Page 106 of Silver & Smoke
Torj suppressed a shudder, though he was glad to see the expressions across their forces suitably impressed and scared.
With that, he doled out his orders. ‘We need to move quickly now. Vernich and Graves, you take a unit either side of the stronghold and attack from the flanks at my signal. Hawthorne, Thea, you’re with me. We’ll take the main assault to the front of the city, leading the Harenth and Devereux forces. We’ll leave a unit of Thezmarrians to guard the field perimeter.’
With the help of his fellow Warswords, their numbers were split as instructed, and soon enough he turned to address his own company of warriors – ready to fight, ready to die, if duty demanded it. Torj had given dozens of speeches like these over the years; he was well versed in the language of war, but somehow this felt different... After all these years of running from the shadows, he now stood before the warriors not just as their leader, but as someone who had finally made peace with his own scars. The brave men and women before him were willing to face the enemy, and he owed them nothing less than to give them his all.
‘A great wrong has been done here,’ he told them. ‘This wrong has not only been committed against one of our rulers, but against the midrealms as a people. Barely recovered from one war, we find ourselves thrust into the bloody maw of another, with yet another tyrant threatening us with darkness... I don’t intend to let that threat come to pass. Do you?’
His soldiers shook their heads, rage shining in their eyes, knuckles white as they gripped their weapons.
‘Then we take the bastards by surprise,’ Torj said. ‘We take them like a knife between their ribs, and we show them what we learned during our time in the shadows.’
‘Ready when you are, Bear Slayer,’ Wilder said, jumping down from his horse and handing the reins to one of the soldiers.
‘Be careful,’ Torj replied, giving him and Thea a nod.
‘You worried about us, Elderbrock?’ Wilder teased.
‘Just concerned you can’t keep up with Thea,’ Torj muttered.
Wilder snorted. ‘Piss off.’
‘If you two are done flirting, can we make a move?’ Thea palmed two of her throwing stars.
‘They’re all yours,’ Torj told her.
Thea’s answering grin was wicked. She flicked her braid over her shoulder and started towards the remaining outer walls of Dorinth, melting into the landscape with Wilder on her tail.
Torj watched as the Shadow of Death moved through the rubble of her ancestors’ home, fluid as a dancer, swift as the wind. There was a blur of silver, and Thea’s throwing stars went flying through the crisp morning air and into the throats of the enemy guards on patrol. In her wake, Wilder caught the men as they fell, clapping his large hands over their mouths to muffle their dying cries. He laid each body down soundlessly before extracting the weapons and moving on to repeat the motion with his wife’s next victim. They worked seamlessly, as they always had, and when the last guard fell, Thea raised her hand in signal to Torj.
In turn, he motioned for the Thezmarrians to surround theperimeter of the rose field, while he followed the outskirts of the roses, advancing towards the would-be city gates on horseback with his unit. As they rode in silence towards their target, Torj scanned the broken walls for archers, but Thea and Wilder had left no man alive. Their approach remained unknown to anyone still within the stronghold.
As Torj closed the distance between him and the enemy compound among the ruins, the smell of stone and damp grew stronger, and the unit at his back became uneasy. When he reached the threshold, he signalled for them to stop, looking up to where Wilder and Thea were scouting from the ramparts. Silently, the couple descended the rubble and remounted their horses either side of Torj.
‘As we suspected,’ Thea said quietly. ‘Their base is in the remains of the old throne room; it’s a skeleton force, though there’s no telling what alchemy supplies they have in their arsenal.’
Torj turned to the unit behind him and pulled his mask up into place over his mouth and nose, motioning for them to do the same. They did as they were ordered.
When all their forces were in position, Torj took a deep breath and reached for his war hammer strapped to his back. He raised it above his head, and the air filled with the metallic song of a hundred swords being drawn in answer. With a roar that tore from his throat, he surged forwards and bellowed, ‘Attack!’
CHAPTER 54
Wren
‘A poisoner requires neither strength nor numbers – only patience and an underestimated hand’
– Elixirs and Toxins: A Comprehensive Guide
WREN.
She woke to the sound of her name in the distance and the sharp, bitter aroma of her own smelling salts. The scent stung her nasal passage, and she jerked back, only to hit the hard bars of a steel cage. The metal was cold, even through her shirt, which she realized was still soaked through from the storm.That’s why I’m shivering. Her teeth were rattling, which didn’t help the throbbing of her head.
Gingerly, she reached up to touch her hair, the manacles around her wrists jangling as her fingertips met the matted mass at the back of her head. Her hands came away bloody.
‘She’s awake!’ someone called loudly, making her wince as the sudden sound aggravated the pain.
Slowly, she blinked the world back into focus.
It wasn’t her imagination. Shewasin a cage. A cage meant for livestock, if the smell was anything to go by... and beyond its bars, three members of the People’s Vanguard stared at her.
