[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
A camazotzi screamed as it slammed into the wards, energy sheeting across them in a blast of light. I felt light-headed even as I drew and fired another shot far out over the field, skewering a camazotzi in midair as it began a dive toward Thordin, my brother, and Cameron. Through the driving rain, I could see Sif hanging limp in Thordin’s arms. The fact that she’d remained motionless in all the time I’d been watching their approach had left me with a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I didn’t want to consider the possibility that we’d lose her somehow.
“Why haven’t they stopped coming?” Kellin shouted from down the wall.
I shook my head, not sure if she’d see. At the end of the day, her guess was as good as mine. “Don’t care! We just need to turn them back. The wards can’t take much more pounding before they buckle!”
“Those bastards keep suicide bombing them,” Phelan shouted over the sound of the wind as it picked up, chilling me to the bone as much as his words. “I need Matt back up here to help me keep them anchored. They’re starting to weaken.”
I swore under my breath, dropping the arrow I was about to fire. I pressed my palm hard against the stone of the wall, my senses traveling down, down into the wall, down to the earth below them, to the thick skein of copper buried beneath their foundations. I could feel the anchors of the wards, buried deep as we were building the walls all those months ago.
They were much weaker than they should have been, as if something had been disrupting them at the roots.
“Something’s wrong!” I shouted to Phelan. “Can you sense it?”
“Sense what? I’m a little busy right now!”
“Get the gates open,” Seamus interjected. “Quick, before they’re on top of us. All archers, fire!”
Darkness nibbled at the edges of my vision. Something was trying to steal my breath.
A curse dropped from my lips and I forced it back, my personal shields snapping into place.
Whatever was attacking our wards had decided I was prey, too.
