Betzi stopped abruptly. “There he is,” she said in a hushed tone. “Captain Kolz!”
Following Betzi’s gaze, Rielle saw a tired-looking young man leaning on the crenulated rail of a tower further along the city wall. Her friend pulled Rielle into a near-run, hurrying to meet her lover. Something in her hand whipped back and forth. Rielle laughed as she saw it was the scarf: Betzi had rescued it as well as herself.
The captain glanced down at the street and Rielle was not surprised that his attention moved to them, standing out because they were the only people moving with any energy. The smile that lit his face made her heart lift, then sink a little. It was possible the attraction between him and Betzi would not last once the present grim circumstances ended–even if they survived them–but she could not help feeling sure that she would eventually lose her only friend to him.
Betzi let go of Rielle’s arm and dashed into the tower, nimbly climbing the stairs within. Following more sedately, by the time Rielle reached the top she found her friend and the captain completely absorbed in each other, with several amused soldiers pretending not to notice. The scarf was around his neck already, she noted.
“… said you were dead! I did not believe them,” Betzi said. She grinned as Rielle joined them. “We—”
Her words were drowned out by a loud horn blast, which was repeated up and down the wall. Answering peals came from outside the city, followed by a sound she had only heard during festivals–the roar of many, many people shouting. The captain’s smile vanished and he and the other fighters hurried to the outer edge of the wall to peer carefully through the gaps of the crenulations.
“They’re attacking.” He looked back at them. “Go home.”
But Betzi drew closer, keeping away from the openings. Rielle followed suit.
“I am safer here than on the streets during the fighting,” Betzi told him, her voice uncharacteristically serious.
Kolz considered this quickly. “Then go below, into the tower, and stay there until I can escort you home.”
She nodded, then beckoned to Rielle and hurried to the stairs. As they began to descend, a whistling in the air not far above made them duck. They dove into the stairwell, then stopped to look up. Several dark lines flashed overhead. Cries came from the street below, muffled by the tower walls.
But they were soon drowned out by the roar of the approaching army. Soldiers jostled past as Rielle and Betzi hurried down the stairs. They each squeezed into a corner of the topmost room. A single archer remained on the same level, moving from narrow window to window, bow notched and ready.
Outside, the roar of the attackers joined with the shouts of the besieged, then fragmented into bellows and screams, the blare of horns and the clang and thump of weapons as the enemy reached the wall. The archer loosed arrow after arrow, then when his supply ran out he hurried away, leaving them alone. Betzi turned to Rielle, eyes wide. Looking back, Rielle realised she had been frozen with terror. Now, as her friend moved to peer out of the window facing the battle, her limbs unlocked. Heart hammering, she approached the window from the other side.
“Don’t get yourself shot,” she told Betzi, even as she snuck a look outside.
Rielle peered through. A familiar view lay beyond. Jagged rocky peaks emerged behind domed hills. The first time she had seen the landscape she’d thought it looked like black teeth set into green gums–and indeed the Schpetan name for the peaks meant “Angel’s teeth”.
The hills weren’t so green now that most of the fields had been trampled into mud or harvested to feed the Usurper’s fighters. The enemy encampment lay several hundred paces away. Between it and the city wall were several straight ridges that had not been there before.
Extending her senses, she was relieved to find no Stain. Though the civil war had been brutal and unforgiving, neither the king nor the Usurper had risked the Angels’ wrath by ordering the use of magic. Everyone had speculated on whether one or the other side would stoop that low at some point, but she doubted they would. Only priests had the freedom to grow proficient at magic, and she doubted the king or Usurper would find any willing to use it for warfare.
Another horn blast came from somewhere beyond the wall, but this was a different sound than before. The noise outside the tower lessened for a moment, then the tone of it changed. A call went up, which was repeated over and over, close to the tower and also in the distance. Soldiers rushed up and down the stairs, forcing Rielle and Betzi to return to the corners again.
“They’re retreating,” someone bellowed atop the tower. Rielle recognised Kolz’s voice. Betzi’s worried expression vanished.
“Is it a trick?” a fainter voice called from somewhere in the street below.
“Might be. Did any survive the breach?”