Chapter 18 of 23·6 min read·Minutes after the north gate falls
The Weight Above the Gate
The north gate hit the street before Oren finished shouting. Its iron face slammed inward, throwing sparks from the stone and opening the passage wide enough for a wagon. Beyond it, black shapes crowded the road down from the pass.
“Move south!” Oren roared. “Leave the carts. Take the wounded.”
The north ward answered with screams, then the blunt scrape of boots on stone. People pushed out of the nearest houses carrying blankets, bundles, and anyone who could not walk. There was no room for the carts. One stood sideways in the lane, a wheel split, its load of broken furniture spilling into the snow.
Kaelen looked past the fallen gate. The Skahl-skin had reached the mouth of the passage. Their charred hides shed flakes as they moved, brittle black scraps tumbling around their feet. They did not hurry. They had found the town’s warmth and heartbeat; they would come on until something stopped them.
“How long?” Kaelen asked.
Oren glanced at the stones above the arch. A crack ran from the torn upper brace toward the left pillar. “If the arch is as bad as it looks, it’ll come down when the next weight hits it.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we have to make it.” Oren pointed at the lane behind them. “Get them moving.”
Kaelen turned south. The first cluster of evacuees had jammed at a narrow turn where a pair of black-stone houses leaned close together. A man had fallen underfoot. His daughter was hauling at his arm, unable to lift him. Kaelen bent, got his hands beneath the man’s shoulders, and dragged him clear while the crowd shoved past.
“Keep to the wall,” he told the girl. “Take his other side.”
She did. Together they got him upright. Kaelen watched them shuffle toward the Spire, then went back for the next person.
A line of wounded had come from the ward with Vey. Elora walked beside them, one hand on an old woman’s elbow and the other holding a lantern low so she could see the ice. The lantern’s flame was small, sheltered in a glass box. It made a pale, thin warmth. The Skahl-skin would feel it if they came close enough.
Elora saw Kaelen. She kept the old woman moving until Vey took her place, then crossed the lane to him.
“Are they coming through?”
“Yes.”
“Will the gate stop them?”
“It won’t.”
She looked toward the passage. The horde’s front rank had entered the space beneath the arch, stepping over the iron gate as if it were a fallen branch.
Next
The rubble has bought Verndall only a brief pause; what can Kaelen defend with no fuel when the Skahl-skin begin breaking through?
Kaelen touched the back of her mitten. “Go with Vey. Keep everyone moving up the Spire stairs.”
“You’re staying here.”
“Yes.”
Her hand closed over his. “Will you know me when I come back?”
The words landed without force in her voice. That made them worse. Kaelen held her hand. Its shape, the warmth through the wool, the quick pressure of her fingers: all of it was present. When she left his sight, he would have no face to call back. He had no answer that could make that safe.
“I’ll know you when you’re here,” he said.
Elora lowered her eyes to their joined hands. She did not ask him to promise more. Then an injured boy stumbled against the wall behind her, and she let go. She caught him under the arm and took him toward Vey.
Kaelen watched her until the turn in the lane hid her. Then he went north.
Oren had found a length of chain attached to the gatehouse’s old counterweight. He and two residents were trying to pull it from a stone slot. The chain had rusted into the housing. Oren struck the bracket with a hammer, sending flakes of rust down his sleeve.
“The arch is already split,” Kaelen said. “What are you holding it for?”
“Until the last of them clears the lane.” Oren struck again. “When it falls, it’ll take the north end of this street too.”
“Then we need them farther south.”
“We need you farther south.” Oren looked at the passage. “They’re close.”
Kaelen could hear them now: their brittle hides brushing the stone, a soft crackle beneath the iron groan of the gate. He could feel the bell above him in the Spire, a remote weight behind his ribs. He did not reach for it. The last Cinder-Burst had taken Elora’s face. There was no promise that the next would leave the rest of her untouched.
“We’re out of fuel,” he said.
Oren’s hammer paused. His eyes moved once to Kaelen’s hands, then back to the gate. “I know.”
Kaelen stepped into the passage.
“Kaelen.”
“Get the chain loose. Drop it when I’m clear.”
“You’ll have to draw them under the arch.”
“I know.”
Oren said nothing else. He handed the hammer to one of the residents and started pulling the chain with both hands.
The first Skahl-skin crossed the fallen gate. It turned its head toward Kaelen. Others followed its attention, one after another, until the whole front of the horde faced him.
Kaelen backed beneath the arch.
Their feet scraped over iron. Their bodies made no sound of breath. They had no living rhythm he could hear, only the rough drag of their hide and the little clicks of brittle joints. Kaelen kept his own breathing even and his boots slow. He needed them beneath the broken stone, close enough that the collapse would bury more than the empty road.
The first reached for him.
He stepped back. Its black fingers raked the air where his coat had been. Behind it, the next ranks pressed into the passage, filling the gap.
“Now!” Oren shouted.
The chain snapped free of its housing. The gatehouse gave a deep, grinding shudder. A slab of stone tore loose above Kaelen and struck the edge of the fallen gate. The impact buckled iron. Dust swept through the passage, thick and bitter.
Kaelen ran.
The Skahl-skin surged after him. He heard the first stones fall, then a cracking crash that swallowed the whole archway. The ground jumped under his feet. The air filled with grit and fragments of black stone. Something struck his shoulder and spun him against the wall.
He stayed there for a breath, one hand pressed to the cold stone, waiting to find out if the next impact would come. It did not. Dust drifted through the lane. The crowd had stopped moving. Faces stared from doorways and the narrow south passage, watching him, watching the ruin.
Oren came through the grit with blood along one cheek. “Can you stand?”
Kaelen pushed off the wall. His shoulder hurt, but it held.
Behind the collapsed arch, the horde made a rough, shifting sound. The fallen masonry had buried the front rank and filled the passage from wall to wall. For the moment, nothing came through.
Oren turned toward the evacuees. “Keep going. Spire stairs. No stopping in the lane.”
The people moved again. A woman began to cry as she walked, one hand over her mouth. The girl who had helped her father looked back at Kaelen and dipped her head, then disappeared south with him.
The last of the north ward came through by the time Vey appeared at the far end of the lane. Elora walked beside her, supporting the injured boy. Her lantern had gone out. She saw Kaelen and came straight to him.
He looked at her face while she stood before him. He could not hold the details in thought, but he could see them now: her brows drawn tight, her mouth set as if she were trying not to ask whether he had been hurt.
“I’m here,” she said.
He rested his hand briefly on her shoulder. “Go inside.”
This time she went without looking back.
Oren watched her climb the Spire steps with the others. His mouth tightened. He turned away and began counting heads, calling names until Vey joined him with the list of wounded.
Kaelen went to the rubble.
For a few moments, the passage stayed quiet. Then the stones shifted from the other side. One dark hand pushed through a gap near the ground, scrabbling for purchase. A second struck the underside of the fallen gate. The iron rang once, low and cracked.
Beyond the rubble, more Skahl-skin pressed down from the pass.
The first black fingers curled around a stone on Verndall’s side and began to pull.