Before he could begin to understand her, she dove over the ridgecrest, rolled into a snowdrift. Her first movement raised a flurry of white. An instant later, she was invisible. Her raiment matched the snow. He could barely discern her passage as she crept downward.

He staggered inside himself, seemed to fall. Then he became himself again, King Bifalt of Belleger, Estie’s husband, a man who faced every challenge.

The priests stood at some distance from each other, extending the reach of their theurgy. One of them was directly below him. Directly below Amandis.

The second servant was already passing.

“Jaspid,” hissed Bifalt over his shoulder. “Take your riflemen uphill. Pick one priest. The second or third. Fire on him. If you can break his concentration, you may be able to kill him.”

Could fifty riflemen shooting at a single sorcerer do that? Bifalt did not know. For the devotee’s sake, he had to try.

Without hesitation, he called for Elgart and the Magisters.

“Downhill,” he demanded. “Three or four priests below me. Strike as hard as you can. Try to strike over their sorcery.” Brighten’s Decimate of lightning could do that. Crawl’s fire was more direct: it did not appear out of an empty sky. “Kill the running men.”

He did not know what Amandis hoped to accomplish.

She did.

The waiting seemed interminable. It may have lasted for thirty heartbeats. Then more than fifty rifles barked almost as one. A torrent of lead poured at the priest Jaspid had chosen. Bifalt saw bullets dissolve in the blur of power or skid away. But he also saw the priest’s sudden consternation. The man shouted something inaudible over the clamor of guns. The priests above and below him turned to help him.

The nearest servant staggered in fear, dropped to his knees. With panic in his eyes, he jerked himself upright and ran on.

An instant later, Crawl’s Decimate blazed. A wash of fire that should have incinerated a dozen men swept toward the priests. It scalded the shimmering, drove the priests back a step. But it did not burn through their barrier.

Instead, it drew their attention and their theurgy downward, lowered their defenses. At once, Brighten’s fury lashed. It caught a servant near her. He felt an instant of agony, of conflagration, then collapsed to char.

She struck again—and failed. Turning, the priests on the opposite side intercepted her lightning. It became a demented web, vivid and useless. Then it was gone.

She kept trying. Without pausing, Crawl hurled flame. The riflemen fired and fired, emptied their clips, slapped in fresh ones, and went on shooting.

Distraction.

Bifalt searched for Amandis. In a flurry of white on white, she risked rolling between two priests. They had turned toward the attacks on both sides. She passed under their sorcery.