Thirty-three
There is no time to wonder about Uther, no time to mourn the unfathomable loss of so many all at once. With the palace brought down, the ice giants bellow guttural cries of victory that pierce my eardrums and chill my heart.
Then they begin to climb down into the city.
“Form ranks!” Penn yells. “Jac, Cadogan, Mabon—gather your men! Take position at the shoreline!”
I cannot move. I cannot breathe. I can only watch as my friends fire orders at their units, swords at the ready as they prepare to face this new threat. Dyvedi foot soldiers form orderly lines along King’s Avenue, preparing for a second bombardment. Soren, shoulders tense, fixes his eyes on the fallen palace and the giants who brought it down.
There are ten of them, by my count, each as tall as a building and nearly as wide. They wade across the lake, waist-deep in the teal water, their sights fixed on us with lethal promise.
They will kill us all, I think, watching them come closer.Stomp our city flat beneath their feet. Devour us whole and use our bones as toothpicks when they are finished…
“Crossbows!” Mabon bellows from the left flank. “On my signal!”
A volley of bolts sails across the lake. Many find their marks, striking the giants in their arms, their legs, their fleshy abdomens.
Still, they keep coming.
“Archers, hold steady!” Jac commands from the right flank. A line of men with longbows draw back their bowstrings. “Fire!”
The arrows, too, hit home. But the giants pause for no longer than a breath—momentarily annoyed by the barrage of pointy sticks ricocheting off their skin, but not deterred. Their anemic faces are set in masks of rage as they continue to wade our way. The lake steams around them as they move through it, their flesh so cold it instantly turns the surrounding water to frozen pulp.
I understand now why they are called ice giants. It is not so much their hoarfrost skin, nor their inclination to make their homes in the coldest reaches of the world. It is the utter lack of warmth in their eyes. Their stares are cold as death, unfeeling as the snow of the Cimmerians. I have never felt so sure of my own impending death as I do in that moment, standing on the shoreline, watching them approach. The soldiers around me shuffle nervously. Someone is praying under his breath, a plea on the wind.
“…may ever the gods shield those who are faithful and true…”
The giants cross the midway point.
“Swords at the ready!” Cadogan is yelling at his contingent of soldiers. “Shields aloft!”
But I am no longer paying much attention to the soldiers. I am, instead, fixated on the sight of the two men standing side by side at the water’s edge. Both broad of shoulder, their stances a mirror of sheer fortitude. Through the bond, I feel a surge of power unlike any I have experienced before.
As one, their arms lift. In Penn’s hands, twin balls of flame; in Soren’s, two massive globes of water. Like a dance theychoreographed so long ago the steps are ingrained in the marrow of their bones, their maegic blasts out across the lake in a coordinated attack. Fire engulfs two of the ice giants, burning their frosted skin and catching their hair. They roar in pain and fury, clutching their melting faces and stumbling backward.
Soren brings two others down. Water invades their gaping mouths, just as it had the Reavers in the streets. They choke and gag, their mammoth hands grabbing uselessly at their throats as they slip beneath the surface. The water is quick to close over their heads, a current under Soren’s command.
Mabon’s and Jac’s voices ring out, calling for volley after volley of arrows and bolts. Penn’s immolating giants lose their battle. They, too, are swallowed by the lake.
Four down.
Six remaining.
They march on, water surging around their waists. Three-quarters of the way across now and gaining speed. If Soren and Penn can take them down, perhaps we are not done for after all. Perhaps we will not perish. Perhaps—
I feel the moment Penn’s maegic splutters to an end, his fire extinguishing. He has pushed himself beyond the pale this night, has given all of himself. Both muscle and maegic. His knees hit the sand, his shoulders concave as he gasps for breath, then collapses forward in a heap. Panic sluices through me as I see him fall. Through our bond, he is no more than a faint flicker. A brittle heartbeat, only half breathing.
I come unglued from my spot behind the contingent of swordsmen—the city’s last line of defense. Penn had told me, in a tone of granite, that under no circumstances was I to leave their ranks. I’d agreed, but that was before. Before I watched him burn out. Before I saw Soren grappling with the six remaining giants at once, his face a portrait of strain.
I run down the shore on winged feet, crossing the divide in three great strides. My heart is a battering ram, slamming against my rib cage as I sail to a halt between the two men. Soren, to my left, still battling; Penn, to my right, barely breathing.
In the distance, soldiers are shouting orders, sending volleys across the sky. Their voices are snatched away beneath the growing roar of wind that sweeps across the lake, churning still water into froth. Their arrows are yanked off course as the air through which they fly begins to whip round and round, a torrent gathering strength, growing faster and faster with each passing second. Sand kicks up around me, forming a funnel cloud. I allow my arms to extend at my sides, the golden sleeves of my dress flapping wildly as the sheer force of the tornado I have unleashed lifts me off my feet.
Soren’s eyes flicker to me—just once, just for a second. Long enough for me to see the surprise in their depths as he beholds me rising into the sky. Higher and higher. I am nearly at eye level with the ice giants now. They stare at me, not twenty paces away, their vacuous gazes struggling to comprehend what they are seeing. Their steps falter, a moment of uncertainty.
I close my eyes.
You are the storm, Rhya Fleetwood.