And the timing could hardly have been better for the priest. True, the enemy had lost ships. But then the gunners on the first two terraces had been driven away or slain. Now the officers and their remaining soldiers were almost certainly mustering at the top of the road, readying themselves to repel the enemy. The men Father Skurn had summoned would rip them apart.

Mattwil had helped the enemy ships take the Bay of Lights.

And Skurn had hit Cloras. He may have killed her.

Matt’s son sprang at the priest.

He had a stoneworker’s hands, arms, legs. A stoneworker’s instinctive grasp of leverage. Before the running men came close enough to stop him, he heaved Skurn into the air, held the man over his head. Strangling on anguish and shame, he croaked the only name that remained to him: “Cloras!”

Without thought or hesitation—without so much as a flicker of regret—he flung the Great God’s servant over the precipice.

Then he watched the priest fall, screaming, as long as he could: no more than a moment. After that, the first of Father Skurn’s men shoved him off the cliff.

Mattwil son of Matt and Matta had won a battle with himself, but he died too suddenly to know the truth.

Up on the cliff, Rile’s men kept running. Some of them trampled on Cloras as they passed, but not deliberately. She was nothing to them. They had their orders, knew their purpose. Baring their teeth, they raced to fulfill Father Skurn’s promise: to end the battle by slaughtering the Great God’s foes.

EIGHT

THE LAST DEFENSE OF THE BAY

After Commander Forguile went to the camp’s infirmary, Captain Flisk took his time. He had promised his friend an hour, although he knew that he did not have that much time.

Standing near the edge of the cliff and the road’s crest, he had a good view of the black ships as they worked their way inward. With lightning and earthquakes, they made profound changes in the waters of the bay. Blocked by fewer obstructions, the seas ripped against each other less, surged more directly toward the strand. The spray of pounded boulders rose higher as the currents in and out again grew stronger. The ships were already in range for the guns on the third and fourth terraces.

Flisk suspected that they were in range for his few Magisters as well. Even rifle shots would reach them now, but the bullets would do no real damage. He could rally his forces now, if he chose. Any delay might prove disastrous.

Nevertheless he waited. He wanted to hit those ships with a shattering cannonade. For that, he needed them to come closer.