The Luna Queen's Rebirth novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Ravenpass

We waited in the rocks above the Weeping Bridge, three hundred riders, with the wind in our faces.

It was the last hour of dark.

Below us the wagons creaked across the bridge with their lanterns lit, driven by men who thought they were hauling grain.

The wagons were full of straw and sleeping archers.

"If you're wrong," Eirik whispered beside me, "I'm going to be unbearable about it."

"I'm not wrong."

"You're remarkably calm for a woman who's about to watch a fight."

"I'm going to be in it."

He turned his head so fast his braids swung.

"Rhydian," he hissed. "Your wife is planning something."

"I know," said Rhydian, from my other side.

He was crouched on the rock in his black coat with a hand resting on his sword, and he didn't look at me.

"She told me on the road. I said no."

"You said 'we'll see,'" I said.

"It's the same thing."

"It's really not."

His mouth twitched in the gloom, and then he went still.

Up on the north slope, a stone clicked.

Another followed. Then a long, soft slide of loose scree, and a shape, and another, pouring down the dark hillside toward the bridge.

Seventy of them, as I had said. Lean and ragged, with torn grey cloaks and knives in their teeth.

The Ashen pack.

They had burned villages when I was Luna. I had read the reports every winter, in a warm room, and I'd done nothing.

"Now," I said.

Rhydian lifted his hand, and three hundred bows sang.

The first ranks of the Ashen fell in the scree.

The rest roared. They shifted as they ran, a wave of rough dun wolves flooding down onto the bridge.

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