Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 127722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
“Don’t. I’ve fought them before. And I’ll probably fight them again after this.”
Her eyes were still scared, as if that gave her no reassurance.
“I’m not afraid, so you shouldn’t be either.”
“It’s a lot easier to die than lose someone you…you care about.”
I’d rejected her affections more than once, and I didn’t have the heart to do it again now. “We’re well prepared. We had the upper hand, knowing they were coming before they started marching. I hope this battle ends by morning, and once the fires die out and the smoke disappears from the air, it’ll be as if nothing ever happened.”
“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” She gave a sniff. “Consoling me when you’re the one who has to face them.”
“Like I said, I’m not afraid. It’s an honor to defend my people. There’s no other way I’d wish to die than in the service of HeartHolme.”
Her eyes dropped, the tears catching in her thick eyelashes. “You look so handsome in that…”
“Maybe you can help me take it off when this is over.”
Her eyes flicked back up again, a smile coming on to her lips. “I’d love to.”
The bonfires were lit at the edges of the field, giving us illumination in the darkness. We would be able to see them, and they wouldn’t be able to see us, not past the wall at least. It would make our arrows more accurate. Make our cannons more deadly.
Two riders came from the distance, their horses riding as hard as they could, like they were being chased.
I gave the order. “Open the gates.”
The gates cracked just wide enough to allow them passage. They rode through and yanked on the reins to halt the horses.
Queen Rolfe went to them straightaway. “What news do you bring?”
“They march from the south,” the rider said. “And they’re headed this way.”
A cloud of disappointment formed over all of us, even though that was the news we all expected to hear.
“How many?” Queen Rolfe asked.
He took his time answering, as if he didn’t want to say. “Twenty thousand…if not more.”
I couldn’t hold my breath in at the number. It fled in a rush, leaving my lungs deflated. Everyone broke out in whispers to one another, sharing the same unease that just punched me in the stomach.
Even Queen Rolfe couldn’t respond. It took her a solid ten seconds to react to that news, and for the first time ever, I saw her look scared.
Fuck.
Elora exchanged a worried look with me. “That’s too many. We don’t stand a chance.”
“You aren’t the only one thinking it,” I whispered back.
Queen Rolfe didn’t have words of encouragement. She needed time to process the deathblow that had just struck us down.
I’d had no idea their army was so massive. Any time we’d fought them, it’d only been a few thousand at a time. But now I realized what we were truly dealing with. It was a force bigger than the Runes, Teeth, and Plunderers combined.
We stood no chance.
I was worried that Huntley hadn’t returned—but now I was relieved he hadn’t.
He would live. And the rest of us would die.
Queen Rolfe finally recovered from the shock. “We may be outnumbered, but our gates have never been breached. They can’t pass through the mountain. They can’t get to HeartHolme through any other entry. We hold the gate—and we hold HeartHolme.”
“Even if we survive, this battle will span several nights,” I said. “At least.”
“Shit…I need to make more arrows. More everything.” Elora took off at a run and headed straight to the forge.
I left the wall and climbed to the bottom, where Queen Rolfe and Commander Dawson spoke in private. “Commander Dawson shouldn’t take an army outside these walls. With numbers that big, he’ll be massacred.”
“But can we take down an army of twenty thousand from behind the gate?” Commander Dawson said. “We would have to be killing them by the thousands every few minutes to keep them back, and I don’t think a volley of arrows and cannonballs will be enough for that.”
“It won’t,” Queen Rolfe said. “It’ll buy us time. But not enough.”
I took a look around, examining the rocky crevasse that expanded into the city beyond. “I have an idea. But it’s not a good one.”
“What is it, Ian?” Queen Rolfe asked.
I nodded to the rocky crevasse of the mountain. “Once they breach the wall, we can fire at the walls with the cannons. The mountain will come down on top of them. If we time it right, we can take out half their army. They’ll be trapped, and the rest of the ones that aren’t will be forced to retreat.”
“We’ll also be trapped,” Commander Dawson said. “Inside HeartHolme.”
“It’ll take months to rebuild the path and the gate,” Queen Rolfe said.
“Months of hard labor is preferable to death. We have enough food and water to keep everyone fed for months. If it saves HeartHolme, then none of that matters.” It was the only option we had from where I stood. “It’s the worst-case scenario…if they breach the walls.”