“Are you sure that’s a good idea, princess?”
I glanced at Puck and smiled. “Are you going to stop me?”
He held up his hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He grinned and shook his head. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
I looked at Ash, wondering what he thought of this, if he would try to talk me down. He gazed back with a solemn expression, teacher to student, sizing me up.
“You’ve never fought in a real war,” he said softly, and I caught the trace of worry in his voice. “You don’t know what real battle is like. It’s nothing like a one-on-one duel. It will be violent and bloody and chaotic, and you won’t have any time to think about what you’re doing. The things you’ve seen, the things you’ve experienced—nothing will have prepared you for this. Goodfellow and I will protect you as best we can, but you will have to fight, and you will have to kill. Without mercy. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes.” I raised my chin and stared back, meeting his eyes. “I’m sure.”
“Good.” He nodded once, and turned toward the looming forest. “Because here they come.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CREEPING IRON
“Get ready,” Ash muttered, and drew his sword.
My hand shook as I followed his example, the blade awkward and clumsy in my grasp. Ahead of us, light glinted off swords, shields, and armor, a menacing wall of bristling faery steel. Trolls and ogres shifted impatiently, gripping their spiked clubs. Goblins and redcaps licked their pointed teeth, bloodlust shining from their eyes. Dryads, hammadryads, and oakmen waited silently, their green and brown faces tight with hate and fear. Out of all the fey, the slow corruption of the Nevernever affected them most of all and reminded me what was at stake. I gripped the hilt of my sword, feeling the metal bite into my palm. Come on, then, I thought, as a great rustling sounded just beyond the hole—hundreds of feet, marching toward us. Branches snapped, trees shook, and the armies of Summer and Winter howled in reply. You won’t beat me. The false king isn’t going to win. Your advance stops right here.
“Here we go,” Ash growled, as with the screeching of a million knives, the Iron fey broke from the forest and came into view. Wiremen and Iron knights, clockwork hounds, spider-hags, skeletal creatures that looked like the Terminator, all shiny and metallic, and hundreds more of different shapes and sizes, pouring out of the forest in a huge, chaotic swarm. For a moment, the two armies stared at each other, hate and violence and bloodlust shining from their eyes. Then, a monstrous armored knight, horns bristling from a steel helm, stepped to the front of the army and swept an arm forward, and the Iron fey charged with hair-raising shrieks.
The Seelie and Unseelie roared in response, surging forward to meet them. Like ants, they spilled onto the battlefield, the space between them growing smaller and smaller as they closed on each other. The two armies met with the deafening screech and clang of weapons, and then everything dissolved into madness.
Ash and Puck pressed close, refusing to advance, only engaging an enemy if it attacked first. The front lines held off the worst of the battle, but gradually the Iron fey began slipping through the holes and pushing toward the back. I gripped my weapon and tried to focus, but it was hard. Everything was happening so fast, bodies whirling by, swords flashing, the shrieks and howls of the wounded. A giant praying mantis–thing lunged at me, bladed arms sweeping down, but Ash stepped in front of it and caught the edges with his sword, shoving it back. An Iron knight, dressed head to toe in plate mail, rushed me, but tripped as Puck kicked him in the knee and sent him sprawling.
Another armored knight broke through the back ranks, slicing at me with his weapon, a serrated, two-handed broad-sword. Reacting on instinct, I dodged the blow and stabbed at him with my sword. It screeched off his breastplate, leaving a shiny gash in the armor but not hurting him. The knight bellowed a laugh, confident in his victory, and lunged again, sweeping his blade across at my head. Ducking the blow, I stepped forward and plunged my sword through his visor, feeling the tip strike the back of his helm.
The knight dropped like his strings had been cut. My stomach roiled, but there was no time to think about what I’d just done. More Iron fey were pouring from the woods. I saw Oberon charge into the fray on a huge black warhorse, glamour swirling around him, and sweep a hand toward the thickest of the fighting. Vines and roots erupted from the ground, coiling around the Iron fey, strangling them or pulling them beneath the earth. Atop a rise, Mab raised her arms, and a savage whirlwind swept across the field, freezing fey solid or impaling them with ice shards. The armies of Summer and Winter howled with renewed vigor and threw themselves at the enemy.
And then, something monstrous broke through the trees, lumbering onto the field. A huge iron beetle, the size of a bull elephant, plowed into the chaos, crushing fey underfoot. Four elves with metallic, shimmering hair sat atop a platform on its back, shooting old-style muskets into the crowd. Summer and Winter fey fell under a hail of musket fire as another beetle broke through the trees. Swords and arrows bounced off the dark, shiny carapaces as the tanklike bugs waddled farther into the camp, leaving death in their wake.
“Fall back!” Oberon’s voice boomed over the field as the beetles continued their rampage. “Fall back and regroup! Go!”
As Summer and Winter forces began drawing back, a ripple of Iron glamour washed over me, coming from the bugs. Narrowing my eyes and peering through the madness, I looked closer. It was as if the bugs came into clear focus through a blurry background; I could see the Iron glamour shimmering around them, cold and colorless. The thick, bulky carapaces were near invulnerable, but the beetle’s legs were thin and spindly, barely strong enough to hold the monsters up. The joints were weak and spotted with rust…and the ghost of an idea floated through my mind.
“Ash, Puck!” I whirled on them, and their attention snapped to me. “I think I know how to take down that bug, but I need to get closer! Clear me a path!”
Puck blinked, looking incredulous. “Uh, running toward the enemy? Isn’t that like the opposite of what fall back means?”
“We have to stop those bugs before they kill half the camp!” I looked at Ash, pleading. “I can do this, but I need you to guard me when I get up there. Please, Ash.”
Ash stared at me a moment, then nodded curtly. “We’ll get you there,” he muttered, raising his sword. “Goodfellow, back me up.”
He lunged forward, against the tide of retreating fey. Puck shook his head and followed. We fought our way through the center of the field, where bodies of faeries—or what had been faeries—littered the ground. The fighting was much thicker here, and my bodyguards were hard-pressed to keep the enemy off me. A roar of musket fire rang out, and a wyvern screeched and crashed to the ground a few yards away, flapping and thrashing. The bulk of the beetle loomed overhead, shiny black carapace blocking out the sun.
“Is this…close enough, princess?” Puck panted, locked in battle with a pair of wiremen, their razor-wire claws slashing at him. At his side, Ash snarled and crossed swords with an Iron knight, filling the air with the scream of metal. I nodded, heart racing. “Just keep them off me for a few seconds!” I called, and turned back toward the iron bug, staring at its underside. Yes, the legs were jointed, held together by metal bolts. As a spindly leg swept by, I dodged and closed my eyes, drawing Iron glamour from the air, from the bug and the trees and the corrupted land around me. Musket fire boomed, and the screech of swords and faeries rang in my head, but I trusted my guardians to keep me safe and kept concentrating.
Opening my eyes, I focused on one of the insect’s joints, on the tiny bolt that held it together, and pulled. The nut trembled, shaking with rust, and then flew out like a cork, a brief glint of metal under the sun. The insect lurched as the leg crumpled and fell off into the mud, and then the whole beetle started to tip like an off-balanced bus.
“Yes!” I cheered, just as the wave of nausea hit. A stab of pain ripped through my stomach, and I fell to my knees, fighting the urge to vomit. A shadow engulfed me, and I looked up to see the enormous bulk of the insect falling sideways, scattering Iron fey and faeries alike, but I couldn’t move. A blur of darkness, and then Ash grabbed me by the arm, yanking me upright. We leaped forward, as with a mighty groan, the beetle crashed to the ground and rolled over, crushing the musket elves beneath it and nearly killing me in the process. On its back, the beetle’s remaining legs kicked and flailed uselessly, and I giggled with slight hysterics. Ash muttered something inscrutable and pulled me into a brief, tight embrace.
“You enjoy making my heart stop, don’t you?” he whispered, and I felt him shaking with adrenaline or something else. Before I could form a reply, he released me and stepped back, a stoic bodyguard once more. Panting, I gazed around to see the Iron fey drawing back, vanishing into the metal forest again. The other beetle seemed trapped under a writhing mess of vines, tangling its legs and dragging it down. The musketeers on its back had been impaled with huge spears of ice. Mab and Oberon’s doing, probably.
“Is it over?” I asked as Puck joined us, also breathing hard, his armor spattered with some icky black substance, like oil. “Did we win?”
Puck nodded, but his eyes were grim. “In a matter of speaking, princess.”
Puzzled, I looked around, and my stomach twisted. Bodies from both sides lay scattered about the field, some moaning, some still and lifeless. A few had already turned to stone, ice, dirt, branches, water, or had faded away entirely. Sometimes it happened instantly, sometimes it took hours, but faeries didn’t leave physical bodies behind when they died. They simply ceased to exist. But, more disturbing, as I looked closer, I saw that the Iron forest had crept even closer, so much that it had spread to the center of the camp. As I watched in horror, a young green sapling turned shiny and metallic, gray poison creeping up its trunk. Several leaves snapped off and plummeted down to stick in the earth, glimmering like knives.
“It is spreading even faster now.” A shadow fell over us, and Oberon swept up on his warhorse, eyes glowing amber beneath his antlered helm. “Every battle, we are forced to fall back, to give more ground. For every Winter or Summer faery that falls, the Iron Kingdom grows, destroying all in its path. If this keeps up, there will be nothing left.” Oberon’s voice took on a sharper edge. “Also, I thought I told you to stay out of the battle, Meghan Chase. And yet, you fling yourself into the heart of danger, despite my attempts to keep you safe. Why do you continue to defy me?”
Ignoring the question, I looked to the dark forest where the last of the Iron fey were disappearing. Just beyond the tree line, I felt the Iron Kingdom crouched at the edge, eager to creep forward again, watching me with its poisoned glare. Somewhere out there, safe in his land of iron, the false king waited for me, patient and assured, knowing the courts couldn’t touch him.
“He knows I’m here now,” I murmured, feeling Oberon’s eyes on me, as well as the twin gazes of Puck and Ash, and swallowed the tremor in my voice. “I can’t stay—he’ll send everything he has at you trying to get to me.”