Within himself, he was alone, isolated by his fears. Commander Forguile and most of the riflemen were out on the hillsides or among the trees, searching for Rile’s fatal priest. Flisk missed him. Ennis Forguile’s presence would have comforted the Captain.

Despite his loneliness, however, Flisk was not alone. Half a dozen riflemen had accompanied him, men who had spent fortnights learning how to tend and fire the cannon. Apparently, they now considered themselves responsible for him. And other men had followed him as well, volunteers who had given seasons or years to the fortifications. They felt bound to the outcome of their labor. In addition, a few Magisters had left the heat and food of the kitchen. Not men like Magister Lambent, whose courage was as weak as his eyes, or women like Magister Whimper, whose Decimate of drought had no obvious use in the bay. But Magister Trench was there, joined by two lightning-wielders, Brighten and Visible, and a few others.

Falling snow still veiled the view. Even the nearest terrace with its cannon was veiled from sight. Nevertheless the attack on the reef was vivid in the distance. Its violence pierced the storm, an inconceivable barrage of sorcery burning and bludgeoning the hard coral. Blasts of silver left swollen afterimages like bruises on the scourged clouds. Mutters of breakage rode the twisted winds.

No one in Belleger or Amika had ever imagined that any one sorcerer—or any fifty sorcerers—could call down so much power, or aim it, or sustain it. But Captain Flisk knew what was happening. Like Magister Trench, he had witnessed the enemy’s first probing strike, when impossible lightnings and appalling earthquakes had torn a gap in the barrier. Now he was watching a similar effort of destruction multiplied many times.

Flails of lightning cracked the obdurate substance of the reef. Then the Decimate of earthquake flung huge chunks of it aside. The shattering of the obstacle was muffled by the falling snow, the incessant crash of seas, the tumult of winds that harried the cliff’s rim in all seasons. Still, Flisk could imagine it. At times, he seemed to feel the stone under him tremble like struck flesh as the bay’s foundations were struck.

Half gasping, Magister Trench asked, “How can we save ourselves? What can be done against that?”

“Forget the Decimate of earthquake,” snapped Magister Brighten. “The enemy needs the road. He will not risk breaking the cliff.”

Captain Flisk agreed. But he did not say so. He had worse fears.

Cannon could sink ships, yes. And any ship that foundered would be utterly lost. The sea gave nothing back. The destruction of the reef would only make the thrashing of the waves fiercer, the sucking of the currents hungrier.

But destroying cannon would be child’s play for any sorcerer with the Decimate of lightning. The power and the range.