Page 101 of Storm to Victory
“Pip!” Fieran shouted her name into the fury of his magic, even though she was too far away for her to hear him.
“What was that, sason?”
Fieran glanced over his shoulder and grinned at Dacha. “Pip’s here! She’s alive! She’s using her magic.”
Hopefully that was a good thing. And if it wasn’t, Fieran would destroy anyone trying to hurt her.
Pip hauled Prince Edmund forward,even as she forcibly drew the Mongavarian crown prince closer to them with her imprisoning shield. The crown prince and his guards stumbled as they dug in their heels, but they couldn’t resist the strength of her magic.
Once they were close enough, she placed a smaller shield around just the crown prince and shoved outward, pushing the guards away from the prince. The guards beat at her shield with the butts of their guns and stabbed at it with their bayonets, but her shield didn’t budge.
Taking a few more steps closer, she dragged the other shield backward until she could merge the two shields.
Prince Edmund let go of his grip on Pip and stumbled toward the crown prince, all but falling the last few feet into their prisoner. Prince Edmund held up the manacles that had been on his wrists. “I wouldn’t advise attempting to resist. You’ve seen what she can do.”
The crown prince glared from Prince Edmund to Pip and back. But he didn’t resist as Prince Edmund grabbed his armsand shackled his hands behind his back, assisted by Pip re-forming the shackles into their proper shape.
As soon as he finished, Prince Edmund’s knees buckled, and he caught himself by his grip on the crown prince.
Pip hauled Prince Edmund’s arm across her shoulders again, propping herself beneath him. Her back and shoulders ached from his weight, but she forced herself forward.
The crown prince whirled, his shoulders tensing as if he was contemplating trying to lash out at them in some way, even with his hands behind his back.
Pip shoved a shield into place between them, turning her single shield into two domes once again, although she kept them attached this time.
Cursing, the crown prince stumbled back, calling Pip—and women in general—a number of unflattering things.
“That’s what you get for taking one look at a tiny woman like me and assuming she couldn’t be a threat.” Pip was rather done with this crown prince, his family, and his castle. She’d had more than enough of their hospitality.
“Rather hypocritical of them.” Prince Edmund sounded far too cheerful for a man who couldn’t walk on his own right now. “Considering they are ruled by a woman. The Mongavarian soldiers who captured us really should have realized that you are a far greater threat than I am.”
“Hardly.” Pip staggered forward a few steps, already breathing hard. Between carrying most of Prince Edmund’s weight and holding two shields in place with her magic, she had to grit her teeth and dig into the depths of her dwarven strength and elven endurance.
This escape was turning out to be rather disagreeable. Especially since she was literally carrying the bulk of it solely on her shoulders. Still, she muscled through it. Fieran was here, and she was going to get to him no matter what it took.
Ahead, soldiers packed the courtyard, their rifles aimed in her direction. Several of the large guns on the castle wall top were now trained down at them while soldiers manned three machine guns in a line stretching across the castle gates.
Prince Edmund’s arm tightened around her shoulders, sending a fresh stab of pain through the bullet wound in her upper arm. At her flinch, he released his grip, as if remembering the wound. “I’m sorry. Will you be all right, facing all of this?”
Drawing in a deep breath, her knees wobbling, Pip tightened her grip on the back of Prince Edmund’s shirt and straightened her shoulders as much as she could beneath his weight. “I’ve held off bombings. This shouldn’t be anything too difficult. Besides, are they really going to open fire when we have him?”
She nudged the shield with the crown prince over a few feet so that the man stood more squarely in the path of all those guns.
“True. If they open fire, hoping to break your shield, then they’ll be giving up their crown prince as lost.” Prince Edmund lowered his voice, and she wasn’t fully sure he was still talking to her when he added, “We can only hope his mother actually has a scrap of feeling in her body and doesn’t sacrifice him. She has plenty more heirs, after all. Far younger, more promising heirs.”
Pip grimaced and shoved both shields forward. Capturing the heir to the Mongavarian throne wouldn’t do much to force a surrender if the empress was willing to simply sacrifice him to the cause.
Ahead of her, the crown prince’s face had washed nearly as pale as the strands of white in his gray hair. Despite the fact that he could likely hear the discussion they were having in Escarlish, he didn’t comment. Perhaps he, too, had no idea how disposable he was to the Mongavarian throne when it came down to it.
There was no way out of this but through.
Step by step, Pip crossed the courtyard, hauling Prince Edmund, the crown prince, and her two shields with her.
For the first few yards, the soldiers held their fire, as if everyone, even their commanders, weren’t sure what to do. Then there was a shouted order, and the soldiers hurriedly affixed their bayonets to the ends of their rifles. With another order, the horde of them rushed forward. They swung their rifles downward, stabbing at Pip’s shield with their bayonets.
Pip gritted her teeth and shoved more magic into the shields. The bayonets bent when they came into contact with her magic and bounced off.
She forged onward, pushing and shoving the soldiers aside with her shields as if they were a herd of cattle and she was the cattle catcher on the front of a train.
