20

Ash

“Look out!” Kaylin shoves me against Rita’s neck as a shadow sweeps over our heads.

I try to hold on, gripping her mane with my bound hands, unable to shorten the reins and hold her back as she shies toward the rock wall. Marcus’s phantom is climbing up the cliff. By the Drop, De’ral is huge. I’d heard the rumors, but nothing could’ve prepared me for this.

Our eyes lock, sending chills right through me. He raises one arm high overhead then brings it down, smashing the captain flat to the ground, spotty horse and all.

My jaw drops and I can’t move.

“See,” my inner voice says.

“De’ral is one Barlargka of a phantom,” I whisper.

“Indeed.”

My attention snaps back to the present. Kaylin’s untying his binds with his teeth while De’ral stomps among our captors, ignoring the thrusts of spears and slices of blades, destroying the enemy right along with their horses. I can’t take my eyes away. It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever witnessed.

“Give me your hands.” Kaylin breaks my bonds as if they were string. The mare rears again as De’ral smashes the scouts in front of us. Kaylin and I slide off her back to the ground and Rita bolts. We run toward Piper, whose chestnut gelding whinnies, head high, whites of his eyes showing.

Piper kicks her foot out of the stirrup. “Knife in my boot.”

Kaylin retrieves it as she vaults out of the saddle. I take her horse’s reins, and with a quick slice, Kaylin cuts her bonds.

“Hold him and the donkey,” she says to me. To Kaylin, “Weapons?” He offers her the knife and an Aturnian blade from the ground. Piper nods and pushes into the fray, carving her way to Samsen and Belair, who are stranded in the thick of it.

“Mind the battle,” Kaylin says. “And don’t take your eyes off that monstrous phantom.” He lifts his chin toward De’ral, who is busy hammering scouts flat like a blacksmith works iron. “You didn’t mention.”

“I didn’t know!”

Blood arcs through the air like a macabre rainbow. Horses scream and the sounds of battle ricochet in my ears. De’ral bellows a war cry and punches a scout into the rock wall that holds the hillside back from the road. The blow cracks the stone, the scout’s skull smashing like a melon, blood spraying as the wall crumbles. I turn away from the bulging eye protruding from the scout’s face. Spears still rain into De’ral’s chest and forearms, sticking there like oversized toothpicks. They don’t slow him in the slightest, but what is this doing to Marcus, who must be on his knees below the cliff? Does he have phantom wounds? Will he bleed out? While my mind races with these thoughts, De’ral picks up the body with the smashed skull and winds up to throw it over the cliff.

“He’s dead already, De’ral,” I say to him in my mind. It’s not like I expect him to hear me, but he glances my way and drops the corpse.

Add that to the shocks of this day.

I give De’ral a faint smile. Maybe it was my look of horror that stopped him. Surely not my thoughts.

“Catch the horses!” Kaylin shouts amid the fray.

I rush back up the road, pulling Piper’s horse behind, but the donkey isn’t fast enough. “De’ral, no!” I think it fast, on the chance that knowing his name will allow him to hear my thoughts. But it’s too late.

The donkey squirms a moment under the warrior phantom’s unintended stomp then lies still. If it makes any sound, it’s lost in the rest of the madness. De’ral gives me a sheepish look. So…he can hear me? Plenty of time to ponder this more when there is less killing and screaming. “Be more careful, for rit’s sake!”

So many scouts are crushed, dead in the road, rivulets of blood streaming from them, aided and buoyed by the rain. Those left alive struggle to control their horses and retain Belair and Samsen. Thank the gods of the deep those left are all non-savant. Two try to bolt away, but Marcus’s warrior backhands them off their mounts and over the cliff to the valley below, where their shrieks are cut short by resounding thuds. The phantom plucks a spear from his arm and hurls it at another of our captors. It flies past his face and impales his horse’s neck, dropping it fast, but the rider rolls free.

“De’ral! Slow down. Take aim.” Where in all the bones is Marcus? His hands must still be tied.

Kaylin cuts down any scouts that cross his path as he guards Piper’s back. They reach Samsen first and free him, his phantom taking to the sky, talons extended, but his horse panics and runs. I turn back to catch him. We’re going to have to ride out of here, and fast.

I make my way to Frost, shivering as she presses into the bank, too well trained to bolt, but clearly terrified. “Easy girl.” I put my hand on her shoulder and reach for the reins. She relaxes the moment I touch her. I turn to search for Echo, whose reins are trapped, but Rita is close, so I lead Frost toward her first.

“Bring it in!” Samsen shouts over the cliff to Marcus. “We have this.” Samsen’s pale hair is wet with rain and blood. He dashes out of the way as De’ral sweeps a stray scout off his feet and hurls him into the distance. When another makes a run for the enemy camp, the huge phantom plunges his fist into the rock wall above the scout’s head. It collapses, burying the man alive, and half the road with him.

Belair points wildly. “One’s getting away.” He falls to his knees and up comes his sun leopard, rising through the middle of the road, rocks and gravel and bodies flying. It attacks a scout who is near dead, shaking an arm until it detaches from the socket. Then the big cat sees the one running toward camp and streaks after him.

“Marcus,” Piper calls over the cliff. “Call him in!”

He must hear her, because his phantom disappears into the earth, leaving a pile of broken spears behind him. De’ral looks at me again before his head vanishes, his grimace softening.

As I stare at the muddy mess in the road where Marcus’s phantom went to ground, a wounded scout climbs onto the nearest horse and gallops away. At the top of his lungs, he shouts, “Marcus Adicio! Marcus Adicio! The Heir of Baiseen is among us!”

“Stop him!” I shout at the savants. “He can’t reach the camp.”

Samsen’s eagle is high overhead. It folds its wings and dives, dropping the scout on impact, rising again with a red ball in his talons, streaming ribbons. I squint. Not ribbons, blood vessels. The phantom has ripped out his heart, but not before the enemy’s warning sounded through the valley. The rain turns into a downpour and for a moment, all we can do is stare at one another and pant, water streaming down our faces.

And pray to the old gods no one else heard.