CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

CORALEN

Coralen rode beneath high-branched trees up the slope of a gentle hill, threading through the fringes of Forn; Corban and the others were behind her, Storm a shadow ahead of her. The noise of fighting swirled up to them from the battlefield. Riding away from it was one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do, and she knew she was not the only one feeling its pull. At the crest of the hill her horse’s hooves cracked on ancient flagstones, remnants of the giants’ road that Jael of Isiltir had discovered and rebuilt.

Coralen reined in and waited for the others to catch up with her. Corban and Gar, Farrell, Laith, Dath, Kulla, Cywen and Brina. They joined her on the road and for a moment they all hesitated, looking back onto Drassil and the battlefield.

To the south Nathair’s and Veradis’ shield walls were locked together, like two competing bulls, and they seemed to form the core about which other warbands swirled and fought, Coralen glimpsing giants, a draig, red-cloaks and white. Closer still were a host of mounted warriors arrayed along the treeline of Forn, thousands strong, a blonde-haired figure riding along its line, shaking her sword in the air.

Edana. Not the princess I remember, struggling to be heard in Eremon’s court.

Coralen’s breath caught in her chest as her eyes found Halion, and beside him, Conall. Her brothers.

Halion was right, then. Conall has joined them.

She grinned.

Edana’s combined warband was facing another host of horsemen, drawn up before the walls of Drassil, a sea of black and gold. From Coralen’s vantage point she could see that, even with Conall’s warband swelling Edana’s ranks, they were still outnumbered by the enemy massing before them.

Yet it was the host in grey that charged first.

It reached them as a distant rumble; the warband moved forwards slowly, gaining speed and bursting into a gallop, a huge roar of battle-cries ringing out over the plain, and then Rhin’s warband of black and gold was moving too, slower to the gallop, but gaining momentum eventually, and their line was wider and thicker.

The two charging warbands came together, a percussive thunder-clap of sound booming outwards, rippling up to them on the slope as six or seven thousand men and mounts slammed into each other. The flanks of the larger host curled around the edges of Edana’s warband.

They sat on their mounts a long moment, on the brink of riding back down, watching the battle unfold. Watching friends and comrades fighting for the future of the Banished Lands, fighting for their lives, and maybe dying, right before their eyes.

“We can’t help them,” Brina snapped. “If we stay, all will die. We have to go. Now.”

“Let’s go,” Corban snarled. “Let’s end this.”

And he yanked on his reins, kicked his horse on, and then they were all riding hard down the giants’ road, into Forn and away from the battlefield.