Page 34 of War Queen
But this would not be an easy win. The castle was filled with mercenaries—the best in the world—and their numbers were greater than she’d imagined.
Asipflew past her, and she didn’t need to see it to know it was an arrow. Her gaze shot to the turret’s walls, where mercenaries fired down on them.
Bhastian grabbed her, pulling her off Sephir. “Keep down, Salara,” he ordered as he raised his shield over her. Kiran pressed close on her other side.
She kept herself smartly under Bhastian’s shield but still scanned the battle-strewn courtyard around them. “I have to find Alexander.”
“He’ll be going after the council, who are likely in the keep,” Bhastian said. “But, Salara, the fighting will be strongest there.”
“I have to find him,” she insisted. She had to see him, see him with her own eyes, and know he was all right. Then they would face her council together.
The corners of her Crest guard’s eyes creased with objection.
“Bhastian. I have to find him. Please.”
Reluctantly, he nodded. Then he and Kiran shouldered closer, and they moved with her army as a unit toward the keep.
The ranks thinned as more mercenaries flooded them, and the fighting pressed closer. How were there so many of them? The Kharavian warriors and her Northmen fought shoulder to shoulder, working tirelessly to push them back.
Suddenly, to her right, the gleam of a sword caught her eye. Kiran spun and struck it to the side with his own blade before sinking his second short sword into the mercenary.
Bhastian swore. “Salara, we should fall back. It’s not safe.”
She hadn’t come for safety. “We keep going,” she said.
Another onslaught of arrows rained from the sky, taking some of the men down around her. Kiran and Bhastian pressed her between them with their shields held high. She glanced up at the walls lined with mercenaries, and her heart fell. There were so many of them.
Then she noticed a darkness snaking in from both ends, pressing the mercenaries toward the center, and hope sprang within her. The Kharavian army was closing in—her men were gaining ground. The arrows falling from the wall turned into falling bodies of the enemy.
She urged her men on toward the keep.
The fighting thickened, and the smell of blood filled her nose. Kiran drove back another attack to the right, and Bhastian felled a man who broke through on the left.
Norah heard her name, but she couldn’t place where it had come from or who called it. The clang of battle was near deafening now, drowning out everything around her. Bhastian yelled something, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
A mercenary broke through in front of her and drove a sharp swing from above. She countered with her own blade and then followed with a quick series of defensive moves. But he was good—too good—and pressed her back. He let out a roar as he launched a lethal sequence and swung again for her neck. But both Kiran and Bhastian crossed their swords to block him, and Kiran followed with a thrust to the mercenary’s gut with his short sword. The man fell to his knees, and Bhastian took his head.
A hand grabbed her arm from behind, and she twisted, whipping her dagger from her waist and driving it into the man’s side. It was a punishing blow, but his armor kept it from being a kill strike.
And Norah gasped.
Caspian stared back at her, still holding her arm, with a dagger jutting from his side.
He was alive. Or, he was…
No!
“Caspian!” She let go of the dagger.
He winced. “Queen Norah,” he managed between his teeth. They both looked down at the hilt protruding from between his plates of armor just above his hip.
“Caspian!” she cried again.
“It’s not a fatal wound,” Bhastian said. “He’ll live. But we can’t just stand here.”
Caspian curled his hand around the dagger and pulled the bloody blade from his side.
“Oh gods, Caspian! I’m so sorry!”
