Amika’s Queen had argued that the Great God’s priests would attack the cannon with exploding globes. She had insisted on sending Magisters to protect Waysel’s men. To appease her, Rummage had agreed. But he had not complied. He believed that he knew what was coming.

The Great God wanted that plateau. From there, he intended to stage his final assault. To preserve it intact, he had committed his cavalry to engage the Repository’s defenders, not to defeat them, but to demand their best efforts so that he could ascend to the plateau unopposed. When he was ready, his priests would not throw their globes. They would send the skirmishers to clear the way.

Those small men were fast and agile, difficult for riflemen to hit. In any case, Waysel’s men would be busy with their guns—and General Klamath’s soldiers were widely scattered below the outcropping. If fire and lightning could not stop the skirmishers, they would almost certainly reach the plateau. And if the storm came quickly, the General’s riflemen would be blinded. Waysel’s men and cannon would be lost. The Great God would take the plateau.

The doom that Magister Rummage dreaded was coming closer.

He wrote demands on Magister Avail’s hand.

—Warn Waysel! Watch for the skirmishers! Be ready to flee!

That was the best he could do. It was likely that the sub-Commander and Queen Estie had never seen those feral men before. They did not know the danger.

Nothing they did would make any difference.

To the south, the remaining Knights of Ardor had taken the brunt of the enemy’s charge. Farther back, the few mounted priests had succeeded in halting the rush of beasts. The cavalry no longer piled into the rear of the fight. The men engaging the Knights had more room to move.

Still, the Knights held. The fighting around Sword Eradimnie and her last comrades had become a melee. A second warrior had been lost when her stallion was gored. With its guts ripped open, the horse had stumbled off the road’s rim. The woman had gone down the hillside like a boulder until she ended in a pile of broken iron.

But Sword Eradimnie had lost comrades before. So had the Knights with her. They fought on. Possessed by a cold, calculating fury, she swung her longsword with the speed of a whirlwind and the force of an executioner’s axe. Her comrades did the same. They drove their foes back, and back, as if they believed that they could defeat all of Rile’s cavalry.

Cannon shouted in the distance. Eradimnie heard the barking of rifles, the cries of wounded men and beasts. The fight was not hopeless.

When her opponents broke off, she imagined for an instant that they might turn and run. She was mistaken.