Page 111 of Silver & Smoke
Wren fought back a laugh. ‘Well, you won’t be using your bowand arrows. You’ll only cause further damage to the injury and might cause permanent issues. If you were anyone else, I’d tell you not to fight at all, but...’
‘But you know I will anyway,’ he finished for her.
‘You Warswords are impossible.’
Cal smiled. ‘So I’ve heard.’
Wren finished wrapping linen strips around the wound and protruding arrow, not wanting to take it out without access to better supplies. ‘If you’re already talking about fighting, you’re fine to ride, I take it?’
‘I can ride,’ he confirmed.
‘Then we need to move. We can’t waste the advantage this tactic gave us.’
‘Torj would kill us if we didn’t ask,’ Kipp ventured. ‘Are you alright? They didn’t hurt you?’
‘I’ve got a lump on the back of my head the size of a cauldron, but other than that, I’m fine,’ she replied with a wave of dismissal.
Kipp looked like he wanted to argue, but Wren was already striding towards her horse and fitting her boot to the stirrup. Gods, what she wouldn’t do for a bath. She was covered in wine and blood, and she still stank of whatever animal had been in that cage before her. She could feel the matted hair on the back of her head as well, but there was nothing for it.
‘You two coming or staying?’ she asked, settling in the saddle.
‘And miss you taking back your kingdom?’ Kipp feigned shock. ‘Never.’
There was blood on the pearly white of the silvertide roses. Wren saw it as she rode past the field into Dorinth, flanked by Cal and Kipp. The Thezmarrians had guarded the crop with their lives, and had now left a skeleton crew behind as the rest dragged enemy bodies away to be burned with their own dead.
Not yet daring to hope, Wren passed through the broken gates – and gasped at the sight within.
More bodies were strewn across the ancient cobblestones, and the lingering effects of Master Crawford’s alchemy were evident in the surviving enemy soldiers still hallucinating, cowering from invisible terrors. Smoke rose from several small fires where tents and wooden structures had caught aflame during the fighting, tangling with the scent of blood and dust and the sweet fragrance of the untouched rose field.
We won?she called down the bond to Torj, unable to see him amid the flurry of movement as their forces secured the perimeter and set up defensive positions on higher ground.
We won, came the reply, but his inner voice was flat, drained of the triumph she’d expected.
Wren scanned the ruins for him, an overwhelming sense of urgency flooding her chest.Dorinth is ours?she pressed, suddenly uncertain.
No,he told her.Dorinth isyours. But we need you. Medical tent. Now.
The words struck her like a physical blow. Wren urged her horse onward, abandoning Cal and Kipp to the chaotic aftermath of battle as she spotted Zavier and Dessa in the ruins ahead, tending to the wounded in the rubble.
When she reached them, she slid from her saddle, and before she could ask, her friends pointed.
Torj.
Her Bear Slayer looked up from where he was helping Wilder towards a tent, his face etched with exhaustion, minor wounds littering his exposed skin. The darkness of the strengthening potion still pulsed faintly beneath his forearms. Thea was on Wilder’s other side, her face deathly pale, her eyes wild and panicked.
Wren rushed towards them. ‘What happened?’
‘Shadow alchemy,’ Torj replied, his eyes roaming over her, scanning her for injuries as she had just done to him. His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He can’t feel his Warsword abilities.’
‘Wren...’ Thea’s voice broke. ‘You have to do something. He... he can’t—’
Wren couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her sister so terrified, so desperate. The Shadow of Death reduced to pleading.
‘It’s going to be alright,’ Wren told them, squeezing Thea’s hand in reassurance, willing confidence into her voice. ‘It’s going to be alright.’
‘We know, Embers,’ Torj replied quietly, setting Wilder down on a fallen pillar. ‘You’ve got this.’
Nodding to herself, Wren reached for her belt and took a small vial from one of its pouches, the contents catching the light like liquid silver. ‘Here, Wilder,’ she said. ‘Drink this.’
