Page 213 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Duncan had fought through chaos before—in tight, violent knots where decisions were made in the space of a heartbeat. He had felt the weight and danger of those choices.

But this felt disparate. Unmanageable. Entirely unpredictable.

A soldier with green eyes swirling with earthy light forced his way through the melee ahead, barreling toward Duncan. The man moved without hesitation, untouched by fear.

Duncan raised his sword and pressed his heels to his horse, charging for him.

The soldier lifted a hand.

The frozen ground split open. A vine thick as a wrist lashed upward and caught Duncan’s arm before he could bring his sword down. The force ripped him from the saddle, spinning the world into a blur of white, hooves, and armored legs. He struck the ground hard. Pain flared through his shoulder. Air punched out of his chest.

He dragged himself upright and sucked breath back into his lungs, boots slipping in churned snow before he regained his footing. His sword lay several paces away. He lunged for it just as another vine erupted beside him.

He cut the vine clean through.

Another wrapped around his leg. He hacked it free.

A third snapped toward his throat. He ducked and severed it in two quick strokes.

Vines kept bursting from the ground around him. He began to anticipate them—cutting, stepping—until at last the soldier came into view again beyond the writhing tangle.

Their eyes locked.

Another vine struck toward Duncan’s chest.

Duncan lunged aside, rolled beneath it, and drove forward with his sword. The soldier moved at unnatural speed, but showed little skill beyond the magic. Duncan forced the blade past the man’s guard and drove it deep into his chest.

The vines around them collapsed, falling slack across the snow, as the soldier’s green gaze flickered and vanished. Kora’s eyes flashed through Duncan’s mind—he willed the image to dissolve quickly.

He tore his sword free and lifted his head, trying to make sense of the battle roaring around him. Through the shifting blur of bodies he spotted Garric on his horse, threading through the crush of men and whatever one might call Kryovarre’s host.

A amber-eyed woman near Garric lifted her hand. A spark flashed. Fire burst outward in a violent bloom and hurled itself toward Garric’s mount. The blast struck the ground near the horse’s forelegs, throwing flame and snow into the air.

Duncan’s breath caught, smothering the shout of warning rising in his throat.

The animal reared violently, screaming. For an instant Garric seemed suspended above the saddle, on the edge of being thrown into the crush of blades and trampling hooves.

Time held.

Garric drove his heels down, dropped his weight low, and hauled the reins hard. The horse slammed back to the ground. He stayed in the saddle, though the near slip showed in the tight line of his shoulders.

“Your Grace!” Sven shouted. He led the Guard in Isander’s absence. “To your right!”

Duncan turned as another soldier charged toward him, eyes glowing with that mossy hue of Tsuchitsan magic. Vines burst up again, whipping toward his legs. Sven smashed his shield into them before they could coil and drove his sword clean through the soldier.

“Thank you,” Duncan breathed.

Sven nodded once, already turning toward the next threat.

Duncan scanned the field again, searching for his horse.

He spotted the mare several yards away, rearing and kicking as the skirmish pressed too close. Duncan tightened his grip on his sword, drew a breath past clenched teeth, and forced his way through the fight. Countless times he twisted aside as bodies collided around him. Once he ducked beneath a wild backswing that would have taken his head.

From horseback the battlefield should have been easier to read. It should have brought clarity. Instead, it showed him ruin.

There was no hope to last the week Gavriel had estimated.

Perhaps not even the day ahead.