“Flee or die,” Fire said.
She bellowed her anger and turned with Fire, and the two of them sprinted for the bridge leading to the outer fortifications. Draeken had abandoned them and taken his dragon mount to lead the attack, while Serak stood before the shattered Gate, on his knees. Fire yearned to turn about and kill him, but there were too many foes.
They sprinted across the drawbridge and then turned aside, where the surviving dwarf had used his magic to create a thin path on the cliff. Fire jumped off the road and landed on the path. He wobbled and got an eyeful of the drop before he managed to catch a knob and push forward. Rynda landed with more poise, spreading blood on the mountainside as she pushed by. A handful of fiends tried to make the jump but the dwarf pushed the ledge back into the mountain and they fell to their deaths.
“We need to get back to the army,” Water called, and they hurried to descend back the way they’d come.
Melora appeared, cradling the lifeless Erisay, and Fire groaned when he saw her body. Rynda accepted the body with gentleness, tears forming in her eyes. Without a word, the others gathered around her, and Melora spoke in a whisper.
“She died to protect me.”
“You should have been the one to die,” Rynda said.
“I know,” Melora said, and then straightened. “But I will not be found again on the wrong side of this war. Please . . . allow me to stand with you.”
Rynda’s features hardened. “I’d rather take a blade to your—”
“We need to get down this mountain,” Water cut her off before she would strike Melora.
The fiends rushed about, killing with abandon. The Order guards fled, but the sipers raced after and dragged them down, tearing them apart. Draeken did not seem to notice, and their cries for aid when unheeded.
A pair of krakas entered the Xshaltheria stables. They returned with blood on their obsidian blades, and left a disturbing quiet where the horses had been bucking in their stalls. The bulk of the fiends had reached the alliance and the battle had begun. The sun touched the horizon, and with each passing hour, the light continued to brighten, revealing the chaos.
“What is happening?” Lira asked.
A claw had ripped across her arm and blood seeped from the wound. Fire paused and tried to bandage it, but her eyes fluttered, and he noticed the blood darkening her hair. She was lucky Water had been nearby, and he’d wrapped a liquid bandage around the wound on her head.
“Draeken commands the fiends,” Water said. “But I don’t think he was prepared to control them. They’re killing the Order soldiers.”
“They’re going to destroy half the alliance,” Rynda said. “But at least the Dark Gate was destroyed.”
“Only temporarily,” Melora said.
“What do you mean?” Fire asked.
“My mother shattered the stone,” Melora said. “But Serak is a stone mage, an extremely talented one. He will be able to rebuild the Gate.”
“This was for nothing?” Rynda rounded on her, and the dwarf cursed as he was nearly knocked loose.
“Watch it, troll,” he growled. “I’d rather not fall to my death after surviving that.”
“Our purpose was to destroy the Dark Gate,” Rynda snarled. “My people gave their lives for that. Mox gave his life for that.”
Melora passed a hand over her features. “I’m sorry, but the only way to destroy the Dark Gate for good would have been to drop the pieces into the volcano.”
Rynda reared back and punched the mountain, cursing with enough force to make even Fire wince. She cursed again, and then again. Fire saw her anger, but her hand trembled in regret and loss. Then she stabbed a finger at the dwarf.
“Get us down to the valley.”
“I’m trying,” the dwarf said.
“Try harder.”
The dwarf growled and worked the stone, forcing it to bend out of the mountainside. Many of the ladder sections were still there from before, but some had been destroyed by dragon fire. It didn’t matter. By the time the group reached the base of the mountain, the battle was over.
Fire jumped the last few feet and raced to the battle, but he slowed as it became clear most of the fiends were dead. He advanced through the battlefield, where healers rushed to care for the wounded. Five thousand krakas and sipers, and thirty thousand quare, as well as a handful of skorpians. The small army of fiends had been a quarter of the size of the alliance. In the smoke and wreckage of camps, it was clear the alliance had survived, but at a cost.
As the sun rose over the camps, clumps of scattered fiends were caught and killed. Archers and mages fired at Draeken on his dragon, forcing him to keep his distance. The black fury on his face was sufficient to make Fire smile.
“He looks angry,” he said.
“We lost thousands of troops in the time it took for us to climb down the mountain,” Water replied. “I’m the one that’s angry.”
Fire spared his brother a look, surprised by the anger on his features. Water was the calm fragment—or had been the calm one before the separation. But Water glared at Draeken with a baleful gaze.
The fiend assault had been straightforward, a charge into the heart of the camp. Fortunately the rock trolls had been at the center of the line, and they’d retreated, drawing the entire fiend army inward, allowing the cavalry and infantry to strike the flanks. The rock trolls had then turned on the fiends, shattering their ranks.
The dead were scattered across the ground, and healers rushed to care for the wounded. Other soldiers knelt at the sides of friends, and Fire spotted a father weeping over his son. He grimaced, and wished they’d been successful in their task. If they’d destroyed the Dark Gate for good, the battle would not have occurred.
“You.”
The word came from King Justin, who advanced across the battlefield like a charging warhorse, his nostrils flaring. He stabbed a finger at Rynda, Fire, and Water, his guards scrambling to keep up.
“Where were you?”
Rynda caught the hilt of her sword, bringing the man to a halt. “I don’t answer to you,” she said.
“My mother destroyed the Dark Gate,” Melora said. “For now, at least.”
