bales beside the stables. The bales, solidly packed, would have done little to break her fall without Cirrus rushing currents, both slowing the impact and scattering the bales into loose strands. Amara crashed through the topmost stack of bales and out onto the ground on the far side.
Her foe, more able than she, or less tired, landed neatly on the ground beside her and pivoted to drive his blade at her throat. She caught the thrust on her own sword, barely, parrying the blade into the bale of hay beside her, while her other hand dragged the short knife she'd stolen from Fidelias from her belt and drove it back into the windcrafter's boot.
He fell back with a yelp, then gestured with his hand, expression murderous. The wind roared, and Amara felt pressure pin her hard to the ground. She struggled to move, or to lift her sword, but the man's fury kept her from doing it. She reached for Cirrus, but she knew she had been too slow, and she could only watch as he lifted his blade again.
There was a buzzing hiss, and an arrow drove through the Knight's mail shirt where it crossed just beneath his throat. The arrow drove him back a pair of jerking steps, before he fell dead to the stones.
The pressure on Amara abruptly eased, and she could breathe again, move again. She started struggling to her feet, but, still dizzy from the fall and her efforts to control it, had only got partway there when Bernard reached her, his bow still in hand, and said, "Crows and furies, are you all right? Where are they coming in?"
"The gate," Amara gasped. "The firepots. Get them off the gate. Hurry."
Bernard's face went pale, and he pelted off across the courtyard, back toward the walls. A Marat, dazed from a fall from the battlements above, lifted a stone-headed hatchet, but Bernard flicked a hand and the hatchet's wooden haft abruptly spun in its owner's grip, the back of the stone whipping into the Marat's temple, and sending him in a loose tumble to the ground.
Amara felt a dull pain in her shoulder and back, and it was too much effort to stand, but she watched as Bernard bounded up one of the ladders and onto the wall. He took his bow in a two-handed grip and clubbed his way past a Marat fighting a pair of legionares and ducked past the flashing claws of a wounded herdbane that lay on its side, raking wildly with its remaining leg, to reach Pirellus's side. He gripped the Knight Commander's shoulder and shouted to him over the din.
Pirellus's face blanked with incredulity, but Bernard pointed up, and Pirellus turned in time to see the first of the other pair of litters sweeping down, mailed Knights Aeris all around it. His eyes widened, and he shouted to his men on the walls, even as a roar of wind sent men flat to the battlements and drove leaping Marat back and away from the walls.
Bernard lost his bow but stayed on his feet, drawing on the strength of his fury, Amara knew. He grabbed Pirellus and another man beside him and dragged them forward and off the wall, to fall into the courtyard beyond.
Amara's eyes swept back up to the litters, to see Fidelias in one, pointing down and calling something to one of the men in the other, a tall, thin man with pinched features. The man stood up, eyes closed, and reached out his hand.
In answer, the firepots, waiting on the walls beside the firecrafters now pinned down by the gale winds above them, exploded into blinding flame.
The firestorm swept over the walls above the gates, where Garrison's Knights were pinned down. Scattered and whipped to a dangerous fury by the wind, more of the flame nonetheless rushed out along the walls, playing havoc with legionares, Marat, and predator birds alike. The fire went over
the walls like a scythe, sending men screaming to the ground, running from the flames, rolling frantically to put out their own burning bodies. Some even leapt off the battlements and into the savage Marat horde waiting below.
Amara watched in stunned horror as the litters swept down to the courtyard, where a half a dozen disorganized legionares attacked the invaders. Aldrick ex Gladius dismounted from the litter and, with the Knights Aeris with him, met them and drove them back.
Fidelias stepped from the litter and walked to the gates. As Amara watched, he glanced