David shook his head.
“If that’s the case, then I have no choice but to rely on intelligence reports,” she said. “And my most reliable sources say that Prusias is due here sooner than we could wish. So let’s negotiate.”
The pair went back and forth in rapid succession, making offers and counteroffers until Ms. Richter finally agreed to let David have three Promethean Scholars along with four spiritwracks of his choice.
“Names?” she asked, retrieving a slim notebook.
“Smythe, Oliveiro, Wen, and Olshansky.”
“Done,” she muttered, jotting them down. “Now, you must excuse—” She broke off as someone started knocking furiously upon the door. Raising an eyebrow, Ms. Richter strode over to the door where she found Ms. Kraken looking like she’d seen a ghost.
“Come outside, Gabrielle,” hissed the aged teacher. “Something’s happening!”
Suspicious at this urgent intrusion, Max touched his ring, but it was cool. Glancing uneasily at one another, Max and David followed the Director back into Founder’s Hall. The huge room was eerily silent. All eyes were fixed on the wall that displayed the Florentine spypaper. A dozen glowspheres were converging at a section whose larger, unencrypted sheets were used to correspond with distant Rowan settlements. One sphere settled above a sheet marked for Grayhaven. Another halted at Sphinx Point while others slowly came to rest by Blackrock, Fellowship, North Spit, South Spit, Cold Harbor, Anvil … every coastal township within two hundred miles. All of the spheres began to pulse, their collective radiance filling the hall with a sickly yellow light. Max heard gasps as the messages started to appear. Ms. Richter called for silence, walking briskly through the crowd with Ms. Kraken, Max, and David trailing in her wake.
Even from a distance, Max could read the messages. They appeared simultaneously, and each contained but two words scrawled in heavy black ink.
SAVE US!
Quickly scanning the other parchments, Max found the sheet for Glenharrow and saw that it and most of those for the inland settlements were still blank. Just as Ms. Richter was about to speak, drips and smears of black ink appeared like pattering raindrops to muddy and obscure the pleas from the coastal towns. Recognizable patterns soon emerged, as though fingers were dragging through the wet ink and tracing a common design: three circles set between opposing sheaves of wheat.
It was the seal of Prusias.
“That’s impossible,” muttered Ms. Richter. “Alistair insisted that they wouldn’t land for at least two weeks. They’re supposed to be in the middle of the ocean!”
Flipping open a portfolio where she kept highly classified correspondence, the Director riffled through several pages of spypaper before removing one and reading it through her decrypting lens. From where Max stood, its grisly message was perfectly clear.
ALISTAIR DIED BADLY
As Ms. Richter crumpled the sheet, Old Tom’s bell began to toll in deafening peals that shook the very hall. The Enemy had been sighted.
~ 17 ~
Trench Nineteen
When Old Tom’s ringing ceased, Ms. Richter strode to the head of Founder’s Hall and raised her arms for silence. Her voice was admirably calm.
“The Enemy is here,” she announced, surveying the room. “Rowan needs us and I know she will not be disappointed. Each face I see fills me with that confidence. There is no time for long speeches or debate. I will say only this. Rowan is not merely our home; it is a haven for all humanity. Prusias is strong, but I remind you that Rowan has stood for nearly four hundred years and has never been more prepared to meet such a foe. He has underestimated our strength and our resolve, and he will pay dearly for it. Do your duty and may God be with you.
Everyone present responded in kind before setting out for his or her assignments. A surreal energy permeated the hall—brisk professionalism tempered by fear and excitement. There was no wasted discussion, no cries of anguish or despair, and no evident panic. Striding to her table to retrieve her most critical papers, Ms. Richter glanced at David.
“I’ll send who I can, but don’t wait for them,” she said sharply. “Can you look to see if ships are landing? We may need you to do what you can there.”
Clutching the pinlegs, David nodded and hurried out, joining the rapid exodus of Agents and Mystics.
Ms. Richter’s eyes snapped to Max. “You are the Hound of Rowan,” she said. “You are our champion, and Prusias fears you like nothing else upon this earth. Do not forget that.”
Before Max could even respond, the Director was already engaged in other matters. He hurried out of Founder’s Hall as Old Tom sounded the alarm anew.
It was pandemonium in the Manse’s corridors, a crush of people hurrying out to their stations or rushing to the dormitories to retrieve some needed item or weapon. Max also needed to retrieve something, but it was not in his room. Squeezing past a cluster of anxious-looking students, he crossed the foyer and spilled out with the others into the clear, cold night.
YaYa was already waiting by the fountain, humans streaming past her like floodwaters parting at a great rock. The ki-rin’s eyes were glowing, her breath pluming from her nostrils in white billows. Hurrying down the steps, Max slid a foot into a stirrup and swung high up into the saddle.
“We have to go to the smithy!” he shouted, straining to be heard over Old Tom’s clanging and the incredible din as thousands hurried across the quad. At the slightest pressure from Max’s knee, YaYa wheeled and lumbered heavily toward the township.
The ki-rin could do no more than walk as they swam against a tide of people. It was fifteen minutes of impatient agonizing until they could get through the Sanctuary tunnel and YaYa could manage a lumbering trot. A great heat was coming off the ki-rin, and periodically she shivered as though growing feverish.
At last they arrived at the smithing shop owned by the brothers Aurvangr and Ginnarr. The upper windows were dark and shuttered, but Max saw a gleam of light peeping from beneath the door. Swinging out of his saddle, he ran up the front steps and knocked urgently. Something crashed within and he heard someone curse before another angry voice cried out, “Closed!”
“It’s Max McDaniels!”
The door opened and Max looked down to see the dvergar—a dusky, dwarflike creature with pale eyes and beard—half dressed in armor of overlapping scales.
“It’s in the workroom,” muttered Aurvangr, waving Max toward the back. “By the quenching tubs. Not pretty yet, but it works. There’s something else on the table. We decided your need is greater. Close the door behind you. We’re due at Westgate.”
Ducking inside, Max hurried into the back room where the dvergar kept their forge and anvil. Max found what he was looking for propped against the wall next to a trio of water barrels. It was a spear shaft some seven feet long, fashioned of roughened steel and devised so that Max could use it with the
Keeping the blade sheathed, Max pressed its pommel to the top of the spear shaft. Like a ravenous snake, the shaft swallowed up the hilt, clamping tight at the cross-guard so that the short sword was transformed into a long-bladed spear. Hefting it, Max tested its weight and balance before turning to the object folded neatly on the neighboring table. It was an exquisite corselet of fine gray mail, the very armor Max had bartered to the dvergar in exchange for the
