Page 295 of Kingdom of Ash

She’d had to look away each time she did it.

Lysandra’s snout broke the surface as a sharp horn shattered over the din, right from the city walls. Not a warning call, but an unleashing.

Lysandra dove to the bottom. Dove and then pushedup, mighty tail thrashing to launch her toward the surface.

She broke from the ice and the water, arcing through the air, and slammed right into Morath’s eastern flank.

Soldiers screamed as she unleashed herself in a whirlwind of teeth and claws and a massive, snapping tail.

Where the white sea dragon moved, black blood sprayed.

And just when the soldiers mastered their terror enough to launch arrows and spears at the opalescent scales enforced with Spidersilk, she twisted and flipped back into the deep river, vanishing beneath the ice. Spears plunged into the turquoise waters, missing their mark, but Lysandra was already racing past.

The sea dragon’s body—river dragon, she supposed—didn’t slow. She pushed it to its limit, the great lungs working like a bellows.

The river curved, and she used it to her advantage as she leaped from the water again.

The soldiers, so focused on the damage she’d done up ahead, didn’t look her way until she was upon them.

She had all of a glance to the city walls, where a wave of black now crashed against them, siege ladders rising and arrows flying, bursts of flame amid it all, before she returned to the river’s icy depths.

Black blood streamed from her maw, from her tails and claws, as she doubled back, the shadow of the witches warring overhead upon the ice above her.

So she fought, the ice floes her shield. Attacking, then moving; destabilizing the eastern flank with every assault, forcing them to flee from the river’s edge to crowd the center ranks.

Slowly, the turquoise waters of the Florine clouded blue and black.

Still, Lysandra kept ripping bites from the side of the behemoth that launched itself upon Orynth.

The heat off the firelances scorched Aedion’s cheek, warming his helmet to near-discomfort.

A small price, as the bursts of flame sent the Valg foot soldiers at the walls scrambling back. Where their archers felled the enemy, more came. And where the firelances melted them away, only scorched earth and melted armor remained. But there was not enough—not even close.

Above, beyond the walls, the Ironteeth and Crochans clashed.

So violently, so quickly, that a blue mist hung in the skies from the bloodshed.

He couldn’t determine who had the upper hand. The Thirteen fought amongst them, and where they plunged into the fray, Ironteeth and their mounts tumbled. Crushing Valg foot soldiers beneath them.

Iron siege ladders rose again, aiming for the city walls. Answering blasts from the firelances sent those already on them to the ground as charred corpses. But more Valg scrambled up, the fear of flame not enough to deter them.

Sprinting to the nearest ladder, Aedion nocked arrow after arrow, firing at the soldiers creeping up its rungs. Clean shots through the gaps in the dark armor.

The archers around him did the same, and the Bane soldiers behind him settled into fighting stances, waiting for the first to breach the walls.

At the city gates, flame blasted and raged. He’d concentrated many of the Mycenians at either of the two gates into Orynth, their most vulnerable weakness along the walls.

That the fire kept flaring as it did told him enough: Morath was making its push there.

Rolfe’s order toConserve fire!set a pit of dread forming in his gut, but Aedion focused on the siege ladder. His bow twanged, and another soldier tumbled away. Then another.

Down the wall, Ren had taken on the other nearby siege ladder, the lord’s bow singing.

Aedion dared a glance to the army ahead. They had amassed close enough now.

Falling back, letting an archer take his place, he lifted his sword, signaling the Bane at the catapults, the Fae royals and archers near them. “Now!”

Wood snapped and groaned. Boulders as large as wagons soared over the walls. Each had been oiled, and gleamed in the sun while they rose.

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