Even through the immensity of his task, Miro saw the runes on the zenblade begin to dim. He had no way of knowing if he would make it to the end of the Wall’s great length. He could only pray.
Bartolo screamed in pain, distracting Miro from his own song. Miro choked and began to lose his rhythm.
Miro breathed in gasps. He fixed his memory on the tranquility of the Crystal Palace. He remembered Tomas, and thought of his homeland.
The song returned.
Even as Miro worked, he was aware that they were in the thickest of the fighting. Revenants threw themselves at Bartolo again and again, and the whirling bladesinger’s baritone rose in contrast to Miro’s tenor as Bartolo kept them back.
And then they were through the fighting, and past, to the Wall’s far side.
The two men were close to completing their circuit of the Wall when Miro’s zenblade went dark.
Miro lowered his arms, feeling raw pain scream all over his body, from the burns on his hands and the terrible fatigue in his muscles.
Miro’s song faltered, and he took stock of where he was.
He looked up at the Wall.
It hadn’t worked. Miro thought he could hear groaning, but the Wall still stood.
“Where now?” Bartolo gasped. A revenant charged, and Bartolo swiftly cut through its body. “We should get away from here.”
“Where else?” Miro panted. “Into the battle.”
56
Killian had recalled the defenders from the Wall, and the ramparts would soon be empty. When the enemy realized there was no resistance at the top of the Wall, they would begin to climb over, and the city would be overrun.
Killian now stood in the center of a long line of elementalists, close to forty of them. To his left, a hundred paces away, he could see Shani, her eyes on him. Another elementalist stood the same distance away on his right.
Seranthia’s buildings didn’t press close to the Wall, and there was a cleared swath of ground following the long line of gray stone.
Killian had no idea if this would work.
He waited: Miro would need time to play his part. How long he needed to wait, though, Killian didn’t know. He only knew he needed to be down here, with the elementalists. After the second clarion blast, he counted his breaths, and then he decided it was time.
Killian’s heart raced, and his breath came in short gasps. He steadied his nerves as he stared up at his city’s main defense.
The defense he was about to try to bring down.
For once freed of his responsibilities with the army, Killian brought himself into the trance-like state he’d sometimes used on the trapeze or the tightrope.
“Walking a tightrope,” he muttered to himself. Much of his life seemed to feel that way.
Killian pointed his hands in the air and spoke a swift activation sequence. A line of fire shot into the sky, where the elementalists would see it.
Glancing to his left, he saw the cuffs at Shani’s wrists flare up in a bright array of colors. On his right, the next elementalist followed suit.
Killian didn’t need cuffs. He clapped his hands together and then made a pushing motion at the Wall as he summoned the wind to do his bidding.
He chanted in rapid tones as he pushed, condensing the air in front of him and throwing it against the stone. Along the line the people in red robes would be calling forth their own elemental air. Killian could feel the concussive waves he created stretching and tightening. His hands were pushing at nothing, yet he felt he was heaving the weight of the entire Wall.
Killian started to feel failure: his task was foolish, impossible. But then an eerie wind began to develop. Soon it grew to become a howl. Gusts tore at his clothing. Swirls and flurries of dust and litter spun through the air, dashing against the stone.
Then the Wall started to groan.
Killian pushed harder now. He wasn’t sure if what he was doing was making a difference or whether it was the elementalists. Perhaps the Wall was falling under its own weight.
Either way, it was visibly tilting now.
As the wall began to lean, for a moment Killian thought it was going to fall the wrong way, back toward the city, and he would be responsible for the destruction of much of Seranthia.
But the incline grew steeper, and even over the sound of the howling wind and his own chanting Killian could hear the crunch of stone that had stood in place for centuries, disturbed and angry as the Wall tore itself free.
Killian roared and pushed harder. Looking at his outstretched hands, he saw his runes begin to dim, but he continued relentlessly. He suddenly knew in his heart that he was making a difference, and he chanted, calling on everything Evrin had taught him about the elements.
Killian heard a strident female voice as Shani pushed with him. Killian’s voice rose in a shout, and he felt he could hear every other elementalist working with him in concert, every one of them calling on the wind.