SWNOVELS Chapter Alex XV
The Crown of Fire was an apt place for a battle.
And he knew why it had been named that. It was the water. The river that lay east of them. It was the shape of a crown, and when the sun beat down on it, the water turned the color of orange.
They had the owls scouting ahead. Alex sat uneasily on his horse, he gripped the reins tightly. Almost too tightly. He glanced at the forest.
The calvary was split into two halves. They were placed in the forest on both sides of the battlefield. There were sixty thousand people on each side of the forest. It was easy to conceal them because it wasn’t like hiding humans on horseback. There were centaurs, Jaguars, Cheetahs, Satyrs, and more. They weren’t all human and that was what made them easy to hide.
He was nervous. And the wait wasn’t doing much to help that. There was never an agreed-upon time for a battle. But perhaps by being extraordinarily late, she thought she could get the drop on them.
This was the calm before the storm. Up on the cliff, he knew Octavia and Eddie were watching him. They were probably more terrified than anyone. With luck, they’d win this battle.
But they would need a lot of luck. Seraphina had almost every chance of winning. All she needed to do was kill Aria, or him. Maybe even Octavia or Eddie, or both. And she probably would. It was likely that she would kill them all. The entire army.
He watched as an owl landed next to him. Its grey feathers clashed with the green of the grass. It looked angry. Though he supposed that all Great Horned Owls looked that way. It chirped away. Something he’d learned about Ashiver was that while all the other animals could talk, birds could not.
“He says that the witch has twice our numbers,” Ghostdrum told him. “All I hear is that victory is ahead.”
“And all I’m hearing is that she has a bigger army to kill us all with,” Alex stated. Ghostdrum laughed and twirled his sword in his hand.
“No battle is impossible. I have faith in our win.”
The nerves of the battle were no worse. He now knew that there was no way for them to win. He’d said it before, without Omdrus they had no chance, and he’d meant it.
Now Octavia and Eddie were stuck in a losing battle. If things took a turn for the worst, he’d make sure that they got out. Even if they couldn’t get home, he was sure that someone would get them somewhere safe, someone would keep them safe.
How many of their army was going to fall in this battle? It was bound to be gruesome, bloody. He knew that a lot of them were going to die. There was a large possibility that he’d even die.
And maybe he was overthinking it. But he had a point.
This was a losing battle.