LITMIR.BIZ

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information, but his captain needed something and that was the best he had.

      “Go check on Hamonn. See if Beltis is hurt. I need her with me.”

      Torchay flattened himself over her as another ball hit close by. “When it’s safe.”

      “Go now. By the time it’s safe, the battle will be over. That’s an order, Sergeant.”

      When she said that, it meant she was beyond reasoning with. He had no choice but to obey, or risk her doing almost anything. Torchay rose onto hands and knees, but remained in place, his body still shielding hers. “Do not move from this spot.”

      They’d fought this battle out their first year or so together, but he still held his breath every time he went on one of her errands, until he returned and found her again where he’d left her.

      “I won’t. Now go.” Her shove sent him scooting on hands and feet to the pair under the debris behind them.

      Torchay moved the worst of the stones off the older man and checked for a pulse. He found it, strong and steady. “Trooper? Beltis, are you injured?” He leaned close to hear any response over the cannon fire.

      “I’m fine.” Her voice came muffled from beneath her guard. “Is Hamonn—”

      “Breathing and well enough, given that he has a lump the size of my fist on the back of his head.” Torchay probed the injury and was rewarded with reaction.

      Hamonn tried to shove him away. He might have groaned but no one could hear it in the crash of a cannonball nearby. So close that bits of rock blasted from the wall spun into Torchay’s face, making tiny cuts on his forehead and cheeks. Too close.

      He looked up to see where it had hit in time to see the parapet above his captain begin to crumble. “Kallista!”

      Torchay bellowed her name and scrambled to reach her. She was moving, getting out of the way, but not fast enough.

      An enormous stone capping the structure plummeted down, striking her a glancing blow before it bounced off the town side of the walk. More stones followed. Torchay dove forward to keep them off her. He didn’t quite succeed.

      A fist-size stone hit her head, leaving a cut oozing blood in the fine, pale skin of her forehead. With a cry, Torchay covered her head with his hands, ignoring the battering they took. He scooted forward until he could get his head over hers. His was undoubtedly harder, could take more of a beating. But the rocks had stopped falling. The entire parapet lay on the walkway around and over them.

      Torchay shoved the rocks away from her, leaving streaks of blood on their chalky surface. His hands bled from a score of cuts, and at least one finger was likely broken. He used them to cup his captain’s face and turn it up to the full moon’s light. He bent his head till his beak of a nose brushed her small straight one, and he felt her breath stir against his skin. “Blessed One,” he whispered in gratitude.

      “Is she dead?” Both young naitani peered over his shoulder, but it was Beltis who spoke.

      It took Torchay a few moments before he realized Beltis sounded strange because she wasn’t shouting. The bombardment had stopped. Instantly alert, Torchay looked toward the breach and saw Hamonn, slightly the worse for wear, peering around what was left of the crumbled breastworks.

      “They’re coming!” he shouted.

      One of Iranda’s bubbles burst into bright light high above the city wall, illuminating all that lay below. Torchay made note of it. The captain would want to know so she could commend her later for her prompt and proper action.

      “They’re coming!” Hamonn beckoned with a wave of his arm, but the two naitani still hovered.

      “Go.” Torchay shoved at the yellow-clad girl. Adessay would follow her lead, if she only would.

      “Is she dead?” Beltis asked again.

      “No, but if she were, you’d still have to take command. You’re ranking naitan. It’s your duty to protect them.” He jerked his head in the direction of the city and wished he hadn’t. He’d taken a few too many stones to the head himself. “The enemy is coming.”

      He could see them over the broken wall, rushing forward in waves, hopefully to break against Ukiny’s walls like the ocean on the shore. But like the ocean, they would pour through any gap they found.

      “Naitan.” Hamonn had returned from the hole in the wall to kneel in front of his charge. He held his hands out, palm up. “I accept your gloves.”

      Beltis stared at him half a second, then stripped off her gloves and laid them in Hamonn’s upturned hands. “Adessay.” Her voice cracked like a whip. “Come with me, Trooper. We have an army to stop.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      Beltis had to pick her way through the rubble that had felled Kallista, rather than striding decisively, but she was moving. The young North naitan removed his gloves, handed them to his guard and followed, his blue tunic less noticeable in Iranda’s light than Beltis’s yellow.

      Fire exploded in the plain below, turning half the lead Tibran rank into human torches. Rock tumbled down the steep slope of the glacis, mowing down the ranks behind. From the tower on the far side of the breach in the wall, more magic came, causing vines and brambles to grow instantaneously in the field, impeding the enemy’s rush. Satisfied the naitani were doing their duty, Torchay turned to his own.

      His muscles quivered from holding his weight off his captain for so long. He pushed himself up, gravel and dust cascading from his back, and went to his knees beside her. That she had not yet regained consciousness worried him. He had no East magic, no healing in his touch, but he had the best nonmagical medical training available. A bodyguard needed to be able to tend his naitan if he failed in his first duty and allowed her an injury.

      Torchay cleared the area around his captain, blocking out the shouts and screams of battle. The youngsters seemed to be holding their own, so far. He straightened her limbs, checking for injury, working his way carefully toward her torso and head. She didn’t wake under his probing, even when he pressed on bruises he knew had to hurt.

      She’d been struck in the head at least once, but he wouldn’t have thought that blow enough to render her unconscious this long.

      Someone screamed. Beltis. Torchay looked up to see Hamonn clutch his chest as if arrow struck, but no shaft protruded. He staggered, then fell from the wall into the shattered hole where the breach had been forced.

      “They have hand cannon,” Kadrey shouted back at Torchay as he pulled both naitani down behind the broken walls. “Long, with knives on the end like pikes, but firing tiny missiles. As bad as archers.”

      Beltis screamed again, rising to her knees to fling fire at the enemy. Looking grim, Adessay crawled up beside her. Worried, Torchay turned his attention back to his own naitan. He had to wake her if he could.

      She looked ghost white in the eerie light. Kallista usually appeared more pale than she actually was because of the contrast with her hair, so dark a brown it was almost black. But this paleness seemed extreme. Gently, Torchay slipped his hands around her neck to feel along her spine.

      He loosened her queue, knowing she wouldn’t like it, but the tight weave of hair kept him from feeling her skull, finding injury there. When he found the lump, she flinched and gasped. Torchay grinned. A lump usually meant the swelling was expanding outward, rather than in against the brain. And she responded to pain.

      He found no other injuries, save for the cut on her forehead and the second lump forming beneath it. He cleaned it with water from his bottle and a cloth from his pack.

      “They’re coming!” Kadrey shouted.

      “Stop. Hurts.” The captain moved her head away from his ministrations.

      “I’m finished.” The cut was as clean as he could make it here. Torchay took her hand in his. “Squeeze.”

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