Below the balcony and the Repository’s own plateau, the keep’s shadow had lifted from the Great God’s pavilion. The enemy himself glowed, golden with power, but now the sun shone on the forces arrayed around him: the thick mass of the horde, the host of priests, the heavy infantry guarding the god’s back. Etched in sunlight, the light infantry crossed the road and climbed.

On Magister Rummage’s instructions, Magister Avail commanded the Repository’s theurgists and General Klamath to wait. Do nothing. The mute hunchback held them back because he did not know what was coming.

The Farsighted had lost sight of King Bifalt again. Had Queen Estie reached him? Had he ignored her? Had he tried to do what she asked? Magister Rummage ached for some sign that he himself would not have to face his worst fear.

Wait.

Suti al-Suri’s horse-warriors had begun to engage the light infantry. Dull in the distance, the sounds of shots and screams felt trivial. On foot, the el-Algreb attacked from the south below the road. When they ran out of bullets, they would fight with throwing daggers and cutlasses. Given time, they would deplete the Great God’s defenses. But they had arrived too far from the enemy’s climb toward the lower plateau. If King Bifalt failed, they would not get a chance to succeed in his place.

Holding his book out of sight under his robe, Magister Rummage glared at the god’s preparations. If he had bothered to notice the people around him, he could have measured their tension and fear, their eagerness to unleash their gifts, their dread of what would happen if they were not enough. But he knew their limitations. His Magisters could not extend their Decimates as far as the lower plateau. Lightning could, and perhaps fire. None of the others.

He did not count the seventh Decimate.

The sorcerers who had left during the night to rejoin General Klamath were closer to the Great God. Magister Rummage hoped that they were strong. Their long flight from the Open Hand must have required them to exert their abilities in ways that the Repository’s theurgists had never attempted. They might be more effective than the men and women Magister Rummage commanded. That was possible. He swore to himself that it was possible.

But he did not give the signal to strike. Instead, he scowled at the slopes below the pavilion. At the road and the foothills farther down. There the knuckled shapes of the terrain thwarted him. They hid what he needed to see.

The Great God sat motionless. His forces looked ready. Spread up the slope toward the Repository, the fanged men of his horde quivered with eagerness. But he did not begin his onslaught. Nor did he counter the assault of the el-Algreb. He was not ready.

Magister Rummage knew why.

Wait.