good range to pick off the Dansiians. I honestly didn’t know if their arrows would be able to reach any of the black sorcerers who were heading toward us, because they could just use their fire to incinerate them, but at least it gave them focus and hope.
One of the last Antionese soldiers to rush up the path, her face streaked with soot and her arm cut and bleeding, was Tanoori. I wondered how she had gotten assigned to such a difficult location. She should have been put somewhere much safer, where there would have been little chance of fighting. In fact, I wished that she had chosen to go with the women and children to the southwestern part of Blevon, where she would have been completely safe.
But instead, she hurried up to stand beside me, trying not to wince in pain when she sheathed her sword.
“What can you tell me to help prepare us?” I asked.
“They’re coming,” Tanoori said, her voice shaking slightly. “They sent the majority of their soldiers to the city to fight, with a few black sorcerers, but the king and the rest of his black sorcerers headed directly for the canyon. Even with the Blevonese sorcerers, we couldn’t stop them. There were too many.” She shook her head, and her shaking got worse. I’d seen it before — she was going into shock. She’d probably never been in a true battle before, never seen people dying left and right.
“Come over here and sit down; put your head between your knees,” I instructed, pulling her over to a large, flat boulder. She followed without protesting, and once she was doing as I said, breathing slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth, I returned to Deron and Jerrod. Rylan now stood with them as well. When I glanced up at the temple, Damian still stood on the ledge, watching us, his expression unreadable in the falling haze of twilight.
“How many are there?” I asked Deron, but he shook his head. “Your best guess,” I added.
“Twenty? Thirty? There could be more behind them. All I know is that we were prepared to fight soldiers with maybe a few black sorcerers, and instead, they created this thick cloud of darkness around themselves and continually threw their abominable fire at us and forced us to retreat, killing far too many of my men without even trying.”
“How far back are they?” I pressed.
“The last blast caused a landslide that blocked the trail, so hopefully that will hold them back for at least a little bit.”
I knew, after having watched them destroy the massive wall between Antion and Dansii, that it wouldn’t take them long to clear the path again. As if to illustrate my point, another boom shook the ground beneath our feet.
“We need to think of something that we can do to take out as many of them as possible before they can use their fire to kill us all. What weapons could we use? What trap could we set that would kill as many sorcerers as possible?” I asked, spinning to look down the trail. Then an idea suddenly struck me.
“Who here has the ability to cause an earthquake?” I shouted up at the Blevonese soldiers and sorcerers. Jiro and Borracio were talking together, but when they heard my question they both turned and looked at me curiously, as did many others. Damian’s eyes narrowed, and I wondered if he could hear me from where he was standing. When he turned to say something to King Osgand and then began to walk across the ledge toward the field where we all stood, I motioned for him to go back, but he ignored me and continued forward.
“Why do you ask?” Jiro called, and I jogged up to where he stood, beckoning Deron and the rest to follow me. Tanoori had calmed down enough to stand up, and she came as well.
“Our only hope of defeating Armando and his sorcerers is to take out as many of them as possible before they can use their fire to kill us,” I repeated myself.
“I agree, but how do you propose we do that?” Borracio asked, his keen eyes trained on me.
Damian strode over to where I stood and said, “Alexa, what’s going on?”
I looked up at him and smiled. “I think I have an idea.”
The waiting was torture — the anticipation and fear of what was to come. Would it work? Or would we all die in the next few