Seventh god’s fire. “And it will only be the first.”
“The wall is not the kingdom.” Killian coughed. “And one battle is not the war.”
Then he lunged.
His shoulder took the corrupted in the stomach, and they rolled out of the gatehouse. He could feel her hands searching for exposed skin, and he pinned her against the ground, his body screaming with the effort.
She writhed and struggled, stronger than him but unskilled. Except his shoulder was giving out and his ribs burned.
With a snarl, she jerked her arm free of his grip, her bare hand slapping against his face, her eyes burning with triumph—
Right as the outer portcullis rattled skyward.
Derin soldiers surged through the opening, fighting with one another to get to the other side. They rolled over Killian and the corrupted like a wave, snowshoes twisting and tripping them up until it was nothing but a churn of bodies and limbs.
Then a hand caught hold of his wrist, dragging him out from under the surge of men. Killian looked up to see Bercola above him, the giantess’s face streaked with soot and blood. “We need to retreat!” she bellowed. “We’re overrun!”
On the wall, his surviving men were trying to flee, but they were caught in an ocean of enemy. There was no way out.
Bercola hauled him away, cracking skulls with her staff as she went, but Killian slipped her grip. Snatching up a fallen blade as he ran, he sliced at the burning scaffolding. Over and over, his body wavering and shaking with pain until the leg of the structure splintered and cracked.
In a roar of flame and ash, it collapsed over the gate, blocking the opening.
But not for long.
There were hundreds of enemy in the courtyard. As many on the wall. And a least a dozen corrupted were hunting both friend and foe.
“Retreat!” Killian’s scorched throat could barely get the word from his lips, but the men nearest to him heard. They picked up the call, the survivors fighting their way down the stairs, flinging themselves off the wall.
They rallied around him and Bercola, fighting toward the fortress gate and then out into the forest beyond where the horses circled in panic. Above them, strange shrieks filled the air. The sound of wings.
Catching hold of his horse’s mane, Killian hauled himself onto its bare back, the dozen men with him catching mounts to do the same. “Ride,” he gasped, dispatching them in opposite directions to warn the undefended towns.
“Killian!” Bercola shouted. “Let’s go!”
He needed to go back. Needed to fight. Needed to stop this.
But the giantess stepped between him and the fortress. “Going back will be suicide, even for you,” she said. “I haven’t watched your back all these years to stand aside now.”
“Let me go!”
She caught hold of his mount’s reins. “You’re no good to us if you’re dead.”
He’d been no good to them alive.
Shaking his head to clear it, Killian dug his heels into his horse’s side. “We ride for Mudaire.”
And when he returned it would be with an army at his back.
But as they fled toward the tree line, Killian couldn’t help a backward glance at the fortress. At the wall that had never fallen.
All he saw were flames.
6
LYDIA
Lydia stared at the pages on her desk, the words blurring together no matter how hard she tried to focus.
The physician had come straightaway, attempting to dose her father for pain, but he’d only waved the man away. “It clouds my mind and my mind is all that I have left.” Then he’d motioned to Lydia. “Go see the rest of our guests out. Make my apologies for me.”
She’d gone but lingered in the hallway, listening.
Six months, Senator, the physician had said. Perhaps less. It would be well for you to ready your affairs.
Six months and then she’d lose him. Six months and she’d be alone. A singular hot tear dribbled down her cheek, and Lydia wiped it aside furiously, then shoved her spectacles back into place, intent on losing herself in her work despite her failure to do so over the last two hours.
Dipping her pen in the inkpot, she wrote a line pertaining to an issue with pestilence afflicting poultry. Then a loud voice made her jump. “You spelled chicken wrong. And your Bardenese grammar is shit.”
Indignation flooded her, and Lydia snapped, “It’s not—” before recognition hit her. Twisting in the chair, she grinned at the girl standing behind her with an expression of amusement on her dark-skinned face. “Teriana!”