Cursed by Ice (28 page)

Garreth helped her remove the breastplate. She needed to put on different clothing before she could don the entire suit in comfort. He took her into the further depths of the bazaar and straight to a weapons maker’s tent. A crowd of men was there, inspecting the wares. They were both soldiers from Garreth’s army and guards from the city’s garrisons.

“Now is not a time for you to be acquiring new weapons,” Garreth scolded in a booming voice. “You do not go into battle with an untried weapon! You must practice with it first. Now go. We ready for battle as I speak.”

The men abandoned the weapons maker’s tent with so much haste it was almost laughable. But Sarielle could not feel humor. Not when she knew Garreth was so close to going into battle.

“But I have never wielded a weapon,” she said in a small voice as Garreth began to inspect the inventory.

“Nor do I expect you to. Ah! Here we are.” He picked up a beautiful long dagger in a metal sheath, the artwork on it fine and intricate, unlike any kind of detailing she had ever seen before. “A dagger. You are not meant to fight, but I would have you carry a weapon to protect yourself should it come to it.” He handed her the dagger.

“I do not think I could use it,” she confessed to him, coloring uncomfortably. She didn’t want to let him down, didn’t want to appear weak. She didn’t want him to say she was too cowardly to be a part of the battle. She needed to be there. For him. For her city.

“You will find that when you have no other choice, you will use it,” he said intently, holding her eyes the entire time. “I will do all in my power to make certain I
keep you safe, but should there be a problem and I cannot get to you … I will feel better knowing you have this.”

For some reason she found herself melting under the words. No. Not for some reason. For a very clear reason.

He cared. He cared very deeply about her and her safety, and it showed strongly in that moment. There was something very invigorating and strengthening about that knowledge. Something tender and loving in the impression of it.

“Then I will have it,” she said, reaching to take the dagger from him. As she held the sheath, he pulled the weapon free of it and inspected the deadly sharp blade. He tested it in a training dummy, which stood in the center of the shop, plunging the dagger deeply into the thing’s straw chest and pulling it back out again with ease.

“Yes, this will do very nicely,” he said.

He paid the merchant and then quickly urged her back to the keep. By the time they returned, her armor was already in her rooms awaiting her. Garreth went straight to her wardrobe and inspected the choices within it. The wardrobe was still relatively bare, in spite of her shopping trip with Davine. But he grabbed one of her older dresses and a pair of shears from her dressing table. He immediately set the shears to the skirt of the dress.

“What are you doing!” she cried out, trying to stop him.

“The skirt of the armor is short for a reason. So you will be unencumbered by long, thick skirts. You will wear this without any petticoats or other underskirts.” He held up the dress with its considerably shortened skirt.

“I will be naked!” she said, her face burning with a blush.

“This coming from the woman who wore practically nothing for me yesterday.”

“That was in the privacy of our rooms,” she argued as he came around her and began to unlace her dress. “I did it to please you!”

“So do this to please me as well. I confess I am already hard thinking of you in armor, your beautiful legs exposed.”

Her blush deepened as he pulled the dress from her body. Poorly banked hunger was in his eyes when he looked at her naked body only minutes later.

“Seems a shame to cover you up again,” he murmured as he leaned into her and hotly cupped her breast in his hand. He squeezed the mound of flesh gently … then more strongly. She was breathless by the time he bent his head to her, taking her nipple into his mouth and toying with it with his tongue. Sarielle felt herself go immediately wet between her legs, and her body coiled with tension. Her nipple came free of his mouth with a small pop of sound and he stepped back from her. He growled low in his throat. “We will continue this later,” he promised her.

“Okay,” she said breathily.

“Let’s get you dressed.”

Before long he had her fully dressed in her new armor and was sliding her dagger into place on her weapons belt. When he was finished, he reviewed her with a critical eye.

“Well done,” he said after a moment with a firm nod. “Well done indeed. Now come. Let’s begin this battle.”

She nodded and went to precede him out the door. But mid step she felt his hand sliding up the back of her thigh beneath her skirt and on to the cheek of her backside. The feel of his leather glove on her skin made her
gasp and come to a halt, which brought him directly up against her back.

“Garreth!” she said in a breathless scold.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his grin in no way repentant. “I could not help myself.”

“Well, try!” she said with a laugh.

“If I must,” he said, removing his hand from her body, albeit very slowly.

Together they left the room.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Garreth was on his horse, looking at the top of the keep from over his shoulder. Sarielle stood there, just as she had stood on the walls of the city the first time he’d seen her, a proud and beautiful creature. Only this time she was protected, her fiery red hair braided and hidden from sight. It would not be the banner it had been when he had attacked the walls of the city. No one would notice her as being different from anyone else, and that was exactly the way he wanted it to be. The keep was set a little farther back from the city walls, but the top stood above the walls, so Sarielle could easily see the field of battle.

He was about to ride out of the gates and into the thick of the Zizo army. He did not know what he would find when he attacked the rylings and faced down their magic, but he knew that the rylings were mortal and so were the Zizo. That meant they could be killed, and that was what he was there to do.

Garreth led the charge out of the gates, leaving Dethan to the relative safety of the city walls. Dethan would attack with archers from above while Garreth attacked on the ground.

They took the Zizo by surprise when they came pouring
from the gate just as the archers let loose on the bulk of their campsite. The archers had a limited time before Garreth’s army reached the campsite. Once the two forces engaged, archers could not be used for fear they would strike their own combatants.

But the archers rained hell down on the enemy while they could, and the Zizo and rylings found themselves in chaos. The Zizo commanders tried to rally their men together, but they were still at a disadvantage by the time Garreth reached them and pummeled them with the army’s sheer numbers. As Garreth cut down the small men, he realized that horseback was a disadvantage for him. He had to reach farther down, unbalancing himself. So he dismounted and rushed into the thick of it on his feet, calling orders to his men, rallying them with the sound of his commanding voice.

He thrust his brother’s sword into first one, then another, shearing them down. Until he cut one down and the man dissolved into nothingness. Shocked, he looked around and saw the same thing happening all throughout the army.

Illusions. The rylings, he realized. They were making his men work harder to cut down imaginary opponents. It was impossible to know which combatants were real and which were illusions. They had to attack them all, which would quickly wear them out. Garreth might have more actual soldiers, but with the ryling magic making these illusions, it was as though the Zizo army had been doubled. Even tripled. He turned and waved his sword toward the city walls.

On the walls, Dethan was waiting for the signal. Quickly he lit the signal fire next to him. It flared to life, visible to the woman on the keep walls who was waiting for it.

Sarielle closed her eyes and called to her wyvern, who
had come from behind as the army had surged out onto the field.

Remember, do not fly over them. Simply blow flame at them. Set them on fire from behind
.

Sarielle opened her eyes in time to see Koro’s large body reeling toward the Zizo army. And with a mighty exhalation, he began to set their rear forces on fire. The screams of men rose above the sounds of war. She heard the echoes of it drifting toward her even from her distant perch on the keep walls. She could see it all. See Koro’s attack, Garreth’s attack. Then the mages did their part and flung up huge walls of earth on either side of the Zizo army, trapping them inside a bottleneck. The other mage began to call up the spirits of the already slain men, both Zizo and Garreth’s, and sent them to attack the rylings. The spirits could not be harmed, since they were already dead, and the rylings did not have the necessary magic to dispel their presence. The fey rylings began to fall, in spite of their illusions and their attempts to countermand the powerful earth mages’ abilities.

The Zizo commanders began to call for a retreat … but they were blocked off by a fire-breathing wyvern. They took heavy casualties as they tried to run past Koro’s attacks. Koro remained out of reach as per Sarielle’s constant reminders.

Desperate, the Zizo tried to mow their way past Garreth and his forces, toward the city. Perhaps in the hope of running around the earthen walls blocking them in. It was an act of suicide and desperation. There was no cohesion to their battle plans. Their army was falling apart.

But desperation made an enemy dangerous. Garreth found himself suddenly overrun by Zizo and rylings with their needle-sharp swords. His men were cutting through them with ease, but he was overwhelmed, his arms burning from swinging his sword over and over
and over again. He felt a ryling sword pierce through the vulnerable seam of his armor near his armpit, the sword sinking deep into his upper ribs and lung. It was pulled free and Garreth swiftly decapitated its owner. A second ryling sword hacked into his vulnerable neck, but he deflected it before it could do anything more than sever one of the muscles there.

That ended up compromising the swing of his left arm, which held his dagger and had been working in concert with his powerful right sword arm. Two of the Zizo rushed him, taking him out at his legs. He went down.

Garreth fought his way back up to his feet, slaying Zizo and ryling alike, his sword punching through armor, sometimes nearly cleaving bodies in half. Eventually he cleared himself of every enemy, allowing him a moment to see what was happening around him.

The Zizo army had fallen. Given no quarter and with no avenue of escape, they had been forced to face Garreth’s greater numbers, their illusions failing them, their numbers decimated.

The Zizo soldiers fell to their knees and put their hands behind their heads in total surrender. The Zizo leader had been slain in the battle, and his second in command was now brought before Garreth.

“I ask mercy for my men,” the little man said gruffly.

“You are in no position to ask for anything,” Garreth said harshly. “Your army is mine, and before the winter sets in, your city will be mine as well.”

“We will surrender to you. There is no one left to defend the city of Zandaria. It is yours already. We were so foolish. We did not … We were so foolish.”

“You thought we would make an easy target. It was a sound idea overall, but you did not take the time to learn with whom you would be doing battle. Your impulsivity was your undoing.”

“Please. I beg you to show mercy to our city. We are not a warring people by nature.”

“I will show mercy only when and where it is due. You are prisoners of Kith now. Come passively to our dungeons or die here on the field. It is your choice.”

“We will come,” he said, his tone as defeated as he was.

On the walls of the keep, Sarielle could see that the battle was finished, but she was not sure which side had been victorious. She could see the overall picture, but the details escaped her.

But after a while it became very clear who had won. The city walls erupted in cheers and she felt her heart leap with relief and joy. They had won!

Koro, do you see Garreth?

At first Koro could not tell the difference between the “shiny” men. She told him to look for the armor with the wey flower emblazoned on the front of it. After a moment Koro came through to her, telling her that he could see him.

Is he all right? Is he moving?

He was, according to Koro.

Koro, come to me!

Koro banked in the sky in the distance and then came rushing toward her. He reached her within a minute and settled down, his clawed feet gripping the keep’s walls, his nails digging into the stones. Sarielle hurried up to him.

“Bend your head to me!” she said.

Koro did so and she awkwardly climbed on top of his head, trying to move in the unfamiliar bulk of her armor. She straddled the back of his neck as best she could and gripped one of his scales.

“Take me to him!”