It was dark enough that the ships didn’t notice her. As she grew closer, where the fires on the slopes of Eranahl illuminated the water, the soldiers still on the decks shouted and pointed in her direction. Arrows whistled past, hitting the water and striking the boat, and Lara crouched low, keeping her eyes on the cliffs. Searching for gaps in the chaos of longboats and wreckage at the base.
“You’ll only get one chance at this,” she muttered, picking her spot. “And if you fail, you’re dead.”
Her blood raced through her veins, urged on by adrenaline and stimulant, pain and fear falling away as she dropped the ropes. As she bent her knees, the surf caught hold of her boat and flung it against the cliff walls.
At the last possible moment, she jumped, reaching for handholds even as her boat slammed against the cliff walls, wood shattering.
Pain ricocheted through her as she hit the cliff, her fingernails tearing as she scrabbled at the slick rocks. One hand slipped, and she screamed.
But the other held true.
She dangled for a heartbeat, but the water roared toward her once more, so she shoved her free hand into a crack and pulled.
Water sprayed her, tugging at her ankles. Lara ignored it and climbed. Up and up, her fingers slicing open on the sharp edges, leaving behind smears of blood in her wake.
She barely felt it.
Higher and higher, the noise of the surf replaced by the shouts of Maridrinian soldiers as they rallied at the top, waiting until they had enough numbers to push up the slope.
Then she heard a rumble.
At first Lara thought it was thunder, but then she felt the rock beneath her tremble and realized what the Ithicanians had done.
Panic racing through her, Lara scrambled sideways beneath a tiny overhang, then pressed herself against the wall even as screams filled the air.
Clenching her teeth, Lara shut her eyes as the soldiers above threw themselves off the cliffs into the water below.
It wasn’t enough to save them.
An avalanche of rock and debris exploded off the side of the cliff, raining down on the boats and soldiers in the water below. Crushing them or drowning them.
Bits of rock clipped her shoulders, slicing through fabric and flesh, but Lara hugged the cliff, arms and legs trembling with the effort of holding the position.
When the noise ceased, Lara relaxed long enough to look down. The surf was filled with blood and broken bodies, all mixed in among the shattered remains of longboats.
Climb.
But her strength was spent, her body shaking, her nails scraping along rock as she fought to keep her grip.
“Climb!” she shouted to herself.
Reaching up, Lara caught hold of a rock, only for it to come loose. A scream tore from her lips, and then she was falling.
59
Aren
They were out of arrows.
They fought hand to hand, both forces jabbing weapons through the metal bars in an attempt to drive each other back, and on both sides, bodies bobbed thick in the water. But where Aren was down to a dozen soldiers, the Maridrinians just kept coming.
The rising waves were not helping their cause, the surf making it nearly impossible to keep the boats close enough to the portcullis to fight. The Maridrinians slashed at their hands and arms when they tried to hold on to the bars.
Reaching through the portcullis, Aren stabbed a man in the face, but as the soldier slipped into the water, Aren saw what they had in their boat.
A chain, the links as thick as his wrist.
Just then a wave surged, flinging his vessel backward. The Maridrinian longboat slammed against the portcullis, spilling men into the water, but two kept their feet. And as Aren watched in horror, they looped the chain through the bars.
While his soldiers desperately tried to maneuver back to the portcullis, Aren saw the men passing the chain back through the boats packing the tunnel, the ends disappearing from sight.
His boat finally reached the bars, and Aren grabbed hold of the chain, pulling hard, though he knew it was hopeless.
The Maridrinian longboats retreated out of the tunnel, and a heartbeat later, the chain snapped taut.
60
Lara
She was falling.
Then her body jerked to a stop, a strong hand gripping her wrist.
Looking upward, Lara saw Ahnna’s face. The princess smirked. “We just can’t get rid of you, can we?”
With a violent heave, Ahnna pulled Lara upward, another Ithicanian helping to haul her over the edge, where Lara lay gasping for breath on her back before slowly climbing to her feet.
Ahnna stood with several Ithicanians, all of whom Lara recognized. They were bloody, shoulders bent with exhaustion. But their eyes still gleamed with defiance that said they had no intention of conceding this battle.
“Should we send someone to tell the king?” one of them asked.
“Aren’s here?” Lara blurted out.
Ahnna gave the slightest shake of her head at the soldier, then turned to Lara. “He left you behind for a reason, Lara. You aren’t wanted here. Tell me why I shouldn’t toss you into the water with the rest of your people.”
“I’m here to fight for Ithicana.” She was here to fight for herself.
Ahnna looked her up and down. “You can barely stand.”
Straightening her shoulders, Lara met the taller woman’s gaze. “Care to test that theory?”
Before Ahnna could answer, a loud screech of metal split the air.
“What the hell was that?” one of the Ithicanians demanded, but Ahnna only blanched, then took off at a run.
Lara sprinted after her, leaping over debris from the rockslide as they rounded the island. The sun was up now, but in the distance, a wall of storm was racing toward Eranahl, the black clouds dancing with bolts of lightning, the wind howling.
They reached the edge of the rockslide, finding themselves in the thick of the fighting, Ithicanians going hand to hand against Maridrinians and Amaridians, the slope littered with bodies.
Lara threw her knife into one soldier’s spine, then sliced her sword across the back of another’s knees, not stopping to finish him off as she raced after the princess. The stitches in her leg were giving and tearing, blood running in hot rivulets down her leg, but she ignored the pain.
Ahnna didn’t stop to fight, only cut down those who got in the way of her wild race around the volcano. And at the cliff’s edge, more and more of the enemy were climbing over, then diving into the fight.
“Ahnna! We need to push them back!”
But the woman ignored her, pressing onward, a flurry of fists and steel that left corpses in her wake. Then the princess skidded to a halt.
“No!” Ahnna shrieked, and Lara tracked her gaze, her stomach dropping as she caught sight of the ship with its sails full of storm winds, ropes stretched out behind it and disappearing into the harbor cavern.
They were pulling out the portcullis.
Another grinding screech pierced Lara’s ears, metal dragging along rock, twisting and warping under the strain. And the moment the Maridrinians got it free, the cavern would be flooded by the countless longboats filled with soldiers.
Ahnna abruptly threw herself into the fray, hacking and attacking anyone that stepped into her path. Lara kept on her heels, guarding the woman’s back as they pushed toward a large group of Ithicanians defending the cliffside over the entrance to the cave.