Forguile barely had enough strength to answer, “I jumped.” He was using the last of his stubborn vitality to keep himself and Flisk from losing their hold on the lifeline.

There was no sign of Magister Pillion. Flisk could only assume that he had followed his gift onto the ruin he had made.

Later, while he and the Commander waited for help from the men far above them, Flisk chewed on his friend’s answer until he understood it. When lightning had destroyed the third terrace, dropping rock and cannon and men onto the fourth, Forguile had saved himself by vaulting over the parapet to land on the fifth among the siege guns. How he had avoided being broken or killed by falling shards and rubble was less clear. Certainly, he had plenty of blood on his face, deep bruises and contusions. He had earned his utter weariness. Yet he seemed unaccountably cheerful.

That made no sense at all to Flisk.

Later still, after a few cannoneers and several riflemen had manhandled the Captain and Forguile back up the road to safety, Flisk heard that some of the servants had gone searching for Mattwil and Cloras. They had found the young woman. She was badly broken, unable to walk; but she managed to describe what Father Skurn had done—and how Mattwil had responded. Now she was in the overworked infirmary, being cared for among the riflemen and gunners who had lost hands or eyes or the use of their limbs when the emplacements were destroyed.

The news that Mattwil was dead—that Flisk had failed in his charge to watch over Matt’s son—was more than the Bellegerin officer could bear. He did not care who saw him weep. The secret of his damaged arm he kept to himself.

An hour or two before dawn, King Bifalt and General Klamath finally arrived with their reinforcements. They surveyed the defense for which Belleger and Amika had paid with effort, blood, and death. While Klamath, grieving, talked with the people who had located Cloras and learned of Mattwil’s death, King Bifalt heard the reports of his officers and the bay’s Magisters. He paid particular attention as Magister Trench and others confirmed that the attackers from the woods were not sorcerers themselves, but were instead driven by sorcery. But the King himself only listened. His shock and dismay were private.

Yet he spoke to Flisk. Resting a light touch on Flisk’s torn shoulder, King Bifalt rasped, “You did well, Captain. You have no cause to blame yourself. If there is fault here, it is mine.”

To Commander Forguile, the King said simply, “Thank you, my friend.”

After that, he took General Klamath with him and began to gather firewood.

When riflemen, gunners, and then volunteers and servants grasped what the King and the General were doing, they, too, collected wood. With solemn care, they built a pyre for the dead.