NIGHT HAD FALLEN while we were inside. The sky was black as pitch, and a vicious wind had kicked up, sending a maelstrom of embers from the campfires swirling all over the place. One landed on my cloak, singeing it, but that was the least of my worries. Every warrior in camp was rushing toward the bank of the Darn, carrying monstrous sledgehammers and wicked axes in their hands.
“We should keep out of the way,” I repeated for the fifteen millionth time. Carrion hadn’t heeded me the first time I said it, and he wasn’t listening now either.
“I’m not hiding in a tent when it sounds like we’re all in grave danger,” he said.
“Have you forgotten how many times Ren put you down this morning?
We are way out of our league here.”
A look of resolve had settled over Carrion, though. “I might not be able to match these fuckers in a fight, but I can sure as hell break some ice. And anyway, it turns out my ex can make shrapnel out of swords, so I reckon we’re gonna be just fine.”
“I am not your ex. And I did not know I could do that! I don’t think I can do it again!”
“Let’s hope we don’t need to find out.” Carrion took off at breakneck speed. For a second, I considered heading back inside the war room, but he was right. I couldn’t just hide in there while the world sounded like it was ending out here. It took twenty seconds for me to catch up to him. Another minute for us to find our way down to the riverbank.
We both stood there, stunned to silence, taking in the chaos.
Huge warriors, twice as tall and twice as wide as Fisher, stood at the edge of the river. In time to the pounding of a drum that rang out further downriver, they heaved giant sledgehammers over their heads and brought them down with terrifying force onto the thick ice.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The frosted ice fractured and splintered, making metallic, rippling sounds, but the surface held. On the other side of the bank, a seething dark mass had gathered and was roaring.
“What…is that?” Carrion whispered.
A fighter hurried past us, breathing erratically. Not Fae. It was Holgoth, the earth sprite who had greeted us when we arrived at camp. “That…” he panted. “Is the better part of the Sanasrothian horde. Fifty thousand strong. We had…no warning. If they make the crossing, they’ll…overrun us!”
“What do you mean, horde?” Carrion bellowed after him as he ran down toward the river.
Holgoth yelled one word in answer. “Vampires!” Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sledgehammers rained down on the ice.
I scanned the dark, looking for any sign of Fisher, but he was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Ren. Everywhere, unfamiliar faces, tight with nerves, ran to lay their hammers against the ice. A spark of blue temporarily lit up the scene, illuminating the other side of the bank, and what I saw there turned my legs to lead.
There were thousands.
Writhing. Seething. Snarling. Snapping.
Fifty thousand blood-thirsty feeders, baying at the riverbank. Even as the source of the blue light appeared—a white-hot orb that arced into the air and fell to the middle of the river—the first of the vampires were halfway across the ice. The orb exploded, shattering a small hole in the surface when it made contact. Water erupted fifty feet into the air, but the vampires didn’t seem to notice. In droves, they began their approach.
“Fuck me,” Carrion muttered. “Fucking fuck me.” I couldn’t voice my agreement. But I felt it.
Another blue-white orb jettisoned into the air, throwing wild shadows over the approaching mass and the warriors on our side of the bank. Another, and another, and another went up into the air. Loud cracking sounds tore the night apart as they exploded, creating larger holes in the ice. Now that this section of the river was unstable, the hammers slamming down onto the surface at the river’s edge were more effective. Little by little, the ice began to spiderweb and crack.
“Will it work?” Carrion whispered.
“I don’t know. Come on. We need to help.”
A ridiculous thing to say. Just one of those massive fighters with the hammers could have taken down half of the buildings in the Third by themselves, and yet the ice was so thick that they were making slow progress. We were so weak in comparison. So human. But still, we both took up the heavy hammers we found waiting on the bank and brought them down onto the Darn with all our might.
Jets of fire tore across the river once the first wave of vampires were in range. They went up like tinder, but the flames didn’t stop them. Closer, they came. Closer still.
My arms screamed, my back a knot of agony, but I pounded the ice, the skin of my palms ripping as I swung the hammer down.
The ice shuddered and let out an unholy moan, and suddenly the whole thing shattered.
As soon as it happened, a carpet of black smoke rolled across the river, sweeping in fast. The vampires who had staggered out onto the ice plunged into the freezing water, and without hesitation, the smoke seemed to solidify and shove them beneath the surface. It grappled with them, pushing them down, wrapping around them, and dragging them to their watery graves.
“What’s happening?” Carrion scanned up and down the bank, wild- eyed.
“Fisher,” I answered grimly. “This is all Fisher.”
The vampires stopped coming. The huge Ice Breaker Fae still pounded and smashed at the ice both to the left and the right, but the rabid horde on the Sanasrothian side of the river didn’t bother to come again. They snarled and moaned but maintained their position.
“Good evening, Kingfisher!” a voice called out from the dark. “I’m so glad you decided to come out and play! Won’t you say hello?”
A fighter who had joined us along the same stretch of bank, a female with bright red hair, paled at the sound of that voice. So did a number of other warriors. “Is that Malcolm?” She spoke as if she couldn’t believe her own ears. “It can’t be…”
“It’s him all right,” a male with a jagged scar along his jaw said, glowering into the darkness. “He’s come out of his fortress to taunt the commander.”
“But…”
“Come on, Kingfisher! Won’t you show yourself? I will, if that’s what you’re waiting for!” The throng of monsters on the other bank parted, and there he was. A tall, slender, unassuming-looking male dressed in black. His hair was straight as an arrow and white as snow, hanging down past his shoulders. His features were fine. Handsome, almost. Blood-red eyes scoured our side of the bank, as if he had no trouble seeing through the swathes of black smoke that still rolled across the surface of the river. “Come on, Kingfisher,” the devil called in a sing-song voice. “I know you’re over there. It’s only been a couple of weeks since we last spoke, but what can I say? I miss you.”
A rumble went up amongst the Fae at this. Malcolm missed Fisher? It had only been a couple of weeks since they’d spoken? The implication was clear. This Malcolm, king of the vampires, wanted everyone amongst the Fae to know that their precious leader, returned to them at long last, was in league with him in some way. Guerilla warfare at its finest. The easiest way to win any war was to create dissent amongst your enemy’s ranks so that they wasted their time and energy fighting each other instead of you. It was a smart move but an obvious one. Still, from the looks on the faces of the warriors surrounding us, Fisher was going to have some explaining to do.
“Fine! Have it your way, darling!” Malcolm called. A cruel smile spread across his face, exposing a row of sharp teeth. “Hide behind your little friends. I’ll be seeing you very soon!”
