—
Moya jumped and let out an undignified scream when the first lightning bolts hit. One after another, they rained out of the clouds, crashing with blinding flashes and followed by chest-rattling thunder. She watched as man after man was struck and illuminated brilliantly in the dim cloud-covered world. Raithe was the first hit, and Moya felt her heart stop, realizing he was dead. Gelston’s luck—if it could have been called luck—was too rare a thing to happen twice. When the flash left her eyes, she expected to see a charred husk laying on the thin grass. Instead, she saw a miracle.
Raithe hadn’t even faltered.
The man walked forward as if nothing had happened, and the rest of the army followed. Looking around, she saw that all of those struck remained on their feet. The elves saw it, too, and soon balls of fire rained from the sky, bursting through ranks of men. The soldiers hesitated, and some flinched, but the flames did nothing.
The runes.
Protected only by a leather tunic, Moya felt horribly naked. Neither she nor any of her archer auxiliaries wore metal or runes. No one had expected them to march into battle. In retrospect, Moya realized no one knew what to do with them. Archers had never been used in warfare, but the original idea had been for her cohort to stay within the protection of the walls and shoot down at the attackers. At the last minute, Nyphron had come up with the idea of sending them out behind the Spears to attack the Miralyith. Being outside the walls was bad enough, but he also told them they couldn’t wear runes. The plan was for Arion and Suri to hide them, and they couldn’t do that if runes protected the archers from the Art. He’d given his assurances they’d be safe, but Moya found that difficult to swallow. Luckily, the terrible light show was centered on the forward lines. Not a single bolt hit any of her archers. Thunder boomed, and flashes of lightning rained on Raithe’s, Tegan’s, and Harkon’s men as they advanced across the open space, but those with bows walked under a quiet sky.
Fire came next. Great waves of flames washed over the front lines, so hot Moya felt her skin prickle. These sputtered out as Raithe and his front line closed on the enemy. Then Moya heard a new sound: the scream of metal on metal as men and elves clashed.
“Shouldn’t we shoot?” Engleton asked.
“Our orders are to wait until we can hit that hill,” Moya replied.
“But we could—”
“We wait.”
* * *
—
With spears thrown, Raithe and the rest of the front line fought with sword and shield. Packed in a line, Raithe was elated to find that the greater mobility and speed of the elves was limited. Strength, courage, and sheer weight pushed the line forward. In these simple virtues, men were superior to Fhrey. He could see it—those beautiful sky-eyes were scared to die. He couldn’t blame them. Men gambled with a few dozen miserable years of dirt, sweat, and cold, but elves risked thousands of years of ease.
Only a handful of thrown spears had done damage. The Fhrey were too agile. Raithe wasn’t the first to kill. That distinction went to Malcolm, who slew the Fhrey across from him with a well-timed jab from Narsirabad. Despite all the iron, Malcolm still retained the old spear he’d taken from Dahl Rhen’s lodge. Raithe killed his opponent a few seconds after. Wedon slew his, and they pushed forward a step, leading with their shields, driving with longer, stronger legs.
For all the training, for all the technique, there was little finesse in warfare. Formed in tight lines, violence came in two forms: slamming the shield and jabbing the sword. Raithe felt the effort just as much in his legs as his arms as he kept them bent, giving him the power to shove forward, driving the Fhrey off-balance. He discovered that an off-balance Fhrey was a dead one.
Blood sprayed. Men grunted and screamed—so did the Fhrey.
Some think the Fhrey, Dherg, and Rhunes are all related. Malcolm’s words spoken a lifetime ago came back to him. He couldn’t believe it then, but deadly combat—the simplicity, the totality, the desperation—changed his mind about a great many things.
You never truly know someone until you fight them, his father had often said. Supposedly brave men are unmasked as cowards, and quiet, unassuming souls are revealed as heroes. Truths are exposed amidst blood. The Fhrey were no different from men. This revelation swallowed him even as he fought. He knew he’d discovered something important, brushed against the profound, but he also knew he didn’t know what that was, and before long the demands of battle smothered ideas with the practical needs of survival.