Another crossbow quarrel ricocheted off the sorting yard coping stone with a vicious spang, showering Kezra’s cheek with sharp flakes of limestone grit. Behind the thorny barberry bushes along the terrace flank, the Host scout corporal was rallying his three men, realizing that the defenders stationed in the dry irrigation channel were only two slingers and a guide armed with an iron-hooked ash staff. If the scouts rushed the sorting yard now, their short recurve bows would pin Kezra and Fellis against the bare pale limestone retaining wall before Adra’s heavy pikes could climb the lower terrace stairs.
Fellis Dain leaned forward over the low roof wall. His young face flushed was dark with blood and his uninjured right hand tightening around the five copper bracelets until the braided rawhide twine bit into his skin. His nineteen-year-old voice rose to a furious shout directed at the two elderly keepers sheltering behind the slate pile.
“Take the damn tags!” Fellis yelled, his voice cracking with panic and raw frustration. “Do you want to die for five sacks of rye? Take the tags or she can’t move the ground!”
Kezra’s hand shot out, her heavy leather-gloved fingers clamping hard over Fellis’s right wrist. She pulled his arm down toward the flat stone slabs with a sudden, unbending strength that forced the young apprentice to look directly into her eyes.
