Neve cut down his opponent,barely sparing the human another glance before he moved on to the next, swords clanging together.
Lunge.
Perry.
Slice.
Block.
Repeat.
Over and over, he dispatched the Asterans, their strength in no way a match for his own. The problem was the sea of human soldiers never seemed to stop. It felt like trying to dispatch a swarm of locusts. A lesson in futility.
An incoming spear scraped against his left pauldron, and Neve narrowed his eyes at the young wide-eyedsaloeswho gaped at him as he charged. The boy dropped his too-big shield and spun on his heel, sprinting in the other direction, disappearing in the sea of his brethren.
Neve spat on the ground.
A coward. Just like all humans.
He scanned the battlefield, catching a glimpse of Olwen slashing at every human within his reach, a bloodthirsty grin plastered across his square face. Thevalloscame from a berserker line and relished the fight.
Flyka struck down a human to his right and then straightened, her upper lip curling in disgust at the blood on her blade. As if she could feel his attention, her gaze latched onto Neve’s.
“Are you injured?” she asked roughly. Her breath sawed in and out of her chest in large gulps.
He shook out his left shoulder. While it twinged, there was no blood that he could see. “I will be fine,” he growled.
A horn cut through the air, and the human soldiers all at once retreated.
Neve took one step forward as if to hunt them down, when Flyka’s hand clamped down on his right vambrace, halting his movement. While three inches shorter than he was, she still managed to stare him down. His Haunt shook her head once.
“As much as I want to run them down into the ground, it has been a long day, and your men are tired,” she said in a low voice. “There will be no victory even if we press onward.”
He took a hard look around. While his warriors were ready to fight, their bodies held fatigue. Everyone had their limits. He signaled to the trumpeter to sound the retreat. The bright sound of the horn was at odds with the bodies strewn across the blood-soaked snow.
There were too many frost giant bodies, their skin a bright contrast to the snow.
His warriors retreated while some accompanied healers through the battlefield, helping giants that could still be saved. For a long time, Neve stood there staring at where the humanshad disappeared, the smoke from their campfires dancing in the distance.
What he would not give to eradicate them. To give his people the justice they deserved.
But he could give his fallen warriors The Great Sleep, at least.
Neve began picking his way through the bodies, closing the eyes of his fallen comrades, and saying little goodbyes to all of them. Flyka followed beside him, his silent protector. The sky turned pink, then purple, and then black. By the time he had finished, he felt nothing.
He was completely numb. Not by the cold, but from the loss.
Too many deaths. This was not how it should have been.
This washerfault.
The ember of rage that lived inside him since he had woken up thawed some of the numbness. He had done everything he could for peace—even marry one of the treacherousvalles, knowing that their heirs would be halflings. Weaklings who would have to fight for the throne. Now, he would do everything within his power to stamp out thesaloes. The time for peace and compromise was over.
You can’t stamp her out of your soul.
Deny. Deny. Deny.
It’s what he’d been doing for months.
