Chapter 102

The battle was thick with blood and bile, the bilge of our enemies pressing in hot and heavy around us where we fought at the tip of the spear, the Starfall Legion still standing, still forging on despite our losses, my best trained warriors fighting on relentlessly. Our stamina was being tested to its limits, our comradery likely the only thing keeping us on our feet after so many hours battling on the front lines, yet still, we did not falter.

"I am as strong as the chain of my brothers and sisters in arms. If one of us holds, we all hold. As one we advance, as one we strike on!" I called, rallying my forces, their faces grim with determination, the flood of battle making it impossible for us to tell whether we were winning or losing in this dance of crowns. Yet I snuffed a something on the wind which had hope blossoming in my chest. I felt the mountains perking up and cracking bleary eyes to watch us.

"Today the world will change!" I bellowed. "Today the lives of the fallen will be worth their sacrifice. I offer my blood!"

"I offer my blood!" my warriors echoed.

"I offer my body!" I roared, spearing an enemy Nymph through the throat before lashing out with my flail and cracking the skull of a Fae preparing to cast at us.

"I offer my body!" a hundred voices replied.

"But first, I offer the blood of my enemies!" I screamed, cracking another skull just as Max shot a blast of ice through the chest of a Fae holding a fistful of fire. He fell dead, his flames igniting within the midst of his comrades, and the Starfall Legion surged to end them all in their panic.

"So let our enemies bleed!" my legion bellowed, and we advanced again, our boots crushing those we had conquered as we forged a path on, the Jade Castle now looming clearly ahead of us, our advance marked by the size of it dominating the view.

A cry of pain came from a warrior to my right and our ranks swept around her, shielding her within the safety of our bodies while another of my warriors ripped the ice dagger from her chest and healed her quickly.

Within moments, she had recovered, re-joining the line and wetting her sword with the blood of our adversaries.

"Share formation!" a yell came up from my right as our watcher spotted an incoming attack from above.

Our formation shifted, hands on shoulders, magic ripping from me the moment I felt our connection lock into place and a shield of crystal-clear ice formed over our heads.

The blast of Dragon fire almost cracked it, but I gritted my teeth and the shield held.

I narrowed my eyes at that cantankerous crout Mildred Canopus as she wheeled through the air in her mud-brown Dragon form and turned to strike at us again.

"Re-form!" I roared, my voice tearing its way out of my throat. "Rigel, take the shield."

"Why?" Maxy demanded, not doing as commanded.

"Helebor, take the shield," I pivoted, having no time for his namby pamby nonsense.

Marguerite stepped into my place at once, removing her hand from my shoulder and setting her jaw as she looked up at the sky, pouring the magic of the group into the shield to reinforce it with pure power.

I stepped forward, rolling my shoulders back as I tracked the movements of that wretched worm flapping through the heavens.

"Gerry," Max barked, grabbing my elbow and forcing me to snap my gaze to his.

"If I die this day, know that I loved you, you wandering whelk," I told him. "Know I loved you to the depths of my dilly garden and beyond."

"Gerry," Max snarled, his fingers digging into my armour, no doubt thinking he might hold me, but I was the wind and no fist could close on my fluttering soul.

I gave him a soft smile then hardened at once.

It was a mere flick of my thumb to release the catch on my bracer and I was already running away from the dear dogfish before he had realised he held nothing but a piece of armour in his fist.

The enemy Fae before me lunged, thinking me a fool rushing at them like I was, but then the ground exploded beneath them, columns of jagged rock punching through the earth at my beck and call, creating a stepping stone stairway which was designed for one purpose alone.

I raced up those stairs as fast as a narry on a nabberry morn, my Brendas luckily housed snugly within the pointed form of my newly-made chest plate, for they would likely have taken my eye out had they been free to bounce at such a pace.

Eight, nine, ten leaps up the fractured stairway of stone, then I launched myself from the last column, flying through the air with my spear held high and my flail rotating at speed.

Mildred bellowed like a cow overdue a milking as I landed on her bony rump, and I drove my spear straight into the meaty muscle of her buttock to stop myself from sliding right back off again.

The impact jarred me and my flail fell from my grasp as I slammed into her spiney hide, almost falling clean off of her again. I grasped the spear, my legs flying out behind me like a pair of useless dallyhoppers.

"Gerry!" Max bellowed, launching himself into the sky, but before he could get close to us, Mildred plunged into the storm clouds above and we were lost to a world of our own.

"Oh no you don't," I growled as she flipped over, belching fire and trying to dislodge me. But my spear had struck bone and was rooted well. I would not let go of it for all the grapes in the sea.

My red hair whipped across my face, my legs flipped and flopped, and lightning lashed through the sky like a warning.

For several long seconds it seemed that I would simply remain as such, tossed and thrashed like an over-wet side salad. But I was no mere lettuce leaf. I was a main course all of my own.

A little bundle of silver passed me by, the sayer dragon giving me a curious look as though it thought me quite the kipper dangling as such. My focus couldn't remain on the valiant servant of my dear queens, but as it collided with a Dragon the size of a bus, an explosion tore the air in two and lumps of bloody meat sprayed out across the battlefield.

"Fight on, you dandy dallyhopper!" I called in salute to the sayer dragon before focusing once more on my own task.

I threw out a hand, my grasp on the spear becoming ever more precarious as I cast a bubble of water around Mildred's short-snouted head, blinding her, drowning her and causing her to level out beneath me.

She thrashed, shaking her head and I heaved myself up her spiney body, clinging to the lumps of leathery flesh which marked her entire back and climbing them like a squashy ladder.

I made it higher up her back and dug my knees into her sides as I sat myself up, a savage grin upon my lips.

"I made a vow to end you for the death of my beloved friend, Angelica," I told her. "And I am yet to ever break my word."

With a twist of my wrists, the water surrounding Mildred's head turned to ice, her body thrashing with panic beneath me as it dug into her skull, crushing her foul head and all the foul thoughts housed within it, piece by piece.

She dropped out of the sky, her entire body jerking with panic, and I tipped my head back to release a trio of howls from my lips as I rode her to her demise.

The ground rushed up to meet us and I got to my feet, closing my fist as we hurtled towards the ranks of Lionel's rancid forces and they screamed as they saw us coming.

Mildred jerked one final time before my ice drove its way through her skull and stole her life away with a brutal crunch.

I leapt into the air with my arms stretched wide mere moments before she collided with the ground at such force that she created a crater beneath her, crushing many enemy Fae as she went.

Max caught me before I could follow her into her grave, and I chuckled as I turned in his arms then patted him fondly on the cheek.

"That'll do, starfish," I told him.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to-"

I pressed my fingers to his lips and shushed him. "Be a dear and don't dither about the danberry bush. We have a legion to return to and I don't want to have to reprimand you for abandoning your post once this is won."

Max shook his head and grumbled complaints as he launched us back across the battlefield with his air magic, and as I looked down upon that ruinous plain, my heart leapt.

"Oh sweet songbirds," I breathed as I spied the Oscura Wolves destroying all who stood in their path, the Starfall Legion pressing further into the enemy lines and the rushing army of the dead cutting through foes led by my dear Queen Tory. "I do believe all hope is not yet lost."

But even as that hope swam like a swan upon my swales, my gaze fell on the dark and terrible storm of the shadows brewing upon the western flank. Lavinia was a wretch of sin and her harvest of pure souls was not even close to done, her banquet of death inviting all to its table, and from the look of her roiling, hungry power, this war was not even close to won.