the first runner returned. She was helped by several kitchen hands, and serrated knives of all shapes and sizes were handed out along the wall. Tristan shouted instructions, his mind clearing as adrenaline kicked in. While some of their number worked hard to saw at the ropes, others moved to strategic points along the wall that gave them better angles to shoot the climbers with arrows or to drop the newly delivered stones, pottery, and scrap metal onto their unsuspecting heads.
Veronyka was one of those working the knives, sawing with all her might into the rope Tristan had first tried to cut, while he backed up several paces, standing on the same crate as before and pointing his bow down, flush against the wall. It was a difficult angle, but it was the danger that Veronyka faced that made his muscles tense and his palms sweat. If she didn’t cut the rope, or if he missed his shot, she would be the first thing the soldier saw when he mounted the wall. She would be his first victim.
Veronyka seemed oblivious to the danger, slashing relentlessly at the rope, which had begun to fray from her efforts. Her forehead was damp with sweat, and she’d rolled up the sleeves of his oversized tunic.
Scuffs and grunts reached his ears, and he looked down again to see the climber rising steadily. The man was armed with a battle-ax strapped across his back and several daggers on his belt. Pausing for a moment to gather his breath, he looked up, and their eyes met.
Next to Tristan, a triumphant “Aha” was followed by a loud snap. The metal hook hit the ground with a heavy clang, and the severed threads of the rope disappeared over the edge of the battlements. Tristan looked back over the wall as the climber dropped soundlessly into the chasm of darkness below.
Veronyka didn’t stop to celebrate. Gasping, she took up her knife and attacked another rope farther down the line.
Across the courtyard, another hook rattled to the ground as a second climber fell, this time crying out as he dropped from the wall. The surge of happiness that flared inside Tristan was quickly stifled. For every rope that was cut, two more flew up in its place.
A handful of Tristan’s arrows found their mark, but it wasn’t enough. The stream of climbers seemed endless, and the time it took to cut them was longer than the time it took for new soldiers to make the climb. Soon they would crest the walls, and all his best fighters were in the village.
The grappling hooks flew up in waves, usually sets of two or three, with a few minutes’ lull in between—climbers trying to find better positions, Tristan guessed, or dodging their fellows as they hurtled back to the ground. At this rate, the stronghold would be lost before the village gate fell—a shocking realization, with the sound of groaning hinges and splintering wood echoing from below, along with the steady thump, thump, thump of the battering ram, pulsing in time with the rapid beat of Tristan’s heart.
He had to change their strategy, but how?
During the pauses between the waves of grappling hooks, the defenders traded positions, giving those hacking at the ropes a chance to attack, while those who had been firing arrows or dropping stones took up a blade.
Tristan forced Veronyka to take a break and drink some water, while he held her serrated knife, weighing his options. He could call Captain Flynn from his position on the village wall, but he hadn’t sent a reply to Tristan’s first message about the battering ram, which meant he was either too busy to report—and to help—or that something much worse had become of him.
“You know what you have to do, don’t you?” Veronyka said, still gasping as she tried to catch her breath.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a Rider, Tristan. Ride.”
He looked down at her, at those familiar eyes, and shook his head. “I . . . I can’t. We have no battle experience. That’s what they want us to do. They want us to die out there.”
He grabbed the waterskin from her hands and raised it to his lips, but he didn’t drink.
“Then let me go,” she said. When his head snapped in her direction, she twisted her lips, then said, “I’m bonded. That new female, the one I tamed in the courtyard? She was—is—my bondmate.”
Tristan realized that distantly he’d known this—had figured it out during the fight with her sister