Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,75
going on?” I asked, craning my head to try and see what was ahead of us — why they were suddenly in such a rush to get further away from the wall, rather than closer.
When Akio went riding past us on a large white stallion with the longest mane I’d ever seen, I shouted my question again.
He wheeled his horse around and called back, “The Antionese are gone — the city is deserted on the other side of the wall. The king has ordered it taken down to speed up our passage.”
The Summoner, who had ridden ahead, turned in his saddle when he heard Antionese from one of his men, and when he saw Akio riding away, his eyes narrowed. A slice of fear cut through me at the look on his face. I was suddenly afraid that by answering my question, Akio had just given The Summoner reason to suspect him.
I tried to brush it off, to convince myself that there was absolutely no reason for The Summoner to suspect Akio, but that pulsing instinct I’d learned to trust long ago warned me that Akio was in danger.
I glanced over my shoulder, but he’d already ridden out of sight, spreading the message to back away from the wall. What had he meant by having the wall taken down?
The Summoner rode back to where my horse stood a short time later and grabbed her reins to pull her back with the rest of the remaining army still in Dansii. Once I was sandwiched between two huge soldiers dressed in black and red, who were also on horses, rather than on foot like the majority of the non-sorcerers, he barked something at them in Dansiian, and they nodded quickly, murmuring their responses. One of them reached out and grabbed the reins of my horse, and the other urged his horse closer so that his leg was almost pressed against mine.
Once The Summoner seemed satisfied that they had complied with his order, he wheeled his horse around and sent him charging forward — toward the wall.
I glanced around, blinking against the rain that had grown steadily more insistent, wondering if anyone else was questioning why he was going the wrong direction, but no one seemed concerned.
A few minutes later, a colossal boom nearly deafened me and made the very earth beneath my horse’s hooves tremble. She tossed her head, prancing in fear, as did the mounts of the two men on either side of me. As they struggled to keep the horses from spooking and bolting, I just focused on trying not to fall out of the saddle and get trampled, since I was tied to my horse.
Another massive boom shook the ground again, and then an even louder and more terrifying sound rent the air. I stared in shock as a section of the wall began to crumple to the ground in front of us, the stones and rocks collapsing in on themselves, sending an immense cloud of dust and debris into the air.
A short time after the wall was demolished by the power of Armando’s sorcerers’ joint efforts, The Summoner came back to get me. The entire army was surging forward, toward the gaping hole. There was a massive pile of debris that still smoked in places, despite the rain, probably from sorcerer’s fire if I had to guess, but the men just climbed over it. The horses were another matter, and The Summoner led me toward a particular spot where the rubble had been lifted away, making a narrow path of flat ground for the horses to use.
Before I knew it, we’d crossed into Antion, leaving Dansii behind us. I blinked hard when I saw Bikoro, the large city Eljin and I had avoided on our journey to Dansii.
I’d forced myself to push the pain of his death to the back of my heart, with the rest of those I’d already lost, knowing I couldn’t afford to mourn him — not yet, not now. Just as I’d had to force myself to continue on when my parents died, just as I’d had to pretend I was fine after Marcel’s death. I knew how to shut it off, to do what I must to survive. But in that moment, as I stared at the now-abandoned city and the thick green line of the jungle stretching across the horizon in the distance, the sharp pain of his loss surged up, stabbing through me as though the barbs from the whip King