Thirty glowing fuses hissed into life along the brass breach-ports, spraying orange sparks over the stone trail.
“Fire!” the Garrison Commander bellowed, sweeping his broadsword downward with lethal authority. “Burn them into cinders!”
The thirty Sovereign Flame-Cannons roared as one.
Massive tongues of crimson fire erupted from the flared barrels, tearing through the mountain mist like blazing dragons. The recoil shook the entire mountain ledge, sending showers of loose shale tumbling into the clouds below.
Thirty glowing iron cannonballs, each packed with unstable celestial gunpowder, screamed through the air toward the Saint-Iron stele.
The heat was intense enough to scorch the white pine boughs fifty yards away. The air blistered, turning the morning mist into scalding steam.
Then Mina Vance stepped out of the fog.
Her small hands were tucked neatly into the sleeves of her silver-lined wool coat. Her expression was completely placid, as if she were stepping outside to check the morning frost on a winter garden.
