The other three edged back, eyes darting between my new weapon and their moaning companions. Suddenly they didn’t seem so keen to engage. Spear trained on the swordsman, I edged sideways, the ladder in my peripheral vision. My fingers found the purse again, and as the swordsman charged past my clumsy one-handed spear thrust, I blew the contents of the paper twist at him. He blanched, stumbling enough for me to dodge, but the other rebels came at me at once, and I collected a fiery slash to my upper right arm with a scythe even as I clumsily blocked a hoe, losing my grip on the spear in the process.
The swordsman raised his weapon again, then started to cough, then gasp, then choke. The man with the scythe stared at his companion in horror as he sunk to his knees, clutching at his throat and chest. “Summoning!” he hissed, like an accusation, and for a moment I just stared, confusion overwhelming my fear. Then he raised his voice and bellowed, “We need a Speaker!”
Survival instinct took over once again. Whatever they thought I was doing, they feared it. I rummaged in the purse and shook my fist at them menacingly as I edged sideways. I only had flare oil left, and nothing to ignite it. I needed to get to the ladder. My heart pounded so loudly I thought it might be failing before I realized it was not my heart but a real drum somewhere nearby. One of the men glanced over his shoulder just as a figure emerged from the crowds of rebels. Walking deliberately, she was unveiled, face and bare chest streaked with pale mud forming symbols I didn’t know, and tailed by a child beating a skin drum, his song lost to the roar of the crowd. Clouds of dust beneath the feet of the rebels seemed to part around them. There was something wrong about her, something old and otherworldy, like a creature from a nightmare. I suddenly very intensely did not want to know what a “Speaker” was.
Where the sight of the approaching woman had increased my fear it had the opposite effect on my enemies; buoyed by her approach, and seeing through my bluff, the remaining two men approached cautiously again. Though I feinted to gain a few steps closer to the ladder they figured me out soon enough and moved to block my exit, weapons raised. All the while the woman approached slowly, the beat of the child’s drum matching her footfalls as though she shook the very earth.
This was it. I had nothing left. I met the eyes of the man who was about to kill me—with a hoe, of all things—and he lunged, driving it toward my throat.
Then feathers sprouted from his chest. His eyes widened with shock as he fell. The man with the scythe stopped midstrike, staring at his fallen companion, then he, too, was hammered down by the force of an arrow plunging into his shoulder. I looked up. A figure—no, two figures—hung dangerously off the edge of the wall, shooting down at my opponents. A louder pounding sound broke my stupor; I spun to see the child with the drum only a few treads away, and the woman crouched to the ground, fists full of dirt, burning gaze on me.
I ran for the ladder, clambering over bodies. A hiss and cry sounded behind me as another arrow found its mark. Grabbing a rung with my slippery left hand I hauled myself up, clinging three-limbed to the underside of the ladder. Rebels surged up its front side, face-to-face with me but oblivious to my identity as they climbed past.
From the ramparts above came a cry that might have been my name, then a hoarse scream of a woman falling off the ladder. My rescuers above were clearing me a path. Gritting my teeth with the effort, I scrambled a hand around to the top side of the ladder and pulled myself over.
Screams, shouts, and the twang of arrows bloomed around me, but I shut them out and concentrated on the rungs, counting them in eights as I climbed. At one point a horrible crack broke my concentration and terrified screaming cut through the battle noise as one of the other ladders burned and broke, dropping dozens of rebels to their deaths. My breath came out in wheezy little puffs and gasps, and several times my bleeding hands weakened and slipped, but none of the arrows struck. The soldiers above didn’t notice I didn’t belong, and those below didn’t catch me. Left, right, left, right, five, six, seven, eight … How was it taking so long?
Then a jolt as someone below me grasped at my ankles, yanking one leg free from the rung. I slipped and cracked my chin, but hung on and kicked down hard, trying to knock them away. The grip only tightened; it felt abrasive, grainy, like a glove made of crushed shells. I dared a look down but in the confusion and with the other climbers I could not see who held me, only a glimpse of hard brown fingers around my shin, tightening, tightening, with each beat of the now-distant drum below, crushing the bone.…
Then the drum stopped, and the pressure was gone, like that. I peered down but saw no sign of my pursuer; no one was looking at me or appeared to have fallen suddenly. Discomforted, I paused, but then I heard “Jovan!” and shaking my bruised leg I hurried after the man above me. We were almost at the top. Tain was there, leaning too far out a crenel, Marco on the other side with a huge curved blade, slashing down at the men trying to scramble up over the wall.
“Hang on!” Tain called. The man above me surged up the last few rungs and sprang over the top. I heard him grunt as Marco’s blade took him, then he half-slid, half-fell, his foot scraping over one of my hands. He hit my shoulder and tumbled off the ladder, but I clung on. Below me his body hurtled to the ground, and as he landed I saw the body of the strange woman beside him, felled by an arrow.
“Get up here!” Tain yelled, and I forced my half-numb body to obey, working my way to the topside of the ladder then scrambling up the last few rungs. Strong hands gripped my forearms, helping me, dragging me over the cool stone and into the safety of the ramparts. I slumped against the wall, curling my knees up to my chest. I didn’t have the energy or the balance to stand.
“Now!” Marco bellowed. “One … two … over!”
A huge rock went over the edge, and a massive crack signaled the destruction of the ladder. I shut my eyes, breathing hard, and tried not to listen to the screams of the falling and crushed people below. Having just been below the wall, with its immense height and weight looming above like a malevolent giant, I empathized too easily.
“That’s the last one,” Tain said, dropping a hand on my shoulder. His voice sounded raspy, hollow. “The last ladder. They’re falling back.”
“Arrows after them!” Marco yelled, and I summoned enough strength to crawl across the ramparts so our archers could move back to position. Tain crouched in front of me, pulling off his battered helmet. His face was drenched in sweat and splattered with blood. “How badly are you hurt?”
I blinked, trying to catalogue my various injuries, but unable to focus. “I’m fine,” I managed. My tongue felt thick in my mouth and when I tried to thank him my words didn’t come out, my head swam, and then black spots in my vision became black clouds and took over altogether.
Clouddust
DESCRIPTION: Spray released by the cloud lizard, a highly aggressive white/gray alpine reptile. Inhalation of or exposure to the spray is extremely dangerous. Can be harvested into a highly corrosive serum, which is deadly if undiluted.
SYMPTOMS: Topical, manifesting in reddening and blistering of exposed skin, usually causing permanent damage if not immediately treated. Ingestion of the serum causes immediate painful burning of mouth, throat, and stomach and intense abdominal pain; inhalation of the raw spray causes lung failure and can be fatal.