A volley of arrows whistled from the ramparts into the writhing swarm, and the shrieking of the Volgar swelled to screams. One birdman partially broke through, then another, until two dozen of the Volgar dangled above the bailey, wings and talons caught in the vines, beaks snapping.
“Spears!” Kjell cried, and the members of his guard rose and threw their lances at the dangling horde. A few lances fell, but many more found their mark. The weight on the vines increased as the swarm doubled, then tripled, the living scratching and scrabbling through the dead, the scent of human flesh and pounding blood drawing the Volgar further into the swinging snare. Sticks and arrows bristled like quills from the bulging net and green blood began to drip from the vines and trickle into the upraised faces of the villagers, but the people held steady and followed Kjell’s commands.
Then the vines began to snap and the birds began to fall like flies to the bailey below.
“Group!” Kjell roared as the birdmen broke free, and the people circled and stabbed, circled and stabbed, their spears out and their backs together, a dance of death and survival accompanied by Volgar shrieks. The living birdmen were skewered, and the tumbling dead were shoved aside as lances and spears were pulled free, only to be used again. Confidence soared among the three hundred makeshift warriors as the vines continued to tangle and trap, and the birdmen continued to plummet. Kjell didn’t count the numbers, he didn’t celebrate, and he didn’t rejoice, but in the black of his belly and the back of his mind, he began to believe that Caarn would indeed live to see another day.
“Swarm!” Tiras bellowed, his eyes trained above them. Through the jagged holes in the vines, the sky grew dark with a hundred wings. Kjell’s blood surged and his hopes plummeted as the Volgar began to dive. The netting would not hold another swarm so large.
Boom roared, the thunder from his chest creating ripples in the air, knocking the villagers from their feet and sending the birdmen cartwheeling through the sky as effectively as Lark’s words had done in the fields of Kilmorda. As the villagers rose to their feet, the wind began to howl, and the screams of the birdmen were swept up in the gale. Lightning dashed and thunder clapped, and the winds were infused with rain.
The Gifted had come through.
Kjell screamed for the men and women to rise and hold their positions, spears raised, eyes lifted. The broken vines billowed and blew and the rain became a billowing mist, but the Volgar swarm did not return.
For a moment joyful tears mixed with the blood-tinged rain.
“Repair the vines, bury the Volgar—burn them if it’s not too wet—and ready yourselves for another attack,” Kjell demanded.
The people gasped, deflated and disbelieving, but instantly obeyed, retrieving arrows, gathering weapons, and piling the Volgar dead. Only one man was lost—an archer who fell from the ramparts. His body had been carried away by birdmen. Another man had a long slice down his forearm, and a badly-thrown lance had skewered a woman’s thigh. Both the wounded were Spinners of Caarn, healed once before, and Kjell managed to partially close the cut on the man’s arm, but couldn’t heal the deep wound on the woman’s leg. Kjell turned her over to a midwife who applied a poultice and assured her she would heal, albeit slowly.
They spent the night in restless waiting, falling asleep in snatches only to wake, gasping and flailing at winged beasts that hadn’t yet returned. The vines above them created a curtain against the sky, obscuring the stars, giving them a sense of both security and confinement, thickening the air with dread and desperate hope.
The courtyard stunk of loose bowels and singed hair, like fear-soaked skin and tightly-packed bodies. Tess’s rain had dampened the air and deterred the beasts, but the lingering wet made the night long and the tempers short, and when dawn poked prodding fingers at the nervous Caarns, most were ready for the battle to commence, if only to escape their discomfort.
As the sun rose with no sign of the Volgar horde, Kjell took his turn in the castle washroom, desperate to be clean but more than that, to find a reprieve from the faith the villagers had placed in him. He shrugged off his tunic and washed the Volgar stench and the tang of dread from his skin, the scent of soap and the cold water giving him even more comfort than the quiet.
King Aren found him there. He still wore his crown, as if he needed to continually remind himself of his responsibility. Kjell understood that. A crown could not be shelved when it wasn’t convenient. It was the reason he’d yet to remove his sword or set aside the blade in his boot. The heft and rub of the weapons reminded him that soap could not wash away duty.
“Saoirse says the birdmen will not fall into the nets again,” Aren said without preamble. Kjell’s stomach twisted, wishing Sasha had come to him directly, and knowing why she didn’t. He patted himself dry and pulled a clean tunic over his head, shoving the ends into his breeches and tightening his belt, his thoughts pinging like tired moths to a covered flame.
“She says some will dive but most will wait,” Aren added. “She insisted I tell you.”
“Where will they wait?” Kjell asked. Aren’s shoulders slumped and his eyes closed briefly.
“On the ramparts,” he said tiredly. “Where the archers are hiding.”
“Most will wait,” Kjell muttered, considering. Volgar were not men. But they could adapt. He had seen it before.
“Just once, I would like her to see something that gave me hope. Just once,” the king sighed.
“Preparation is hope,” Kjell replied quietly. “She gives us that.”
Aren nodded once and turned to leave. “She is outside the door,” he said abruptly. “Tell us what you want us to do. We will do it.”
In the weighty silence of the king’s exit, Kjell considered his options. Then, unable to focus on anything but the fact that Sasha lingered nearby, he left the washroom. Sasha stood in the corridor, straight-backed and hollow-eyed, waiting to deliver a message she knew would not be welcome. Kjell felt a flash of anger that she might have been chastised for the bad news she bore.
“Tell me,” he said, halting in front of her, his voice gentle.
“I see them, perched and patient, so thick on the ramparts that the walls crawl with them. The archers will be picked off, and then they will wait,” she said wearily.
“They cannot eat what is not there,” he reasoned. “We will move the archers to the forest.”
“Will that not simply draw the Volgar away as well?”
“Not if three hundred pounding hearts still stand beneath the vines. We know the vines will hold. We simply have to make the Volgar dive into them.”
“And how will we do that?”
“We will make ourselves bleed,” he said.
Sasha did not blanch or step back, but gazed back at him steadily, eyes inward, examining his plan.
“I need a blade,” she murmured, thinking out loud.
“You do not need a blade, Majesty,” he murmured.