The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)(61)

Aren stood on the beach with maybe a hundred Ithicanians, but beyond, the water was full of longboats. Dozens of them, all bursting with heavily armed soldiers, and more still waiting on the ship’s deck to be unloaded. There were hundreds of them. And no way to stop them.

The Ithicanians were firing arrows at the front-runners, but it wasn’t long until they were spent, leaving nothing for them to do but wait.

The old healer had climbed up next to her, expression grim as she took in the scene.

Lara dug her nails into the rock. “We can’t win this. Not against these odds.”

“We’ve won against worse. Though this one will cost us.”

Was it still a victory if everyone was dead? Lara thought.

It must’ve shown on her face, because the older woman sighed. “Have you ever seen a battle before, Your Majesty?”

Lara swallowed hard. “Not like this.”

“I’d tell you to prepare yourself, but you can’t.” The old woman rested her hand on Lara’s. “This moment will change you.” Then she climbed down the rocks to join the Midwatch healers.

The scene was eerily silent, the only sound the roar of the surf and the occasional cry of pain, the wounded left on the beach until the battle was won. So quiet. Too quiet.

Then the first of the longboats hit the shore, and everything turned to chaos.

The two forces slammed into each other, the air filling with shouts and screams, the clash of metal against metal and weapons against flesh.

Wave after wave of boats hurtled into shore, the heavy vessels crushing and killing Amaridians and Ithicanians alike, the waterline a teeming mass of humanity. The sailors struggled to withdraw, to get back to the ship to retrieve more soldiers, but Aren’s men flung themselves at the sailors, cutting them down. Pulling the vessels onto the sand.

Yet still more came.

The Ithicanians fought with vicious efficiency, better trained and better armed, but grossly outnumbered. They fought until they couldn’t stand, taking injury after injury until they collapsed on the beach or were pulled under waves that were more blood and bodies than water.

And still the enemy came.

It was the perfect opportunity to sneak away. To go look at the bridge pier and determine whether she could use it in her strategy, but her body remained rooted in place.

You have to do something. The voice rose up from the depths of Lara’s mind, incessant and tenacious. Do something. Do something.

But what could she do? There were no injured behind these rocks for her to tend, and there wouldn’t be until the battle was over. She could take a weapon and fight, but this wasn’t the same circumstances as Serrith. In this madness, she couldn’t turn the tide.

Do something.

Her eyes flicked back to the wounded bleeding out on the beach. Drowning in the waves. And then she was over the rocks and running.

Lara had been the fastest of her sisters—built for speed, Master Erik had always said. Today she ran like she never had before.

Her thighs burned as she sprinted down the beach, arms pumping, eyes fixed on her target. Skidding to a stop next to a young woman who’d taken two arrows in the back and one in the thigh, Lara bent and heaved her over one shoulder, then raced back to the boulders.

Rounding them, Lara carefully deposited the injured soldier on the ground in front of the startled healers. “Help her.”

Then she was back on the beach and running.

Necessity compelled her to choose those with injuries they might survive. As it was, most of those farther up the beach were long past saving, eyes staring blankly at the gray sky.

So she edged closer to the battle.

The soldiers able to fight were doing so on top of the bodies of the fallen. Amaridians and Ithicanians, both tangled in the mess of limbs, dead hands seeming to grasp and trip them as the crimson waves pulled and tugged on carnage.

Most everyone on the ground was dead. Either from their original injuries, or from being crushed and drowned, but still Lara prowled the rear of the Ithicanian line, water filling her boots as she searched.

“Get back,” someone shouted at her, but she ignored them, catching sight of a man, younger than her, choking as he tried to climb out of the battle, the waves rolling over his head, boots stomping on his back.

Lara dove, catching hold of his hand and holding tight so that the water wouldn’t pull him farther out.

Someone kicked her in the side.

Another stomped on the back of her leg, and she cried out.

They were pressing in on her, driving her down into the sand, but the boy was looking at her and she at him, and Lara refused to let go.

Inch by inch, she dragged him back, then a hand closed on her belt and pulled her and the injured soldier the rest of the way free.

“What are you doing?”

Aren’s voice. His face hidden behind his mask.

Over his shoulder, she saw an Amaridian raising a cudgel. Snatching up a rock, she threw it hard, shattering the soldier’s face. “Fight,” she screamed at Aren, then scrambled to her feet.

Holding the injured boy under the armpits, she dragged him up the beach and out of harm’s way. Then she threw herself back into the carnage.

The Ithicanians saw what she was doing, and they fought to give her openings. Called her name when someone fell. Guarded her back while she dragged their comrades out of the water because they couldn’t afford to stop fighting.