“Rest for as long as you want.” Despite his better judgment, he crouched down at the boy’s side and took his hand. “How old are you?”
“Eleven. Just turned.”
Eleven. Jonas felt the remnants of the half-cooked rabbit he’d eaten earlier churn in his gut. The whiz of an arrow pierced the air nearby and caught a soldier in the chest. Not a killing wound. It only made the soldier—a Limerian by the crest he wore on his sleeve—rip it out and let out a harsh cry of pain and rage.
Jonas turned his attention back to the dying boy. “You were very brave to volunteer for this.”
“My older brother and I weren’t given much choice. Had to come. If I could hold a sword, I would serve King Gaius.”
Serve King Gaius.
Hot anger worked its way up Jonas’s throat, thick enough to choke on. “Your family will be very proud of you.”
“Auranos is so beautiful. So green and warm and...I’ve never been here before. If my mother could experience this, have a life like this, then it’s all worth it.”
The boy coughed up blood. Jonas wiped it away with his already bloody sleeve as he sent a searching glance around the area. Men fought close by—too close. He wanted to stay with this boy, but he couldn’t afford to be here much longer. But if he could get this kid back to camp—find him a medic...
The boy’s grip on his hand tightened. “C-can you do me a favor, Jonas?”
“Anything.”
“Tell my mother I love her. And that I did this for her.”
Jonas blinked hard. “I promise.”
The boy smiled, but then the expression faded away and his eyes glazed over.
Jonas sat there a moment longer before getting to his feet. He let out a roar of anger into the skies above at the unfairness that a boy so young had to die tonight to help the King of Blood claim Auranos.
And the Paelsians—including himself!—were helping him every step of the way, baring their throats to their enemy’s blade in the process—sacrificing their very futures.
The boy’s death made it all unutterably clear to Jonas. There were no guarantees that King Gaius would hold true to any promises he’d made. He had the numbers. His army was vast and trained. Paelsia was there as nothing more than cannon fodder.
He needed to fall back and talk to the chief. Immediately. Clutching his blades, he turned from the boy—to be met with an arm covered by a spiked gauntlet slashing toward him. It missed his face by barely an inch as he spun out of the way. It was an Auranian who’d lost much of his armor apart from his breastplate. His ugly face was slashed, his hair matted with blood. Someone had attempted to slash his throat, but he’d gotten away before the blade had left more than an angry-looking scratch.
“Saying goodbye to your little brother?” The knight smirked. One of his front teeth had been knocked out. “That’s what you get when you try to mess with us. You get my sword through your guts. And you’re next, savage.”
Fury burned inside Jonas. The knight attacked, slicing his sword through the air—clashing with Jonas’s blades hard enough to rattle his teeth. The sound of a steel-tipped arrow zipped ripped through the air inches away from his ear, catching a nearby Paelsian soldier in the back of the leg. He fell to the ground, screaming.
The Auranian knight had been trained for this, but he was already injured from hours of fighting. His fatigue was Jonas’s only advantage.
“You’re going to lose,” the knight hissed. “And you’re going to die. We should have put you out of your misery years ago—your entire goddess-forsaken land. You should be thanking us for stomping you out like the filthy cockroaches you are.”
Jonas didn’t care if he was called a cockroach. They were resilient, strong, and resourceful creatures. It beat being called a savage. But he really didn’t like being told he was going to lose.
“You’re wrong. Our misery is over. But yours has just begun.”
Jonas threw all of his body weight toward the knight, taking him down to the ground hard. Throwing his blades to the side, he wrenched the knight’s sword out of his hands and pressed it against his throat.
“Surrender,” Jonas growled.
“Never. I fight for my king and kingdom. I won’t rest till every last one of you filthy savages is dead.”
Suddenly, there was a knife in the knight’s hand. Jonas felt the bite of pain as it pierced his side. Before it could burrow too deep, he rolled away, grabbing hold of the sword with both hands.
With every remaining piece of his strength, Jonas brought the sword down on the knight’s unprotected throat. The head flew away from the rest of the body. He wiped the spray of blood from his eyes with his sleeve.
He staggered to his feet and, in pain, fought his way back across the field, across the river that now ran with blood under the night sky. Hot, thick blood ran down his own side from his wounds, but he kept moving forward. Or...backward.