Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) by Sarah J. Maas

So Rowan and Fenrys headed upstairs, Elide helping to haul their stolen gear. No one stopped them. Not with the sky turning to gray, and soldiers rushing to their positions on the battlements.

Rowan and Fenrys didn’t have far to go. They’d be stationed by the gates at the lower level, where the battering rams might come flying through if Morath got desperate enough.

On the level above them, Chaol sat astride his magnificent black horse, the mare’s breath curling from her nostrils. Rowan lifted a hand in greeting, and Chaol saluted back before gazing toward the enemy army.

The khaganate would make the first maneuver, the initial push to get Morath moving.

“I always forget how much I hate this part,” Fenrys muttered. “The waiting before it begins.”

Rowan grunted his agreement.

Gavriel prowled up to them, Lorcan a dark storm behind him. Rowan wordlessly handed the latter the armor he’d gathered. “Courtesy of the Lord of Anielle.”

Lorcan gave him a look that said he knew Rowan was full of shit, but began efficiently donning the armor, Gavriel doing the same. Whether the soldiers around them marked that armor, whether Chaol recognized it, no one said a word.

Far out, the gray sky lightening further, Morath stirred to discover the khaganate’s golden army already in place.

And as a lone ruk screeched its challenge, the khaganate advanced.

Foot soldiers in perfect lines marched, spears out, shields locked rim to rim. The Darghan cavalry flanked either side, a force of nature ready to herd Morath to where they wanted them. And above, flapping into the skies, the rukhin readied their bows and marked their targets.

“Ready now,” Chaol called out to the men of his keep.

Armor clanked as men shifted, their fear stuffing itself up Rowan’s nose.

This would be it—today. Whether that hope remained or fractured.

Already, the awakening sky revealed two siege towers being hauled toward them. Right to the wall. Far closer than Rowan had last noted when flying overhead last night. Morath, it seemed, had not been sleeping, either.

The ruks would remain back with their own army, driving Morath to the keep. To be picked off here, one by one.

“We have minutes until that first tower makes contact with the wall,” Gavriel observed.

A scan of the battlements, the soldiers atop them, revealed no sign of Aelin.

Lorcan indeed muttered, “Someone better tell her to stop primping and get here.”

Rowan snarled in warning.

The clash of armored feet and shields was as familiar as any song. Morath’s foot soldiers aimed for the keep walls, spears at the ready. At the other end of the host, soldiers faced away, spears and pikes angled to intercept the khaganate’s army.

A horn blasted from deep in the khaganate ranks, and arrows flew.

The mass of Morath soldiers didn’t so much as flinch or look behind to see what became of their rear lines.

“Ladders,” Fenrys murmured, pointing with his chin toward the ripple through the lines. Massive siege ladders of iron parted the crowd.

“They’re making this their all-out assault, then,” Lorcan said with equal quiet. All of them careful not to let the nearby men hear. “They’ll try to break into the keep before the khaganate can break them.”

“Archers!” Chaol’s bellow rang out. Behind them, down the battlements, bows groaned.

Fenrys unslung the bow across his back and nocked an arrow into place.

Rowan kept his own bow strapped across his back, the quiver untouched, Gavriel and Lorcan doing the same. No need to waste them on a few soldiers when their aim might be needed with far worse targets later in the day.

But one of them had to be noted felling soldiers. For whatever it would do to rally their spirits. And Fenrys, as fine an archer as Rowan, he’d admit, would do just fine.

Rowan followed the line of Fenrys’s arrowhead to where he’d marked one of the bearers of a siege ladder. “Make it impressive,” he muttered.

“Mind your own business,” Fenrys muttered back, tracking his target with the tip of his arrow as he awaited Chaol’s order.

If Aelin didn’t arrive within another moment, he’d have to leave the battlements to find her. What in hell had held her up?

Lorcan drew his ancient blade, which Rowan had witnessed felling soldiers in kingdoms far from here, in wars far longer than this one. “They’ll head for the gates when that siege tower docks,” Lorcan said, glancing from the battlements to the gate a level below, the small bastion of men in front of it. Trees had been felled to prop up the metal doors, but should a solid enough group of enemy soldiers swarm it, they might get those supports and the heavy locks down within minutes. And open the gates to the hordes beyond.

“We don’t let them get that far,” Rowan said, eyeing up the massive tower lumbering closer. Soldiers teemed behind it, waiting to scale its interior. “Chaol brought the tower down the other day without our help. It can happen again.”

“Volley!” Chaol’s roar echoed off the stones, and arrows sang.

Like a swarm of locusts, they swept upon the soldiers marching below. Fenrys’s arrow found its mark with lethal precision.

Within a heartbeat, another was on its tail. A second soldier at the siege ladder fell.

Where the hell was Aelin—

Morath didn’t halt. Marched right over the soldiers who fell on their front lines.