Synne looked at Mawyndul?, and in that instant, she spoke a thousand words with her eyes. All of it came down to one simple idea. Don’t miss.
The surge filled him again. Mawyndul? felt buoyed, rich with strength. He was the Parthaloren Falls. He was a torrent, a great river running in free fall. He was power. On his second try, he tightened his wind weave, made it cleaner, less ugly, and brought the downdraft hard.
The dragon slammed onto the field once more, unfortunately on a section where the fighting was thick. The impact killed a score of Fhrey and Rhunes, but again the beast was unfazed. The moment it hit, however, the grass came alive. Deep, long roots and a million stalks grabbed hold of wings, feet, and tail, looping, swirling, wrapping.
“You’ve trapped the thing!” the fane cheered. “Synne! You’re a genius.”
“It won’t hold,” Onya said. “Spiders, join in!”
“It’s only grass,” Synne explained, sweat beading on her forehead. “The creature will break free. Open the ground!”
A moment later the plain of rock and soil split apart and the beast fell. Onya clapped her hands and the ground closed, swallowing the beast.
“She’s buried it!” Mawyndul? said.
That won’t stop it, Jerydd said in his head. You need to get out of there.
Down the slope, Mawyndul? saw far fewer Fhrey soldiers defending them than there had been only minutes before.
“My fane,” Taraneh spoke loudly, and gestured to a pair of horses being brought over. “You must go.”
Lothian looked down the slope at his dying Shahdi, then at the scar left where the dragon had been buried. Then they all felt the tremor under the ground. Something big was digging beneath them.
Taraneh turned to his aide. “Inform the Lion Corps. We are leaving—we are leaving now!”
“You go too, Synne,” Onya said. “Protect the fane.”
“We can’t afford to lose this battle,” the fane said softly, already defeated.
“This is but one encounter, my fane,” Taraneh said. “It’d be better to fight another day. As long as we have you, the campaign continues.”
Mawyndul? saw the resignation in Lothian’s eyes. His father had lost so much in that battle. Not just the lives of so many Fhrey, but his belief that the Fhrey were invincible. Mawyndul? feared he would see that look over and over in nightmares and on the faces of many others.
His father, his fane, was not invincible.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Saying Goodbye
The Battle of Grandford was not only the turning point of the war; it was a watershed for all of mankind. Those three days were our first steps out of darkness and into the light of a new dawn. Beauty and grandeur, the arts and sciences, and peace and civility all grew from seeds watered by the blood spilled on that terrible soil. Alon Rhist remains but a ruin, a bluish stone rising out of a forgotten hill, but it was the beginning of everything else.
—THE BOOK OF BRIN
Victory.
The word was spoken frequently after the Battle of Grandford, but never with the sort of enthusiasm or joy expected with such a term. For Persephone, it was a hollow word, made empty by the many holes cut through her heart. One hole for every life lost, the largest punched out by the death of the man in the grave at her feet.
According to the most recent count, two thousand eight hundred and thirty-three people had died over the course of those three days. The death toll was expected to rise the deeper they dug. One thousand eight hundred and six were human, including Meryl, whom Persephone learned was a slave working in the Kype. The man had taken it upon himself to murder the leaders of what he deemed the enemy. Meryl had avoided capture by hiding in the labyrinth beneath the Verenthenon, only to be killed by the very Fhrey he had sought to aid when they collapsed the great dome.
Two thirds of the defending force of Alon Rhist had perished. Persephone knew the number because she had Brin keep an exact count as the bodies were recovered. In all her dreams, Brin likely never anticipated this would be part of her responsibilities.
By every account, the attacking Fhrey had suffered such a comparatively similar number of casualties that the battle could have been considered a draw. Expectations made all the difference. No one had thought they had a chance. So, by the fact she was still breathing, the world judged Persephone the victor.
Breathing was about all Persephone was doing. Standing between the two graves, she was having a hard time even with that.
Her wounds were still debilitating, so her stomach was wrapped tight, and she’d been carried down from the Kype. Here, she insisted on standing. They had come to say farewell to Raithe and Arion, and one did not sit in the presence of heroes.
Each breath she took hurt. And the pain from her wounds didn’t help matters.
She was disappointed by the smaller-than-expected crowd.