It was not that he could confirm it with certainty, but he had bet his life on bringing her the intelligence that the amulets that the freketes wore around their necks helped them fly. He had seen them without them only a few times, only when they were on the ground, at leisure, being tended and fed. When aloft they always had them on. The night of the Scav attack, Devoth had waited for Bitten’s amulet to be brought to him and placed on the beast before he flew. What if this was not vanity, not just a custom or an idiosyncrasy? What if the freketes needed the amulets to fly?
The moment he asked the question, he knew the answer to it. “Devoth once mentioned a handful of relics the Lothan Aklun had given them,” Rialus had said. “The amulets are some of these relics. They were things to trap Lothan Aklun spells and keep their power.”
Mena had to end the meeting before she could question him any further. Now, aloft above her marching soldiers, she hoped he had spoken the truth. She had not told the others this part of her plan. The first clash of the day should be hers. It had to be hers. She felt the eyes of her troops watching her, and she tried to forget them so that she could do what she needed to for them. She drew the King’s Trust and urged Elya forward to meet them.
Which one? Which one?
Mena could not tell the riders or the beasts apart. They came on in a swarm. The freketes grunted and bellowed to one another, carrying on some bestial conversation. They all wore chains around their necks, amulets heavy on them, just as Rialus had said. All their eyes stayed fixed on her.
At least I’ve got their attention.
She pulled up and hovered, Elya’s wings feathering the air. Pointing with the King’s Trust, she picked out a frekete and rider. “You!” she shouted. “Your name! What is your name?”
This set the swarm of them into confusion for a moment. They were in the air above and below and before her, out on either side now, too. But they did not attack. Eventually, the rider atop the mount she had pointed at turned it sideways and yelled back, “Howlk.” He slapped his mount hard on the shoulder. “Nawth. Nawth!”
Mena shouted, “Howlk and Nawth, I challenge you.” To make sure he understood, she scowled and pumped her sword hand in the air, then pointed to them and to herself.
Howlk understood. They all did, and for a few raucous moments they argued about it. As she and Elya hovered, the freketes and their riders converged on one another like squabbling youths. Mena sheathed her sword, reached down, and checked her crossbow, memorizing just where the stock of it lay behind her hip.
The debate did not last long. Despite whatever protocol Mena had usurped with her challenge, the others drew back. Howlk and his mount came forward, looking very pleased.
It’s you and me now, Elya. First, we test them.
They surged toward them, darting to the side at the last minute. The freketes howled as Nawth pumped his wings in pursuit. Elya flew higher, cut side to side, folded her wings in, and dove. Nawth followed her. After the first few moves Mena reined her back. Elya was faster, much more maneuverable. No need to flaunt it, though. She needed to use it instead.
On her mental order, Elya twisted her wings. She spun them around. Flaring out to either side, the membranes of her wings filled with the air she grabbed, stopping them dead in the air. Mena pulled out her crossbow. She stood in her stirrups and brought the weapon to sight over Elya’s shoulder. She held it one-handed, something she could only do for a moment, as the weapon was one of the heavy, powerful ones her soldiers had used against the foulthings.
Nawth came toward them with wings flapping. His body convulsed and clawed at the air, as if he were swimming, as desperate to get to them as a drowning man is for the surface. Mena pulled the trigger and shot for the center of that writhing mass. The bolt thwacked away, scorching the line between them faster than her eye could see. Nawth caught it in his forearm. It was not an intentional block, just the result of his thrashing. It went in at an angle and hit bone, punched through, and then pinned his forearm into his chest. He howled and dropped.
Elya hovered, the two of them watching the frekete fall. The other freketes did the same, all of them hovering nearby, stunned to silence for once.
The descent did not last long. Nawth flexed his wings. He rose beating them steadily. Looking up at Mena and Elya, teeth gritted and eyes simmering with new depths of hatred, he tore the prongs of the bolt head from his chest and then tugged at it until he had it free of his shattered arm. He tossed the bolt to the side. It fell toward the ground, spinning over and over.
Howlk ripped free the sword he had sheathed diagonally across his back. As Nawth reached their height, Mena drew the King’s Trust. She adjusted herself in the saddle, blended her mind with Elya’s, readying her.
Nawth moved first. He surged forward, turning at the last moment and dropping his shoulder so that Howlk could swing his sword. Elya slipped down and to the side. Howlk cut only air. Nawth turned and rose; Elya danced away. She spun. Darted. Mena kept her close to the frekete but used her speed to dodge Nawth’s lunges, avoiding his kicks and Howlk’s sword attacks. The two grew more frustrated. Both of them shouted at her, Howlk in Auldek and Nawth in some bestial bellowing akin to words but not quite.
Mena let their anger grow, fed further by the derision cast at her from the surrounding freketes and riders, all of whom circled them. They drew closer, making it harder for Elya to move. One of the other freketes slashed the membrane of Elya’s wing.
Let’s do it now, Mena thought. She let Elya choose the moment, felt it just before she was going to, and agreed. Nawth got closer than ever before, and Elya reared back, spinning to avoid his grasping, big-knuckled hand. The move put Mena in striking position above Howlk for the first time. She swung but not for him. She aimed for the metal chain on the frekete’s neck. The combined motion of their bodies was too much. She missed. Caught Nawth’s shoulder instead. She thought the strike-even though awkwardly landed-would cut through the coarse muscle all the way to the bone. It didn’t. Instead the blade dented his flesh, barely drawing blood. It was as if she had hit him with a fighting stick, not a honed edge at all.
Nawth grabbed for Elya. She just managed to corkscrew away, diving toward the ice in the process. Mena would have lost her sword if she had not had the leather straps from its hilt wrapped around her wrist. She fought to get control of it, to keep it from cutting her or Elya. She lost all sense of the world for a few seconds, and then it snapped back into place. Elya spread her wings and went into a more controlled fall. Nawth was right behind her. He raked the air with his good arm, trying desperately to grab her tail, which snaked around just out of his reach. He was acting on his own, frenzied. He paid no attention to whatever Howlk was shouting at him. He ignored the way the Auldek tugged the steering harness. Howlk even reached forward and yanked on the chain that held Nawth’s amulet to get control of him back.
The thought passed from Mena to Elya so fast it felt simultaneous. Elya flipped over, angled her wings to break her speed, lifting slightly. Upside down, sword in hand, Mena kicked free of her stirrups. She yanked loose the thigh buckle that secured her to the harness. She fell free and dropped onto Howlk’s back.
She landed hard and almost glanced off to the side. She wrapped around the startled Auldek and caught hold of a handful of his long hair. Gripping it, she lunged forward, over his shoulder, and struck the chain on Nawth’s neck with all her might. It snapped free and dropped away.
In the moment that Howlk stared wide-eyed at Nawth’s bare neck, Mena yanked back his head, slipped the cutting edge of her sword right along the rim of his neck guard. She let go of his hair, grabbed the back edge of the blade with her free hand, and yanked the blade into his neck with all the might she had. The man’s eyes-startlingly blue-looked up at her, a childlike disappointment in them. His hands came up as if he wanted to explain something to her, but they got no farther before his body started to convulse.