Page 198 of War Queen
Relief flooded, and suddenly, she didn’t have the strength to stand.
“Come on,” he said, and scooped her up.
She let him carry her. She couldn’t do anything else. “Where’s Phillip?” she mumbled as her eyes grew heavy.
But she didn’t hear his answer.
Enemy bodies continued to pile at the base of the stronghold walls, but Mikael urged his warriors on. They took shifts, using arrows less and less to conserve them and relying on the boulders to sweep the walls free of climbing men. He’d lost three hundred of his own to attacking arrows and spears between the battlements. He couldn’t lose any more—he needed every man he had for when Cyrus launched his real attack.
But the first wave kept coming. Their bodies covered the ground. There were so many that it broke the fall of those cast down, only for them to be able to attack again. Mikael knew they couldn’t sustain with these volumes. It was only a matter of time before they breached the walls.
“Salar,” Rahim, one of his captains, called.
Mikael turned. “How many more have we lost?”
“A hundred and eighty-four.”
Mikael swore.Fifteen thousand men sounded like a lot, but he couldn’t lose one more.
“And they’ve calculated where the arcs of the boulders don’t clear. We’ve had to move back to arrows for those areas.”
Mikael swore again. They’d run out of arrows before Rael ran out of men.
“It’s only a matter of time,” the captain said.
Mikael wanted to grab him by the weapons strap fastened tight across his chest and shove him against the wall, but he couldn’t be angry with the captain for saying what he’d been thinking only a moment earlier. And it was the truth. They couldn’t hold for much longer.
“It’s time to think of the tunnel,” Rahim said.
The tunnel was a narrow passage under the stronghold that ran below the mountains and up into the hills toward the Canyonlands, coming out not far from the abandoned manor where Soren had grown up. It wasn’t meant for more than a handful of men at a time; it was designed for a king to escape.
“The tunnel was sealed when the North took Bahoul,” Mikael said. He knew. He’d tried to use it to retake the stronghold himself in the Great War.
“The Bear had it unsealed when Aleon came, so we had a way to sneak back in should the Aleon king prove to be untrustworthy.”
Mikael stared at him, realizing. “That cunning bastard.” He chuckled to himself. The Bear was still helping him beyond the grave. But it didn’t matter. He had no plans to use the tunnel. “I can’t leave, Rahim. I’ll stay with the men and hold this fortress. Plus, my fate is with Cyrus.”
The captain nodded. “We fight on, then.”
“We fight on.”
To the end. It wouldn’t be a long wait.
Chapter forty-nine
Herbodyached,stillsteeped in exhaustion, and her muscles complained as she stirred awake. Wait—was she on a horse? Suddenly, Norah’s mind came reeling back.
Mikael.
The Mercian army.
She startled awake at the unfamiliar arms wrapped around her and was about to push herself off the horse.
“Easy,” Adrian calmed her as she twisted against him. “It’s just me.”
She let out a panting breath. “Hammel’s hell.” Despite the scare, she was happy to see him.
He chuckled. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever wake up.”
