follow me and we would prevail.

So we did.

I felt my troop’s claws as well as mine, tearing through the Reavers with a speed and precision they couldn’t match. They were rabid things, feral things, with no real intent but to kill. So we moved around them, dodging, weaving, our paws moving with dancer like grace around the beasts, right as we tore them in two. Every burst of blood was a baptism of sorts, every tear of flesh a prayer, and she agreed.

Yesss… the Morrigan hissed inside my head, something I would later wonder at. Surely the Reavers were sworn to her service, more than we were? But she egged me on and therefore my entire company, slashed and gutting, biting out throats and slashing open faces, stabbing our claws into guts and watching those bloody innards spill out onto the ground.

But the Morrigan was an indiscriminate goddess, one the commander of the Reavers was finding out and I was about to. A scream cut through all the others and my head jerked sideways.

Somehow I knew this wolf man was one of ours, because right as a massive Reaver drove his claws into the other’s kidneys, stabbing, one, two, into the other’s sides, his cry cut straight through me. Whatever they called the battle fever flickered then, a flame being beset by harsh winds, threatening to blow it out entirely. Because my claws slapped down on my sides. Just as my certainty was theirs, his pain was mine, right as he dropped to the ground.

His death was all that saved me from an agony that had me bent double and the relief I felt was tainted by guilt. He lay there, this man, who’d run into battle with me, staring up at the sky now, empty eyed. But as I heard the rustle of raven feathers, felt the cold kiss of death, my hand slapped over my throat. My breath gurgled, my oesophagus filling full of fluid, right as I turned around.

A Reaver had torn a man’s throat out. He held that small patch of skin, all that had been keeping the man alive, thrusting it upwards, like an offering to the gods themselves. And with it came a roar, right as the victim fell forward into the earth, his life blood gushing out.

“Don’t pause,” Pepin snapped, “don’t waver.” Her wolf headdress was in place now, the Maiden by my side. “You can carry them through.”

I couldn’t reply, my breath being sucked in through a throat that started working now, the other man’s pain fading away, but it was quickly replaced by others. I let out a sobbing breath as I felt claws score me, teeth savage me, beasts tear at me, all to get to the prey they actually wanted, and that’s when I felt like a bloody idiot.

I’d ignored this, the pain, the maiming, the death, as I swept everyone forward and into this battle. I’d promised them a glorious death, but there was nothing glorious about dying. It was dirty, painful, stinking fucking shit and no way to end a life.

“Darcy…” The edge of desperation to Pepin’s voice grew then, taking on a frantic whine, which made me wonder. What could scare a fucking goddess? But such theological musings were not for here, not for now. I stared out at the battlefield, searched the forest for signs of our troops that were yet to arrive, but just saw trees, yet more Reavers and death.

“No,” I said, like a small child faced with an unfortunate reality. “No…” I said, whimpering as I felt yet more pain blossom inside me as more of our men were struck down. Everyone’s pain was mine, every single slash.

In my mind, I was right back in my father’s room, bent over his bed, my back bared, as he tapped the birch brand in his hand. There was both the pain of each strike as he slashed the branch across me, but that was outmatched by the greater psychological one of knowing more were to come.

“No, no, no,” I whispered frantically as a Reaver slashed Selene’s face, sending the Maiden stumbling back. My mind bucked, pulled, like an unbroken horse on the end of a lead rope, resisting this bond, this pain. “No!” Reavers stampeded in number towards my pack, fighting out there on the vanguard, Maidens by their sides, everyone I knew in this fucking country and everyone I cared for, ready to become grist for the mill.

I was going to get beaten down again, after everything we’d been through together. No, I thought, as I looked across the battlefield, we were. For the sin of not just lying down and dying before these bastard Reavers, we would be executed with a ruthlessness that left me breathless.

I stared at the sky then, unable to bear watching the sight of more men being ravaged for my sake and as I did so, I watched a flock of ravens wheel. I heard her snicker in her head, her dispassion matching that of the birds. It didn’t matter to them which ones of us died, just that we did and then they could feed. I heard her snicker, the cruel laughter of an abusive parent when it occurs to their child that the violence that had been levelled at them was only the start.

We would die and that would feed the Reavers power, more than if we’d just stayed snug in the walls of Snowmere. Everything we’d done had made the situation worse. The people of Aramoor would have had a quicker death if we’d just let them tear through. Now, angered by our resistance, they’d make it hurt.

“NO!”

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