Page 163 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Merrick looked between them, incredulous. “Idiots. Both of you.”

“If anything happens to you,” Osric’s voice wavered, “the derWhitte line—”

“My decision is made,” Duncan said. He placed a firm hand on Isander’s shoulder. “You need not go.”

“There is no question that I must,” Isander insisted. “I will choose the strongest from the Guard to come with us.”

“Excellent.” Merrick threw up his hands. “Send your finest to slaughter first. Brilliant.” He strode from the tent, frustration barely contained.

“He isn’t entirely wrong,” Brannoc muttered.

The tent fell quiet.

Cairon straightened first, resigned. “I’ll see that you are given the best shields we have.”

Garric nodded. “We’ll track the rotations. If we charge during the shift change, their eyes may be elsewhere…” His words faded into the tension of the chamber.

“May the moons lend strength to those who bear the cost today,” Rensaya murmured.

Isander spent the next hours walking among the chosen men of the Lemierre Guard, testing buckles, tightening knots, murmuring instructions meant for one man at a time. He met their eyes firmly, aiming to narrow apprehension into resolve.

When all stood ready, the ram was brought forward: a thick oak beam banded in iron. Duncan stepped to the front. Isander took position at his other side, ready to set his shoulder beneath the same brutal weight. The Guard aligned under overlapping shields behind them. They waited in the brush, the army crouched in shadow behind them.

“Where’s Merrick?” Isander asked under his breath. He glanced back. Brannoc sat astride his horse, ready to take command should Duncan fall. Garric, Cairon, and Osric stood behind the first line, prepared to charge the moment the wall broke. But Merrick, impossible to overlook these past weeks, was nowhere in sight.

“I do not know,” Duncan said. “We cannot wait.”

“He disappears yet again when it matters most,” Isander muttered, bitterness scraping.

Duncan gave a single shake of his head and pulled his helm down, unwilling to reopen the wound in the delicate moment.

“Shift change,” Garric murmured.

Duncan raised his hand in signal.

They hoisted the beam.

Anticipation gathered with every step. Isander heard little beyond the heavy percussion of his own pulse. Sweat slid down his back despite the cold. His muscles quivered under the weight of the ram, the strain of the dig, the drag of a sleepless night. He fixed his focus on Duncan and the fracture in the wall ahead and pushed on.

The moment they crossed into range, arrows fell in a slicing rain of black and silver. Shields rang under the impacts, the force reverberating through shoulders and bone. The first volley passed. Every Lemierre man remained upright.

Another wave descended, darker than birds against the pale sky.

Henrick went first, an arrow buried at the base of his throat. Joras followed a heartbeat later, a shaft punching through his ribs before he could register the blow. Their bodies struck the ground hard, shields slipping from lifeless hands. The beam lurched as their weight vanished.

Heat flooded Isander’s eyes, blurring the edges of the world, as grief savagely surged through him. But there was no time to bend beneath it. He drove his legs onward, jaw locked, each step a rebellion against the part of him that wanted to tend to his fallen men.

To rage at the sky.

Another volley tore through the air. One more man fell. Another cried out as a shaft buried itself in his thigh. Fire seared across Isander’s left arm. An arrow grazed beneath the pauldron, slicing through flesh and muscle. He swallowed the cry that rose in his throat as pain jolted through him. The ram dipped for a breath before he shifted his stance and bore down harder with his right side, ignoring the blood sliding warm beneath his sleeve.

“Are you all right?” Duncan called over the chaos. “I heard one close.”

“Yes,” Isander lied, breath ragged. There was no use in worrying him now.

A few yards from the wall, Isander caught movement at its base. Shadows sliding along the stone. Fear struck clean through him. Kryovarre soldiers. They had guessed the attack and waited to tear the ram line apart.

Then he caught the cut of dark leather, the uniform of the Ashfell Quiett.