"No," Torio protested.
"Wait, Torio," said Lenardo. "Fila, Torio is a Reader, not an Adept. He won't be draining himself if he uses his powers. Zendi is under siege, but the Adepts on both sides are resting now. When they waken with their strength renewed, I must be there to guide Aradia and Wulfston. I want Torio there, too, not several hours away."
"I understand, my lord," said Fila, "but Lord Torio can rest in one of the supply wagons." "Very good."
Despite his protests, Torio was settled into a wagon between cases of supplies and sent helplessly to sleep. By that time, the men wounded in the skirmish with the Aventine guards were brought to Fila, who set to work healing them, promising to follow as soon as all were out of danger.
Lenardo rode among a veritable migration toward Zendi. Every road in the land was filled with people on their way to defend the capital. They would far outnumber the besieging army, but few of them were trained soldiers. Those had all heeded the watchers' summons yesterday and were already doing battle.
Reading ahead, Lenardo found that the attacking Adept army was forcing its way in a wedge toward Eastgate. Knowing that they would soon be surrounded, they were trying to break into the city, where, if they could capture them, they could hold Zendi's Adepts hostage.
Lenardo's heart sank. None of the four attacking Adepts was injured; within hours, their powers would be back to full strength. Lilith would be unconscious for days. Her son was just a child. That left Aradia and Wulfston, outnumbered two to one. If he could not reach them before they were captured or surrounded, his friends would be operating blind while their attackers still had their Reader. Try as he might, he could not contact Aradia. I must get there.
He pushed his horse forward, and people made way for him, cheering as he passed. He Read their hopes rising. The Lord of the Land was riding to the rescue. Julia followed him, and he could find no reason not to let her. If Zendi fell, it would be better if she died in the fighting than if she were taken and forced to Read for the enemy, like Galen.
Lenardo's troops fought bravely, but he was still half an hour away when they were forced back against the Eastgate portcullis, and the towers brought down on them by the newly wakened Adepts now working easily at close range. The enemy was within the walls. Their troops were met by Lenardo's, but they provided a safe path for the Adepts and Galen to enter the city.
As the news flashed through the city, all within rushed to block the enemy's progress through the streets. Wulfston, Arkus, Josa, Greg, Vona, and Aradia met in the forum, but instantly a sea of flame leaped about them and they scattered. Readerless, they were easy targets. Lilith's son came running out of one of the side streets and met Wulfston, who grabbed him and turned him around.
"Keep moving. They're four on one if we provide them a target."
"But-"
"They're in East Street. Can you remember the big brick building with the false tower on top? Think, Ivorn. You've seen it."
"Yes," the boy said uncertainly.
"We'll bring that front wall down on them. Can you focus on it?"
"Yes, Lord Wulfston," the boy replied grimly.
"Good. Front foundation. Make the mortar crumble. Together," he said, halting and taking the boy's hands.
"Now!"
Lenardo Read the result of their effort: the crumbling mortar, shifting bricks, swaying wall falling with amazing slowness, but still too fast for the advancing enemy troops to escape. The wall crushed at least twenty to death and injured a dozen more.
But the Adepts and Galen were not among the dead and injured. As the wall was falling, Hron turned on Galen.
"Who-"
"Wulfston and that boy, Lilith's son."
"Where?"
Wulfston and Ivorn were still concentrating, not knowing the effect of their effort until the heavy vibration rumbled through the ground beneath them. They were still standing together as Galen hastily described their location and the Adepts hurled a thunderbolt.
It was almost a direct hit, and they were flung apart. Wulfston was hurled against a wall, where he struck his head and fell unconscious. Ivorn was thrown high in the air to land in a heap on the cobbles, knocked breathless, with several ribs and the small bone of his right forearm broken. Neither could move. Now it would be easy for the Adepts to kill them. //Galen,// Lenardo projected intensely. //Lenardo! Where are you?// But the question was academic; Galen already had him spotted. "Lenardo's coming," he told Hron. "We must keep him out of the city." "He can't do anything from out there," Hron replied. "Did that blow kill Wulfston and the boy?"
//Galen,// Lenardo projected again, determined to distract the Reader, //my people will open Southgate for me. You can't win now.//
"Lenardo's at Southgate," said Galen, creating a new eddy of confusion in the already boiling mob as he turned his horse and began struggling back toward one of the streets that curved around to Southgate. //This time you won't escape, Lenardo. This time I'll kill you!//
Hron followed Galen. The other Adepts, rather than waste their strength clearing the debris out of the street before them, turned back as well.
Inside Southgate, Lenardo's troops surged through the streets toward the approaching enemy. As the first ranks came into view of the Adepts, a roaring wall of flame consumed them. Those just behind retreated before the heat and the death screams of their companions, but Lenardo's plan called for their retreat.
If he could entice Galen and the four Adepts to Southgate, he could destroy them all. A watcher on the Southgate tower signaled the approach of the enemy to the army outside, and they began moving toward the gate, which would be opened for them.
"Halt," Lenardo shouted, galloping to the front of the first column. "Stay back, and when I signal, retreat."
"My lord?" But the astonished question immediately dissolved into obedience. "Yes, my lord."
"Get me a signaling mirror and someone with the talent to start fires. Hurry!"
Galen was Reading him, and so Lenardo once more created a false scenario in his mind: his troops advancing, himself at their head. At Galen's direction, the Adepts shot thunderbolts at his phantom. Lenardo enticed them to waste their energy over and over again.
A watcher's polished mirror was thrust into his hands, and he tried to concentrate on two things at once: keeping Galen occupied with his phantom and signaling his true message to the watcher on the Southgate tower.
Retreat before Hron's troops, he signaled. Let them win Southgate. Then take shelter as far from the gate as you can.
He could Read the watcher's indecision and feared that Galen would. He told the boy, //It's no use, Galen. Tell your Adept Lords to surrender.//
//You always were a fool, Lenardo.//
The watcher finally signaled Message acknowledged and turned to relay it to the other soldiers. The retreat began as Lenardo projected to Galen an image of his troops approaching the gate from the outside, while in reality they drew back, bewilderedly obeying their lord's orders.
"Where's that fire talent?" Lenardo demanded.
"He's coming, my lord," someone assured him, and indeed, a man in peasant garb was soon brought to him. "This is Mib."
"My lord," the man stuttered, eyes downcast, more terrified of Lenardo than of the battle.
"I need your help* Mib," said Lenardo, dismounting from his horse so that he could speak quietly and reassuringly to the man. "The enemy is approaching Southgate, and our own men are pulling away. We are going to blow up the gate."
"Blow up, my lord?"
"There is marsh gas under the gate," Lenardo explained, andjbund that that meant nothing to Mib.