Simon met my eyes. "I'm coming back, and we're getting out of here together. Wait here."
Before I could answer, he ran off, moving against the direction of the crowd. These people would never outrun the armies, not all of them. Not even most of them.
"They're getting closer!" a woman cried.
The screams of others not far ahead of the crowd confirmed that. To the north, more e
xplosions rocked the town. The Coracks wouldn't plant ground mines here, so that was the Dominion armies at work. Black smoke rose in vast columns in the distance, thick and foul in its stench. I wondered if the Dominion was doing that as well, or if the Coracks had lit the fires to buy themselves extra time.
Where were the Coracks anyway? While growing up, I'd heard about their battles with Lord Endrick's forces. They weren't ones to run away, to hide.
They must be in the tunnels beneath the town.
As was Darrow. I had to give him time to escape.
My breaths came in bursts as I ran from the alley and climbed to the top of a broken wagon abandoned at the side of the road. I hesitated there, perfectly aware of the foolhardiness of calling attention my way. From here, I saw the chaos in the streets, heard the cries of the children being desperately hurried away, and choked on the bitter smell of smoke from the fires. Darrow never would have allowed me to take a risk like this. But he wasn't here to stop me, which was the point of climbing onto this wagon in the first place. I stood tall and shouted, "Don't run. There are more of us than them! Fight back!"
"And be slaughtered?" a woman shouted.
"If you are, then fall while facing your enemy, not cowering from him! If you can wield a weapon, whether it's a bow or sword, or a rock from beneath your feet, then wield it with pride. Fight!"
One such rock came hurtling through the air toward me, close enough that I had to duck to avoid it. "Then we fight against you, Kestra Dallisor!" someone yelled. "I know who you are. You would trick us into surrendering!"
Upon hearing my name, the crowd responded with stabbing glares, as if I had attacked the town. Or brought the attackers here. Did they know this was my fault?
I backed up, though on this wagon, there wasn't anywhere to go. "Will you be so foolish? To fight someone who has no weapon while those who do are bearing down upon you?"
"What weapon counters cannons and disk bows?" someone yelled. "What if they come on condor?"
If they did, Silven would be erased from Antora's map. I dreaded the thought of it.
Someone tossed a sword on the ground, near the wheels of the wagon. "If it's easy to challenge Lord Endrick, you do it!"
Challenging Lord Endrick. That was my role now. I was Endrean, but not evil. A rebel, but not a Corack. Antoran, but a traitor. Whatever that made me, I intended to fight.
Hundreds of panicked people were filling the streets; it was so crowded that I had to push my way through them as I moved upstream with the sword in my hands. Less than a minute later, I encountered the first soldiers.
I knew how Endrick arranged his armies. He sent his weakest into battle first, expecting them to die but hoping they would force the enemy to reveal their strength. This first wave would all be Ironhearts, soldiers he considered expendable--tools more than living beings. They were dangerous because of their numbers, not their skills.
Darrow's training entered my mind. "Be aware of your surroundings, but focus only on the enemy closest to you."
So I did. I charged directly into the first soldier, a shorter boy who should've held a plow rather than a weapon, and stabbed him in the arm. He wasn't the first person I'd stabbed, or wanted to stab in the last few days. I would have to reevaluate my personal ethics on fighting ... later. Directly behind me, a second soldier raised his arm, volunteering the weakest point of his uniform to my sword. A third man had initially passed me by, but returned when his companions fell. He was a bigger challenge, but everything Darrow had ever taught me came to my mind. Feint when they thrust. Parry every blow. Look for their pattern, because everyone fights with a pattern, and then use that against them. And if you want to be good, then be the exception and never fight with a pattern.
As soon as the third man fell, I waded farther upstream through the crowd, but now other Silvenians were fighting with me. The second group of soldiers we encountered was larger, and far more skilled. Some had the glazed look of Ironheart soldiers, but not all. Worse still, this group carried lever blades, larger and newer than Gabe's. I had to be careful.
So I attacked from behind, choosing my targets carefully. My biggest mistake cost me a scratch to one arm from a lever blade that its user separated too early. I answered with a stab wound of my own, one given with little mercy because the scratch was deep enough to scar, and I resented that. Two Silvenians beside me fell, dispatched by a large soldier who turned my way, only to be stabbed in the back by a Silvenian woman. These people were rallying to save their town, but where were the Coracks?
Coracks rarely fought in open battles. They didn't train that way, and the general belief was that they had neither the numbers nor the weapons to compete with Endrick if it came down to an open battle, as this one was.
But here, their homes and families were threatened, and, I assumed, the bulk of their weapons and storehouses. Surely they would not run and abandon all of that.
Simon wouldn't run, I knew that. But where was he?
And where was Darrow? Had he escaped that underground room? I needed to know for sure.
I began running back toward the bookshop, but as I did, a screech echoed overhead. Condors. By my count, at least ten of them.
The first bird flew low, creating a shadow that stretched as wide as the road. I shuddered, seeing a rider on its back, wearing Endrick's colors. Bringing Endrick's doom. As dangerous as the condors had been when Simon and I were forced to escape into the forest, it was their riders who had the power to destroy whole towns.