“One called Grimalkin sent us.” The Ironhorse look-alike nodded to the others. “He carries with him the spirit of our progenitor, the first Iron Horse, and has compelled us to join you and your cause against the False Monarch. Out of respect for the Great One, we have agreed. Do you accept our assistance?”
Ironhorse, I thought sadly. You’re still helping us, even now. “I accept your offer,” I told the first horse, who nodded regally and bent his foreleg, lowering himself into a bow.
“Then, it is done,” he said, as the others bent their front legs and did the same. “For this conflict only, we will carry you and your officers into battle. Afterward, our contract is done, and you will release us.”
“Oh, goodie,” Puck said as I stepped forward. “I’m going to have a rash in the most uncomfortable places.”
I swung onto the horse’s back, feeling thick iron muscles shift under me as he rose, clanking and groaning. His metallic skin was warm to the touch, especially near my legs, as if a great fire burned inside him. I remembered the flames roaring in Ironhorse’s belly, visible through his exposed ribs and pistons, and felt another ripple of sadness at his loss.
Ash, Puck, and Glitch watched me from the backs of the metal horses, who snorted flame and tossed their heads, eager and ready. The banner was hoisted up, the black oak against a background of green flapping in the wind. I gazed out over the solemn, upturned faces and took a deep breath.
“Summer and Winter are not your enemies!” I called, my voice echoing into the silence. “They are different, yes, but they are fighting the enemy that you hate—a tyrant who seeks to destroy everything King Machina stood for. We cannot abandon them now! Peace with the courts is possible, but the false king will corrupt and enslave everyone if he wins. The only thing necessary for evil to conquer is for us and those like us to do nothing, and I will not sit by and let that happen! We will take this fight to the false king, and we will show him what happens when we stand united against him! Who is with me?”
The roar of the army was like a sudden tornado, as hundreds of voices rose up as one. I drew my sword and raised it over my head, adding to the sea of weapons flashing in the light.
“Let’s go win a war!”
I HEARD THE SOUNDS of the battle before I saw it. They echoed through the trees that marked the edge of the Iron Realm: shouts and screams, howls of fury, and weapons clashing in the wind. Every so often there was the boom of gunfire, or the thunderous roar of flame. Above the tree line, a huge emerald dragon swooped into the air, paused a moment, then dove out of sight again.
Spikerail, the horse I was riding, snorted and tossed his head. “The battle has already been joined,” he announced, nearly prancing with excitement. “Shall we give the order to charge?”
“Not yet,” I replied, putting a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get through the trees, at least. I want to see the battle, first.”
He pawed the ground impatiently, but kept his pace to a fast walk as we entered the forest. The metal trunks closed around us, dark and twisted, smelling of rust and battery acid. Above the clash of battle, I heard something else in the woods—a great snapping and groaning, as if something huge were pushing through the trees.
“Faster,” I told Spikerail, and he broke into a trot, stirring up clouds of ash as we moved through the forest. The sounds of battle drew closer.
And then the trees fell away, and we were gazing down on mass chaos.
I’d seen the fey in battle twice now, but this seemed even more vicious, more desperate, as if hell itself had been released onto the field. Troops swarmed each other like ants, hacking with ancient and modern weapons, blades and armor glinting in the swirling ash storm. Iron beetles lumbered through the mobs, the gunmen on their backs blasting away. Creatures plunged and dove through the air; an icy-blue dragon, its scales streaked with red, landed on the back of an iron bug, blasted the musket elves with a deadly spray of frost before they could react, and swooped away again. A gryphon, darting by with an elfin rider, was snatched out of the air by a clockwork golem and smashed against a rock. Two metallic praying mantises double-teamed a Summer knight, slashing at him with their massive, curved blades, until he slipped in the ash and was instantly beheaded.
The battle wasn’t going well, it seemed. There was a lot more silver and gray on the field than green and gold, blue and black.
“Looks like we got here just in time,” Puck mused beside me. “Ready for the ‘here comes the cavalry’ charge, princess?”
“If we hit their right flank,” Ash said, observing the battle with narrowed silver eyes, “we may surprise them where their line is thin and tear through them before they can react.”