War of the Fae by K J Baker

Author:K J Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: K J Baker
Published: 2022-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

RAVEN

I pulled my horse to a halt and gazed out at the border of my kingdom. Below me, the land stretched out into the broad, fertile river valley that dominated the Court of the Moon’s eastern border where it butted up against the Spire. It was nearing midday and the sun hung in the sky high above me, turning the air sultry and sluggish. If I squinted, I could just make out the glimmer of water on the far horizon, marking the beginning of the lakeshore on which the island of the Spire sat. On which Asha was a prisoner. The need to reach her burned withing me hotter even than the sun.

But between Asha and me, and filling the river valley from end to end, lay a vast, teeming mass of Unseelie warriors. Bowen and his scouts had reported that they’d reached the border yesterday and dug in. They hadn’t crossed into my territory which indicated that they were still wary and instead had settled in to wait.

Now, as my army marched up in ranks behind me, the tramp of booted feet and the whinnying of horses loud in the hot, still air, I realized this would be a long and bloody battle.

The two forces were evenly matched. My warrior’s eye took in the deployment of the Unseelie horde. Divisions of heavily armored foot soldiers held the bottom of the valley, drawn up in square formations that would lock shields and become all but impregnable. Two phalanxes of cavalry covered the flanks and row upon row of archers had taken the high ground, holding the slopes of the valley against any attempt at a flanking movement.

My jaw tightened. Word had reached us that Mirak Willow had been given overall command of the Unseelie army. This was not good news. He was the military commander of the Court of Earth, one of the less radical of the Unseelie courts, and I had held out hopes that the Court of Earth would stay out of this and thus keep Mirak Willow off the field. My hopes had been dashed and now I was facing the greatest military strategist in the Summerlands. He had deployed his troops exactly as I would have done and I saw no weakness in his planning. He’d arrived first and so had chosen the site of the battle to suit him and had used the terrain to his advantage.

Hawk, sitting his horse next to mine, raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’ve got to give it to the old bastard. He certainly knows his stuff.”

“Every commander has a weakness,” Ffion replied from my other side. “And in every army there’s a weak link. We just need to figure out what his is.”

“Sure. He’ll just sit here whilst we reason it through, eh?” Hawk replied.

Ffion made an acerbic response and as the two of them began bickering, I shut out their voices. Something was wrong with Asha. I sensed it through the bond. She wasn’t hurt or in danger but it was something else, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

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