My hands are halfway to my ears when Bastian raises the pistol and powder smokes the air. The little trotting hooves. The shifting of booted feet. The rustle of cloaks. Every other noise drowns in the explosion of Bastian’s gun. He echoes the bang with a war cry, and his boys join him, and the rest of the valley plays stunned witness to the Ashlord messenger’s death.

“Main entrance, hold!” Bastian shouts, leaning down for his other pistol. “Have the boys along the second passage retreat. Get them safely up on the ramparts. Let’s teach the burners how we fight out here in the mountains.”

I expect Ashlords to come pouring forward, but they don’t. Instead, there’s the distant beat of drums, the call of a general, and the steady march forward. They move as one toward the walls and Bastian’s crew do their best to take advantage. Every patient step sees another Ashlord drop, but the ranks fill in and there’s something terrible about their unsmiling faces.

A barked command finally sends Ashlords streaming forward. The units break into perfect formations. Groups of three or four stream toward the two gaping holes: the main entrance below us and the abandoned side entrance off to the right. I’m trying to figure out what Bastian was thinking pulling his men from such an accessible entryway when rifle shots sound and bullets snap angrily against the stone ramparts.

“Down,” Bastian barks, shoving a pistol into my stomach. “Take this and wait.”

Smoke fills the air. Below us, the first wave of Ashlords meets Bastian’s men. I hear the scrape of metal and the cries of the dying. My heart is a riot in my chest, but one glance shows Bastian is clearly in his element. He’s humming some bastardized version of the March of Ashes. I shout over the sound of gunshots.

“If they get in that second entrance, they’ll surround us. What are we waiting for?”

He grins crookedly. “The explosions.”

And the foundations shake. The sky screams, full of light and heat. I squint through the smoke. The entrance his crew abandoned—and lured the Ashlord troops toward—is a mess of shattered stones and fallen soldiers. The sight is so horrific that I cover my mouth. The luckier Ashlord soldiers work to remove the wounded, dragging them safely away.

The other Ashlords divert back to the main—and only remaining—entrance with their blades drawn. Bastian stands up and fires his pistol. He looks over and sees I haven’t fired, so he snatches my pistol, finds another target, and fires again. Even with the explosion, there are still hundreds of them. All coming for us.

“Hold the main entrance,” Bastian shouts. “All we have to do is hold them.”