Mortal

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

MICHAEL, knife!”

Roland approached Michael at a full gallop, sweeping by her left side as she snatched a knife from her belt and flipped it over her back-all without turning from the two Dark Bloods bearing down on her with slashing blades. Their Mortal senses might prove challenged in such a crowded battlefield, but their acute hearing could easily identify directions and distances on all sides.

A Dark Blood on horse-one of the few left-angled in at a dead gallop, eyes on Michael. Her knife flew lazily through the air within easy grasp as Roland thundered past. He snatched it by the hilt and hurled it at the approaching horseman in a single, unbroken movement.

His aim flew true. The knife slammed into the mounted Dark Blood’s neck with enough force to slice clean through to the spine. The rider went limp; his horse galloped by, aimless as the Dark Blood slowly toppled to one side and fell heavily to the earth.

All but a handful of Saric’s cavalry were now dead.

Michael took advantage of the momentary distraction, plunged her sword up under one of the Dark Blood’s chins, then spun in a crouch with a wide slash that cut deep into the other’s hip. Another thrust put the warrior out of his misery.

Roland swept around and slowed so that Michael could swing up behind him.

“Thank you,” she panted.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

It was all he needed to say; the battle was far from over.

The events of the last hour and a half ran through Roland’s mind.

His archers had delivered five thousand arrows before setting their trench on fire and retreating behind a wall of flames and smoke. They’d cut the Dark Blood cavalry by two-thirds in that opening strike.

Saric had quickly mounted a counterattack using the brute strength of his full army, killing nearly a hundred Mortals in his first unrelenting sweep across the plateau, leaving only three hundred Nomads to defend the high ground while the reserve force of three hundred waited south for the signal that would begin the third phase of engagement.

For the next half hour they’d battled on horse against an infantry that was fast and strong but no match for Nomads on horseback. Saric had stood his ground on the southern end of the plateau, surrounded by a thousand warriors.

And then the Mortals began to fall. One by one, and only after taking down more than their share of Dark Bloods each, the vast imbalance of numbers began to take its inevitable toll. By the end of the first hour, the ground was littered with dead, making movement difficult.

Nearly 150 of his warriors had fallen before the scouts reported Saric’s flanking maneuver from the west-at least a full division and another three hundred cavalry. They’d stockpiled two hundred bows and three thousand arrows in anticipation for a second wave of cavalry, and this time every able-bodied fighter had taken up with the archers and laid down a fusillade of screaming projectiles that had felled half of the rushing cavalry before they could scatter.

Roland had made his case clear: they would descend to the valley for the third phase only when the Dark Blood army had been cut by a full third or when the Mortals had suffered losses exceeding two hundred.

Over the last half hour Roland had lost another fifty fighters.

Two hundred dead. The thought shortened his breath.

To make matters worse, dark clouds had gathered at an alarming rate, covering the sky with a thick layer of gray like a lid. The wind was starting to pick up and would compromise the work of his archers. A storm would not bode well for them.

He pulled his mount up on the rise and wheeled around to where Michael’s horse waited. She dropped to the ground and swung up into her own saddle. Rom rode in hard from the west, tussled hair whipped by the wind.

“Too many!” he shouted, reining his mount back sharply. “We have to go now!”

Roland’s attention was to the south, where Saric’s guard defended against a dozen Nomads firing into the Dark Blood lines from horses on the run. Every minute twenty or thirty of Saric’s warriors fell. He had lost four thousand men, leaving him with roughly eight thousand, but the toll on the Mortals was mounting. Only a hundred and fifty remained to fight on the plateau, waiting for the three hundred in reserve to be called into the third phase of the battle.

Impossible odds.

“I heard from the runner,” Rom said, breathing heavily. “They wait for your signal. The Dark Bloods are cut by half, maybe more. We have to go now.”

Roland nodded. “Pass the word. We transition to the valley. Follow hard on my heels.”

Rom spun, whistled and then took off, leaning over his mount, cutting the air with another whistle, which was picked up by another, and then another. The sound would be picked up even from this distance by Mortal ear, but Roland wanted to be sure even those in the din of battle would not mistake the call as planned.

He watched as fighters broke off their attack and swept north from across the plateau.

“Send the signal for the reserves.”

Michael pulled out a thin metal whistle that issued a high-pitched tone typically heard only by dogs and other animals with broader auditory ranges. Mortals could easily pick out the distinguished note from a significant distance. A runner half a mile south would pick up the sound and send another. Within seconds the signal would reach the reserves waiting to the south, and they would move toward the Seyala Valley at full speed.

She pressed the whistle to her lips and blew three long notes.

“Even with the reserves we’ll only be five hundred to their six thousand,” Michael said, shoving the instrument back in her pouch. “We’re down to a handful of arrows. Once we enter the canyon, we’ll be caged. If they don’t follow us-”

“I know the risk,” he said through gritted teeth.

“We could still break off and escape north. We could return later with guerilla tactics.”

“Saric will rebuild quickly and be twice as wary. He knows our strengths now. No. We fight to the end. If they don’t follow, we retreat north.”

“It’s not the retreat I’m worried about. It’s the battle into the valley. How many more will we lose, drawing them so close?”

“Do you want to lead? We knew the price of freedom would come at great risk. Don’t forget that the lives of those who’ve died today are on my head!”

“Forgive me.”

Roland looked away toward the line of Nomads just joining them along the shallow rise. “Today a new race rises, Michael. All along our people assumed victory would come under Jonathan’s rule. We were wrong. You and I, not Jonathan, will lead our people to victory. The world has never been reshaped without bloodshed. Today it’s our turn to spill what we must to ensure the place of our kind for centuries to come. We live or die for the sake of this race. These Immortals.”

“Immortals?”

“The zealots’ term. The Keeper says the power in our blood is strengthening, even as Jonathan’s weakens.”

She looked at him with wide eyes. “Jonathan’s?”

“Is now nearly dead. His blood has reverted to that of a Corpse.”

She blinked, aghast.

“Keep this to yourself, sister.”

He spurred his horse and rode down the line of Mortals gathered along the small rise. A stream of Dark Bloods was already fast approaching.

“Follow my lead!” he shouted. “We sweep west! Hold in the valley until they pursue. Hold your lines past the ruins until I give word. Today we prevail. Today we rise!”

Without a glance back, he veered to the west, leaned low over his mount’s neck, and spurred it into a full gallop.

The first thunder rumbled high above.

“They run!”

Saric spun to the cry of Varus, who’d held close at his demand. Nearly a thousand of his remaining eight thousand children had formed a thick wall of protection around his position, shielding him from skirting attacks as the enemy tore into his force with the fury of a lion rushing in to attack-only to retreat and attack again.

As he’d known, attrition had been the Mortals’ downfall. He’d cut down a full half of their forces in the last hour while suffering massive losses himself, but they were losses he could afford for the sake of the victory before him. His army was still a full eight thousand strong.

Meanwhile, Brack had fallen in the battle, taken by Rom Sebastian’s sword. The naïve artisan who had thwarted him nine years earlier had found a backbone and the skills to keep it intact.

He followed his man’s line of sight in time to see the Nomadic Prince bent low over his mount, leading a growing contingent of his warriors as they streamed south along the plateau’s western edge.

“They flee!” Varus said.

Or they regroup, Saric thought, as Roland plunged past the southern lip and galloped down the slope toward the valley below. His men followed without hesitation, flying past formations of Dark Bloods outmatched by the horses’ speed.

“Into the valley,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes.

“They lead us into Feyn’s trap.”

He considered the meaning behind Roland’s sudden shift in plan. Feyn intended to betray him; that much had become clear. The precision of their preparations could only mean that the Mortals had fully expected him to arrive and engage as and when he had. Something more than conjecture-or someone-had informed them. They had baited him and attacked with brutal efficiency.

But he had prevailed.

“The valley will only limit their movements,” he said. “A trap would involve more.”

“The canyons beyond,” Varus said, stilling his shifting mount.

“Yes, the canyons.”

His gaze swept the vacated valley to his right. The ruins with their bloodied courtyard sat unoccupied along the eastern cliff near the mouth of the valley. The valley floor narrowed as it ran north, ending at the mouth of a gorge that led into a canyon with a river along one side. The sandy wash provided ample room for ten horses abreast to pass. Even twenty.

By his count, the Mortals had initially brought only four hundred warriors to bear on the plateau and then replaced them as their own forces were depleted. But they were fewer than the seven hundred Feyn had reported, which meant the rest were either gone with those Mortals who could not fight or being held in reserve.

“If they enter, we hold back,” he said.

“More are coming,” Varus said. “Reserves.”

Dust a mile south.

“They intend to enter the canyons knowing we’ll be eager to pursue,” Saric said.

“And so we hold here.”

“No. They’ll advance slowly in order to draw us in. And so we will take the battle to them in the valley, but hold by the ruins and wear them thin. Patience will win this war. Give the signal. We descend in full pursuit.”

Varus hesitated only a moment, then spun and issued the command. A horn blast and Dark Bloods from across the plateau broke into a fast run for their position as Varus issued a string of commands that quickly translated to the flags. And then he turned the army south at a fast jog as those behind fell in line. Like a black river, his vast army spilled over the hill and angled toward the valley.

Overhead, clouds had cut off the sun. Saric scanned the heavens, momentarily struck by the movement in the sky, like ghosts rushing to meet an unheard call. A storm was gathering with astonishing speed, hastened by a strengthening wind. The Mortals’ archers would be compromised. Rain would slow their horses.

The sudden turn was a good omen.

Dust rose to the south, trailing a visible gathering of horses racing to reach the valley’s wide mouth before his Dark Bloods could block their entrance. If the Mortals could be divided, half of his children could engage those caught outside the valley while the rest of his forces fought the Nomads inside. The Nomad prince would be far less likely to flee into the canyons while some of their own remained outside.

“Varus, take a division at full sprint!” He rose in his stirrups, as he plunged down the hill. Thrust his arm forward. “Cut them off!”

Varus roared the order to one of the division commanders. His men rapidly broke ahead of the main body. Like a cluster of black hornets, they swarmed down the hill and cut east, passing through the river as if it were made of fog. They were moving at only half the speed of the mounted Nomads but then, they had only half the distance to cover.

Ahead of them, Roland glanced back at the pursing Dark Bloods, motioning frantically at the approaching Mortals to speed.

It would be close.

The arrows came from the riders then, fired into his sprinting division. Not in massive waves as in the Nomad’s first attacks on the plateau, and not with the same accuracy in the face of the wind. Several of his men went down, forcing those behind to leap over their bodies. But the swarming horde did not falter or slow.

“Varus! The rest! Full sprint!”

Barked orders. The flags went up. The rest of his army tripled its pace and flooded the low ground.

Saric gave his horse its head as the two armies angled for the valley’s mouth at breakneck speed, each vying for first position. His blood ran cold as anticipation flooded his veins.

His Dark Bloods were going to reach the valley first.

And they did, surging across the mouth of the valley in a long thick line. The Mortal riders thundered forward then veered east as more of his army swarmed in behind the ranks already in position.

Saric’s mount leapt into the river, splashed through the water and tore up the far bank, barely breaking pace. He pulled north along the river, digging his heels into the flanks of his mount. A small hill rose a hundred paces ahead.

“To the hill!”

Varus and five hundred of his children shifted and angled for the rise.

Saric pulled the steed to a sharp halt at the mound’s crest and wheeled it around to give him full view of the valley.

What he saw below filled him with dark satisfaction.

Triphon, the slain Mortal, hung from his pole alone before the temple ruins, head sagging in death, portending the fate of all who’d once celebrated so-called life with him. Roland stood in his saddle a hundred strides north of the dead Mortal, joined by two hundred of his fighters, eyes fixed on the battle erupting at the valley mouth beyond.

Saric had divided the Nomad’s forces.

He’d been correct: the prince would not retreat into the canyons before the rest of his warriors fought their way through the Dark Bloods to join him.

Beyond the ruins a steep cliff cut off any hope of escape to the east. The hills behind him rose to more cliffs, blocking any ascent to the west. There were only two ways out of the valley: past his army now positioned at the mouth, or into the canyons at the far end.

For the first time, the battle had taken a decided turn in Saric’s favor. The din of combat grew as riders braved his front lines in a desperate attempt to pass to safety. Steel clashed against steel; hooves pounded the earth. Cries and shouts of warning…

Groans of death.

In his ears the sound was nothing less than a siren song, beckoning all to follow a new master: Saric, who would usher in new life and protect it with an iron fist.

“Half, in deeper after the prince!” he cried.

Varus gave the order and his page issued the signal. Two flags lowered toward the Mortals in the valley.

Three thousand Dark Bloods turned, took up rank, and began marching toward Roland’s two hundred Nomads, just now surging forward to attack. They clashed just north of the ruins, this time in closer quarters than on the plateau above.

Now the battle was fought on two distinct fronts: one at the mouth of the valley, one in the valley itself. Had the Mortals been less determined, they would have the sense to cut off their assault and flee. But Saric knew running wasn’t in Roland’s blood.

Beyond the ruins, a Mortal rider raced behind the main battle, arms waving frantically, yelling retreat. It took only a moment for Saric to recognize the man as Rom Sebastian.

Two leaders with two minds. One cried retreat, the other attack.

Now Saric knew: only time stood between himself and full victory. The battle was his. If his army didn’t annihilate the entire Mortal force, there would only be enough left to run and tell the tale later.

Feyn would die for her betrayal.

There would be no army left to usher Jonathan in as Sovereign.

Saric would rule without challenge.

Rom tore down the line behind the Mortals fighting in the valley, heart hammering with panic. Roland’s plan was unraveling. By the minute more Nomads desperate to break through the heavy Dark Blood ranks took spears in their chests and fell. He couldn’t see the extent of what was unfolding on the far side, but he imagined the casualty rate was no less.

And yet to a man, the fighters followed Roland’s lead, determined to prove the Nomad’s cry for victory.

Triphon’s bloodied body hung from the pole in the wide swath of bare ground between the two battlefronts. His friend had paid for Rom’s failure with his life. Now the rest of them would follow that death and leave Jonathan with no hope.

“Michael!” he screamed. “It’s too much!”

She ducked to avoid a hurled spear and veered toward the Dark Blood who’d hurled it. If she’d heard Rom, she gave no sign of it.

He spun his head to the left. “Roland!”

The cry fell on deaf ears.

They had begun the day with seven hundred Mortals, primed to change the world. They’d lost nearly a third on the plateau. Here in the valley, they might lose far more… Surely Roland could accept defeat to fight another day!

But no. The Nomads had lost their minds to their own need for supremacy.

Just beyond the reach of the Dark Bloods, Roland paced, daring them to approach. Mind welling with rage, Rom spurred his horse into a tear straight toward Roland.

He would run the man down if he had to.

He had made it halfway to the Nomad Prince when the lone cry-unmistakable to Mortal ears-reached him. He glanced back, to the west.

There on a far hill, buffeted by the accelerating wind sat two riders. One on a pale horse, the other on a dark one. A young man dressed as a Nomad… a woman cloaked in pale gray over regal white whom he would have recognized anywhere.

Jonathan. Feyn.

They had come.

Rom felt the air leave his lungs. For a beat, he forgot that his horse careened toward Roland. He jerked back on the reins and pulled his mount to a rearing halt.

He wasn’t sure if it had been Jonathan or Feyn who’d announced their arrival, but the effect swept through the amassed forces like a wave. The sounds of battle in the valley lost some of its urgency.

To the hill on Rom’s right, Saric had turned on his horse, one arm still raised to his army. But his attention was on the pair. Roland whistled and retreated, joined immediately by the Mortals fighting at his side.

The battle ebbed, eerily so, before falling to a standstill.

Thunder rumbled overhead. The dark sky churned.

The valley was now divided by two wide lines of Saric’s army, one on either side of the ruins, leaving a wide strip of bare ground that led directly up the ruin steps. The Mortals pulled back to the north and south of the Dark Bloods.

Feyn broke first, nudging her horse forward at an easy walk. Jonathan followed slightly behind to her right. Down the hill, then across the river and up the bank toward the temple ruins. A picture of stoic resolve.

Rom’s first thought was filled with relief and jubilation. However unlikely, Jonathan had carved out an agreement with Feyn that would give him power without further bloodshed. And then they would mourn the cost of that already spilled-more than had been let in more than five centuries.

Feyn and Jonathan approached, looking neither to the right or the left. Only when they reached Saric’s hill did they stop.

Jonathan stared at Triphon’s dead body sagging before the ruin steps. Feyn slowly turned her head, looked up at Saric, and held his gaze evenly. The Maker of Dark Bloods finally gave her a short nod then nudged his horse forward. Down the hill, slowly.

Before Saric reached them, Feyn started her mount forward with Jonathan at her side, his eyes never leaving the temple ruins. Saric rode down from the hill and followed.

Only then did it occur to Rom that Saric and Feyn were now in possession of the boy, isolated by an army of Dark Bloods on either side. They were cut off from all Mortals sworn to Jonathan’s defense.

He pulled around, saw that Roland was locked in place, utterly still as others cast furtive glances between him and the procession to the temple. They were awaiting orders.

None came.

“Jonathan!” Rom’s voiced echoed through the valley. “My Sovereign!”

Jonathan neither turned nor raised his hand, even in acknowledgment. Instead, he rode slowly at Feyn’s side, seemingly intent on only one thing: the ruins ahead of him.

Another peal of thunder rumbled across the sky. The wind picked up.

Terror sliced through Rom’s mind.