whatever beast or man the Sword of Elder might miss.
Her grandfather’s legacy surrounded Dari, the full force of his Ross mind-talent, shielding her from any attack she might not expect, protecting her from any form of mental assault. Blood flecked her arms and legs and face, and the stench of sweat and fear and gore made her insides heave. Each impact sent stinging bolts from her fingers to her shoulder. Her arm ached and tingled from blow after blow. Her whole body seemed to jar half out of its saddle whenever her sword connected with another sword, or a neck, or an arm, and soon her sides heaved like Toronado’s. She didn’t look at the men she killed, but she felt them die, every one of them, and she didn’t even know if she was sorry.
“For Kate!” she cried as she raised her sword again, again, again. Throats opened beneath the force of her slashing and driving. Men screamed. Men choked on their own life’s fluids, but she spared them not even a glance. She kept Toronado close to her grandfather’s stallion, even when her guards fell under the onslaught of the Brailing soldiers.
Stinging fire seemed to spread along Dari’s legs as blades nicked her calves. Guardsmen clad in Brailing blues and yellows charged ever closer to her. Pikes jabbed at Toronado, and the stallion’s terrible squeals of pain only doubled the force of Dari’s thrusts. She blocked blows, knocked away two spiraling daggers and struck down spear after spear after spear. Her breeches soon hung in rags, and her leather boots had been sliced open.
Keep moving! came Lord Ross’s repeated command, as compelling as any Aron could give, and Dari moved. Left, then right, then left again. She struck out with her sword, and with her graal, too, knocking back anything that drew near to her.
Throaty trumpets of talons drew closer, and even through her grandfather’s protections, Dari sensed Aron’s presence thundering toward her.
She didn’t sense Nic’s.
Was Aron shielding Nic?
Her eyes widened, and the battlefield came into sharper focus.
Ross Guard were dropping so fast she couldn’t even figure how many were left.
Where was that carriage?
Had they turned astray in the madness?
They weren’t going to make it!
Her chest tightened until she could barely force herself to gulp air.
The talons and Stone Brothers hurtled toward what was left of the Ross soldiers, crushing the Brailing soldiers between the two groups even as more Brailing Guard rushed in to try to surround them all. From farther ahead near the castle came the crashing boom of a battering ram striking wood, and the smash-crash of catapulted stones blasting into the castle walls.
Battle-cries rippled along the battlements, adding to the morass of sound and stink and movement filling Dari’s senses.
A burly Brailing man with a mace waded toward her out of the blur, knocking aside Ross Guard like they were no more than twigs.
She jerked her stallion’s lead to avoid him, but not in time.
The big, spiked metal hammer caught Toronado in the chest, and her faithful stallion spilled beneath her, his wild consciousness tearing free from Dari’s mind and shredding a piece of her heart. Dead. He was dead before his big, beautiful body even struck the bloody ground.
Dari half jumped, half fell free of him, shouting at the loss, then screaming as her sword flew from her grip and planted itself tip first in the dirt.
She, however, never struck the ground.
Powerful hands gripped her forearms and swept her straight out of the air.
She looked up, hopeful, expecting to see Blath or Iko or another Sabor, shifting into full gryphon form and hoisting her above the battle to fly her straight to Kate.
Instead, she slammed into the oily, smelly side of a lumbering bull talon.
Scales scratched her face as for a moment she saw Aron. Felt the soothing, forceful surge of Aron’s graal.
Then he was gone, dropping away and striking the ground beside her at a full run, short sword and dagger in hand, but quickly falling behind.
Dari scrambled for balance behind Stormbreaker, and he turned loose her arm as she grabbed his waist. Lightning blasted around her, and thunder seemed to shake the skies.
Stormbreaker. Aron.
They had been riding together?
“Where is Nic?” she shouted to Stormbreaker, but her words were lost in the roar of the battle and the endless clamor of weather from his renegade graal. He trembled beneath her grip, and she realized his energy was almost at full ebb. Instinct drove her to reach for his thoughts, to offer some