“Please,” Shani begged, her eyes speaking volumes. “Please, Miro. Not like this.”
Miro looked out at the battle and saw the attackers push forward relentlessly as the infantry fell back. Men fell, one after the other, and as Miro watched, the last of the nightshades crashed to the ground.
Thoughts whirled through his mind. The battle was lost. Bartolo was down. Shani needed him.
Miro made a decision, and he gave the order he never wanted to give.
“Back!” he cried. “Back to the bridges!”
As the defenders took up the cry, Miro picked up Bartolo’s arms. “Take his legs,” he gasped.
He sensed some of the infantry forming a defensive ring around him as they fled back to the city. The defenders fell as they ran; it was just too easy to cut a man down from behind. It wasn’t a retreat; it was a rout.
They poured over the fallen rubble that had once been a defensive wall. Running and stumbling, Miro and Shani carried Bartolo through the buildings of Sarostar’s workshops and warehouses. Miro saw two elementalists in red robes running with them.
Flames shot from the Petryans’ hands back in the direction of the chasing enemy. The death cries of soldiers sounded in all directions, and the revenants surged through the western quarter of the city, butchering any of the living they found.
“Back to the bridges!” Miro heard the cry again and again. Across the bridges, on the other side of the river, lay the Crystal Palace and the Academy of Enchanters. Miro’s only hope was that Amber and Tomas had already fled. At the nine bridges of Sarostar they might buy some time, but the city was lost.
“This way,” Miro grunted, indicating with his head as he and Shani carried the heavy bladesinger. They turned a corner, and ahead Miro spied Victory Bridge, a wide span of stone crossing the bubbling green water below. Miro heard clashes of steel behind him and eerie singing as a bladesinger defended him and Shani. Then they were on the bridge, climbing the endless steps, stumbling along the broad path between two stone rails.
A soldier in green—Miro didn’t even know his name—pushed past Miro at the apex of the bridge. “High Lord, give him to me. I’ll take him.”
Exhausted, Miro gave Bartolo’s arms to the Alturan soldier. Only then did he turn and watch the destruction of his city.
The western quarter was overrun. Casting his gaze along the river, Miro saw defenders on all of the bridges he could see. Sarostar had no walls, but the nine bridges provided a defense of last resort. From the height of Victory Bridge, Miro saw thousands of fleeing defenders cross the bridges to the perceived safety across the river. Many turned back to stand with their fellows until they thronged the bridges like Sarostar on a feast day.
Miro stood side by side with his fellow bladesinger and waited for the enemy to come.
As he panted, knowing his city was lost, Miro saw a flash of light, but it came from the wrong direction. It wasn’t from a last prismatic orb, conserved until the end. It wasn’t the fire of an enchanted sword.
It made no sense.
A bright light sparked, coming from the direction of the Academy of Enchanters. Suddenly, an arc of radiance reached into the air to climb the sky, crossing the river, a bridge of light and glowing runes.
Miro had seen this before: when Evrin Evenstar fought Sentar Scythran. He’d seen it at the ruins of the Bridge of Sutanesta.
Miro was forced to turn his attention back to the fighting as the horde rushed Victory Bridge.
38
Ella glanced at High Enchanter Merlon, seeing he was also at a loss for words as they took in the destruction they’d wreaked at the site of the Heroes’ Cemetery. Upturned earth lay in piles beside each grave, the headstones strewn like victims of a fierce wind. In front of each marker a deep hole indicated where each man’s burial site had once been. These final resting places were final no more.
A clutch of old men and women stood nearby with spades. Ella’s desperation had called them out of their homes. The stubborn Alturans who refused to leave their city glanced at Ella with mixed apprehension and awe.
Shani’s mention of heroes had sparked the idea.
Fifty of Altura’s finest swordsmen stood upright beside their graves. Some were recently dead—the fallen bladesingers from the battle at the Bridge of Sutanesta—whereas others bore the marks of advanced decay. These warriors stood as they’d once stood in life: proud and tall, and they were undaunted by the wounds that had killed them. Each held a sword in his hand.
Ella had used the forbidden lore of the Akari to bring them all back. Every warrior’s skin glowed with activated runes, and they stared at Ella with white eyes, already filling with blood. With High Enchanter Merlon’s help, she’d raised them to once more fight for Altura in death as they had in life.