The Sound That Stayed

The gate’s iron face jumped inward hard enough to knock Oren off his feet. Vey caught his coat before he struck the stones, and Kaelen saw the split open in the brace above them.

“Clear the passage!” Oren shouted. His bad arm hung close to his side as he hauled himself upright. “Get back from the gate!”

The people behind them stumbled toward the ward. Their fire was already dying. The stolen doors and shutters had burned down to a bed of coals, and the last thin heat curled over the wounded gathered inside the nearest houses.

Another impact struck the gate. The split widened. Iron groaned against its hinges.

Vey drove her shoulder into the stone beside it, though the wall shuddered under her weight. “It’s coming through.”

Kaelen could see the black shapes beyond the bars. They packed the narrow approach, flaking hides pressed together, their attention fixed on the warmth inside Verndall. The gate had no timber braces left. The drain beneath it was sealed; no creature could crawl under. The iron face was all that stood between the ward and the horde.

He had left the bell silent through the cold night. There was no fuel left to build a fire line, no charcoal to bait the creatures into the ruined smithy. The wounded would be caught in the ward if the gate opened.

Oren looked at him. His face had gone pale under the frost. “How long to the Spire?”

“Too long.”

“Then go.” Oren turned back to the gate. “We’ll hold it.”

Vey spat blood onto the stones. “Run, Bellkeeper.”

Kaelen ran.

The north ward narrowed behind him, its black-stone houses pressed close to the road. He passed men dragging the wounded away from the fire and a woman with one shutter under her arm, as if she could still find a place to put it. No one asked him where he was going. The Spire rose ahead through the cobalt fog, its upper roof torn open to the weather.

At the gate, iron crashed against stone.

Kaelen kept running.

He reached the Spire and took the stair two at a time. The wind came through the gap above the bell chamber and cut across his face. Elora stood on the lower landing with a blanket over both arms. She had been giving them out to the wounded. Her eyes went to his hands, then to his face.

“Is the gate—”

“Keep them below.”

She set the blankets down. “You’re going to ring it.”

He had no answer that would make the choice easier. He put one hand on the rail and climbed.