Ice Country(80)

I want to look at her, but my eyes are glued to the fight. With a hack of his sword, a rider slices off a guard’s hand, which falls like a rock to the ground, still clutching an axe. Weaponless, the man runs, bleeding from his wrist, which is now just a stump, but he only gets three steps before the rider plows into him, trampling him beneath his horse’s feet.

“Dazz,” Skye says.

But the rider doesn’t get far, because as soon as he kills the guard, an arrow pierces his chest. He clutches at it with his hands, his mouth agape as if surprised, his eyes and teeth looking as white as the snow against his dark skin. He slumps back, back, back, hanging from his horse, which keeps running with a dead man bouncing on its back.

“Dazz,” Skye says again, and I manage to pull my gaze away from the dead rider, the trampled guard. Skye’s eyes are fixed on mine.

The others are watching me too, waiting patiently. Perhaps only a moment has passed, perhaps several.

Skye says, “We’ll stay in front of you, protect you.”

“Nay,” I say, shaking my head. “We’ll move through together.”

“Yeah, we will,” Skye says. “But you need to stay alive so you can git to yer sister. Leave that to us.”

I close my eyes.

They were on their way home. A week-long trek across the desert, a day to rest, and a week back. Fifteen days they wouldn’t have been here, having to fight an enemy they don’t even know—fifteen days to be alive. And now they’re going to die today? For me? At risk of what Buff will say later, I want to throw my arms around all of them, hug them, thank them. For me, for Jolie. For Wes.

“We’re doin’ this,” Skye says, as if she thinks I’ll try to stop her. That’s what I should be doing. Stopping them. But I can’t.

I won’t.

Not when the king’s in there with my sister. Not when the riders are fighting their way to the king.

“Thank you,” I say.





~~~





Amidst the swirling snow, we enter the courtyard in a line, with me behind them, like I’m someone important, someone worth protecting. I should be at the front, fighting alongside them, but—

Jolie.

I swallow my pride and try to keep up because they’re moving fast. They’ve all got weapons from before, but a few of them traded up for the weapons of those dead outside the palace walls. Circ and Feve found shiny new swords and Siena grabbed a bow and a satchel of arrows from beside an Icer archer who was so bent and broken he must have fallen off the wall.

Guards are everywhere, swinging double-bladed battle axes, shooting arrows, jabbing swords at the dark, mounted warriors, who are deflecting them with their own swords, which are long and heavy. For the first time I notice the black riders are not only men, but women too, fierce and carnal and full of brutal violence that even Skye would be proud of.

The fight slams into us from all sides.

Circ gets thrown back into me by a heavily armored guardsman who’s using a metal shield like a battering ram. Skye deflects a blow from a passing rider with her blade. Siena starts shooting arrows at anything that moves.

We’re fighting two armies. Having sun-kissed skin here means everyone wants you dead. And I’m with them, so I’m a target too.

An arrow whistles past my ear and I duck instinctively even though it’s already behind me.

Distracted by the arrow, I’m falling behind already, the others pushing forward. Everyone’s got their hands full.

Circ manages to discard the guard with the big shield, slipping past its edge and stabbing hard and deep, practically splitting him in two. I look away.

On my other side, Feve and a dismounted rider circle each other, their eyes wary. Their swords ring out as they parry but the sound is immediately swallowed by the clang and grunt and screams of the battle around them. Feve blocks an attempted kill stroke and then aims one of his own, which the rider swats away too easily. Another jab by Feve, another block. Then a flurry of strokes by the rider has Feve on his heels, retreating, blocking, retreating some more.

“Dazz!” Skye yells. “This-a-way!” She’s found a seam, her and Wilde and Siena, a weak spot in the battle, a place where I might be able to slip through to the palace. They’re holding it open for me, keeping the path clear, swinging blades and shooting arrows and kicking and punching.

My eyes flick back to Feve, to the black-garbed rider. Feve’s losing, getting knocked back by a heavy onslaught of sword strokes, barely keeping his footing as he steps backwards over a dead body. But then he slips, is forced to use his hand to keep his balance, giving the rider an opening, which he gladly takes, swinging with enough force to crush stones, slamming his sword into Feve’s with a fierce