Fury and Flame | 3

6 | 7

G I G I

Never in my life had I seen such widespread carnage.

My senses had barely adjusted to the brightness of day when I took in the sheer scope of the battlefield. We were in the Ukrainian plains, with the land stretching out seemingly to the ends of the earth. And as far as the eye could see, Imperium soldiers were marching forward. The ones on the front lines were fighting brutally with our army.

Our own soldiers were being transported in, with a dozen military planes opening to reveal hundreds of men inside. The rest of our army had come from a massive train of military trucks, which were receding into the distance. Behind us, several massive tanks were rolling up to the line. This was all we had. In the four days Hunt had been the ONNT directive again, he'd done his best to rally our troops with the governments of the world.

It wouldn't be enough.

Imperium's soldier count easily outnumbered us by thousands. They were an unrelenting sea of black against our army's olive green. In the distance, behind the front lines of Imperium soldiers, was a row of the cannon-like machines Hunt warned us about—Scorpions. Our own weapons were still being created by Jaxon's father; we hadn't been ready for the invasion. Far to the left were several plumes of smoke rising to the perfectly blue sky—the remnants of the bombers Imperium had clearly shot down.

This was why Orion had waited so long to invade. His forces were great, perhaps the greatest in history. And something told me this wasn't even all of them—he wouldn't send all his forces to one place and leave Romania unprotected. No, this wasn't even his full might.

With my teammates on either side, we ran for the front lines. As we got closer, a ray of white-hot plasma shot out across our troops. The charred remains of human bodies were all that lay there after the flames receded. I stared, realizing the Scorpions' reach was much farther than any of us imagined.

It was so loud I feared I'd go deaf—the screams of the still-burning soldiers, a cacophony of gunshots, the engines of the military planes, the roars of an entire Imperium army—

"Here." I turned to see Jaxon holding out a handful of steel-tipped arrows to me. "I made these for you. They'll blow on impact. Make them worth it."

There was no time to respond. By the time I took them, he was already going to the front lines. Despite the dire situation we were in, I found a bit of the dread unspooling in my chest. If we made it out of this, I'd thank him.

Suddenly moving swiftly, I stuck the arrows in my quiver and followed my teammates to the middle of the fight. Neve trailed me, face completely calm and focused. I half-wondered if she ever thought this day would come—when she was fighting on the opposite side.

"We'll find Arezo," I told her, knowing she was imagining her sister within the ranks of marching soldiers. "We'll find her and keep her safe."

Her mouth pursed and eyebrows set in determination. "That's right. Until then, we give Imperium hell."

I found my lips twisting into a wry smile before I whipped around and shot the first exploding arrow into the middle of the incoming soldiers. As usual, Jaxon's creations didn't disappoint. Something grim and dark in me found joy in the way the soldiers were completely blown apart. Only a crater scarred the land where they'd stood.

      Bodies were then torn apart by the ends of my arrows left and right. Whenever a rogue Imperium agent broke through our lines, I shot them to death with an arrow to the heart. Shells from our tanks soared over our heads into the enemy.