A Queen Named Victory

Chapter Thirty-Four

Grendel's POV

Whirring from above caught my attention amid the chaos with the frost fey. I jumped back when a steaming corpse landed at my feet atop a fairy. My beautiful wife glanced my way from across the tarnished wheat field and shot more soldiers into the sky at flying frost fairies.

She annihilated their forces with a combination of magic and her Vanatyr strength. Her body bobbed between flying spears and arrows. Her movements swayed with the rhythm of a spring river, kicking and flinging shields back at the men. It was a sight to see. I thrust Sangyr into a frost fairy, who interrupted my view of her.

"On your back," I said behind her, cutting into the chests of two Tolkniat soldiers who managed to get past her defense. She waved me off with her glowing hand and returned more flying spears to their owners' chests. Then she deflected the raining arrows into an organized line behind us.

One soldier neared with his spear aimed at her head. He lunged forward but halted when her flames consumed his armor. His flesh bubbled as the glowing molten steel of his chest plate trickled down his entire body. More men fled into the town where the women and children hid. "I'll return shortly," she shouted before turning into a crow. Her hunt had not ended yet, not until she held the heart of her last enemy between her claws.

Itkoa finished stabbing a frost fairy before informing me of our odds. Our shield wall did little to deter the airborne attacks. We did not have enough soldiers to form a complete dome formation. Reinforcements were too far for us to delay the fairies without losing lives.

"Hold the wall!"

Fairy arrows pierced shoulders and left deep cuts on my comrades. Vartek fell, as did Janah, but our wall held steady. Ice swords jabbed between crevices, narrowly missing my shield maidens' necks. Sangyr hummed to my magic as it formed into a sturdy bow that rested comfortably in my hands.

"Boar formation!"

My soldiers crouched in unison with their shields angled higher at their chests, jabbing the lower bodies of the nearby fey. I stood in the middle, firing shadow arrows into the fairies above.

"Open the walls."

Itkoa started the drumming with his ax against Janah's shield. The women drummed with their swords before strategically opening the wall. We worked as one beast to consume the enemy. Jaws opened, closed, and spit out dead bodies. More fey took flight when they realized the efficiency of our tactic.

"Boar formation!" I repeated with Sangyr drawn.

"No mercy!" Sigrid's war cry disrupted the fey and gave me a clear opening to shoot.

She stood with her hand raised above her head, holding a fluttering bloodied veil. A horde of shouting figures lined up behind her. Lower-class women and their human servants stood with raised weapons: kitchen mallets, pots, scythes, iron-shod spades, and pitchforks. She released the veil, and once it hit the floor, they charged with an unbridled ferocity that their men suppressed for years.

"CURSED ARE THE MEEK."

Mothers roared for their children.

Young women screamed for their future.

Grandmothers cried for the generations before them who had not had the opportunity to see their rebellion take flight.

All ran onto the field with frost fairy blood on their face, including my wife. Proud goosebumps spread over my forearms from the sound of their wrath. Sigrid's magic called to the forest, sending thousands of birds onto the flying fairies. Her black murder of crows engulfed the sky with her in the center as a magical bird herself. Tattered glittery wings rained like snowfall on winter's first morning.

Everyone screamed. The fairies did so in fear. The women did it for courage. My soldiers screamed with excitement. Tides were turning, and the odds tipped in our favor.

"Release the wall!"

My shield maidens drummed on their shields with joy while the Tolkniat women dispersed into the crowd. The inexperienced farmers made up for what they lacked in training with sheer violence. They wildly stabbed, cut, bit, ripped wings, and plunged into fairy troops. Their wave flooded them. Fairies that fled by flight died at the beaks and talons of the cawing mass in the sky.

We turned the soil into a muddy pit filled with crystal bones, wilted crop remnants, and porcelain hilts with melting blades. Still, our Mother Goddess demanded more. She moaned and buzzed beneath our feet with an unquenchable thirst.

A freezing chill unlike anything I have ever felt before warned me of impending danger. I abandoned my spot at the center of the battlefield to seek Sigrid, who kneeled atop Gordesh, healing the wound from an ice arrow. Glinting light sparkled in the distance, stiffening the hairs on my tail.

This was bad.

Unbelievably bad.

"Grendel, wha—"

I clasped the arrow between my hands. The force of its energy pushed me back. I dug my feet into the dirt before I toppled my wife and injured soldier. Heavy winds scattered dried leaves into the air around us.

The whooshing ceased, leaving me alone with my heavy breaths and the distant clammers of swords from the other end of the field. The obsidian arrow reflected the pale moonlight. I strummed my fingers along the raven feather fletching. The design, magic, and power it emulated belonged to death. I turned to Gardesh, ordering a complete evacuation into the seaside castle. Sigrid rushed to see the arrow, but I held it away from her touch.

"Grendel, what is it?" she begged.

My wife held my hands, caressing her muddied thumbs over my palms with a pleading look in her eyes and fear on her brows. The chills had not ceased. They traveled in a constant loop, matching the pitches of the distant painful screams.

My gut urged me to grab my wife and run before death neared.

To hell with Tolkniat, it cried.