Page 220 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
I glanced in the direction of the explosion, but there was no gray smoke. No fire or the scent of sulfur and charcoal that came with the powder they used in the mines.
Instead, fog covered the ground, like a storm cloud that had fallen from the sky to perfectly cover Elk’s and Wolf’s armies.
And with the storm, came lightning…bright, blinding, violet lightning. Lightning that, inexplicably, reminded me of my fiery, feral lemmikki.
I considered the impossibility of that, the improbability of this pseudo-miracle that had just fallen right into our laps. But I wasn’t willing to let it go to waste. There wasn’t time to question the hows or whys, there was only time to act.
The soldiers I’d been fighting only a few moments ago were turned around, confusion sweeping through their ranks as arrows rained down from above, coming from the opposite direction of my troops.
Adrenaline coursed through me, the fog weighing down my thoughts suddenly lifted by the unexpected turn of events.
Whoever was attacking them was on our side—or at the very least, was not on Iiro’s.
I immediately lunged forward, not willing to waste a single second of the winds that had shifted in our favor. After calling out a few quick commands, my men leapt into action as well, suddenly fighting with a renewed energy to push the line back.
Again and again, I brought my sabers down through my enemies, using every tool in my arsenal.
Bedlam erupted, Wolf and Elk soldiers tripping over the bodies of their comrades in an effort to regroup.
Commanders bellowed orders, their voices barely audible over the sound of clashing steel and the howls of the wounded.
Hours passed until the night sky was a hazy shade of silver. The sun began cresting over the mountains, chasing away the mists and revealing the graveyard of soldiers all around us.
It bolstered my men to keep fighting. To keep pushing back against our enemy, to destroy them.
When the rhythmic sound of a war horn bellowed out two long notes—the call for retreat—relief swelled in my chest.
Somehow, we hadn’t just survived the night, but we had won it.
Not just somehow, but with the help of a new wave of soldiers.
Men stormed the field, coming from the forest. They didn’t wave a banner or have the telltale colors of their clan on their armor. Instead, most of them wore tattered clothes and no helmets.
And right in the center of their foreheads was the telltale B forBesklanovvy.
Surely my eyes were playing tricks on me. Ava had hired them as mercenaries, used them for her own ends to try to kill my wife, but that didn’t explain why they were here now, fighting for Bear.
I blocked an oncoming sword, kicking the remaining soldier backwards and onto Henrick’s waiting sword.
When there was a break in the fighting, I sheathed my sabers and removed my helmet to run a hand over my face. I scanned the field again, taking in the sheer number of Unclanned who had come to our aid. But why?
Why would they help a clan that had turned its back on them so completely?
And then I sawher.
The dawning sun lit the courtyard in an ethereal glow, adding to the unreal feel of the figure striding across the battlefield in pitch-black armor, a saber in each of her hands.
And I knew it was Rowan, even with half of her face covered. Those soft lips, that pointed chin, and the verdant flames that danced in her bright eyes.
Hell, hadn’t I suspected it, felt her presence in my soul, impossible as it was, from the moment the lightning pierced the sky?
A flash of crimson whipped out behind her figure as she stormed her way across the battlefield. She didn’t stop to register the blood-soaked ground or the bodies littered at her feet; instead, she marched forward, and I saw that long hair I’d glimpsed was braided back and whipping out around her like a scarlet bolt of the lightning she had summoned.
I would know her anywhere.
My wife.
My feral little lemmikki.