Chapter 16: The Seaward Wall

On the fourth night before the wedding, the dogs in the lower yard stopped barking.

Linus noticed it because he was awake.

He had not slept properly in days.

He lay beside Ambrose in the dark, listening to the slow, rough breathing of a man who was burning down.

He lay rigid in the heavy silence.

Then a boot scraped on the cliff wall outside the window.

He was out of the bed before he had decided to move.

"Ambrose."

"I heard."

The Marshal was already sitting up, and his left hand had no light in it at all.

"The seaward wall," Linus whispered. "Eight, maybe ten. They came up the rock face."

"Wystan has the east stair."

"Then we hold the west one."

He pulled a short iron bar from the fire stand.

It was nothing like the weapon he wanted.

Zane had carried a rifle for eleven years.

This body had never held anything heavier than a tray.

Between the two of them they knew exactly how to hold a doorway.

"Stay behind me," Linus said.

"No."

"Your plates are down. Your hand is out."

"I am still the Marshal of this keep."

"Then stay behind me and be it from there."

Ambrose looked at him in the dark for one second.

Then he stepped back, and picked up his sword.

The window glass burst inward.

Three men came through it in black, with blades out.

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