“You actually did it,” Amren murmured, gaping as the three immortals slammed into Hybern’s lines, and the screaming began.
Bodies fell before them; bodies were left in their wake—some mere husks encased in armor. Drained by the Carver and Stryga. Some fled from what they beheld in Bryaxis—the face of their deepest fears.
Rhys was still smiling at me as he extended a hand toward Hybern’s army, now trying to adjust to the rampant havoc.
His fingers pointed.
Obsidian power erupted from him.
A massive chunk of Hybern’s army just …
Misted.
Red mist, and metal shavings lay where they had been.
Rhys panted, his eyes a bit wild. The hit had been well placed. Splitting the army in two.
Azriel unleashed a second blast—blue light slamming into the now-exposed flank. Driving them farther apart.
The Illyrians moved. That had been Rhys’s signal.
They shot down from the skies—just as a legion rose up from Hybern teeming with things like the Attor. Hidden amongst Hybern’s ranks. Siphons flared, locking shields into place—and the Illyrians rained arrows with deadly accuracy.
But the Attor legion was well prepared. And when they answered with a volley of their own … Ash shafts, but arrowheads made from faebane. Even with Nuan’s antidote in our soldiers’ veins, it did not extend to their magic—and it was no defense against the stone itself. Faebane arrows pierced Siphon-shields as easily as butter. The king had adapted—improved—his arsenal.
Some Illyrians went down quickly. The others realized the threat and used their metal shields, unhooking them from across their backs.
On land, Tarquin’s, Helion’s, and Kallias’s soldiers began to charge. Hybern unleashed its hounds—and other beasts.
And as those two sides barreled for each other … Rhys sent another blast, followed by a wave of power from Tarquin. Splitting and shoving Hybern’s lines into uneven groups.
And through it all, Bryaxis … All I could make of it was a blur of ever-changing claws and fangs and wings and muscle, shifting and whirling within that dark cloud that struck and smothered. Blood sprayed wherever it plunged into screaming soldiers. Some seemed to die of pure terror.
The Bone Carver fought near Bryaxis. No weapons to be seen beyond a scimitar of ivory—of bone—in that male’s hands. He swept it before himself, as if he were threshing wheat.
Soldiers dropped dead before it—with barely a blow laid upon them. Even that Fae body of his could not contain that lethal power—stifle it.
Hybern fled before him. Before the Weaver. For on the other side of the Carver, leaving husks of corpses in her wake … Stryga shredded through Hybern in a tangle of black hair and white limbs.
Our own soldiers, mercifully, did not balk as they ran for the enemy lines. And I sent a roaring order down that two-pronged bond that now linked me to the Carver and Bryaxis, reminding them, my teeth gritted, that our soldiers were not fair game. Only Hybern and its allies.
Both raged against the order, yanking at the leash.
I rallied every scrap of night and starlight and snarled at them to obey.
I could have sworn an otherworldly, ungodly sense of self grumbled about it in response.
But they listened. And did not turn on our soldiers who at last intercepted Hybern’s lines.
The sound as both armies collided … I didn’t have words for it. Elain covered her ears, cringing.
My friends were down there. Mor fought with Viviane, keeping an eye on her as she’d promised Kallias, while he released his power in sprays of skin-shredding ice. Cassian—I couldn’t even spot him beyond the blazing flare of his Siphons near the front lines, crimson glowing amid the vicious shadows of Keir’s Darkbringers as they wielded them to their advantage: blinding swaths of Hybern soldiers in sudden darkness … then blinding them doubly when they ripped those shadows away and left nothing but glaring sunlight. Left nothing but their awaiting blades.
“It’s already getting messy,” Amren said, even though our lines—especially the Illyrians and Thesan’s Peregryns—held.
“Not yet,” Rhys said. “Much of the army isn’t yet engaged past the front lines. We need Hybern’s focus elsewhere.”
Starting with Rhys setting foot on that battlefield.
My guts twisted up. Hybern’s army began to move, pressing ahead. The Weaver, Carver, and Bryaxis plunged deep into the ranks, but Hybern’s soldiers quickly stepped up to staunch the holes in the lines.
Helion bellowed at our front lines to hold steady. Arrows rose and fell on either side. The ones tipped in faebane found their mark. Over and over again. As if the king had spelled them to hunt their targets.
“This will be over before we can even walk down this hill,” Amren snapped.
Rhys growled at her. “Not yet—”
A horn sounded—to the north.
Both armies seemed to pause to look.
And Rhys only breathed to me, “Now. You have to go now.”
Because the army that broke over the northern horizon …
Three armies. One bearing the burnt-orange flag of Beron.
The other the grass-green flag of the Spring Court.
And one … one of mortal men in iron armor. Bearing a cobalt flag with a striking badger. Graysen’s crest.
Out of a rip in the world, Eris appeared atop our knoll, clad head to toe in silver armor, a red cape spilling from his shoulders. Rhys snarled a warning, too far gone in his power to bother controlling himself.
Eris just rested a hand on the pommel of his fine sword and said, “We thought you might need some help.”
Because Tamlin’s small army, and Beron’s, and Graysen’s … Now they were running and winnowing and blasting for Hybern’s ranks. And leading that human army …
Jurian.
But Beron. Beron had come.
Eris registered our shock at that, too, and said, “Tamlin made him. Dragged my father out by his neck.” A half smile. “It was delightful.”
They had come—and Tamlin had managed to rally that force I’d so gleefully destroyed—
“Tamlin wants orders,” Eris said. “Jurian does, too.”
Rhys’s voice was rough—low. “And what of your father?”
“We’re taking care of a problem,” was all Eris said, and pointed toward his father’s army.
For those were his brothers approaching the front line, winnowing in bursts through the host. Right past the front lines and to the enemy wagons scattered throughout Hybern’s ranks.
Wagons full of faebane, I realized as they crackled with blue fire and then turned to ash without even a trace of smoke. His brothers winnowed to every cache, every arsenal. Flames exploded in their path.
Destroying that supply of deadly faebane. Burning it into nothing. As if someone—Jurian or Tamlin—had told them precisely where each would be.