“The army isn’t on the third tier yet. I”—she switched pronouns when Marso stepped forward—“wecan spread word topeople there, while Guine and the others warn the upper tiers. Take us with you. Please.”
Kreya only hesitated for a moment. She’d sworn to herself that she’d trust her friends from now on, honor their right to make their own choices. Here, then, was a test of that. She nodded sharply at Amurra and Marso.
“Hope you aren’t afraid of heights,” Zera said as she gave them talismans. “Come on!”
Running with a spurt of speed, the four of them circled Zera’s house. The grand salon, which had been supported by pillars, had collapsed, but the balcony that overlooked the valley was perfectly intact. Hand in hand, the four of them ran onto it without slowing—and off.
“Renari!”
Simultaneously, they activated their flight talismans. They soared over the city. From above, Eklor’s army looked like hideous rats swarming over the buildings, destroying and devouring all in their path, chewing their way through the city’s lower levels. She saw the leading edge of her statue army charging through the gates to the second tier—a marble lioness in the lead. With a silent roar, the statue leaped onto her prey, and a half dozen inhuman soldiers slammed onto the street beneath her massive stone paws. The other statues poured into the lower city behind her, joining the city guards.
Kreya thought she glimpsed Stran and tried to see Jentt, but the spires and aqueducts blocked her view of the city below. He was somewhere in the chaos.
Swooping low, they landed on the steps of the bone guild headquarters on the third tier. As they did, they were spotted. Citizens poured through the street to fill the steps.
Kreya shouted to them. “You need to evacuate! The fighting is on the lower levels. Get higher!” As she scanned the crowd, she noticed something strange.They’re holding weapons,she realized. Swords for some. Kitchen knives. Metal bats. Shovels. Bars. “Wait, what are they thinking?” she asked her companions. “They can’t fight. They’re not soldiers!”
“They are today,” Marso said.
“This is amazing!” Amurra cried, her face glowing. “They heard the old stories! They listened!”
Kreya opened her mouth and then shut it. She hadn’t thought hearing the old stories again would inspire this. After a moment, she said, “They could die.”
“They know heroes sometimes die,” Amurra said. “They know there’s always a cost.”
Hearing them, a woman holding two kitchen knives said, “You paid it for us before. This time, we pay it together!” Around her, men and women cheered, hoisting their weapons and makeshift weapons into the air.
Zera interrupted, raising her voice. “Or, better idea: make the enemy pay instead!”
An even louder cheer at that.
“Fine,” Kreya said. This wasn’t the same as before. Maybe the outcome wouldn’t be either. “Help us tear down this door! We get the bone workers, show them the truth of what’s happening around them, and then together we all stop Eklor’s army!”
Without further prompting, the third-tier citizens surged forward, throwing themselves against the great double doors to the guild headquarters, beneath the carved skull. It creaked on its hinges.
“Harder!” Kreya called.
She heard it the moment the hinges gave way. The greatdoors fell inward, and the citizen army surged inside. They flooded into the halls of the bone workers.
At the front of the wave, Kreya ran through the hallways until she reached the great hall. Bursting through the inner doors, she saw it in a moment: full of bone workers, from novices to masters, from all over Vos, with the council in their thronelike chairs.
Insulated from the city, they had heard none of the battle.
One of the masters sprang to his feet. “What is the meaning of this?”
“The city is under attack!” Kreya cried. “Eklor’s army has come!”
But she saw they didn’t believe her. The great hall was too far from the entrance for them to hear the sounds of battle as anything more than an indistinct cacophony. And they were still in the grip of Eklor’s talisman. It had fed on the fact that they didn’t want to believe the old danger had come again and, worse, this time had come to them. She tried to find the right words to open their eyes and ears and minds, but none of those words came.
It was Marso who stepped forward. He climbed on top of a table carved of granite and shouted to the council, louder than the shouting citizens, “You have been shown lies! I will show you the truth!”
Other masters began to shout at him.
Kreya thought he’d try to read the bones. She stepped forward, unsure how to stop him—he couldn’t do it, not in this kind of chaos. He wasn’t ready for this yet. And if he tried and failed, they’d never convince the masters to listen.
But Marso didn’t reach for his bones. Instead, he raced up to the balcony, to the thick stained glass windows. Lifting a heavy,iron candelabra, he bashed at the closest window. The ancient ruby and sapphire-colored glass cracked. He hit it again. Harder.
Bone workers called to him to stop.
