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There’s really nothing to like about it.

But engaging in a battle among thousands?

It’s so much worse.

A hammer to the senses.

Fear so thick, you feel like you’re swimming through it.

I’ve had panic attacks aplenty throughout my life, but I’ve never experienced anything quite like this.

Arrows loose into the air from the enemy, flying over the wall without any trouble at all. I raise my new left hammer—Echo—to shield me, crouch to make myself as small as possible. One arrow hits the side of my shield and goes flying backward in the opposite direction from the rebound. My other hammer, Agony, absorbs the same amount of force.

And then another volley propels toward us.

In the courtyard, the people are running for the castle,cramming into every possible space as they await their turn with the portal. There’s too much happening behind me and in front of me, but I decide to keep my eyes ahead, where the danger awaits.

“Hold steady now,” Kymora says.

There’s nothing to do while the men are out of reach. Skiro has a handful of skilled archers among his men, and they fire over the tops of our heads into the masses below. While a few land, it does nothing to deter or slow down the sheer numbers of the advancing army.

Ravis’s men uncover the wagons they’ve brought along, revealing ladders and hooks. They line up to heave the large equipment toward us.

A scream down the wall reveals a man with an arrow through the heart, too slow with his shield for the third volley. He plummets into the palace courtyard, the men around him stunned for a breath.

“Bring the water!” Kymora shouts.

With padded gloves, a handful of our soldiers remove the boiling pots of water from the fires, replacing them with new ones, ready to be heated.

The first of the ladders is extended, the top reaching just above the wall’s edge. Kymora looks down her nose at it, watches a flurry of men begin to climb.

I feel my hands start to shake as I watch their progression, waiting for Kymora to do something.

It isn’t until the first soldier is nearly to the top that she steps aside and nods to the man holding the first pot.

He empties the scalding water onto the waiting soldiers below. More screams fill the air, followed by the sound of falling bodies crunching on impact with the ground.

When the ladder is emptied, Kymora grabs it by the top andcasts it aside. The wood splinters once it falls, the whole thing now useless.

Skiro’s men follow the warlord’s lead, needing no prompting. When a ladder lands against the wall, they’re ready with more pots of boiling water.

It doesn’t take long for Ravis’s soldiers to pause with the ladders, his men too afraid of being burned to keep pressing on. They stick to sending more volleys of arrows our way.

For a while.

Soon they’re back, this time with the grappling hooks, likely hoping to overwhelm us with their sheer numbers. Twenty different ropes are thrown upward, the hooks catching on the wall’s edge. The enemy climb nimbly, despite the armor they wear.

“Oil!” Kymora shouts.

While some of Skiro’s soldiers saw at the ropes with knives, Kymora directs the others to pour oil down the line of ropes. With a torch, she walks past them one at a time, lighting them up.

More shouts rip through the air as the fire travels down, engulfing those who were unlucky enough to get coated in the oil. The ropes eventually snap from the tension at the spots where the flames eat away at the fibers.

More hooks and ladders replace the fallen equipment, twice as many as last time, and I wonder if the first two waves were just for Ravis to test out our defenses.

I take position at the top of one of the ladders nearby, leaving Kellyn to guard Kymora.

I bash in heads as they reach the top, sending men and women flailing back to the ground with caved in helmets. Some die upon impact; others find their feet and wander before collapsing.