Page 118 of A War of Three Kings

Aldrin

Cyprien, the mad bastard, recruiteddragons.

Their wide wings block out the sun as they circle over the valley. Thick scales glitter across their bodies, with many horns and long whiskers erupting from their heads. Two are black iridescence, another a forest green and another a deep scarlet, but my eyes fall upon a monstrosity of white wings, golden scales and a barbed tail.

Ezekiel.

He ismydragon, as I amhisfae, sworn to each other in friendship. Promised that we will never meet on opposite sides of a battlefield. I have won wars with him at my side.

Ezekiel swings low over the writhing enemy, spitting long channels of his venom into the crowd before swooping back up. A soldier straddles his back, long red hair streaming out behind them while they loose fiery arrows.

I blink at the sight.

Surely not.

The pair swoop again, and golden highlights shine in that curling hair.

Keira is on the back of my dragon.

Most fae are too terrified to even approach a dragon. If I wasn’t already madly in love with her, I would fall head over heels right here and now. I could spend a lifetime watching her kill from the skies, but those dragons send the enemy running, right into my shield wall.

We slam into them with such an intense impact my entire body rattles. I thrust my short sword between the gap in the shields, straight into the gut of a man with broken, yellowed teeth. As I twist the blade and yank it back, the soldiers behind me throw their spears. The long row of missiles curve through the sky and land in the backs and bellies of the king’s forces.

The shield wall pushes forward as one, over the top of dying men and women. The next adversaries fall to my blade, splattering my face with hot, sticky blood. Their sneers twist into grimaces of pain. Their faces all meld into one as I kill more than I care to count.

I fall into a rhythm, merely another part in a huge, moving war machine. I lose all track of time in this close crush of bodies. My entire existence boils down to each stab of my short sword and every block of an enemy’s blade.

I thrust my magic into the roots of the grass before me, growing and hardening them. I stab the woody spears through the boots of soldiers I cannot reach with my sword. They scream and attempt to tear their feet from the ground, but the roots run up the panels of their armor and into the flesh accessible between the cracks. At a single thought from me, those roots tear outwards, ripping multiple people to pieces.

A huge brute of a man pushes in before Silvan, swinging an ax wildly at his head. Silvan raises his shield to meet it and the ax hooks over its top edge. The human attempts to pry it from his grasp. This is how humans break a shield wall—but he has picked the wrong victim. A human cannot match the strength ofa fae. Silvan lifts his other hand and shoots a thick shard of ice through the human’s throat.

On and on we fight.

I am coated in blood.

It runs down the gaps in my armor and splatters in my mouth each time I roar my fury. That metallic tang sits on my tongue and fills my nose. I don’t want to focus on the other scents as seasoned soldiers lose their dignity. We advance ever forward, but despite all the bodies piling up, it feels like we make little progress.

I scream a guttural sound, pouring all my raw frustration and need for destruction into a wield. I throw out a pulverizing wave of pressurized air magic. It crests over our foe with brutal force, shattering bones and turning flesh into a red mess. Dozens of bodies litter the ground before me, and we have a heartbeat of reprieve before the king’s force charges again.

I laugh at them. “Who is next?”

After moments, or maybe an eternity, our shield wall disintegrates under the sheer onslaught trying to escape the channels of fire, plasma and lightning the dragons breathe into the valley, and we enter the true battle.

I toss my shield to the side and draw my magic-imbued sword from my back. With each body I hack into, with every soul I take, a fraction of their life force is sucked into my sword.

A churning mess of enemies and allies surrounds me, but as I strike my blade into the ground and release all the pent-up power, it is my foes alone who are struck down. Raw, intense earth magic turns their bodies to wood and leaves, leaving silent screams on their lips.

Explosion after explosion rocks the ground, and I almost lose my footing. Many around me fall. There seems to be a pause, a collective intake of breath by the entire valley, as more tremors run through the ground.

My heart stutters to a stop at the sight of channels of smoke churning out of a black smear across the valley, with dead people and scattered wood around it. Then I notice Edmund galloping through it, laughing maniacally. The bodies beneath his horse are clad in royal purple.

The Lord Protector turns his mount sharply and charges for another wagon deep amid enemy ranks, burning any who dare to stop him with streams of fire. He is utterly crazed, alone and surrounded by hostile forces, crashing through them like a wolf among lambs.

Like the demigod he is.

Red light glows in his upheld hand as he forms another fire crystal, then tosses it into the wagon. I duck right as the black powder detonates and the entire world trembles.

All at once, the enemy breaks and flees through that channel at the bottom of the valley that leads south, into the forest.

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