for all the blood you’ve spilled for me.”
“I don’t reckon debts in blood,” Josef said, reaching out to grab Eli’s shoulder. “Watch yourself, thief.”
“You too, king,” Eli said, breaking off from Josef with a salute.
Josef shook his head and jogged over to join the soldiers.
The Oserans crowded the storm wall. The royal guardsmen were already in formation by the stair, but the rest of the men stood in loose knots, some still clutching their empty crossbows. They parted to make a path for Josef as he climbed onto the storm wall’s lip and turned to face his army, such as it was.
“Listen up!” Josef shouted. “I’m not going to waste time with kingly speeches. All I’ll say is this. We did our best to hold the enemy back, but it was never more than a dyke against the flood. Now we’re up to our necks, and the only chance we have to stop the Empress from crushing this island and our lives under her feet is the stone under ours.” He stomped hard on the storm wall. “We are not dead yet. Reinforcements are coming from the mainland even as I speak. Our job now is to buy those slow Council bastards time enough to get here. Fortunately, Osera herself is on our side. We’ve got a choke hold.” He pointed at the narrow stair leading up from the beach. “We’ve got the sun at our backs, and we’re forcing them to fight uphill. These are our weapons, and with them, we are going to hold this wall.”
But even as he pointed out their terrain advantage, many of the men still looked doubtful. Some even looked like they were about to cry. Josef took a deep breath. The storm wall might be strong, but the men were a brittle barrier, easily broken. He was going to need them to be stronger if this was going to work, and so, with nothing left to lose and Eli too far away to hear him, Josef decided to throw it all in.
“Men of Osera!” he shouted, doing his best to infuse his voice with the deep, proud sincerity he remembered from his mother’s speeches. “I’ve been a horrible prince to you my entire life, but though I might be your king for only another few minutes, I mean to make them count. As a swordsman, I learned that the two most dangerous enemies are the desperate man and the man defending his home. Right now, we are both. We are the worst enemy the Empress has ever met. We will hold this wall and make her remember the cost of fighting Osera!”
The cry that came when he finished made Josef jump. The men screamed with a fury he could feel to his bones, raising their blades as they did. Josef raised his sword in answer and shouted for them to get in position. The men scrambled to obey, the sailors lining up on the storm wall while the guard fell in around Josef at the top of the stair. The royal guard saluted their king as he passed, following Josef as he climbed down the stair until he was halfway between the beach and the top of storm wall. Here Josef stopped, planting his sword as the guard fell into formation behind him.
Down below, the first boats had made it to the shore. The enemy jumped into the surf with a blood-curdling scream, surging up the beach like a black tide. They hit the storm wall and began crowding into the bottleneck of the narrow stair. When the first enemies came in range, Josef stepped forward, swinging the Heart with a shout. Behind him, the Oserans answered with a scream that shook the stones of the storm wall itself.
“Eli,” Karon rumbled, pressing his hand to the ground. “The rock says there are ships coming across the channel from the mainland.”
“Please tell me it’s the Council,” Eli moaned.
“Sad showing if it is,” Karon said. “Only two boats.”
“I’d take a rowboat and a mule at this point,” Eli said. “Meanwhile, you ready to give our swordsman some cover?”
“Sure,” Karon said, grinning as he grabbed another boulder from the cliff. “Where do you want this one?”
“I’m thinking middle of the bay,” Eli said, his voice breathy. Karon was pulling hard on him now. “Make some waves. See if we can’t capsize a few boats.”
“Easy enough,” Karon said, firing the stone in his fist until it was red hot. But as he reached back to throw, a crash made them both jump.
Eli spun around, eyes wide as a spout of water erupted from the sea. It thrust from the bay like a spear, shooting up the storm wall straight at Karon. Eli threw out his hands, but the water was too fast, and he, exhausted, was too slow. The geyser of water hit his lava spirit full in the chest. Some of it hit Eli as well, and he gasped as the icy-cold shock took his breath away. This was no mere ocean water; it was a deep-sea current flowing full force, thrown up from the sea.
Karon fell as the water drenched him, screaming as his light went out. The ground trembled when he landed, and the impact threw Eli off his feet. He landed on the sandy ground by the road, tumbling hard. But before he was done falling, he was scrambling to his feet. Beside him, Karon’s body was no longer glowing, but a black heap of steaming rubble. Eli rushed forward with a curse, plunging his hands into the hissing stone. It burned as he touched it, but not nearly as much as it should have. Cursing louder, Eli dug down, stabbing his spirit through the cooling rock as he dug toward Karon’s molten core.
He caught it just in time. Eli tugged his hands out of the stone and pressed the lava spirit’s flickering heart to his own chest. His skin burned when Karon touched it, but Eli had never welcomed the pain so much. He clenched his teeth and pushed harder, forcing the lava’s heart into his own. Karon went without a sound, and, for a long moment, Eli knew he’d lost him. Then the lava’s heat flashed as Karon’s pulse merged with Eli’s, and the burning heart began to beat.
Eli fell to the soaked ground, panting and clutching his burning chest. “Karon,” he whispered. “Say something.”
The silence stretched on.
“Please,” Eli pleaded. “Please say something.”
But the lava spirit didn’t answer. Eli could feel Karon’s heat in his chest, but it was so small, so fragile. Before he could panic further, Eli forced himself to stand. He teetered toward the watchtower, desperately searching for somewhere to collapse. If Karon was going to survive, he needed all of Eli’s strength, which meant Eli couldn’t have any of it for a while.
“Hang on,” he whispered, pushing open the watchtower door. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you, but that cuts both ways, you know? Don’t go out on me now.”
His only answer was silence as he pulled himself up the watchtower stairs.
Meanwhile, halfway down the storm wall, Josef met the first of the Empress’s soldiers with a clash that echoed across the bay.
CHAPTER
23
Hold the line!” Josef screamed, swinging the Heart at the seething wall of soldiers.
The enemy covered the beach in a solid mass, but only a few could go up the stairs at a time. These Josef held off easily, but the enemy, realizing the obvious path was blocked, was now climbing the jagged stone of the storm wall itself.
“Spread out!” Josef shouted to the soldiers behind him. “Half left, half right! Knock them off as they climb. Don’t let them reach the top!”
The orders were swallowed as he gave them, overwhelmed by the war cries of the enemy as they surged forward and the dying screams of his soldiers as they shot the last of their bolts at the climbers only to find that the enemy had bows of their own.
Josef swung again, knocking three enemy soldiers down the stairs with a curse. For every man he knocked down, two more popped up. The crashed palace ships were still vomiting up troops, and the bloody bay was full of boats. The storm wall was alive with the enemy. They swarmed the stairs, swarmed the wall; some were even climbing the cliffs themselves, pulling themselves hand over hand up the vertical stone toward the abandoned archer lines. Meanwhile, the Oseran sailors had spread themselves thin in an attempt to hold the storm wall. They screamed as they fought, their eyes wide with the wildness of men pushed past their limits. The only place the enemy sailors weren’t attacking was the blackened stretch where Karon had stood, but the lava spirit himself was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a great pile of black stone blocked the storm wall, the boulders still and quiet. Josef knew little of wizardry and nothing about the link between Eli and the giant, but even he knew those dark, cold
