Erik squeezed his eyes tightly shut and buried his face deep into thesand. Beside him, Halig and Torstein did the same thing, wrapping their arms over the backs of their heads. The 1,400 Iron Kingdom soldiers lay flat on the beach, holding their breath.
Out on the water, the tall Danish captain grabbed the edge of the drifting transport ship. He looked down at the barrels of black sand scattered across the deck. He saw the tiny, glowing orange spark of the cloth fuse reach the powder.
A blinding, pure white flash of light illuminated the dark morning, turning the entire beach as bright as the middle of summer for exactly one heartbeat.
The incredible force of the blast slammed into the beach like a solid wall of iron.
Erik felt his entire body get pushed hard into the sand. The air was sucked out of his lungs.
A massive shower of freezing seawater, wet sand, and burning splinters of wood rained down heavily on the backs of the Iron Kingdom soldiers.
