“Fall back to the general!” The Porcugi’s cries hissed up from the beach, but I couldn’t understand many of the voices that were muffled by distance.
I threw up my hands. “Something must have happened when I went to see Matanta. I don’t know why or how, but I do know I need to get out there so I can hear what the Porcugi are saying.”
With a silent nod, Thevan mounted his horse and gestured for the horn bearer to do the same.
Parushi stood her ground, though, searching my face. “I don’t know what that idiot of a raja or his snake of an adviser said to you while you were there, but promise me that you are not trying to get yourself killed.”
Then I saw it. The worry behind Parushi’s piercing eyes. The fear behind her incredulity.
“Promise!” she insisted.
“I promise,” I said.
“Then I’ll be at your side.” She mounted her horse, and we stormed out of the gardens, throwing mud and trampled flowers behind us in our wake.
We burst through the wall’s gates and rode toward the beach, descending into its chaos as our horses contended with the sand slipping beneath their feet. The sea that once sparkled was obscured by smoke, and the beach that once shimmered was coated in ash. Bodies lay scattered along the shore, their last threads of life claimed by the bloodstained sands.
Thevan organized a group of archers around me, and they brought a stack of coconut torches to our sides. The soldiers kept sneaking glances at me, so I sat tall and proud, as if the raging flames on the beach gave me strength.
“The Porcugi are splitting into two groups so they can attack from both sides,” I told Thevan.
“They’re in the water!” Parushi pointed to an area where lumps in the sea fought the tide and moved to our right.
The horn bearers signaled the warning, and our soldiers rearranged themselves in time to meet the Porcugi attack with a volley of coconut leaf torches. They lit the sky in streams?—like shooting stars cutting through the ash with their light?—and the Porcugi screamed as they were struck. But there were screams from our soldiers too. Their cries clawed at my heart, leaving its walls in shreds.
How many would need to die to make the sea turn red?
“Draw them away from it! Draw them away!” The strange Porcugi command rang out over the chaotic din of battle.
On both sides of us, the Porcugi pushed toward the periphery, leaving the middle of the beach?—the part directly in front of us?—wide open.
“Now!”
The hiss-like scream came from straight ahead, and a group of six Porcugi slithered up the gap in the middle. One of them had six rings decorating its hood?—three on each side. It was in the back, but it gave the commands.
“They’re coming for the rani!” Thevan spurred his horse toward them.
I wanted to grab him, to stop him and hold him there with me, but he jumped ahead. He looked back only long enough to unsheathe his sword and kiss the medallion on its hilt before charging forward. The archers followed their leader on foot. They lit their fire arrows and created a stream of flames as they unflinchingly faced the enemies that dwarfed them.
“It makes no sense,” I protested. “They don’t even know I’m here!”
Parushi was the only one that could hear me, but she just nocked an arrow and placed herself between me and the oncoming Porcugi. Our soldiers slung their fire arrows, and a few Porcugi were struck, but only one fell. The rest pressed forward to meet Thevan and his group, slicing through sands with their hoods outstretched. Their eyes were as cold as their silver scales, and their shining arms reached toward our soldiers, eager to claim them for the waves.
One of the Porcugi leaned forward and surged in front of the rest, then it cut in front of our soldiers, flicking its tail and sending sand flying all over them. The men and women of Ullal fell into disarray as those who didn’t protect their eyes screamed and desperately rubbed their faces.
“Shoot!” Thevan called out. “Aim for the heads!”
Arrows flew into the air, but the Porcugi hardly slowed their attack, and they reached our soldiers before they could release another volley. A leading Porcugi picked up Thevan and lifted him off his horse. Thevan turned back toward me, and our eyes connected through the haze of smoke. My fingers extended out to the man I could never reach, but he turned to face the Porcugi, raised his sword, and screamed, “Ullal!”
The Porcugi laughed, and Thevan’s scream faded into nothing as the Porcugi carried him back toward the waves.
“No!” I yelled. But it was lost in Parushi’s cry and the sounds of the battle that raged all around me.
I spurred Sima forward, but Parushi cut us off and pushed us back.
She glared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Don’t be a fool.”
Sima stomped and flicked his mane, impatient to join the fighting, but Parushi was right. Rushing there now would do us no good.
