She took Arling up to the next floor, fueled by a rush of adrenaline that masked the pain in her leg and the weariness that flooded through her body. At the bottom of the stairs, she led her sister into a small anteroom adjacent to the Outer Wall and from there through a doorway that opened onto a raised ledge warded by a half wall. She motioned for her sister to crouch down, and together they climbed four steps to what was no more than a ten-foot-long observation balcony that overlooked the landing platform and the airships.

From this vantage point, they might be able to see what happened once Bombax and Cymrian traversed the catwalk and came up behind the barricade.

Aphen put a finger to her lips. No talking. There were slits cut into the stone blocks of the half wall, and the sisters peered through these at what lay below. The Druid airships moored to a series of locking rings numbered six, and while none of them was the size of the Walker Boh, midsize vessels like Arrow and Wend-A-Way were large enough to carry all of the defenders in the Keep. Two airships would have been better than one, but they could make do with one if they got away quickly enough to put some distance between themselves and their pursuers. Flits were fast enough to catch up to them no matter what, but flits lacked sufficient firepower to bring down ships the size of Arrow and Wend-A-Way—and Federation airmen lacked the flying skills of Gnome raiders in any event.

That’s what she told herself, even though she had her doubts and could not entirely banish them.

The barricade constructed by the Federation to block the rampway was a makeshift affair of logs and crates and hunks of metal plating. A pair of rail slings and a fire launcher had been mounted on portable swivel stands and faced toward the Keep. Torches wedged in crevices and set in iron stanchions burned in bright patches in the darkness. Perhaps twenty soldiers loitered about, a few of them watching the Keep, most visiting with one another and throwing dice. There were no guards at all back where the airships were moored. The soldiers did not look as if they expected anything to happen soon and certainly not where they had been stationed.

Aphen smiled grimly. It would be a very unpleasant surprise indeed when Bombax and Cymrian appeared.

Farther away, out on the battlements of the Outer Wall, a handful of Federation guards were hiding behind half walls and bulkheads where they undoubtedly hoped they were at least marginally protected from the uncanny bowman who had killed Deek Trink.