“We’re the best fighters here, and you wouldn’t stand for me protecting you. You take right. I’ll take left. I can’t be sure the sea serpent will hit the gates first, but it’s a fair guess. Either way, we should flank it. I don’t want to face that thing head on.”

And then there wasn’t any more time for talking. Phalue split off with her half of the guards, moving swiftly to the right of the gates. The sea serpent charged across the plateau and Phalue braced. The soldiers in front of her brought their swords to bear, lining them up like spears.

The creature slammed into the soldiers. The swords hit home but the serpent didn’t even seem to notice. It writhed from side to side, its head striking with the speed of a cobra. Blood, red and hot, slicked the gravel of the path. Phalue wasn’t sure how much of it was the serpent’s and how much of it was the soldiers’. The serpent seized a soldier between its jaws, the crunch of metal loud in the air. But before it lifted its head, Phalue caught a glimpse of someone riding on the serpent’s neck.

“Tythus!” she called out.

“I see it!” he shouted back.

The serpent swiped one of its short, webbed feet across the ground. Soldiers flew, tumbling down the side of the hill. The creature charged.

As Tythus had predicted, it went for the gates first. It slammed into the wood, but did not break them, though it was a near thing. The wood at the enormous hinges splintered and the gates groaned. The beast was even more terrifying up close, the luminescent spots bright as lamps, the teeth long as Phalue’s arm, the claws that could disembowel with a casual strike.

Sometimes, Phalue supposed, leading meant going first.

She charged.

How was a person even supposed to attack a creature so large? It was like an ant futilely squeezing its mandibles around the end of a person’s thumb. This was so far from her sparring sessions in the courtyard. So far even from fighting two lone constructs on Nephilanu. She cut a bloody slice across the sea serpent’s side and it rewarded her by batting her aside. The world tilted around her. Next she knew she was flat on her back, trying to catch her breath, an ache in her head. Get up. Now. She’d kept her grip on her sword. The beast’s claws had scored deep gashes across her armor but she didn’t think it had pierced her skin.

No time to check.

Tythus was shouting. Phalue shook her head, trying to clear the fuzziness from it.

“Hey, you big beast! Over here!”