Five Dark Fates (Three Dark Crowns #4) - Kendare Blake Page 0,117
queensguard thin!”
Emilia nods. She remounts her horse and catches a passing mare for Mathilde.
“Wait,” Mathilde says when she is in the saddle. “Look.”
Downfield, Billy stumbles through the battle, one hand pressed to his side and the other barely fending off attacks. His armor and clothes are soaked with red.
“Foolish mainlander,” Mathilde says. “He should have stayed nearby. If you lead the charge with the reserves now, you may be able to buckle the flank.”
Emilia looks between the queensguard, drawn enticingly thin, and Billy, on one knee and bleeding heavily. Downfield to her left, Jules and Rho begin to trade blows. There are so many places she would wish to be and no point in letting this moment of glory pass when the boy is practically dead already.
She raises her sword arm, and the war gift sings in her veins like the Goddess herself. She knows what it will feel like, crashing through the ranks. She can feel the strike of them against her knees, and hear their moans on the edge of her blade.
She squeezes her eyes shut and bellows. “Curse you, Arsinoe!”
“What are you doing?” Mathilde asks.
“Charge the flank without me. Go!” She turns her horse and races to Billy in fast strides, her sword sweeping down to cut through queensguard at the vulnerable place near the elbow. She relishes what fighting she may have all the way to the mainlander.
“Billy!”
“Emilia, thank god,” he says as she pulls him into the saddle. “It was Renard. The bastard stabbed me when I tried to stop him from going after Arsinoe.”
“Thank your god in your own country,” she says, her heart lingering with the fight even as they gallop out of it. “Today you should thank my Goddess.”
They look back together as the horse takes them out of the fray. In the confusion of the mist, fighters scatter. They turn on each other, tripping friends and allies in the hopes of buying time. Everywhere the white touches them they scream; they fall to the ground with backs full of blood.
“The mist,” Billy says in horror. “What do we do about the mist?”
Emilia faces forward and kicks her horse hard.
“That is up to your Arsinoe now.”
Camden prowls the border of Jules and Rho’s contest ground marked off by the fallen bodies of their mounts, killed when they first collided. But even without the cougar, no one would have disturbed them. For who would dare?
They strike and parry, strike and parry, their show of speed unnatural. The clang of their weapons crossing would vibrate any other fighter to her knees.
The only sounds are grunts and fierce bellows, the legion curse leaping high and the dead queens knocking it back, every impact hard enough to crush bones. Over and over, they come together and are thrown apart, yet the only damage they show was taken before the encounter began: ribbons of blood down a legion-cursed arm, a speckling of rot across an undead cheek.
The clearing around them grows as those fighting nearby stop to stare. But even the spectators flee when the mist comes.
The dead queens land a fearsome blow and send their opponent rolling. At the sight of the mist, they screech and use the priestess’s war gift to wrench the battle-ax out of the ground. With two weapons, they greet their two enemies.
The legion curse attacks, slashing with sword and short dagger, using the war gift as a shield, but the dead queens are not afraid. They lash out, their rage their strength, cutting, bashing, stomping until they hear bones snap.
When the mist curls around their legs, they feel its chill. But they are still not afraid. They sweep their ax through the mist like they will cleave it in two.
They are distracted. They do not see her get up and brace on one leg. They do not see her leap, making the broken bone shatter.
The sword and the dagger sear into their flesh and pierce deep large holes that pour dead, black blood, and the dead queens drop the ax to try and hold themselves inside.
They leak out into the air, sensing Katharine nearby, and fly to her, pouring out of Rho as the body of the priestess collapses to the dirt. They leave her, and the hated Legion Queen, behind. They do not look back when the mist sweeps in to tear the empty sack of Rho Murtra to shreds.
THE VOLROY
Arsinoe shakes her cut hand, sending droplets of blood spattering against the Volroy’s stone floor.