Set Ungabwey would have to light the fuses then or not at all.

Elgart nodded. “I understand, Majesty. As you say.” At once, he whirled away to enter the tunnel.

Five or six gunshots. A pause. Five or six more. The chaos of falling iron rebounded from the walls, the pillars.

The King belonged in that fight. Belleger’s Fist was his. He had made the decision to use it against the enemy. He needed to know what his Magisters would do, but he could not bear to wait while one of them obeyed him. Unslinging his rifle, he strode back toward the stairs leading down from the entrance.

Malder and Jeck stayed with him. Spliner and Boy watched over the Magisters.

Ahead of Bifalt, bullets ricocheted off stone, off iron, whining like angry hornets. Some of his riflemen were good shots. Others were simply calm enough to fire without rushing. The crash of falling bodies seemed to come from everywhere.

As he reached a column that allowed him to watch the archway, the shooting stopped. The infantrymen had pulled back.

The King did not believe for an instant that they had withdrawn. Of course, they could. They could keep him and his people trapped as long as they wished. When they had finished scavenging through the keep, Rile could send his own earthquake-wielders to tear the Fist apart. But Bifalt was sure. The Great God would not be content with a mere trap. The tactics of overwhelming force required a swift and fatal assault. The infantrymen had halted out of sight to regroup and think.

King Bifalt considered telling Set Ungabwey to light the fuses now. But the tunnel was still blocked. He moved one pillar closer to the stairs and forced himself to wait.

When Rile’s soldiers reappeared in the archway, they had shields: breastplates which they must have claimed from men far behind them. Covering their vulnerable heads with iron, they pounded the stairs, a torrent with no apparent end.

At once, every rifleman who could see the stairs opened fire.

For a few instants, the breastplates deflected every shot. The first infantrymen reached the foot of the stairs. But then Prince Jaspid shot out an exposed knee up near the archway. Screaming, that man plunged against the soldier below him. Together, those two infantrymen knocked down the whole line. They crashed with a sound like falling anvils.

Yet the charge did not pause. Rile’s men poured downward, as careless as spilled water. Even Jaspid could not hit a moving knee with every shot. And several of the toppled infantrymen began to rise from the floor. They still had their borrowed breastplates. Swinging their swords, they ran at the pillars, the riflemen. Perhaps they imagined that they were close to victory.

But they were not accustomed to fighting with shields: that was obvious. They no longer had the advantage of elevation. Holding their breastplates high, they left their torsos exposed.