The el-Algreb kept running. In front of them, the wall seemed to melt as soldiers fell, wounded or dead. But more infantrymen surged forward to support the barrier. They were—

They were what? Estie needed an instant to answer herself.

They were protecting something. Something essential to Rile. Priests already surrounded it, yet he was not content. He sent his light infantry to stop bullets so that something he desired or needed would reach him.

A shift among the infantrymen and priests gave Estie a brief glimpse of men who looked like servants. Carrying wrapped bundles and gasping desperately, they struggled uphill.

Why was Rile waiting? Instinctively, Estie guessed that those servants were the reason. But she had no idea what their coming meant.

Making decisions in a rage of frustration, King Bifalt led his riflemen up the twisted slopes. He had implied to Suti al-Suri that he would rejoin the el-Algreb, but he did not follow them. Instead, he took a gully that cut through the foothills more directly east. It angled away from the fighting above the road. That suited him. He aimed to climb past the immediate battle, then turn to strike at Rile from an unexpected direction.

He had only a vague idea where Rile was. Apparently, the god had established himself on a flat outcropping some distance below the Repository’s porch. Bifalt did not know the place. But he would be able to see it when he had drawn his riflemen and Magisters high enough.

Beyond the gully, he stumbled on a path, followed it briefly, lost it. From his left, he heard the feverish crack of rifles, the ravages of sorcery, the screams of men. With an effort, he ignored it. Every blow of his heart pounded pain into his damaged hand. He struggled for breath, and could not get enough.

Without any obvious effort, Prince Jaspid and Jeck kept up with him. Elgart, Malder, and Boy labored at his back. Spliner did what he could. The riflemen climbed at the pace of the Magisters, who had not spent years training for toughness.

When the shape of the hills gave him a chance, King Bifalt veered more to the north, closer to the tumult. He had a few moments of easier running. Then a ridge barred his way. He flung himself up its ragged slope. The clamor of fighting called to him, demanded him. He needed to see where he was. Where Rile was. What was happening.

He found answers at the ridgecrest.

The outcropping was there, at least a stone’s throw above him and a long rifle-shot north. It formed a broad flat place large enough to hold a pavilion, the Great God himself, hundreds of priests, and a numberless mass of armored infantrymen in a cordon that guarded Rile on three sides, north, west, and south.