He grabbed Stoon’s arm. “Come with me. Let’s find a place to watch it happen.”
Atop the battlements of the Inner Wall, Aphenglow and Bombax stood watching the Federation soldiers scurry about the courtyards below, removing their dead and injured and readying themselves for a fresh assault. Ten of Krolling’s Druid Guards were dead and another five too badly injured to fight. The fifteen or so who were still sound enough to do so had taken up positions on the Inner Wall battlements to await the expected attack. It was not entirely clear yet what direction it would come from, but it was clear that it was inevitable.
“We can’t hold back so many,” Bombax muttered, watching the soldiers as they began to form up their lines. “Not if they find a way to get inside the Inner Wall, too.”
“It’s not your fault they got this far,” she answered quietly. “We were all fooled by that boy.”
“I’m the one who brought him inside the Keep. I’m the one who trusted him when I should have known better.” Bombax shook his head. “I should have seen the truth.”
“You were drugged by whatever liquid the Mwellret poured into your gag. You were unable to speak or move properly, and you couldn’t reason things out.” She glanced over. “None of us would have done any better.”
Bombax looked unconvinced. “I just hope I live long enough to get my hands on him. Five seconds would do it.”
“We’ll settle with him one day.” She scanned the courtyards and the Outer Wall. “What became of him after he opened the east gate?”
The Borderman grimaced. “He slipped out to join his friends. If he were still inside the Keep, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
They were silent for a few minutes, standing close, lost in separate thoughts focused on finding an answer to the same question: What would happen when the Federation attacked the Keep? Aphenglow thought she should go inside and say something to Woostra. But what was there to say? That they were under attack? That they were all in grave danger? Woostra would already know as much. They were all trapped, and advising the old man of what that meant was unnecessary.
“It would help if we hadn’t lost the airships,” Bombax murmured.
But they had, and there was no help for it. The landing platform and their airships lay between the Outer and Inner walls, and the Federation had seized possession of both almost immediately. It didn’t give them access to the Keep, but it kept the Druids from being able to escape by air. If they wanted out, they would have to walk.
They could do that, of course. There were tunnels that ran from the depths of the Keep to the world outside. But escaping would mean abandoning Paranor to an enemy, and no Druid would ever consider doing that. Surrendering the Keep to Drust Chazhul and his Federation minions was unthinkable.
Cymrian appeared, white-blond hair streaked with dirt, Elven features intense. Wherever he’d been while she had been fighting her way clear of the Federation advance force and the blowgun assailant hadn’t been any less dangerous.
“Are you all right?” she asked, giving him a long look.
He nodded, shrugged. “I almost had him.”
Bombax looked over. “The boy?”
“I spotted him when I was coming back around the north wall to the east side of the Keep. I knew right away what he was doing. He had already gotten the gate open most of the way, but the Federation soldiers hadn’t reached it yet. I went after him, thinking I could get to him before he did any more damage. But he heard me or maybe just sensed me and fled through the gate, screaming for help. It came too quickly for me to close the gate again in time.”
“At least you tried.” Bombax held out his hand, and Cymrian gripped it tightly. “We’ll get another chance at him.”
“There he is now,” Aphenglow said suddenly.
The men looked where she was pointing. Deek Trink stood atop the Outer Wall perhaps three hundred yards away from where they watched, part of a small group of men studying the Keep from afar. Aphenglow recognized the blowgun assailant as one of them.
“That’s Drust Chazhul standing with him.” Bombax hissed out the Federation Prime Minister’s name as if it were poison on his tongue. “This must have been his plan all along. Get the boy inside the Keep to open the gates for his soldiers after faking an attack to justify doing so. It was the boy who fired on the Arishaig, a ruse for prompting a Federation response.” He glanced over at Aphenglow. “Just as you said.”
They watched as Deek Trink pointed this way and that, clearly describing the defenses of the Keep, revealing what he knew about its strengths and weaknesses, sharing information he had collected with their enemies. Aphenglow felt a red-hot flush surface, climbing from her neck into her cheeks.
“I’ll be right back,” Cymrian said suddenly.
He turned and raced away, whipping past an approaching Arlingfant without a word. Arling gave him a glance and then joined her sister and Bombax. “Is anything happening yet? Aphen, are you sure you’re all right?”
Aphenglow nodded. “I’m fine,” she lied.
Arling had helped clean her up after her escape with Bombax, washing her wounds and applying salves. But there were wounds on the inside that couldn’t be treated so easily, even though Arling could always detect them.
Down below, the Federation soldiers had their lines in place and were waiting for the order to attack. Apparently, the Federation army commander had decided that coming at the Keep from the west wall was the best approach. It was the one Aphenglow would have chosen, as well, which worried her. It was here that the Keep was most vulnerable.
“Won’t the Keep defend us like she did before?” Arling asked. “Won’t it be just the same with the Inner Wall as it was with the Outer Wall since no one is going to let them in voluntarily?”
Aphenglow wasn’t sure. She wanted to believe this was true, but she didn’t know enough about the magic’s conjuring to be confident that it would respond. Maybe breaching the Outer Wall had negated its effectiveness. Maybe it hadn’t been designed to defend if attackers got this far inside.
As they watched, a formation of flits eased into view from above the trees and hovered just beyond the perimeter of the main wall. Apparently, the Federation airships were going to try again. They would test the magic that had stopped them earlier, and if it failed to respond the pilots would use the flits and maybe something larger to force an entry from the air as well as the ground.
“Rail slings might stop them,” Bombax muttered. “Knock them right out of the air, those puny little things.”
Cymrian was back, moving to an open space on the wall close by. He was carrying the bow Aphenglow had seen him fashioning some days earlier in the gardens. It was a formidable-looking weapon, fully five feet long, its ends curved and notched to allow maximum draw, its surface polished to a bright sheen. Cymrian must have been working on it a long time, Aphen thought.
And then she wondered why he had brought it up here.
Without a word to any of them, Cymrian fitted a black arrow to the bowstring, lifted the bow so that the arrow was angled upward, hesitated, and then lowered it again. He looked beyond Paranor’s walls at the trees, reading their movements, looked up at the sky and watched the clouds drift, and then brought the bow back up again, sighting along the length of the arrow as he pointed it toward the group with Drust Chazhul. They were paying no attention to him, their interest focused elsewhere. Cymrian drew the arrow all the way back to its iron tip, held it there for a long moment, and then released the bowstring.
The black arrow arced skyward, sharply outlined against the blue of the sky as it flew across the space separating the Keep from the Outer Wall, its trajectory steady and sure, rising and then plummeting into the group that surrounded Drust Chazhul and piercing Deek Trink’s narrow chest through and through. The boy staggered backward a step, eyes wide with shock, and then toppled over dead.