Page 153 of The Shadow Path
“Get that blade in the ground!”
Cadell was already swooping down, laying a narrow line of fire in front of the fae commanders. It did nothing to break the shimmering magical ward, but it kept more fae warriors from running toward them as they stayed safe behind their bubble of magic.
Duncan ran out onto the field and plunged his sword into the earth, the force of his arms driving it so deep that the green grass split open, the ground rocked, and the shining bubble of magic wavered.
Prince Cian of Temris, Elatha’s son and Prince Consort of Éire, turned his head to look on the human who’d struck his ward with a dragon-steel blade, and the fae prince’s eyes went wide.
He urged his mount forward and roared, “Who brings iron to my lands?”
Duncan yanked the steel blade from the earth and drove it in again. “Just a mundane human, ya bastard.”
Carys stayed behind Duncan, firing arrows at the fae commanders, but it didn’t do much. They bounced off the magical shield, but she saw the ward begin to shimmer and the bubble of protection started wavering.
“Keep going,” she said. “It’s working.”
Cian rode his mount back and forth behind the ward, his eyes moving from Duncan to the dragon overhead. “Human, stop.”
“I know your brother, you know,” Duncan said. “Don’t like either of you fae much, but I like him a bit more.”
Cian’s eyes turned conniving. “I have riches, human. Would you like gold and jewels?”
“Ah, fuck off.” Duncan’s brogue got thicker as he drew the sword from the ground, walked a few yards forward, then plunged it in the earth again. “I’m already rich, ya blond numpty.”
Cian cocked his head. “Your wealth is nothing to what I can give you. Gold and cattle. Fertile lands and?—”
“And fuck you” —Duncan pulled the blade from the ground before he ran it in again— “for ruinin’ ma blade. I’m goin’ to catch hell from Angus. I’ve probably bent it, and it took ages to make.”
“It’s working,” Carys said softly. “Keep going.”
Nêrys, the ward is weaker but still intact.
She could see the pearlescent surface of the magic wavering, a faint rainbow shimmering like a bubble floating in sunlight. She looked at Princess Finola on her horse.
The princess blinked.
Carys’s heart leaped and she nocked an arrow, aiming it at Cian. “Duncan, one more time!”
The prince’s horse reared, and the fae’s face turned from cajoling to furious. “Stop that this instant, you craven?—”
“Oh fuuuuuuck oooooff.” Duncan yanked his sword from the ground one more time, then walked over and—keeping his eyes on Cian’s—plunged the sword down once again.
The enchantment broke with an audible crack.
Carys let her arrow fly at Cian’s chest, but the fae prince batted it away.
Cadell roared in the distance.
Nêrys… RUN.
“Come on!” Carys pulled Duncan’s arm, grabbed his hand, and fled from the line of fae troops and frozen, white-eyed Éiren soldiers, running toward a copse of trees just over a fold in the hills as arrows whizzed by them and she felt Cadell approaching.
Stay low,the dragon warned.
Duncan and Carys took cover behind a thick stand of bushes moments before the dragon flew along the front line of the Éiren army, laying down a line of fire that caught the fae commanders, the green-cloaked sorcerers, and the front lines of the Éiren cavalry, stopping short of incinerating the Éiren crown princess before he swooped up to the sky again.
Finola’s horse reared, and the Éiren troops woke from their enchantment, screaming and scrambling for cover.
“Dragan!”
