“Dismount and draw together!” Damion roared. The horses were accustomed to battle, to the shriek of the winged beasts, to carrying a warrior while he wielded a sword, but Damion couldn’t fight with Sasha in front of him. He slid from the saddle, dragging her with him, his arm around her waist, not even waiting for Lucian to come to a complete stop.
The horses shuddered but didn’t bolt, and the soldiers clustered quickly, drawing the horses down, creating a formation with their backs facing inward and their lances bristling outward. The soldiers on the outer edges knelt, the next row crouched, the inner rows stood, and the soldiers in the center held their lances at near vertical, protecting the formation from directly overhead, making a sphere of sharp edges around both man and beast with
