The cross-fire from Vance’s squad pinned the northern corner of the terrace beneath a hail of steel-tipped quarrels. Every three seconds, another heavy bolt struck the granite stone railing with a sharp, explosive spang, gouging out white scars in the stone and showering Len’s shoulders with sharp stone grit.
“Callow, the children!” Len roared again, his voice cracking under the strain. The rope in his right hand was shaking wildly as the litter reached the lower third of the wall, seventy feet down. “Urel, take Renna! Drop her to Bram!”
Tobin Callow didn’t hesitate. He was an infantryman who had spent four years drilling on the border castle walls. He understood that in an open courtyard under missile fire, pause was a death sentence. He scooped up the younger daughter—eight-year-old Veda—under his left arm like a bundle of dry oats, stepped directly onto the three-foot-wide stone coping. Then he leaned out over the black deep pit.
“Bram!” Callow bellowed down into the cutting, his voice echoing off the upright dark rock walls. “Catch!”
He lowered the child by her wrists, leaning his entire torso over the edge until his boots were barely hooked behind the stone baluster. From the black mist sixty feet below, a dark, broad-shouldered figure stepped out onto the gravel ballast. Bram Ash, his old court guard’s coat hanging open, his uninjured left arm reaching high into the gloom.
