make it far. But the front-runners were up the slope and galloping toward the trees.
“The Seventh take you!” Killian leapt onto the rock for better vantage and let an arrow fly. It sank into the back of one man’s skull. The next missed. “Come on,” Killian snarled, aware that the enemy was upon him.
His bowstring snapped forward, and the arrow caught the galloping horse, which went down hard. But the man was up and running. Killian nocked an arrow, aware of the enemy soldiers riding at him, hearing their battle cries. Knowing that this risk would have been for nothing if he missed.
He tracked the fleeing man’s progress, then let the arrow fly.
Killian didn’t have time to see whether he hit his mark. A blade swung at him, but he dived under it, slamming into the side of the man’s horse and knocking it from its feet. They fell in a tangle of limbs, the animal sliding down the slope as it struggled to right itself, the man screaming until his head cracked open against a rock.
Dodging the flailing hooves, Killian leapt to his feet, sword in hand. He carved into the enemy even as Sonia’s archers dropped their bows and drew their blades, screaming their own cries as they leapt into the fray.
It was over almost as soon as it had begun.
Slitting the throat of a dying man, Killian straightened and wiped the blood from his face. “How many did we lose?”
“Two.” Sonia wiped her sword on a dead man’s cloak. “Six wounded.”
Nodding, Killian turned to the distant bank, hoping the loss of those two men had been worth it. His eyes landed on the dead horse in the distance, then skipped ahead to where its rider should be.
There was only empty ground.
Killian’s heart sank, and he let loose a blistering string of oaths before a flicker of motion caught his attention. Just before the tree line, the enemy soldier was crawling away, an arrow protruding from his back.
“Won’t make it far enough to matter,” Sonia said. “Not worth crossing the river to kill him.”
“I don’t need to cross the river.” Picking up the bow he’d dropped, Killian nocked an arrow.
All the world fell away as he aimed, the voices a muffled blur of noise. The string slipped from his fingers, his eyes tracking the fletching as the arrow carved through wind and sleet. The soldier twitched once. Then went still.
When Killian turned, Sonia was staring at him, jaw slightly parted. Then she shrugged. “I never said your aim was poor. Just your form.”
“I believe the word was satisfactory,” he replied, then turned to the archers standing behind him. “Leave the dead,” he ordered in Gamdeshian. “Start felling trees. We have a wall to build, and we’ve only got a few hours before Rufina’s army is upon us.”
61
KILLIAN
Killian peered through a narrow opening in the hastily constructed fortifications, trying to count the campfires spreading back from the western bank before swearing and giving up. His time would be as well used trying to count stars in the sky.
They had at least ten times his numbers, and when they decided to come no amount of strategic advantage would stop them.
“I’ve got a rotating shift of archers watching our rear,” Sonia said, coming up next to him. She took a long swallow from a waterskin before continuing. “We’ve got the tree line pushed back a hundred yards, but it’s dark. Anyone with stealth could get close with no one the wiser. Setting some torches burning in the open space would rectify that problem.”
“No,” Killian replied, watching the flickers of light and motion on the riverbanks below, his archers taking shots at them when the mark was good. “The deimos are overhead, and while they might be able to see in the dark, their riders can’t. As it stands, they don’t know just how undermanned we are, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Not that he could keep it from them forever, but that wasn’t the point. He was buying time for Malahi and his mother to evacuate Mudaire as best they could. Time—that was what he was fighting for. Nothing else.
Yet reminding himself of that fact didn’t stop Lydia’s face from swimming into his thoughts. She should be on a ship headed south by now, and then it was only a matter of time until she’d track down a Maarin vessel and make her way back to Celendor to help Teriana. He had no doubt that she’d succeed. And that