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Still, the eastern flank had broken

"To me!" Ovid screamed to his archers

They knelt around him in a line

Atlantean soldiers ran toward the, solass ships at anchor far off the coast Their swords were raised high but they attacked in savage silence, unnerving Ovid, but only for a moment He waited until they had reached the first soldier to break through, until they were tra him under their boots

"Fire!" he cried

The archers let fly with their arrows Men and women of Atlantis went down Even at a distance, Ovid could smell their blood It stank like low tide

He stood, shouldering his bow and drawing his sword

Ovid Tsing raised his sword

"Attack!" he thundered

The Stonecoats marched around Ovid and his archers, the first wave to er, but blades broke upon the rock-skin of the Jokao The Stonecoatsbones, and kept going

Sorcerers and giants ht be able to kill the hatred for the Atlanteans The tieance upon the culture that had once held the up beside him

She pointed to the sky

Dozens of octopuses were sweeping toward the They floated like balloons, but even as he watched, an octopus snatched up a Stonecoat in its tentacles effortlessly, as if the Jokao eightless It could not kill the Stonecoat, so instead it hurled him out to sea

"Archers!" Ovid cried "Fire!"

His archers followed the co creatures Tere felled with that first attack Ovid turned his attention back to the Atlanteans,past the Jokao There sih Stonecoats to kill the’s Volunteers!" he shouted "Attack!"

He pointed his sword forward and the soldiers--e, or who had joined hi the way--rushed into ith their weapons at the ready

For the first few st theels fell Atlanteans and Euphrasians and Yucatazcans died, their blood reedily, and equally To Death, all blood was the sa into battle He caught a glimpse of LeBeau, but then he could focus only on the enemy He slashed and stabbed and used his elbows and knees--whatever it took to stop them; whatever it took to kill the’s Volunteers tore into the forces of deceitful Atlantis with courage and determination and hope Ovid’s mother had understood that it was hope that they all needed the un his ht for his mother, and for hope

An axe swept toward his skull

Ovid dodged, but not in tiure in ar Yucatazcan by the head, and snapped his neck, dropping the corpse to the ground

Ovid stared His rescuer stood a foot orbraids and wielded an enorlistened with blood not her own She gazed at him with lavender eyes, and Ovid knew that he stood face-to-face with a goddess

She wore a wild grin, as though the war and bloodshedAtlanteans with crimson abandon

Not far away, a ed into the Atlantean ranks, tearing at the a skull in its teeth

Hope had arrived

CHAPTER 19

In the shade of trees whose li of insects driven into a frenzy by the blood and sweat of dying soldiers, Oliver gathered the small force he would take with hie frohter, but even here, more than a mile away, the sounds of death echoed across the sky

Oliver stood furthest froe Perhaps twenty feet away, Li sat cross-legged on the ground, the grass burning all around hi the soil

Not far froroup of Borderkind never strayed far from one another these days--Cheval Bayard lay on her side upon the grassy hill The sun shone upon her diaphanous gown and silver hair, while Grin crouched nearby and watched the sky and the ridgeline for potential threats

Furthest from Oliver, beneath another stand of trees at the top of the ridge, stood the winter man The ice that comprised Frost’s body had become alh hi a small rainbow from the prism of his torso

Frost stood cohtthe battle, gauging the efforts of Hunyadi’s ared to join the battle, thinking he could be ofand Oliver had concocted

Good thing I don’t give a fuck what he thinks

Oliver needed Frost with hi the winter ht And as bitter as he felt toward Frost, they had been cooing to cut and run

A shape streaked across the blue sky, high enough above the battlefield that they could see it, even on this side of the ridge Oliver tensed at the sight of the green-feathered wings and the rack of antlers on the Peryton’s head He remembered Collette’s tales of her captivity in the sandcastle and the eerie presence of the Perytons then

He gripped his sword, prepared to unsheathe it

Even as he did, a dark wind twisted into a funnel, reached up into the sky, and dragged the Peryton froround, driven by the wind It landed beyond their line of sight, but Oliver thought that the force of that wind and the irilanced around to discover that none of the others had moved, or even seemed to have noticed

This is what I chose? Oliver thought The broken ones? That’s o, Bascombe

But he’d chosen them each for a reason He knew them--understood them--and felt confident that not one of them had any illusions about the task that had been set before them They could very easily be killed Oliver did not think any of these Borderkind wanted to die, but he figured none of them was all that troubled by the idea Not anymore

Other than Oliver, only Blue Jay had a reason to coht, the trickster crested the ridge at that o!" Oliver called to the others

Cheval sat up and looked toward the top of the hill Grin reached down to help her up, and together they watched Blue Jay join Frost under the trees for a moment Then the trickster and the winter as The serpent- across their backs, daggers held in sheaths strapped to their bodies

"Well done, Jay I thought Daas left from her Borderkind platoon"