A Victory with Poor Timing

The flares were worse than the bell. Anyone watching the Church roads could see them.

“Three flares?” Waki asked.

“Help urgently. At least, that is my best guess,” I said.

“Who answers?”

I looked toward the mountains. “Dozorhold if we're unlucky.”

There wasn't time to worry about that yet. Keme was already sending warriors along the wall. Others hurried toward the market, where the bell was still ringing. Nimiwa and the healers stayed near the eastern gate while Aponi organized the groups arriving behind them.

We found the first Crusader at the entrance to the market. He wore a white cloak over heavy plate armor and carried a large double-handed sword. Two soldiers flanked him. Behind them, a Paladin kept an Aegis protecting them.

The Crusader stepped through the golden wall. Keme raised his shield.

The Crusader drew his sword back. White light ran along the blade, continued past its tip, then lengthened again as he swung.

“Down!” I shouted.

The cut passed over Keme and took the top off a market stall behind him. Canvas, timber and someone's unsold produce fell into the street. The actual sword never reached any of it.

The Crusader turned for a second swing. Our only advantage was that he needed enough room to fit the sword. I looked at the narrow lane beside us. Human architecture proved to be very useful.

“Into the lane,” I told Waki. “Make him follow.” She glanced at the passage beside us and shouted to Keme. We fell back and the Crusader came after us, sword held high. Behind him, the Paladin pushed his shield forward to cover the soldiers.

The Crusader tried to bring the glowing blade down but his elbow struck a low beam before he could complete the swing. Keme hit him in the knees, causing him to stumble back. Waki made certain he didn’t get a chance to recover. Saren and two others attacked the soldiers before the Paladin could bring his protection around the corner.

The market opened before us and the church had become the place the Order wanted us to attack. Gold shielded the church steps. Paladins stood at different heights, overlapping their golden barriers across the entry. Clerics moved behind them. Zealots knelt along the stone wall of the churchyard with their arbalests already raised. More soldiers waited between the pillars and beneath the windows.

An old acquaintance stood above all of them with his iron staff. Purple cape. Red and gold vest. Seven wings at the top of the staff. The Inquisitor that survived our previous meeting.

Keme yanked me behind a stone post. White light cut through the place where I had been and struck the wall beyond it. “I was moving,” I told him. He answered with a word I didn't know. I suspected it described the speed.

The rest of the market became considerably less safe. Three Zealots fired together. White bolts crossed the square and drove the elves away from the open ground. An arrow struck an Aegis and vanished in a flash of gold. Another elf reached the bottom step before a Paladin drove his shield forward. Holy light burst from it and threw him back into the street. A Cleric pulled a wounded soldier behind the shields and the man stood again.

This was what I had been trying to explain on the map. Every class protected another one.

We spread along the market's edge. Elves appeared between houses on the far side. Keme sent three warriors left. A Paladin turned his Aegis toward them. Keme immediately sent another group along the churchyard wall on the right. Two Zealots aimed their arbalests. Before they finished, elves appeared from a lane behind us and shot arrows toward the steps.

The shields turned again. That was all Keme wanted. An orange spear struck gold. A second passed through the space the Paladin had abandoned and hit a Zealot's arbalest. The weapon burst into white fire in his hands. We continued to make progress, picking off one defender at a time.

Keme made a sharp call. The elves moved closer from three directions at once.

The Inquisitor looked directly at me, then he drew his staff across the top step. A thin white line remained on the stone. I saw it just before a southern warrior reached the steps.

“Stop!”

Waki caught his shoulder and pulled him backward. A sheet of light tore upward from it, slicing through the air.

The Inquisitor didn't wait to see whether it worked. He was already backing toward the door. He took two soldiers with him. We heard horses in the street behind the church a few moments later.

One of Keme's scouts started after them. Someone screamed inside the church. Keme looked toward the horses disappearing behind the buildings, then toward the door. Another scream came from inside. He called the scout back.

I hated letting the Inquisitor go. I hated how easily I recognized the other sound more. The rear of the church held prisoners. Some had been kept in a narrow room beneath the altar. Others were already lying in a circle around a man with a blue-runed dagger. Light traveled from the blood beneath them to the Paladin guarding the passage outside.

The Paladin's shield had been growing brighter and now I understood why. “Life Mage,” I told Keme. “He is feeding the shield.”

The Mage looked up at us. His dagger was already wet. He reached for the throat of the man nearest him. I raised my hand. I had never been able to aim Hanwi's blessing accurately. The prisoner was well within my margin of error.

The Mage saw me hesitate. He pulled the prisoner's head farther back and brought the dagger closer. I aimed and blue light left my palm. It passed through the Mage's wrist and struck the wall behind him.

The dagger fell. Waki saw the Mage attempt to pick it up and threw. Her knife buried itself beneath the Mage's collarbone before his other hand reached the dagger. The prisoner stared at me.

I looked at the smoking hole in the wall a few inches above his head. “Sorry,” I said.

The Paladin outside lost his shield moments later. Keme took him alive after breaking the arm that held it.

By the time Nimiwa reached us, the prisoners were being carried into the church. Several were too pale. She knelt beside them one after another, pressing fingers against wrists and throats.

At the third, she stopped. Her fingers stayed against the woman's throat longer than they had with the others. Then she covered the woman's face.

Harrowford fell a street at a time. A group near the southern part of the wall surrendered when they found elves on the rooftops behind them. Soldiers barricaded inside a storehouse threw their weapons through a window after northern warriors began forcing their way in. Others simply ran when they learned the church had fallen.

Keme let them run. We still didn't know how many soldiers were hiding in the town, and he wasn't sending warriors off alone to find out. By dawn, there was nobody left in Harrowford still pretending the town belonged to the Order.

Six elves didn't live to see it. More than twenty were wounded. Several prisoners from the church were still breathing only because the Moon Guardians refused to leave them alone.

Waki found me sitting on a bench with both hands between my knees. “The flag,” she said.

“Red cloth,” I said.

“You remember. Now go find some.”

Harrowford contained no convenient resistance banners. The priest's ceremonial room did contain a length of red velvet draped over a chest of silver cups. Close enough.

Saren carried the red cloth up the tower. We watched it unfold from the highest window, above the place where the alarm flares had been fired. The wind caught the cloth and pulled it away from the stone.

Some of the elves raised their weapons. Some laughed. Nimiwa stood beside me with dried blood on her arm. “They see?”

I looked north. “If Ceara is watching, she will.”

She leaned against my arm.

Harrowford was ours. The flag was up. Ceara had what she asked for. I made the mistake of thinking that meant we were finished.