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What were they waiting for?
A moment later, four figures on horseback emerged from the tree line, riding to where the army waited at our doorstep.
“It’s him,” Liana said, leaning far over the edge of the terrace, “It has to be.”
And it seemed it was. Ricon himself, flanked by three other riders. His personal guard? But they seemed short. Young. They couldn’t be guards.
“Now is our chance!” Liana exclaimed, frantic as she spun to face us. “We have to kill him. Kade, help me,” she made a grab for his arm, but he recoiled.
He shook his head, and she scowled at him, hissing, “What are you doing?”
“You can’t go down there right now, it would be suicide.”
She steamed with unspent rage but turned back to the swarm of Ricon’s army below. She gasped, “Where did he go?”
I looked where I’d only just seen him—there, on the outer edge of the last wave of his soldiers. But he wasn’t there. Nor were the three other riders. Only their horses remained, left to go where they pleased. He was somewhere in the thick of it. Blended in to the thousands of faces staring ahead.
The front line broke apart and a group of soldiers marched out, two lines of ten men. A battering ram between them.
“Archers!” I heard Silas call out from the lower battlement.
And then a moment later, “Loose!” Four of the twenty men fell, but they were quickly replaced. Making their way to the front gates.
“The gates,” Liana exclaimed.
“I’ll keep them sealed,” Tiernan said through clenched teeth. He kissed Liana swiftly on the back of her hand, his eyes flicking up with the burning promise of his return.
I nodded to him, giving him permission to do what he could. There were few as skilled as he was in their Grace of earth. The garden was only just inside the main gates, he could use its trees and plants to strengthen it.
Arrow cawed after his master, the sound shrill. Liana hushed the creature, resuming her stroking, “It’ll be alright,” she said to him, “He’ll come back. He always comes back.”
But her hands shook where they stroked the feathers and the air between was filled with her panicked worry, and the foreboding sense of dread.
The sound of unified voice drifted up to us, and I looked down to see the Alchemists as they reached the gate. The archers loosed arrow after arrow, but they struck some sort of barrier, raining to the ground around their feet. The sound… they were chanting. One Alchemist stood near them but did not hold the battering ram. He led the chant, drawing sigils in front of him as though his fingers were dipped in glowing ink and he could use the very air as a canvas.
He was protecting them.
“There!” I shouted down to Silas, pointing at the one who seemed to control the strange magic, “That one! Take him out!”
But our archers’ arrows couldn’t penetrate his wards either.
It would only be a matter of time before they broke through. The first blow hit the gate, and the vibrations reverberated up through my heels.
Again. The vibrations harder. The poignant, blood-chilling sound of splitting wood echoed like the crack of lightning.
“They will break through!” Liana screamed.
What remained of the Horde army waited in the inner courtyard, near a thousand bodies pressed together, waiting for the attack. Silas had instructed them to remain within the walls, which would force Ricon’s army to file through the gate if they managed to break through. We had a better chance that way, but I’d seen what the Alchemists could do.
It would only delay the inevitable.
I ground my teeth, clenched my fists. My heart thudded loudly in my head. Kade moved to the edge of the terrace, “We have to stop him,” he growled.
Liana grabbed him by the arm, “They’ll kill you!”
“Not before I burn them all to a crisp.”
I nodded to Kade, and Liana choked out a sob, shoving into my chest, “You can’t let him—” she started, but an ear-slitting screech assaulted our ears. As one we turned, finding Arrow spreading his wings as the falcon dove from the railing.
