Crayn cleared his throat. “They may be hidden in the city. If King Bifalt invites Rile’s men to enter his keep, he may intend to seal them in. They will be trapped. In those halls and corridors, riflemen can kill them. His Magisters can, if they wield fire or lightning. Drought and pestilence will be too—”

A heavy thump sounded in the workroom. Another. Magister Rummage pounded the wall with his fist until a sorceress hurried to his side. Grabbing her forearm, the hunchback stabbed words into her flesh with such ferocity that she gasped.

“Magister Rummage says,” she quoted, “do not be absurd. The foemen are too many. Suppose King Bifalt traps and kills hundreds of them. Thousands will remain. They will raze his city until he and his forces are dead. If that is his ploy, it gains nothing. He will be slain in the Fist.”

The hunchback nodded bitterly, approving her translation.

“Wait,” said Sword Eradimnie again.

“The infantrymen come.” Magister Bleak seemed to be choking. “They see the gates are open. They pause. Several enter. They are not harmed. Others follow them. They fill the bailey. More crowd at their backs. They are—”

As one, Bleak and the albino gasped. “There!” coughed the pale Farsighted. “The King. On a balcony above the bailey. He is alone.”

“This is madness!” croaked Bleak. “He appears to shout. He fires his rifle. He beckons as he turns away. Now he is gone.”

The Knight clashed her forearms together to demand attention. “A taunt,” she declared. “He goads the enemy into his citadel. I do not know why. From the first, he has aimed toward this result. But what does he gain? Until now, he has not fought like a man who means to die.”

Over the Wall Mountains, the moon was rising. While Sword Eradimnie spoke, the Great God’s officers organized the infantrymen. If they roared, no one in the Repository heard them. Dim and strange in the moon’s silver, large companies ran across the bailey to the doors of the Fist. Dispatched by their officers, infantrymen sprang up the stairs in the bailey wall, hurried along the ramparts snatching up torches. When they descended, they carried the firelight with them. Over the Fist’s doors, the flames remained, burning like an invitation.

Magister Bleak did his best to convey what was happening. Packed shoulder to shoulder, Rile’s soldiers confronted the darkness inside the keep, brandishing their broadswords as they advanced. In a thick stream, a killing river, they entered Belleger’s Fist with their few torches. Soon the waiting dark swallowed those lights. The fires above the doors lit the enemy as more and more and still more accepted the King’s taunt. There was nothing else for the Farsighted to see. If the infantrymen met any opposition, it was invisible.

Estie’s skin burned. With her whole body, she felt the pressure of a storm growing. Any spark might set her blazing.