to the smoldering wreckage of Fhenahr. “This city was brought down from outside its walls, by a force that could reach inside and cause chaos without risk to itself. This was no simple siege with fired arrows and stones hurled over the walls. The Grol killed them from a distance and likely only engaged on foot for the sport of it. Would we fare any better as fire and fury rained down on us while we awaited a force of men to cross our lines that would never come.”
Wulvren sat back in his saddle, his eyes narrowed, his fangs bared, but he said nothing.
“We know not what we face, so I would rather take the fight to the Grol, on our terms, than wait for them to come for us at a time of their choosing. Do you not agree?”
The general snarled. “I do, but the taste of it sickens me. To think the Grol present a threat to us is foul meal to swallow.”
Feragh smiled. “It is the same for me, but I would rather credit the beasts as worthy adversaries and live to skewer them upon my sword than to die upon their fangs because I was too much of a fool to feel threatened.” Feragh spurred his horse and waved his general on. “Let us be on their trail. I would know what we face, once and for all.”
Feragh turned his mount into the trail of ruined earth left in the wake of the Grol army and charged ahead. He heard Wulvren call out orders behind him. The sudden sounds of a thousand horses trampling forward sent a shiver of excitement down his spine.
Though he knew not what fate lay before them, the thrill of battle filled his loins with a lust for blood. Were this to be his final conflict, sent to earth by the unknown power the Grol had come into, he would go to it with glory and honor at the head of his legion.
Were he to fall, his body would find the comfort of dead flesh beneath him for he vowed his path would be littered with the corpses of his enemies.
Chapter Eighteen
The weather-beaten shore that loomed before her like a growing wall of brown and smattered green was the greatest sight Braelyn had ever seen. Though she longed to rejoice, she buried her hope deep inside for she knew death still clutched tight to her cloak.
Lashed to a chunk of wreckage from her sunken ship to keep her from being tossed into the boiling water that whipped around her, Braelyn fought to get to her knees as land approached. Carried as she was on a giant wave of frothing violence, she managed to get her feet beneath her. The lash held her tight and lent her a measure of balance as she drew one of her blades from the sheath at her hip. A sudden chill filled the air as the short sword shimmered in her hand, wisps of steam roiling up as droplets of water met the ice-blue steel of the blade.
She set the tip of her sword near the restraining lash and waited with her heart in her throat as her makeshift raft hurtled toward shore. She waited as the wave she rode began to plummet downward, and then waited an instant longer before slicing the leather restraint that bound her other wrist. Her loose arm held out for balance, she sheathed her blade and made ready.
Momentum beneath her, she hunched and focused the whole of her remaining strength into her legs. Before the wreckage rolled too far and sent her tumbling, she jumped free, diving forward over the fast approaching ground.
The furious water lapped at her as she flew ahead of it, laying her arms close to her side to further her distance. The wave crashed behind her with a deafening roar, the wreckage of her ship driven into the shore by the power of the water. The sharp crack of its destruction was but a murmur in the echoes of the wave as she soared above.
After what seemed a lifetime in the air, Braelyn felt the reins of the earth take hold once more, tugging her toward the ground as it had the water. Her breath like stones within her lungs, she ducked her head at the last moment and curled small, crashing into the sandy beach.
The soft sand was made rigid by her momentum, the impact knocking the sense from her skull. Tucked for a roll, she did just that, though under no direction of her own. Her body flipped and flew through the air, bouncing off the sand, over and over, each jarring blow like a stone cast from a catapult.
Her vision whitened in a blur of agony, she tumbled to a stop in an aching heap. The cloth she had worn over her face had been ripped away and sand filled her mouth and throat. She gagged and spit to clear it away, the gritty bite of it grinding between her teeth. She struggled to rise and every muscle came alive in a searing fury.
Heated splashes struck her exposed cheek as the ocean continued to storm. She bit back a scream and turned her face away, scrambling up the beach. The painful throb of her body was forgotten for a moment as she fled the searing touch of the water. Once she was certain she’d gone far enough to escape its wrath, she took a few minutes to catch her breath.
Everything hurt.
Trembling beneath the thick layers of her cloak and clothes, Braelyn watched as the ocean she’d rode in on tore apart the beach. Deep hisses filled her ears as though she were surrounded by serpents, billows of steam shrouding the shore behind a hazy gray wall.
The sun just creeping above the horizon at her back, Braelyn spent a moment getting to her feet, adding her own hisses to those of the sizzling ocean as she turned to survey her surroundings. Her weary eyes shielded from the bright morning light, her optimism at having made it to dry land alive withered to dust.
Nothing but sand sprawled out before her.
As far as she could see, there was nothing but the golden hills that blurred into the distance. No other color broke the hold of the yellow desert that reigned supreme before her eyes. The few instances of green that sprouted near the water’s edge were little more than an illusion of life, which was quickly being washed away by the fury of the ocean.
She could feel the heat of the morning coming even though her soaked clothing. Before too long, she would bake beneath their sweltering weight. Unprepared for a desert journey, having been caught at sea on a trip north, she had little confidence in her luck continuing to play in her favor.
While those she served with had met their end in the churning depths, their drowning voices punctuated with terror, and she alone having made it to shore, there was little doubt in her mind that she had simply delayed the inevitable.
The defeatist thought angered her. She was no victim.
Her breath still in her lungs, steel snug at her hip, Braelyn growled her fury at the desert sand and lumbered forward. If death were coming for her, she would meet it halfway.
She hoped it would walk fast.
The muscles in her legs thrummed like bow strings as each step was its own little agony. She had clutched to her makeshift raft through the night, battling to keep it upright against the rage of the ocean. It had been a difficult fight she had nearly lost, many times over, and every part of her body hurt. Sharp pangs stabbed at her knees and hips. Her back felt as though it were buttressed with strips of cold steel, the muscles rigid beyond anything she had felt before.
She gritted her teeth against her numerous pains and strode forward, mindful to pull the waterlogged hood of her cloak over her head. The short crop of her hair stung as the material ran rough across it, and she laughed at the additional misery. The gods had no pity.
The soft sand shifted beneath her tired heels and added yet another complaint to Braelyn’s tongue. Forced to lift her feet higher to clear the earth that grasped at her ankles, she cursed aloud.
She clung as close to the shore as she dare, both for the nearness of water, as she had lost all of her supplies aboard her ship, and in the hope it might lead her to a sheltered grotto of some sort that might provide her with some form of food and protection from the sun.
The heat of the desert too much for her northern blood, Braelyn knew it would wear on her. So thinking, she drew her sword from its scabbard and sighed as a waft of cold air drifted from its steel. The blade shimmered in the morning light. Its tint reacted to the heat and seemed to glow a deeper shade of blue as though in challenge to the bright beat of the sun.
She let the blade hang loose from her hand, tip down as she traipsed across the golden sand. The ocean
