Page 194 of Keeper of the Word

But the moment lasted only a few breaths.

In the distance, a battering ram’sthumprestarted.

He glanced behind to see if Ghlee, Alvie, Joss, and Barrett were all still with him. Shockingly, they were.

The scourge of battle whipped back into action, and this time, Tolvar found himself unable to escape it. Men from stars only knew attacked anyone who stood before them. The drive of forces caused the group to retreat from where Turas’s army still marched down the field, hacking down person after person.

The Curse of Adrienne. Of course. ’Twas feeding their strength.

“Wolf, watch out!” Ghlee yelled.

A spear plunged toward Tolvar. He barely managed to block and avert it.

Exhausted. He was already exhausted. And as the battle drew them farther and farther from Anscom’s army, and thus Crevan and Edan Stone, Tolvar wondered how his strength would see him through this night.

Chapter

Seventy

ELANNA

As soon as the sovereign’s torch extinguished, they mounted their horses, alongside Hux and four Order knights, to make for the gate.

“How shall we lock the gate with a battering ram in our way?” Kyrie shouted the question as they cantered across the field, weaving through the battle.

All was as Elanna had Seen. Death and bloodshed and the very stench of Adrienne’s evil in the air. Casta vomited once. Kyrie’s face was pale, her bun disheveled. But still, they sought their path. The gate of the city.

They had left Maristel in the care of two Order knights with strict instructions to flee to Renstown at the first sign of danger.

Elanna had told her sisters they could stay. Could flee even. But Casta and Kyrie would not leave her. No longer could StarSeers not act. Whatever this night held, they would do it together.

In the distance, thethumpof the battering ram rumbled.

“We shall find a way,” was all Elanna could think to reply to Kyrie.

She clutched to the key as if it might do more than seal Asalle, that it might guide itself into the keyhole.

But an army with a battering ram was certainly a problem.

Chapter

Seventy-One

TOLVAR

Sweat poured from his brow; his left shoulder slumped in pain. The Wolf was coming undone.

The others did not appear as bad as he assumed he did, but they’d fought for hours. The full moon high in the sky now, it illuminated the reckoning of the Capella Realm.

“Lord Wolf!” he heard in the distance.

Hux.

That meant the others were bounding toward the gate with the key. A backward glance told him this was all too impossible.

“Tolvar!”

The momentary glance cost him his alertness, and a horse struck into him and Valko. Valko reared, and Tolvar smashed to the ground. He collapsed, ears ringing, followed by the faint voices of Ghlee and the others shouting for him to rise.