lifting Amara's hair up off her neck. A column of fire shaped like some huge winged serpent rose above the battlements, curled back down, and crashed to the earth below.
The battlements mercifully shielded her from seeing what happened to the Marat caught in the sudden storm of living flame, but in the wake of that fire, as its roar died away to echoes, she heard them screaming, men and wolves alike, screaming in terror and in pain, high and breathless. There was madness in those screams, frustration, futility, terror beyond anything that she had heard before-and there was something else: the sure and certain knowledge of death, death as a release from an agony as pure and hot as the flames that had caused it.
A smell rose from the ground before the battlements in those silent moments after, the scent of charred meat. Amara shuddered, sickened.
A silence fell, broken only by screams and moans, coming from the ground below. She rose and looked down, over the ground before the walls. The fire serpent had broken the Marat, sent them and their wolves howling away from the walls of Garrison. At a command from Pirellus, the archers stepped forward and sent arrows arching into the retreating barbarians with deadly accuracy, dropping more to the earth, clutching at the barbs piercing their flesh.
She couldn't see much of the ground immediately beneath the walls, for which she felt silently grateful. The smell of burned hair and worse nearly overwhelmed her, until she bade Cirrus to keep it from her nostrils and mouth. She leaned a hand against the battlements and stared out at the blood-soaked, scorched earth, littered with a carpet of pale-haired bodies.
"Furies," she breathed. "They're not much more than children."
Bernard stepped up beside her, his face pale, grim, eyes hidden in shadows beneath his helmet. "Young warriors," Bernard said. "Their first chance to prove themselves in battle. That was Wolf Clan. One more to go."
Amara glanced at him. "They send their youngest to fight?"
"To fight first. Then, if they survive, they can join the adult warriors in the main battle."
She looked back at the field and swallowed. "This is only a preliminary to them. It isn't over."
"Not without getting the leader," Bernard said. "Get some water in you. You don't know how much you need it. Next one won't be so easy."
And indeed, a legionare came around carrying a bucket, and a thong threaded through the handles of tin cups, passing water to each man on the walls. More legionares, younger troops from the reserves in the courtyard below, came onto the walls to help carry down the wounded and bear them back to the watercrafters working at the tubs in the courtyard. As usual, those with functional and light injuries were treated first, a round of swift crafting that bound closed bleeding wounds, mended over simple broken bones, and restored a whole, if weary, fighting man to the defense of the garrison. The more seriously injured were remanded to the care of surgeons, men and women skilled in more pedantic medicinal practices, who labored to keep them alive and stable until one of the watercrafters had the time to attend to their injuries.
"Pretty much like we expected," Pirellus was saying, on the wall somewhere nearby. She focused on the conversation, listening. "Though the ram was a new technique for them. They learn fast."
Giraldi grunted. "Children. Crows, but I don't like this kind of bloodletting."
"How are the men?"
"Well enough, for not having slept a full night. Light casualties on the northern side of the wall. Only injuries on the south."
"Good," Pirellus said. "Get water to everyone and arrows to the archers. Make sure those new firepots get up here in one piece, and get some food to my firecrafters. They don't do as well on an empty belly."
"You want something for that?" Giraldi asked.
"For what?"
"You're bleeding."
"Edge of my helmet," Pirellus said. "Arrow drove it into my skin. Looks worse than it is."
"You don't want it bleeding in your eye at the wrong time. Let me get a surgeon up here."
"Let the surgeons see to the men that are hurt," Pirellus said, his tone firm. "Get yourself some water, too, centurion."
"Aye, sir."
Amara frowned, pensive, and stood up, walking a bit farther down the wall. Bernard sat there, his back against the battlements, frowning down at his hands.
"Something's occurred to me," Amara said. "This doesn't make any sense."
Bernard squinted up at her. "It's like that, your first battle."