“The blue powder bombs,” Ayla said. “I have one, I can—”

“Not yet. Not from here. Let’s go, I can hear more coming.”

Ayla nodded and let Crier pull her out of the clearing, back through the two stone sentinels. The mountainside rose up on one side of the path, dropped down on the other, a steep, rocky slope. Crier paused for a second, head cocked, fingernails digging into Ayla’s wrist, and then veered to the left.

“This way,” she hissed. “They’re coming from above.”

They scrambled off the path, down the slope. It was a sheer drop, no tree roots or anything to hold on to, just bare, slippery rock. The slide was painful and undignified—Ayla’s palms were scraped bloody when they found footing about ten feet down, and so was her side where her shirt had ridden up a little. She flexed her fingers, wincing. “Ah, that stings.”

“Sorry,” said Crier, and then—BOOM. The ground shook, pebbles rattling around them, and a cloud of blue smoke billowed up into the white sky the direction they’d come. A beat, a breath, and then another explosion, so loud Ayla clapped her hands over her ears. A great punch of thunder, echoing over the entire mountain and the valley below.

“I really, really hope that was Dinara,” Ayla said grimly.

“We should . . .” Crier reached up, touching the crossbow slung across her back. “Maybe we can get a good vantage point, take out the Shades from a distance.”

Ayla nodded. “I don’t like being useless.”

“You’d be more useless if you were dead.”

“Still.”

They picked their way sideways across the slope, gripping onto the rocks. Crier took the lead, her footsteps falling more surely, Ayla doing her best to step in the same places. More than once, Crier tested out a foothold only for the rock to crumble beneath her weight, shale sliding down the mountainside with a puff of pale dust. It took a few slow, painstaking minutes to make their way back to the edge of the clearing, this time coming up on it from below. The air smelled like smoke and sulfur, the atmosphere thick with it, nasty on the back of Ayla’s tongue. Blue smoke was still rising, and this close Ayla could hear the sounds of battle: human shouts and raw, monstrous screams, the occasional clatter of a weapon against rock.

They inched closer, climbing up a jagged rock formation that joined with one of the short walls surrounding the clearing, the side of the bowl. Once, Ayla felt herself begin to slip, but Crier grabbed the back of her shirt before she could even cry out, holding her steady until she found purchase again. They dragged themselves over the crest of the rock formation, and they crawled up to the edge, about fifteen feet off the ground. It was hard to see through the smoke; Ayla blinked back stinging tears, squinting through her lashes. There—her eyes found Dinara, sword slashing through the air. There were over a dozen humans and only three monsters, and still it seemed an even match. Two humans had already fallen. Ayla saw them, dark figures slumped on the ground, dead or unconscious, it was impossible to tell. She wanted to help turn the tide, but there was no way to throw her powder bomb without hurting the rebels too.