Page 17 of Starside

I watch dozens of others run past me. And then I watch them fall.

Because half of our group has another plan. They’re going to fight for each horse. Archers are already in the trees, shooting runners down one by one. I stop. Turn. Duck behind a tree at the last moment. Hear the splitting of wood as an arrow pierces its trunk.

Every single person who ran is now on the ground. Dead or dying.

I can’t give my back to them.

I’m going to have to fight.

Zane sighs, a few feet to my left. I watch as he unsheathes his ax and rests it against his shoulder. My eyes widen. The silver is thick and reinforced with gemstones. I’ve never seen that before, the way the diamonds and rubies seem to melt right into the metal.

He sees me watching and shrugs. “It’s been in my family since before the war.”

A relic. Something the Great Houses offer. I look down at my own sword. Stellan was one of the best, but a blacksmith can only do so much with lesser metal.

“Hope to see you at the castle,” Zane says, nodding his head. And then he charges forward.

Swords clash. Metal shatters.

Next to me, using the same tree as cover, Kira is shaking. “My sister,” she whispers.

“What?”

An arrow just misses my side. I pull us both behind a larger trunk. It won’t block us for long, not while the rest of the group is advancing.

“She’s sick. That’s why I’m here. She … she’ll die without the magic.”

And she might as well have reached into my soul and squeezed it.

My eyes close tightly as I remember my own sister. Her cries. Holding her body in its last moments as—

My cheek rips against a root as Kira drags me to the ground.

“What—” I look up and go still.

The entire top of the tree is gone.

The Enders. They’re holding a glittering chain between them. It’s—it’s coated in a thin layer of Starside steel. They’re using it to halve anyone in their path. Including the trees. Fuck. Bodies lay in pieces behind us. Trees fall in every direction, making the ground tremble. There isn’t a safe place to hide. I watch a girl lunge forward, eyes widening, just before she’s crushed by an oak. Blood spurts out her ears.

Kira throws up next to me.

“Come on,” I say, dragging her up. I would have been halved if she hadn’t pulled me down. I was too lost in my mind.

Distractions. My emotions and memories are distractions. They’ll get me killed.

I have to bury it down. All of it.

The arrows have stopped. Most of the archers were cut down from their trees, thanks to the Enders. This is the best chance we’re going to get. We start to run. Ahead, the forest has been flattened. The ground is a minefield of snapped trunks, sharp edges sticking up like broken blades. I sprint, careful not to impale myself on any of them, and—I’m moving too slowly. I can hear the stampede of challengers, not far behind. Faster. I push myself to run as fast as I ever have before, and Kira’s ragged breaths make me think she’s about to pass out, but she manages to keep pace. Branches split below our boots, already hollow and weak.

An arrow whistles past my head, and burrows into the ground in front of me.

Fuck. At least one archer is back up.

I leap over a downed tree, then nearly trip over another. I duck arrow after arrow, ignoring the sounds of those dying around me, burying the instinct to help.

There’s a thud as a woman running a few yards to my left goes down, her body drudging up dirt. Ahead, a man is hit in the neck, and I barely avoid trampling his body.

The archer is close. And so are the next wave of challengers. Their steps thunder and crack against the broken forest floor. Some simply bolt past, others lash out, striking those around them, trying to increase their chances.