Page 206 of Kingdom of Ash

It would have pierced Salkhi’s chest, straight into his heart.

Stomach churning, Nesryn soared up again, assessing the soldiers below.

Sartaq signaled from nearby,Weave in through two different directions. Meet in the center.

The winds screamed in her ears, but Nesryn tugged on the reins, and Salkhi banked in a wide arc. Sartaq turned Kadara, the mirror image to Nesryn’s maneuver.

“Fast as you can, Salkhi!” Nesryn shouted to her ruk.

Gaining on the dam, on the soldiers, Salkhi and Kadara soared toward each other, crossed paths, and arced outward again. Weaving fast as the wind itself. Denying the archers an easy target.

An iron bolt fired for Sartaq and ripped through air above him, nearly grazing his head.

The battering ram slammed into the wood again.

A splintering crack sounded this time. A deep groan, like some terrible beast awakening from a long slumber.

Another iron bolt shot for them and missed. Nesryn and Sartaq wove past each other, flying so fast her eyes streamed. The wind sang, full of the voices of the dying and injured.

And then they were there, Salkhi’s talons outstretched as he slammed into the iron machine that had launched those bolts, ripping it apart. Soldiers screamed as the ruk fell upon them, too.

Those at the battering ram got in another thunderingboomagainst the dam before Sartaq and Kadara slashed into them. Men went flying, some hitting the dam. Some landing in pieces.

Kadara hurled the battering ram onto the nearby mountain face, wood splintering with the impact. It rolled away into the rocks and vanished.

Heart thundering, the battle on the plain below still raging, Nesryn wheeled Salkhi around and took stock of the dam wall, Sartaq doing the same beside her.

What they saw made them soar back to the keep as swiftly as the winds could carry them.

Lorcan had battled his way down the first siege tower’s dim, cramped interior, slaughtering the soldiers in his path. Gavriel followed behind him, soon catching up as Lorcan found himself holding the entrance to the tower against the countless soldiers trying to get in.

The two of them stemmed the tide, even as a few of the Morath grunts got past their swords. Whitethorn and the queen would be waiting to pick them off.

Lorcan lost track of how long he and Gavriel held the entrance to the siege tower—how long it took until their forces were able to dislodge it.

Their magic would be useless. The entire damn thing was built of iron. The ladders, too. As if Morath had anticipated their presence.

Only the groaning of collapsing metal warned them the tower was coming down, and sent them racing onto the battlefield.

Where they’d found themselves outside the gates. Fenrys and Lord Chaol had appeared at the battlement walls with archers, and fired at the soldiers who’d rushed for Lorcan and Gavriel.

But he and the Lion had already marked their next target: the batteringram still slamming into those ever-weakening gates. And with the archers covering from above, they’d begun slaughtering their way to it. And then slaughtering their way along the ram itself, until it thudded to the ground, then was forgotten in the wave of Morath soldiers who came for them.

Lorcan’s breath had been a steady beat, a grounding force as the bodies piled around them.

They need only hold the gate long enough for the khagan’s army to overrun the Morath host.

From above, a swift, brutal wind added to the dance of death, ripping the air from the lungs of soldiers charging at them, even as he knew Whitethorn kept fighting on the battlements.

Lorcan again lost track of time. Only vaguely knew the sun was arcing across the sky.

But the khagan’s army was gaining the field, inch by inch.

Enough so that the ruks wrenched the siege ladders from the keep walls. Enough so that Lord Chaol shouted down to him and Gavriel to scale a siege ladder andget the hell back up here.

Gavriel obeyed, spotting the iron ladder cleared of Morath soldiers, being held in place only long enough for them to climb back up to the battlements.

But the khagan’s forces were near. And a nudge at Lorcan’s shoulder told him not to run, but to fight.

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