Crack!
The rock split in two, either half sliding away and rolling off the back of the wall. Together they crashed into the ground just behind the wall.
And standing there, shaking and looking like she might cry, was Sarah. I gaped at the rock on the ground below. Right where she would have been standing, I saw two perfect indents that were just about her size.
“Sarah!” I cried. I tried to run to her, but Cara got there first. She swept Sarah into an embrace, arms wrapped tightly around her. I gawked. I’d hardly ever even seen Cara crack a smile, much less hug someone.
“I’m fine,” said Sarah shakily. “I’m okay.”
Cara shoved her back, looking furious. “Don’t do that again, my Lady,” she said, her voice cracking.
Then she whirled as another ladder top crested the wall. A Shadow’s head appeared. She lopped it off, then kicked the ladder away.
Blade and the others had turned their attention to the press of Shadows on the ground, where they were wreaking terrible havoc. Any ladder that tried to rise was burnt to a crisp. One battering ram team after another was fried by blasts of lightning, forcing others to step forward and take their place.
But despite their best efforts, I heard a steady series of loud crashes as battering rams slammed at the gate. It was holding, for now. But I felt a chill as I remembered Greystone complaining about the new, wider gates that had been installed in the wall.
I shook it off and took advantage of the momentary lull on top of the wall to grab Sarah’s shoulder. She turned to me with a start, looking for a moment like she might take a swing at me. She recognized my face and relaxed, but I could still feel her shaking in my grasp.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just shook up. I…don’t even know what I did.”
I shrugged. “I think it was instinct. And luck. But that’s just me. Come on. Those siege towers are getting close.”
The air was filled with creaks and groans as the catapults planted behind the city walls cut loose. The stones flew high above us as we ran north along the wall. I saw one of them crash down on one of Terrence’s catapults, shattering it to bits with a satisfying crunch.
The three closest towers were to the North, but they’d made a terrible mistake. That section of the wall was right near the gap through which the river ran.
When we reached the wall, the towers were barely twenty feet away. Greystone was there, directing everybody who could shoot, launch or throw something to aim at the hellions towing the towers.
“Bring them down! Like your lives depend on it!” he roared. Which they do, I thought to myself.
“Greystone!” I shouted.
He snapped around and waved madly to us. “Hurry! The river!”
“Why do you think I’m here?” I grumbled.
“I do not pretend to know the mind of a child from True Earth,” he sniffed.
I shook my head. “Sarah, once I do my thing, hit them as hard as you can.”
“Got it,” she said, already reaching out to sink the feet of one of the hellions into the ground.
I felt the river rolling by as though it was right under my hand. I grasped it, pulling it up and out of its bed, then sending it spinning through the air toward the middle tower. The water wrapped tightly around the base of the tower, forming a solid bubble of water. Clenching my fist, I compressed it as much as I could, then shot the temperature down as far and as fast as I could.
The water turned to ice instantly, a solid block of it that froze the lower third of the tower completely solid.
“Sarah!” I cried. “Now!”
Sarah saw the tower and ripped two great hunks of earth from the ground around it. She smashed them into the tower on either side. The wooden timbers, already weakened by the ice, snapped like twigs. The shrapnel cut into the Shadows surrounding the tower, vaporizing them instantly.
The tower groaned, then tilted dangerously to the left. With a sudden crack of shattering wood, the tower fell. It crashed into the one beside it, which shuddered and came to a stop. The two hellions pulling it roared in fury, straining at the binds that held them tight to the tower’s front, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
But that’s when the third tower reached the wall. A massive platform slammed down from its side, and as it crashed into the battlements great metal hooks flew down to hold it fast to the wall.
“Not good,” I said.
Shadows poured out of the tower, crashing into the Morrowdust soldiers. Melaine and Cara leapt into the fray, but not before Melaine gave me a brief warning look and shouted, “Try not to die, my Lord!” Then she was lost in the press of bodies hacking and slashing at each other.
“Greystone, can you burn it down?” asked Sarah.
Greystone wheezed as he leaned on his staff. “Even at my best, it would be a tall order,” he said. “And I have not been at my best for many days.”
“I wasn’t aware you had a best,” I said wryly. I leaned out over the lip of the wall, inspecting the bottom of the tower. It was solid wood construction, armored by massive metal plates on all sides.
“Let me try to ice it again,” I said, feeling weariness settle into my bones even as I said the words. Adrenaline could only take you so far.
“No time,” Sarah said through gritted teeth. “Allow me.”
Her hands grasped at the empty air, and I saw the muscles in her forearms turn into tight cords. Her neck clenched as her teeth gritted and she began to breathe short, shallow breaths.
“Do not overstrain yourself, my Lady,” Greystone said nervously.
“Shut up,” she ground out. With a massive cry, she raised her arms.
There was a ripping, tearing noise, like the kind a turkey leg makes when you pull it off the body, but a thousand times louder. I looked over the wall again to see a massive plate of earth levering up directly beneath the siege tower. It tilted up, up and away, taking the siege tower with it. As I watched in disbelief, the whole tower began to tilt backward, then to topple. It slammed into the earth with the force of a million hammers, shaking the ground so hard I felt it in my feet at the top of the wall.
I turned to Sarah in shock and disbelief. “Whoah,” was all I could say.
Greystone shoved me down the wall. “Back to the gate!” he commanded. “Quickly!”
“What about you?” I said, looking at him and Sarah in confusion.
“We will be behind you in a moment,” Greystone snapped. “Go!” He turned hurriedly to speak to Sarah.
I ran as fast as I could to the wall above the gate. The Shadows had landed several ladders, and the wall was choked with pressing, fighting, screaming bodies. There were no lines, just combatants doing their best to kill each other in isolated pockets of fighting. I spotted Blade and Samuel fighting side by side. Blade had drawn his sword in his right hand and was blasting fire from his left whenever he had enough space and a clear shot. Barius fought by himself — for a heart-stopping moment, I thought Raven was gone. Then I heard a cry in the air, and I looked up to see her on the back of Ella. They were flying up and down the wall, Raven blasting ladders wherever she could. I had no idea where Tess and Nora were.
I saw Calvin ducking and cowering behind Darren, who was faced with three Shadows and barely holding them off. Calvin couldn’t gust them all away without hitting Darren, too, and he couldn’t draw and fight with only one good arm.
Melaine shoved past me and leapt in to help. Her sword quickly felled one of the creatures, giving Darren enough space to bring down another. The third took a cautious step back, hissing as it held up sword and shield in defense. I drew water from the air, hardened it into a spike and drove it through the top of the creature’s helmet. Its empty armor clattered to the stone a moment later.
Darren fell to a knee, planting his sword point down and leaning on it heavily. Calvin dropped beside him.
“He’s wounded!” Calvin shouted, his voice frantic. “We need to ge
t him to a healer!”
“The wound is weak,” said Melaine, keeping a careful eye on the press of bodies only ten feet further down the wall. “But he’s been tainted. Draw it out of him.”
“What?” I asked. “How?”
“One of you,” she said, nodding to me and Calvin. “Release your power into the wound. It doesn’t matter who, but do it quickly!”
Calvin looked at me, as lost as I was. “What, I just…blow on it?” Calvin asked.
“Give it a shot,” I said with a shrug.
Calvin sighed and stilled himself. Then he blew, cupping his good hand around his mouth to channel the flow of the air. I saw the leather straps on Darren’s armor flap in the wind. His breathing became less labored. His arms stopped shaking.
Slowly he got to his feet, placing a hand heavily on Calvin’s uninjured shoulder. “Thank you, my Lord,” he said with an impish smile. “I’m very, very glad you’re not Lord Blade.”
I laughed. “Sweet! We can heal people with our powers? Why didn’t anyone tell us this before?”
“Only the taint of Chaos, unfortunately,” said Darren. “I’ve still very much been stabbed.”
“Do we need to get you out of here?”
Darren shook his head. “I cannot leave Lord Calvin, and I doubt you wish to retreat from the battle.” He looked pointedly at Calvin.
Calvin looked around. “No, but hold on. I’ve got an idea.”
Behind the wall and about twenty feet away were the low rooftops of the buildings of Morrowdust. When the battle had begun, they’d been covered with archers. Now many of them had fallen, but some fought on, firing shots into the Shadows beyond the wall and unleashing their arrows on any crow who dared to swoop too low.
“You’re going to have to trust me,” Calvin said.
Darren gave me a melancholy look. “I hate it when he says that.”
“How good a shot are you?” asked Calvin.
“With a bow? Terrible.”
“It’ll have to do. Come on.”
My stomach lurched as Calvin stepped cautiously off the back of the wall. But rather than plummet the fifteen feet to the ground, his foot came down on the air as though it was solid. More sure of himself, he took another step. Once he was about three feet out into the open air, he turned to reach out his unbound hand for Darren.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Together they stepped carefully along until they reached the nearest rooftop. The fallen body of an archer lay there, his bow and quiver still close at hand. Calvin scooped them up and handed them to Darren, who immediately threw the quiver’s strap over his head. From their new location, Darren would be able to fire arrows into the Shadows beyond the wall, and Calvin could still use his powers.
“I want a rooftop,” I grumbled.
“Too bad you’re not the Keeper of Air,” Melaine said. “Come on.”
The fighting above the gate had died down, and once again the soldiers on the wall were fighting to cast down the ladders that kept raising. I finally spotted Tess and Nora — both of them fine, though Nora had a nasty-looking gash on her forehead.
Sarah and Greystone ran back onto the scene, looking around wildly. “Miles, where’s Raven?” asked Sarah.
I pointed up. “On Ella, like she has been the whole time,” I said, confused. “Why?”
“I shall tell her,” said Greystone. He looked up at the sky, and his mouth began moving in a silent mutter. After a minute he looked back down at Sarah and nodded. “She understands.”
Hellions had reached the gate. Despite everything we could throw at them, the steady crashing of their fists on the wood was now sounding out in time with the relentless impacts from the battering rams. I did my ground-to-mud trick, but they barely even faltered. I tried icing the water within the now-soaking ground. It hampered the footsteps of the Shadows somewhat, slowing the battering rams, but the hellions didn’t even seem to notice.
I gave a frustrated growl. Without a river or a moat or something nearby, I was seriously limited. I turned to spot Blade a dozen yards away, pushing with Samuel to cast a ladder away from the wall.
“Blade!” I roared. His head snapped up. “Swap! I’ll take ladders, but you need to help sort out the gate!”
He ran to me and leaned over the wall to look. He gave an uneasy grimace. “If I get in there, I could set fire to the gate.”
He was right. The gate was wooden. I was so used to fighting at the barrier gate by now, which was made of strong metal. “It’s the best option we’ve got right now. Do your best to keep it away from the wood,” I said. I turned to Melaine. “Why did they have to build these stupid wooden gates?”
She arched an eyebrow. “I certainly had nothing to do with the decision, my Lord.”
I heard the thunk of a ladder hitting the top of the wall. Melaine and I ran to it and pushed as hard as we could, and the ladder went leaning away. I iced it to the ground for good measure.
“Eat that, you freaks!” I shouted down, then ducked as a stray arrow whizzed by my face.
As I came back up, I noticed something in the Shadows outside the wall. It was like a hole in the sea of darkness in front of us. It caught my eye just enough to make me pause.
It was well away from the city and a few yards farther down the wall, down by where Blade was trying to hold off the hellions. Sarah was there too, now, and together they were managing to drive the creatures back. But both of them were too preoccupied to look up and notice the gap.
“What are you doing, my Lord?” asked Melaine irritably.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing.
She snapped a quick glance, then did a double take. “I don’t know.”
Slowly I walked down the wall, keeping my eyes on it. It was so small and moving so slowly, I was afraid I’d lose sight of it if I even blinked.
When I’d nearly reached the gate, I could finally make out what was forming the gap: three figures in cloaks that were a red darker than blood. They walked slowly, uncaring, through the press of the Shadows around them. The Shadows drew back from them, not in fear, but in something like reverence. The men had their hoods cast back, and their bald heads were covered in tattoos that I couldn’t make out from this distance. Something about them set my teeth on edge and made my blood run cold.
“Greystone!” I shouted. The wizard was a ways down the wall, shouting urgent commands to an officer of the Morrowdust army. I ran to him as Melaine followed.
“Greystone!” I said, grabbing his arm.
“What?” he snapped.
“Look,” I said, pointing.
He squinted out. “What? I see nothing.”
“No, not there,” I said, trying to direct his eyes. “See, right over — ”
The door to the tower beside us crashed open, and Elanor stepped out with several of her personal bodyguard.
“Greystone Ironheart,” she cried, clear as day. “You are under arrest for the murder of the King.”
The men around us stopped suddenly, their bows going still as they turned to see the Queen standing there.
In that moment of insanity, I had the sudden urge to burst out laughing. “What?” I shouted.
“Begone, witch!” Greystone spat. “Leave before I roast you. It was your treacherous negligence that killed your King. I merely ended the atrocity he had become.”
“So you admit that you killed him, then?” she said triumphantly, her chin held high.
“Are you even serious right now?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing.
Greystone’s eyes grew dark, angrier than I’d ever seen them. A fireball slowly formed in his cupped hand.
The queen stepped back fearfully, and her guards drew close in front of her.
I grabbed Greystone’s arm, restraining him. The heat of the fire so close by was like a brand on my skin, but I had to put a stop to this.
“Greystone,” I said quietly, “hold up. She’s not worth it.” I turned to Elanor, my face a glower. “
Are you freaking insane?”
And then, as I looked at her, I realized that that wasn’t an insult — it was the honest truth. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. Her hair had been perfect every day I’d ever seen her, but now stray strands spun crazily away from her into the air. Her once-pristine white gown was soiled and filthy, and her whole body seemed to be quivering.
“The Watcher will answer for his crimes,” she said, her voice strangled and shrill. “You will pay for the murder of my husband, though I would make you pay the price a thousand times over for all the years you have spent poisoning his mind.”
“The years I have spent…oh, curse this,” Greystone said, sighing. He swept his staff in a great arc. Some kind of invisible force swept Elanor and her guards off the back of the wall, where they fell shrieking to the ground. I ran to the back of the wall, my heart in my throat. But to my relief, they were only stunned; I saw each of them stirring on the ground as they fought to get their bearings and rise to their feet.
“Holy cow, man!” I said to Greystone. “You could have killed her!”
“I didn’t?” he asked, sounding slightly miffed. “What a pity.”
Then I remembered the reason I’d come here in the first place. “Wait, Greystone, you’ve got to see this,” I said, going back to the battlements again. I searched through the crowded press of the Shadows. Fortunately the three figures had gotten much closer now, and I found the gap they created almost immediately. “There!”
Greystone peered in the direction of my finger, and the color drained from his face.
He ran past me to Sarah, grasping her shoulder and whirling her to face him. “Lady Sarah!” he said, pointing. “Those men. You must destroy them.”
Sarah looked at him like he was crazy. “What’s the deal? Who are they?”
“Mages,” said Greystone, his voice dark and haunted. “Wizards working with Chaos. If they are allowed to attack the gate, it will fall in an instant.”
Sarah looked down. “What about the hellions? If we don’t hold them back, the gate goes down anyway. We can’t do both.”
“The gate will last a few minutes against them. It will last only seconds against those men. Lady Sarah, you must kill them!”
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