The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(11)
Her voice rose. “You’ve seen what they’re capable of doing! We lost everyone because of them. It doesn’t matter if you go to the war front or if you stay here. No one can stop the ogres. Their skin is hard as a rock and immune to our fire, to our catapults—they’re three times our size, and no weapon we use against them does anything more than slow them down.” She glared at him. “You might die.”
He had no answer for that, so he simply held her and wished he could turn back time to a week ago before he’d pulled his epic prank on Master Eiler, before his parents had taken Rag on a tour of the war front, before everything became so complicated. So impossible.
“What are we going to do?” Brig’s voice was little more than a whisper.
Kol stepped back and lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. “You are going to stay here and manage the castle for me with Master Eiler and the royal council. I’m going to assess the ogre situation and come up with a solution. And together, we’re going to show our people how to face pain and fear with honor and strength.”
“You sound like father,” Brig said, a shaky smile flitting across her face.
Kol had to swallow hard against the sudden tightness in his throat. “Who would’ve guessed I’d ever be capable of that?”
It took nearly a full day for Kol, Trugg, Jyn, and two members of the royal council to reach the war front by flying in their dragon forms. The craggy mountains and lush forests that surrounded Tryllenvreng, the capital of Eldr, slowly gave way to rivers that cut through the rocky hillside like ribbons. Eldrians fleeing the southern half of the kingdom for the safety of the refugee shelters in Tryllenvreng camped along the riverbank in clumps. Kol’s human heart ached for them as he flew past. He understood now what it meant to have those you loved ripped away from you.
The land began to bear battle scars as Kol and his friends closed in on the war front. The evidence of a recent fight could be seen in shattered boulders, in trees ripped up at the roots, and in an entire hillside caved in as if an enormous creature had ripped the land to pieces.
Tearing his gaze away from the wreckage, Kol signaled the others to follow him to the highest hilltop in the area. Night was falling, and soon they’d be able to fly over the armies and assess the situation undetected.
Kol alighted on the hilltop, shook out his wings, and folded them back as the others came to rest around him, their talons digging into the rocky soil. Below him, the Eldrian army was positioned with the strongest flyers in the center, archer and catapult support just behind them, and secondary flyers hidden from the approaching army on both the left and right flanks. The third wave of flyers were hidden behind the archer and catapult support to provide either another wave of attack or defensive cover for the forward soldiers in the event of a retreat.
Kol had a feeling all the army had been doing was retreating, giving up Eldr in bits and pieces.
As he studied the army’s position, there was a cry of warning, and then a pack of ogres swarmed over the rocky hills to the south. The ogres were immense thick-chested brutes—wide as four large oak trees side by side and double the height of the average Draconi—with no necks, round black eyes, and tough gray skin that matched the rocks they were scaling with incredible speed.
Immediately, the first wave of flyers rose into the air, and the catapults began pelting the incoming ogres with boulders coated in pitch and flame. A few of the ogres went down, crushed beneath the weight of the boulders, but for every creature who fell, another three took its place.
The ogres formed a V and stopped as if waiting for the arrival of the Eldrians. From his vantage point on the hilltop, Kol saw something in the middle of the V begin to glow like a brilliant blue sapphire. He squinted against the glare of the dying sun, and a pit of ice formed in his stomach.
What kind of weapon glowed like that? The ogres in Kol’s history books—the ones who’d roamed Eldr and the southern kingdom of Vallé de Lumé in vicious packs centuries ago before a witch sealed them away in a prison deep beneath the southern mountains—had always used brute strength and violence to crush their opponents. Not weapons that glowed. Not formations that spoke of organization and strategy.
He wanted to scream at the flyers to get back, but it was already too late.
The flyers dove at the assembled ogres, fire spewing from their mouths—a cover for the poison-tipped arrows the archers sent just beneath the Draconi. A few of the arrows struck ogres in the eyes, but the rest glanced off the beasts’ rock-hard skin and fell harmlessly to the ground.
The flyers banked a perfect turn, preparing for a second assault, when the ogres on the outside of the V dropped to the ground, revealing the creature who stood in the center. It may have once been an ogre but was now it was something far worse. Its round black eyes were lit with sapphire flames from within. Its massive bulk was covered with so much knotted muscle, it resembled an enormous gray rock bound by gnarled tree roots. And in its hands was a ball of crackling blue light the size of a small horse.
What kind of monstrosity was this?
Kol’s hearts thundered in his chest, and his stomach plummeted as he dug his talons into the unforgiving ground and forced himself to stay hidden. To stay safe because Eldr needed her king, even though her king had no idea how to save her.
The creature stretched to its full height, casting a long shadow over the ogres crouched below it. Kol lashed the ground with his tail, scattered bits of rock and dirt. His army was already struggling to contain the ogre onslaught. How were they supposed to fight a monster like this? How was he supposed to fight it? The kingship he’d accepted at last night’s coronation ceremony felt too heavy to bear as his flyers banked, preparing to sweep the ogre lines again.