The Prince retraced his steps and made his way back onto the boulevard. Two turns later, he was facing an enormous gate connected to a high wall branching off to either side of him, following the natural curves of the mountain with tall guard towers every fifty yards or so. Kindred archers in dark greens and browns covered every spare inch of the wall, raining arrows down on anything that moved in the lower levels of the city. Similarly dressed light infantry men stood with them, some with small but colorful stripes on their breastplates to mark them out as officers in different regiments, ready to repel an attack should it come at them from over the wall. The Prince searchedfrantically for Leah and Tomaz, and finally saw an enormous back over to his right pounding on something with a large hammer.
“Tomaz!”
The hammer paused and the big shape turned. The Prince ran for him, and as he came closer, he saw that the big man was working at a makeshift forge. Leah was nowhere in sight.
“I thought you were wounded!” Tomaz rumbled, the lines of exhaustion on his face breaking into his customary smile.
“Just a scratch,” the Prince responded, smiling as well. But then the moment passed, and they remembered that they were in the middle of a siege that could begin again at any moment.
“Are the blacksmiths too busy?” the Prince asked, motioning to the armor.
“Yes,” the big man responded with a sigh as a shadow of fatigue passed over his face. “Most of the smithies are on the higher levels, thank the Light, but there is much more dire need of new arrowheads and spears. Some men aren’t even armed. And since I did my share of blacksmithing before I joined the Rogues, I can take care of my own armor when I need to.”
“Some men aren’t even armed?” the Prince asked. Tomaz nodded darkly.
“There were spies within the Kindred,” he responded. “A clan of Seekers.”
“No!” the Prince said, feeling his stomach drop out from under him with no warning. An entire clan of Seekers could do incalculable damage. “What about the Anchors?”
“The three we’ve caught had them,” Tomaz said. “And we haven’t caught them all. From the interrogations, we know that there was a group of thirteen hidden in Vale, and another group of seven here. We stumbled on one man setting up Black Powder in the granaries. He won’t talk names, but we were able to get numbers. We were too late to stop the others from destroying the main armory; a full third of our force was half-equipped when the siege began. We caught three more when we tracked down their safehouse, but that stillleaves at least another three running around creating trouble. We’ve doubled the guard on the food and weapons, but who knows what else they’re planning.”
The Prince didn’t know what to say. How had a clan of Seekers infiltrated the Kindred and he hadn’t known? It had to be a covert operation by Symanta—she was the only one who had constant contact with the Seekers. The Prince wondered if the Empress even knew about it.
“Where’s Leah?” the Prince asked.
“I sent her to eat,” Tomaz answered.
“Sent?”
“Yes, that fool of a girl hasn’t eaten in nearly two days, and she still insisted she didn’t need to. It’s the Spellblade in her—the strength she gets from the bonding to her daggers allows her to ignore natural needs.”
“When do you think they’ll attack again?” the Prince asked.
“I don’t know,” Tomaz said quietly, his tone solemn. “Soon, though. They know we’re beaten, but not broken. They’ll make sure the first tier of the Stand is clear and then they’ll assault the gate. I’d say at an outside guess we have a little under an hour until they can bring the rams to bear, and then we’ll begin again. You know your brother: once the scent of blood is in his nose, he won’t stop while there is anyone left standing.”
“No. No he won’t.”
“Would you mind giving me a hand with this?” Tomaz asked, pointing to the large breastplate.
The Prince nodded. “What do you need?”
Tomaz asked him to hold it steady so that he could beat the metal with his hammer, and then to heat it over the banked coals of his makeshift fire. The job was imperfect, but the metal slowly bent back into a semblance of the shape it was supposed to have. The Prince, glad of the mind-numbing repetition of thejob, relaxed into the rhythm, and for the next hour or so they mended most of Tomaz’s armor, which had taken a heavy beating.
All around them men were employed in various tasks of war: re-fletching arrows, sharpening swords, beating out dents in helms and breastplates like Tomaz. Not a single one was sitting idly by, and the Prince felt a strange stirring of pride, knowing that the people with which he had thrown in his lot would not back down even in the face of an overwhelming force.
The ground began to shake beneath their feet.
Immediately, Tomaz stood and thrust his armor into a waiting barrel of water. With a hiss and a huge gout of steam, the heated metal began to cool. While it did, the big man quickly smothered the fire, making sure all of the coals were gone. As soon as the breastplate was cool enough to touch, the Prince helped Tomaz into it, and was just doing up the last strap when Leah appeared.
“Leah!”
She turned and searched the street suddenly crowded with soldiers, all bristling with spears and swords, gleaming in their silver armor. All of the faces the Prince could see bore a steely reserve and a fierce light of defiance.
“Leah!” the Prince called again.
She found him finally and began to force her way through the crowd toward them. Out of the corner of his eye, the Prince saw Davydd and Lorna arrive with a large group of Rangers, all of whom were holding very long spears with sawed-off ends. They also bore looks of grim determination, as though they were ready to march off to the ends of the earth.
“Why are you here?” Leah asked bluntly when she reached the Prince.
