Page 186 of A Courage of the Chosen

The day grows in potency, and we’re around a third of the way to the crest of the hill where Tavish waits, when a deep groaning rumbles through the earth beneath my feet.

“NOW!” The bark snatches my attention.

“Shit,” Brodie curses as large catapults are pushed into our view.

“TAKE COVER! RETREAT, AND HOLD FORMATION!” I shout on repeat, battling with Dorche and Brollachan while grabbing as many of our soldiers as I can to shove them away.

There’s a heavy creaking, a whoosh, and then a solid black mass is soaring through the air straight toward our archers.

“MOVE! INTO THE TREELINE!” I pray to Dhia they hear me, and others begin yelling the same.

The enemy pulls back a fraction, avoiding whatever it is they’ve unleashed, and we’re granted the tiniest pause, but there’s no relief in it as I begin sprinting toward to the bulk of our infantry.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

One after another, Tavish sends them high into the sky.

I’m almost at the archer units when the first one lands.

The ebony spheres explode on impact, sending shadows and shrapnel in every direction. Tens of soldiers die in its wake, blown into small fragments of who they used to be, and I’m thrown back by the blast.

The world shifts at an odd angle, and Brodie is there in an instant, dragging me to my feet as a piercing ring rattles my eardrums.

“Hume must’ve got the details of the grenades out after all. They copied them and sized up,” Brodie grits out, blood coating his face and armor.

The Dorche bombs rain down in a storm of devastation, nearly wiping the archers out completely.

Seelie scramble to avoid the incoming projectiles, and in the chaos, Dorche and Brollachan sweep in to pick off soldiers out of formation.

“Steady!”

“Hold the lines!”

Commanders bark out to try and maintain a grip on their units, but their control is slipping as more of the large weapons land and decimate entire clusters of our army.

“Eòghann, take a unit and get to those fucking catapults. I don’t care how, but we need them destroyed,” I order, and he nods briskly.

Reyne is close by, surrounded by four Dorche soldiers that tower over her. One dodges the foot that comes for their mid-section, trying to grab at her ankle, but the woman is far too fast for them. Her sword buries itself through the throat of the one running at her back, while her elbow connects with another closing in on her right. Her shield comes up just in time to block another attack, and she twirls on her knees with her sword resting atop it, completely removing their legs from the shin down.

Reyne gets to her feet, weaving and dodging with better instincts than anyone I’ve seen. She’d make a fine fucking general.

The remaining three converge on her as one, and we move to her aid. We needn’t have bothered.

She shoves them away with a small burst of the power she has, and in a move that’s a blur to even me, decapitates one, while launching herself high to wrap her thighs around the neck of another, twisting so it snaps and they fall lifeless to the ground.

“I love her,” Brodie chuckles.

“She’s spoken for,” Eòghann snarls, before he shouts in her direction. “Sunshine, you with me?”

“Catapults?” She replies without missing a beat as she downs the final one, spilling his innards over the grass with a savage slash to his stomach.

“You got it.”

“Fuck yeah, I’m in.” She disposes of more opponents with brutal efficiency, and frankly it makes me glad we’re on the same side, because it takes her no less than a minute to kill every last one of them.

“We have that stash of flame creeper grenades, right?” she pants as she joins us.

“Aye,” Eòghann confirms.