Overhead, loud crashes echoed, glass shattered. Then an exceptionally loud boom rattled the stairs, deafening. But afterward, she heard a noise like a rumble of thunder, accompanied by a cacophony of rattling and smashing resounds. Something was coming, behind her, from on high.
Kathryn drank more shadows and sped down for the next landing. Flying around a corner, she spotted two figures hurrying upward, slinking along one wall. They glimpsed her in a wash of shadows. The girl raised a fist to her throat. The boy stepped forward with a sword, plainly borrowed, from the way it shook.
Raising an arm, Kathryn yelled, “Get off the stairs! NOW!”
Laurelle responded immediately, despite her momentary panic. She grabbed the young wyld tracker’s arm and hauled him up. They reached the landing at the same time and ducked off the stairs.
Not a moment too soon.
An avalanche of stone bricks tumbled past in a deadly chute, rattling away, bouncing a few stones down the hallway. Kathryn herded Laurelle and Kytt back, then swept around with her cloak.
“What are you still doing out?” she yelled, her ears ringing from the clatter of rocks. “Why didn’t you respond to the gong?”
Laurelle strode beside her. “We were down below with Master Orquell.”
Kathryn lifted a hand to her brow. “Yes…yes, Delia told me.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Where is the master?”
“Dead. Sacrificed himself to stifle the witch’s power.”
Kathryn remembered Mirra faltering, her staff’s green fire dying.
Laurelle continued, speaking in a rush. “Then there were groundshakes below. The Masterlevels crumbled, and large sections collapsed. We ran. If it hadn’t been for Kytt’s nose, we wouldn’t have found a way out, but a part of the lower level had collapsed into the cellars. We were able to climb up.”
Laurelle suddenly grabbed Kathryn’s sleeves. “We saw some of the black knights-but they ran from our torches.”
Kathryn hurried them toward one of the entrances to the Grand Court. “They’ve been routed. But we have larger concerns.”
Another tower-shaking boom echoed from above. It seemed Lord Ulf was tearing down Stormwatch, one level at a time, starting from the top.
“I thought the groundshakes below had stopped,” Laurelle said, ducking a bit as the thunder echoed away.
“They did. This is something even more dire.”
At last, the doors to the Grand Court arched ahead, framed in black obsidian, topped by a faceted chunk of rock that represented the diamond on their sword’s pommel. She hurried forward and pounded a fist on the closed door.
A commotion sounded and a voice called out. “Who goes there?”
“Castellan Vail!”
A moment later, a bar scraped, and the door swung open to a cavernous space, the tiered amphitheater of the Grand Court. Fires blazed. And the heart of Tashijan quaked with screams, shouts, crying, bustling. It was packed nearly shoulder to shoulder.
Kathryn bulled a path to the stairs that led down toward the bottom of the amphitheater. Laurelle and Kytt followed in her wake. It was slow going.
Then a pair of the knights joined them, shouting, “Make room for the castellan! Make room!”
The seas parted, and they made faster progress down the crowded stairs. Still, fingers touched her cloak as she descended, hopeful, fearful. She had no time to reassure them-and at the moment, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to lie to them, at least not well.
Below, Kathryn spotted Argent and Delia, along with the large mass of Hesharian and the bronze form of Gerrod. Several other Council masters gathered around the central pit. Hearthstone, the fiery core of Tashijan. The ancient pit dated back to the time of human kings, but it had come to represent Tashijan’s flaming heart. The pit danced high with a fresh pyre, smoke spiraling with alchemies.
“Make room for the castellan!”
The shout echoed below. Faces turned.
Gerrod spotted her first among the surging throng. He lifted an arm. She hurried down to him, leading Laurelle and Kytt.
Reaching the floor, Argent came with Delia.
“He comes,” Kathryn said, as more booming crashes echoed, like the footsteps of a god. “Keep the fires high. Our only hope lies in the heat of our alchemies bolstering this last picket, holding our fire against Ulf’s ice.”
Gerrod nodded. “We’ve added loam alchemies to strengthen the walls, too, but-” He shook his head.
She reached for his arm and squeezed, wishing it was not just armor that met her touch. “We will hold strong…and not just with our alchemies.”
A violent quake rattled, sounding as if all of the tower above had crashed atop them. Kathryn looked up, willing it all to hold. Just a little longer.
Large chunks of plaster and rock cracked from the roof and tumbled to smashing ruin among the tiers. People scattered, amid screams and blood.
Overhead a massive block of stone broke free like a rotted tooth. It fell straight at them. Kathryn shouldered Gerrod to the side. Masters scattered. Argent grabbed Delia’s arm as she gaped upward. But she was still wobbly on her feet from the blow to her head.
As Argent pulled, she tripped down to a knee.
“Delia!”
The stone tumbled at her.
In a swirl of cloak, Argent clenched her arm in both of his hands and threw her bodily, wildly clear, spinning off a heel. He dove after her, but a moment too late. Even shadows were sometimes too slow.
Argent leaped, but the chunk of roof shattered across his legs, slamming him to the stone floor. He lay flat, unmoving.
“Father!” Delia cried and crawled over to him.
An arm shifted, a hand wiped rock dust from the floor. Blood welled and spread from beneath the rock. Shouts echoed. Masters hurried forward.
But it was his daughter that took his hand.
“Don’t leave me,” she said. “Not again…”
His chin shifted, and he moaned. “Never.”
Then he lay still.
“I wish I had more practice,” Rogger said.
“You’ll do fine,” Tylar assured him. He glanced back at the others.
The flitterskiff floated a quarter league from the island in the clear channel again, out of the clogged choke. The others crouched, hands firmly on the rail. Dart shared his bench, clutching a hand to his swordbelt. He felt the tremble in her arm.
Each had a duty this night. And though fear shone bright in all their eyes, so did determination. Satisfied, he twisted forward and squeezed Rogger’s arm, sharing friendship and certainty.
“Go.”
With a nod, Rogger twisted the flow of trickling alchemy to full. “Hold tight!”
The paddles to either side churned the waters into a boil. The flitterskiff leaped forward like a startled pony. It blew across the waters, rising, lifting its keel, winds whipping the hood from Tylar’s cloak.
He tugged it back up, ducking lower.
The skiff skimmed on its paddle tips, racing along the channel. Rogger hit the first bend around a hillock, but he was too gentle with the wheel. They swung wide, almost burying their bow in a tangle of knotted roots. He pulled harder, tilting the skiff up almost on one row of paddles, and then they were away.
The channel twisted and turned from there.
Rogger did his best, flying the skiff around fast turns, slowing, jogging, banking, and tilting. He took the last turn with a bit of a panic. The rearmost starboard paddle struck a stone and clipped off with a jolt of the boat. The bronze oar flew like an arrow back into the flooded woods.
