“Sure. There’s quite a number of spells I can do.”
“Can you do some today?”
Milo shrugged. “I mean, if you want those up before I work on the ward?”
“I do, yes. They’ll help act as another first line of defense.”
“Then let’s go. Shouldn’t take me more than an hour.”
Looking quite pleased, Rowan led the way.
They left the fortress altogether, heading to the west side of the duchy where the cliff faces all were.
Milo skipped along at Rowan’s side, turning his head here and there, taking in the scenery he’d acquainted himself with yesterday. Honestly, the idea of an alarm of some sort along the cliffs was fabulous. Leave it to his brilliant strategist to think of it. Milo’s brain thought with puzzles; he didn’t really keep offense and defense at the forefront of his mind.
Rowan’s request was interesting, though, as Milo would have thought the harbor would need more protections as merchants sailed to and fro. “So, Rowan, why here? Why the cliffs?”
“Harbor is well patrolled,” Rowan explained, hazel eyes sweeping the area. “Drachifel don’t like to fight groups of people; they’ve learned we can fight back. They like to pick off singular victims, or perhaps two people. They like to scale the cliffs so they can skulk and ambush someone in the sparse tree line.”
“Uh. Did you say scale the cliffs?”
“I did.”
“They can fucking climb a cliff this steep?!”
“Easily.” Rowan lifted his hands in a claw shape. “Their claws make it possible. They climb a cliff the way you would walk through a park.”
“Fuck. That’s alarming.” His request now made perfect sense, too. In fact, Milo was going to do a redundancy alarm because fuck that. “Ohhh shit, I just realized why you’ve been so on edge while I worked on the barrier. You were guarding against ambushes.”
“That’s why. Until late fall, we’ll be at our highest threat level for attacks.”
Mental note: Ask more questions. Rowan had said he was guarding Milo—he had even noted Rowan consistently sweeping the area—but Milo clearly should have asked follow-upquestions. He’d treated the whole of yesterday like a date, and in retrospect, he really should have been more on guard.
Milo’s head spun with ideas, some of them coming together nicely. “So, love, let’s talk possibilities here. I can place one alarm right below the cliff’s edge—as far as I can see—and that’ll be your first alarm. The alarm can be connected to a large bell, say, at the top of the watchtowers nearby? It will sound a general alarm to everyone in the area.”
Rowan liked this idea and immediately nodded, the wind tousling his hair.
“I can also rig a second alarm system right along the cliff’s edge and have it go directly to you. That way, if by some chance the first alarm isn’t heard or is somehow gotten around, you’re still alerted.”
“Yes,” Rowan hissed, eyes alight. “Do it.”
“Loving that idea, are you?”
“Very much.”
“Let’s do it, then.” Milo headed straight for the edge, slightly buffeted by the wind, and took a peek over it, trying to gauge where to put the alarm line. It really would be a line, after all, with different spikes connected to each other, so he couldn’t just put them willy-nilly—
A pair of pitch-black eyes in an elongated grey face stared right back, then it bared razor-sharp teeth in a hungry grin.
“Shit!”
Milo immediately backpedaled several feet in sheer panic, scrambling to right himself. Then cursed himself for the instinctive reaction, grabbed his wand, and shifted his stance to fight back.
Rowan flew past him before Milo even gained his bearings, the large man moving swift as the wind, almost belying his size. His sword cleared its sheath with ashing, slicing through the air in a quick arc, and just in time.
When Rowan had said climbing a cliff for the Drachifel was like a walk in the park, he hadnotbeen exaggerating. In a blink, the Drachifel scuttled over the edge and onto the flat terrain before charging. Rowan didn’t even look surprised by its nimbleness, just met the charge head-on.
Milo’s heart was still trying to claw its way up his throat, his nerves skittering. He had a Sacred Flame spell poised to go, but he couldn’t even find an opening to use it. Rowan blocked his sightlines completely.
