Free Web NovelChapter 83: Chapter 83: Witch-Blood Heir
She would never reach them. Not while this river ran red with her followers’ blood.
I waded back into the shallows to wash the worst of the gore from my arms. The water stung every cut. Behind me the pack worked in grim silence, dragging bodies clear of the crossing and piling what wood we could find for pyres. Smoke would rise soon, a signal the north could not ignore.
Darius joined me at the edge, sleeves rolled high. His hands moved methodically, cleaning his blade first, then his skin. "They lost their fastest scouts in that rush. Next wave will be slower, angrier."
"Good," I said. "Anger makes mistakes."
Kane crouched nearby, binding a gash on his forearm with a strip torn from a dead man’s cloak. The fabric darkened quickly. Rylan paced the bank, axe across his shoulders, eyes scanning the far treeline like he could will the enemy to appear sooner.
We had bought ourselves a short window. Hours, maybe a full day before the main column arrived. I used every minute.
Teams repaired the traps we had set along the banks — hidden spikes, loosened stones ready to roll, pitch-soaked bundles waiting for flame.
I moved among the fighters, adjusting grips, correcting stances, speaking low to those whose eyes still carried yesterday’s losses.
A young woman with fresh stitches across her cheek caught my wrist as I passed. "My brother fell at the first clash. Tell me his death buys more than time."
"It buys them fear," I answered. "And fear slows their feet. That matters when the real numbers come."
She released me and went back to sharpening her spear with renewed force. Small moments like that kept the line from fraying. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
By late afternoon the sky turned heavy. Clouds gathered low and dark. I climbed a jutting rock that overlooked the entire bend in the river. The kings climbed with me. From up here the Black River looked like a living thing, swirling and hungry.
Rylan broke the quiet first. "You keep rubbing that little wolf carving in your pocket. Thinking about them?"
"Always." I pulled it out, the wood warm from constant touch. "Lila’s face when she gave it to me. Thorne trying to copy every move I made. Elara pressing close like she could hold me there by sheer will. They’re safe for now, but safety feels thin when the woman coming for us dreams of carving them open."
Darius rested a hand on my lower back. "We left the strongest behind to guard them. Garrick would die before letting anyone near that nursery."
Kane’s voice came low and flat. "And we will kill everything that tries to cross this water. Simple as that."
Their certainty steadied me. The bond hummed with it, a constant current beneath my skin. We were no longer four separate people trying to survive a curse. We had become something that moved together, decided together, bled together.
Night brought the next test.
Torches appeared across the river sooner than expected. Hundreds. The main force had pushed harder than our scouts predicted. I watched them mass along the far bank, trying to find the shallowest crossing. Their leaders shouted orders that carried over the water.
"Hold," I called down the line. Our archers waited with arrows nocked. The trap teams crouched ready with torches shielded from sight.
The first wave entered the river. Water rose to their chests. They struggled against the current, shields held high. When half had committed, I gave the signal.
Our archers loosed. Screams cut through the night as bodies fell into the dark water. Then the pitch bundles flew, flaming arcs that landed among them. Fire spread fast on oil-slicked wood we had floated out earlier. The river itself seemed to burn.
Chaos swallowed their advance. Men drowned. Others burned. Those who reached our bank met steel waiting in the rocks.
I led the counter-push myself, sword swinging in tight arcs. A northerner crashed into me, axe raised. I ducked and drove upward under his guard. Warmth sprayed across my neck.
Darius fought like winter itself, precise and unrelenting. Kane disappeared into the press and reappeared covered in more blood than before. Rylan laughed once, wild and short, as his axe cleared a path wide enough for three men.
We held the bank. The river carried away their dead and dying. When the survivors finally retreated, the water ran darker than before. We counted our losses — nineteen this time. Painful, but the north had paid far heavier.
Back on high ground I gathered the captains. Faces glowed in firelight, exhausted but unbroken.
"They tested us," I said. "Tomorrow they will throw everything at one crossing. We make that crossing their graveyard. Rest in shifts. No one leaves their post unwatched."
The kings and I took the first watch together on the forward ridge. The bond felt raw after the fighting, every emotion close to the surface. Darius’s quiet rage. Kane’s cold resolve. Rylan’s burning need to protect what he loved. All of it fed into me and came back stronger.
I leaned against Darius’s side while Kane checked my wounds and Rylan kept watch. Their hands on me carried care as much as hunger. We had no time for more, but the touches grounded us. Reminded us why we stood here bleeding in the dark.
Morning would test us harder. The witch-blood leader had to be among the next wave. She would not hide forever while her people died for her dream of stolen eternity.
I watched the far bank where new torches gathered. The river kept its steady roar, indifferent to the lives it swallowed. Somewhere behind us, three small hearts beat safe within stone walls.
That knowledge was enough.
I tightened my grip on my sword and felt the kings do the same through the bond.
Let them come with all their numbers and ancient hatred.
We had already decided the only outcome that mattered.
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The main northern host hit us at first light, a solid wall of bodies and steel pouring toward the narrowed crossing. I stood on the forward ridge with rain starting to slash sideways and watched them commit. No more testing probes. This was their push.
"Hold until they reach the markers," I called down the line. My voice carried over the growing roar of water and men. The pack answered with raised weapons. No cheers this time. Just readiness.
The first ranks entered the river. Water churned around their waists, slowing them, turning their formation ragged. When the front line hit our hidden stakes, the screaming started. Men fell. Others stumbled over them. Arrows from our position darkened the air above the chaos.
I raised my sword. "Now."
We surged down the slope in a single wave. My boots hit the muddy bank and kept going straight into the shallows. A northerner swung a heavy mace at my head. I ducked under it and opened his stomach with a upward cut. The smell of blood mixed with river mud and wet iron.
Darius fought a few paces ahead, his blade moving in tight, economical arcs that dropped enemies without wasted motion.
Kane had already slipped behind their lines, appearing and vanishing like smoke, leaving corpses in his wake. Rylan anchored the right flank, his axe clearing space in wide, devastating sweeps that sent men flying into the current.
I lost count of how many I killed in those first frantic minutes. Each clash blurred into the next. A spear grazed my thigh. I took the wielder’s arm at the elbow and kept moving.
The rain turned heavier, slicking every grip and turning the ground treacherous. The river rose, fed by the downpour, pulling at our legs and carrying away the dead.
A massive warrior broke through toward me, shield raised, eyes wild with battle lust. He bellowed something in their tongue and charged.
I met him head-on, our weapons locking with a shock that vibrated up my arms. He was stronger. I used that. Twisted inside his guard, drove my elbow into his throat, then buried my sword under his ribs. He toppled backward into the water. The current took him before he finished falling.
Through everything the bond kept us connected. I felt Darius’s cold focus, Kane’s quiet precision, Rylan’s wild joy in the violence. It kept me upright when exhaustion tried to drag me down.
We pushed them back across the river. Twice they regrouped and tried again. Twice we broke them. The rain never stopped. By the time the sun sat high behind the clouds, the crossing ran thick with bodies and broken weapons.
Our losses hurt, we lost thirty-seven in total but the northern force had shattered against us.
I stood knee-deep in the reddened water, chest heaving, and looked across to their side. A tall figure had appeared among the remnants. Dark braids, silver wire, bones woven in. She stared straight at me across the distance. Even without words, her hatred carried.
The witch-blood heir.
She didn’t charge. She simply watched, then turned and vanished into her retreating lines. The message was clear. This battle was lost, but the war continued.
We pulled back to higher ground to tend wounds and count survivors. I sat on a fallen log while a healer stitched the gash on my thigh.
Darius crouched in front of me, cleaning mud from my face with a wet cloth. Kane paced nearby, restless. Rylan leaned against a tree, axe across his knees, eyes distant.
"That was her," I said quietly. "The one who wants their hearts. She watched us break her people and didn’t flinch."
Darius’s hand stilled. "Then she’s patient. Dangerous."
"She’s desperate," Kane corrected. "Her ritual needs living twins. Every man we kill here delays her."
Rylan spat on the ground. "Let her stay desperate. We keep bleeding her army until nothing’s left but her and whatever guards she’s got left."
