behind her, and hot pain flashed across her back. She threw herself forward and down, over the fallen Marat, and turned her head to see the great herdbane lunge toward her, dark eyes glassy and empty of anything like fear, its beak flashing toward her eyes.
She threw up her hands, willing Cirrus out before her, and the fury rushed out, sweeping up the great bird and hurling it into a merlon. It stumbled and spun to reorient on her, but even as it did, a heavyset legionare swept his sword at it in a powerful stroke and, with earth-born strength, swept the herdbane's head from its neck. The legionare flashed her a smile, then turned and hurled himself toward the newest arrival at the top of the walls.
Amara struggled to her feet again. Fighting raged all along the wall and had spilled over into the courtyard behind. The reserve troops, after a startled moment, had been ordered forward by their young officers and engaged those Marat who either leapt from the wall or followed the bounds of their warbirds down into the courtyard.
More screams, frantic and terrified and wild with battle-rage, whirled around her, disorienting, terrifying. On the other side of the gate, the Marat had taken a section of the wall and held it tenaciously, more of their number pouring in at every moment, until Pirellus himself entered the fray.
The golden-skinned Parcian drew his dark sword and started what could only be described as a deliberate stalk down the length of the wall, calling legionares out of his way as he went. He met the first Marat with a blow so swift that Amara never saw it begin. She only saw blood flicker out in an arc, while the Marat tumbled down to the earth below, lifeless. One of the great birds lost its talon when it raked at Pirellus, and its head followed it to the stones a breath later.
More Marat threw themselves at the master metalcrafter, both man and beast in a furious wave, but the swordsman was their match. Every motion
avoided a blow or enabled him to deal out a stroke of his own-and none failed to be lethal With a calculated precision, Pirellus swept down the occupied section of the wall, brushing away the enemy like cobwebs, and the Legions flooded back into the space, kicking bodies clear of the battlements, fighting savagely to hold the regained section of the walls
Pirellus shook the blood from his sword, expression neutral, remote, and pointed a finger again at the men with the firepots The earthcrafters removed the lids and prepared to hurl the pots over the battlements to the ground below The firecrafters behind them stood with their expressions distant, mouths moving silently, calling to their furies in preparation of the hellish storm they prepared to unleash on the enemy
And that was when Amara felt it When she felt the currents of air thrumming with tension, heard with some part of her that she could not fully describe the rising tide of wind moving in the darkness above
She turned her face up, only to be blinded by the furylights mounted above the battlements, veiling the skies above-but all along the wall, the winds rose, whipping wildly back and forth Amara thought she could hear cries above, where Garrison's few Knights Aeris should have been patrolling Something sprinkled down from above, and for a moment she thought that more rain had begun to fall But the sensation was hot, not cold, and when Amara wiped at her cheek, she saw blood smeared upon her fingers
"Bernard'" she shouted "They're here'" She didn't have time to make sure she had been heard Instead, she called to Cirrus and leapt into the air, felt the roar of wind enfold her as she hurtled up, above the battlements and into the darkened sky over the besieged fortress
The air teemed with Knights Aeris-duelling, whirling pairs of men who swept through the skies in deadly combat, as much between furies as men, each trying to cut off the other's flow of air or to wound their opponents badly enough with their blades to shatter their concentration and send them falling Even as she watched, one of the men in Rivan colors whirled away from a flickering blade, only to let out a sudden, terrified scream and begin to plummet from the sky like a stone He fell past Amara and onto the ground before the walls of Garrison, the thud of impact swallowed by