Kingdom of Ash

he’d felled, and waited for his last breaths.
And now, charging toward that too-distant
keep, so far behind the droves of soldiers and
riders racing for the gates, he wondered if
these minutes would be his last. Her last.
She had come for him.
Lorcan managed to glance toward the dam
on their right. Toward the ruk rider signaling
that it was only a matter of minutes until it
unleashed hell over the plain.
He didn’t know how it had become
weakened. Didn’t care.
Farasha leaped over a pile of Valg bodies,
and Lorcan couldn’t stop his moan as warm
blood dribbled down his front and back.
Still Elide kept urging the horse onward,
kept them on as straight a path toward the
distant keep as possible.
No ruk would come to sweep them up. No,
his luck had been spent in surviving this long,