“Nothing good.” Keeton watched the marchers turn the north corner and start east, the drums still beating in the distance. “We don’t have enough defenders to hold all the walls.”
“We don’t have enough defenders to hold the city period if they come at us with all those bodies,” she answered with a snort. “Even the warships won’t be able to hold them off.”
They stood together, still watching the demon snake wrap itself around the city. “I can’t march my soldiers around the walls like that,” Keeton muttered. “It will wear them out if I do. They’re worn down already as it is.”
“Did you find Edinja?” Sefita asked.
He shook his head. “No one knows where she is.”
“Then she’s left.”
Keeton stared at her. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t dare.”
“That woman would dare anything,” Wint said.
“Abandon us? Abandon the city?” Keeton shook his head. “It would be the end of her career as Prime Minister.”
“I wouldn’t want to bet on it.”
Keeton fought down a sudden rush of anger. He turned to Wint. “Go see if there’s been any word since last night. Go to the Council Buildings and to her home. Demand an answer. Insist she come to the west wall. Use my name.”
Wint departed without comment.
Keeton waited with Sefita Rayne, watching the demonkind continue their march, listening to the insistent pounding of the drums. Odd, he thought, but they couldn’t even see where those drums were positioned. It was as if the sound were coming out of the earth itself, as if the netherworld had opened up and released its dead.
Abruptly, a fresh horde of creatures appeared atop the ridgeline, cresting its heights and spilling over, thousands strong.
“I knew it,” Sefita said.
Keeton watched in disbelief as this new threat gathered momentum and surged toward the west wall.
Farther south, but still within the Four Lands and outside the breach in the Forbidding, the shape-shifter Oriantha crouched beside Tesla Dart in the shelter of a heavy woods and watched the attack on Arishaig quicken. They were only a quarter mile from the cage that held Redden Ohmsford prisoner, still looking for a way to set him free.
But doing anything more than she had already done had so far proven impossible. Too many guards encircled the cage. Too many of the demonkind prowled about, many of them the wolves that the Straken Lord kept as pets. It was necessary that something be done to lure all of them away before she could risk a second approach. For three days she had waited patiently, but no fresh opportunity had presented itself.
Until now.
A new attack on Arishaig had emptied out almost the entire camp, distributing virtually everyone between the hordes that had been circling the city in a slow march and those that had first hidden behind the ridgeline and then abruptly surged over its crest and attacked the city’s west wall. Even those few that remained had moved onto the ridgeline to watch the impending destruction. No one was particularly worried about the boy in the cage. Who would even try to rescue him at this point?
Indeed, Oriantha thought. Who?
The city, she knew, would not survive what was coming. It would fall, and all those within would be slaughtered. There was nothing she could do to help them. But this was the chance she had been waiting for to help Redden Ohmsford, and she intended to take it.
She nudged Tesla Dart. “I’m going to try again.”
The Ulk Bog gave her a despairing look, scrunching up her wrinkled face. “Bad idea. Still too dangerous. Still there will be guards.”
“Still there will be ways,” Oriantha replied softly.
She rose and began checking the supply of knives she had strapped to her waist. She intended to go in swift and sudden, to break the locks, haul the boy out of the cage, and kill anyone who interfered. She would not bother with subtlety this time. She had a new plan.
“Take Lada,” Tesla offered.
Oriantha shook her head. “I don’t need him. I know the way. Better if he remains here with you. Once I have the boy, I will come back.”
“And do what? Go where? Tael Riverine will hunt us down!”
“He will try.”
Tesla Dart shook her head. “The boy is not worth it.”
“We’ve had this discussion. If you don’t want to be part of this, go back into the Forbidding.”
Lada hissed at her, as if the idea were a personal affront. Tesla Dart glanced down at the Chzyk. “Even Lada knows this is not what we would ever do. Knows we want to be here. The Forbidding is down. Our worlds are joined.”
Now, there was a prospect that left Oriantha chilled to the bone. She hoped it wasn’t so because she had seen the size of the army Tael Riverine commanded and judged it to be only a fraction of the creatures that remained inside the demon prison. The Races were doomed if the walls were not restored, but she had no idea how that was supposed to happen.
Only that it must.
“I’m getting Redden Ohmsford back,” she repeated. “Wait for me or don’t. It is up to you.”
“You won’t come back.”
Oriantha left without another word, departing the woods for a cluster of boulders about halfway between where they were hidden and the center of the enemy camp. She moved swiftly, not bothering to try to hide her coming. It was broad daylight; there was no darkness to screen her approach. She had to rely on the distraction provided by the battle for Arishaig. She had to rely on speed and surprise.
When she reached the boulders, she wormed her way into their center where she could not be seen and began to transform. She used her shape-shifting abilities to shed her human form and adopt a new look entirely. She turned herself into one of the Goblins she had seen patrolling the camp—just another familiar presence no one would question. It took her time and effort to achieve the look she wanted, but in the end she was as hunched and disjointed as those she had encountered on her first attempt at rescuing the boy. She could not see herself from outside her body, so she could not be certain she had gotten everything right. But she felt the way she wanted to feel, and the parts of herself she could see clearly looked as she had intended.
Without further deliberation, she set off.
She crossed the open space that separated her from the fringes of the enemy camp at a steady walk, assuming the loping gait and slope-shouldered stance of the Goblin she was pretending to be. She didn’t try to hide her coming, intending to show she was a part of the camp and not an intruder. Only a single guard was positioned anywhere close, a creature she didn’t recognize that glanced over without interest and went back to studying the landscape beyond. Oriantha reached the camp’s perimeter without challenge and walked in.
Armed with confidence and steely determination, the shape-shifter moved steadily ahead, looking as if she had important business and a clear destination. This was true, of course, although not in the way anyone would suspect. She ignored those around her, exuding an air of importance that suggested they would do well to let her be. Her attitude and obvious indifference to others worked; those who watched her pass left her alone.
Within fifteen minutes, she was approaching the cage that held Redden Ohmsford imprisoned, already planning how she was going to free him.
There was nothing she could do about whatever alarms might be sounded if the magic that warded the cage was disturbed. That being the case, she intended to break the locks and take him out as quickly as she could before anyone realized what was happening. And for that to happen, she needed a distraction to cause those close enough to interfere to look somewhere else for the few moments she needed.
She slowed as she entered the clearing where the cage had been placed. Redden Ohmsford was slumped in the middle, apparently sleeping. Two Goblins were keeping a disinterested watch on their prisoner, and a pair of the huge wolves slept some twenty feet from the cage, curled up next to each other. A few other creatures could be seen off to one side, but everyone else had moved over to the bluff to watch the battle.