If Father Skurn had tried to touch his forehead again, Mattwil would have struck the priest’s arm away.

Apparently, Skurn trusted Mattwil’s obedience. “Now come,” he said. “You will not have to carry her far. She will recover.”

He seemed to know the secret of Mattwil’s heart. The only question Matt’s son could find was: “Where?”

“The woods,” answered the priest. “You will guide me. We must reach the cliff north of the guns.”

Mattwil only nodded. Holding Cloras with all his care, he began to slog upward toward the distant trees.

Father Skurn followed in the path Mattwil made for him.

As they ascended the slope, crested that hill, and approached the next, the sounds of battle reached them more clearly: the hard boom of cannon firing one after another, the hot burn of lightning. But there were no explosions. Apparently, bolts of sorcery had not hit the guns or the gunpowder.

Not yet.

He would have said that he was exhausted. Beyond this hillside, he would have to climb one more to reach the woods. But he continued forcing a weary trail through the snow. To save his life, he would not have put Cloras down.

However, Father Skurn was right about her. Soon she twisted in Mattwil’s arms, met his gaze with more concentration. “I can walk,” she murmured. “I can try.”

He remembered more of himself. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“No,” she admitted. “But I am sure you are tired.”

With a rueful grimace, he lowered her to her feet.

She wavered for a moment, then found her balance without his help. When she staggered, she steadied herself by clutching at his rain-cape. Together, they started moving again.

“Good,” said Father Skurn at her back. “Do not stop.”

Mattwil obeyed while he tried to recall the questions that had troubled him earlier, in a different life: a time when he could not hear the priest’s voice.

They were nearing the trees when they heard an explosion, a sound like a hole being torn in the face of the cliff. He could imagine it: the strike of lightning, the scale of the detonation, the shattered stonework. He had labored on the emplacements long enough to know what their destruction would look like.

Whatever had protected the guns earlier was failing.

“Good,” repeated Father Skurn. “There will be carnage. Confusion. It will serve us.”

The cannon kept firing. But now there was a stagger in the sequence. The gap between shots stretched. The men were leaving their guns—or they were dying. Mattwil counted as well as he could. Eight—? Only eight? There had been sixteen. Had that explosion taken out one whole terrace? More than one?

Abruptly, he found his voice. “How?”

Behind him, the priest mused, “How?”