cut through the arm of the soldier to her left. He screamed and let go. A second later Rin heard him crunch on the deck.
She held her breath. The boat was almost to the top of the wall.
“Get ready.” She bent her knees and rocked the boat so that it would swing forward. Their first swing toward the wall fell short by a yard. Rin caught a brief, dizzying glimpse of the drop beneath her feet.
Another series of arrows studded the rowboat as they swung backward.
Their second swing got them close enough.
“Go!”
They jumped to the wall. Rin slipped on impact. Her knees skidded on solid rock but her feet kicked off into terrifying, empty space. She flung her arms forward and seized a groove cut in the wall. She strained to pull herself up just far enough that she could slam her elbow into the ridge and drag her torso over.
She tumbled gracelessly onto the walkway and staggered to her feet just as a Ram soldier swung a blade at her head. She blocked it with her trident, wrestled it in a circle, sent it spinning uselessly away, and then butted him in the side with the other end. He tumbled down the stairs and smashed into his comrades.
That gave her a temporary reprieve. She scanned the wall of archers. Ramsa’s shit bomb wouldn’t kill them, but it would distract them. She just needed a way to ignite it.
Again she cursed the Seal. She could have just lit it with a snap of her fingers; it would have been so easy.
She cast her eyes about for a lamp, a brazier, something . . . there. Five feet away sat a lump of burning coals in a brass pot. The Ram defenders must have been using it to light their own missiles.
She hefted the bomb in her hands, tossed it toward the pot, and prayed.
She heard a faint, dull pop.
She took a deep breath. Acrid, shit-flavored smoke spilled over the parapets, thick and blinding.
“We’re in trouble,” said the Republican soldier at her left.
She squinted through the smoke at a column of Ram reinforcements approaching fast from the lefthand walkway.
She looked frantically about the wall for a way to get down. She saw a stairwell to her left, but too many soldiers stood crowded at the base. The only other way down was across the other side of the wall, but the walkway didn’t go all the way around—a ridge of wall no thicker than her heel stood between her and the other stairwell.
No time to think. She jumped onto the outer edge of the wall, dug her heels in, and began running before she could teeter to either side. Every few steps she felt her balance jerk horrifically to one side. Somehow she righted herself and kept going.
She heard the twangs of several bows. Rather than duck, she took a flying leap toward the stairwell. She landed painfully on her side and skidded to a halt. Her shoulder and hip screamed in protest, but her arms and legs still worked. She crawled frantically down the stairs, arrows whizzing over her head.
Behind the gates was a war zone.
She’d stumbled into a crush of bodies, a clamor of steel. Blue uniforms dotted the crowd. Republican soldiers. Relief washed over her. They weren’t dead after all, just late.
“About time!”
Two wonderfully familiar tornadoes of destruction appeared before her. Suni picked up a Ram soldier as if he were a doll, hoisted him over his head, and flung him into the crowd. Baji slammed his rake down into someone’s neck, yanked it up, and twirled it in a circle to knock an incoming arrow out of the air.
“Nice,” Rin said.
He helped her to her feet. “What took you so long?”
Rin opened her mouth to respond just as someone tried to grapple her from behind. She jammed her elbow back by instinct and felt the rewarding crunch of a shattering nose. Her assailant’s grip loosened. She struggled free. “We were waiting for your signal!”
“We gave a signal! Sent a flare up ten minutes ago! Where’s the fucking army?”
Rin pointed to the wall. “There.”
A thud shook Xiashang’s gates. The Shrike had landed its siege tower.
Republican soldiers funneled over the wall like a swarm of ants. Bodies hurtled to the ground like tumbling bricks, while grappling hooks flew into the sky and embedded themselves at regular intervals along the wall.
She saw almost as many blue uniforms as green ones now. Slowly the press of Republican soldiers expanded through the