Chapter 156: Stair at the Fifth

Night fell over the Wall for the third time.

The Rookwings had not returned since noon. The horde had pressed against the stone all afternoon, but the rotations had held, and the men had eaten, and the lines had not broken.

For a few hours, it had almost felt manageable.

Then, a little after the sixth hour of the night, Encrid felt something.

He was standing at the map table with Corr, going over the arrow counts for the Boxes, when something changed at the very edge of his awareness.

It was not a sound.

It was weight.

Weight shifting forty paces away, on the outer face of the Wall, below the parapet.

Many bodies were climbing.

The Azure Star’s Attunement let Encrid feel the movement of people and things around him. For a year and a half, it had been useful for small things, like noticing when a watch was changing two bastions away.

It had never been useful like this.

The body ramp below the eastern corner of the Fifth Bastion had been loose all day. The Sumpers kept sliding down it, and the Grinners kept collapsing it.

But something heavier was on it now.

Something that moved slowly and carefully, testing each step before putting its weight down.

Encrid’s head snapped up.

"East corner," he said. "Below the parapet. Something big is climbing."

The sergeant of the section looked at him.

His name was Holt. He was a grey-bearded man who had been on the Wall for fifteen years, and his expression said very clearly that the Watcher could not possibly know that.

"My lord, the lookouts have seen nothing."

"Then tell them to look again. Now, sergeant."

Holt went.

He did not get as far as the corner.

A Rackhorn came over the parapet ten paces from where he had been standing.

It was bigger than the ones Garrick Dane had killed on the first night. It stood as tall as a horse at the shoulder, with a long, heavy head and three horns that curved back over its skull like the teeth of a rake. Its claws gripped the edge of the stone as if the stone belonged to it.

A second Rackhorn came over beside it.

Then a long grey hand slapped onto the parapet between them.

A Talljack hauled itself up in one smooth motion and unfolded to three times the height of a man.

The men at the east corner had just come off rotation. They had eaten and were nowhere near tired.

That was the only reason they did not break immediately.

"Spears!" Holt roared. "Spears on the horns!"

Encrid did not go toward the fight.

He went toward the rack beside the map table, where his crossbow had been sitting since the first day of the siege.

He had carried it up to the bastion on the morning the horde arrived. He could not have explained why. It had sat in his quarters for a year and a half, and he had simply picked it up along with a quiver of bolts. Corr had looked at it and then at him, and said nothing.

Encrid put his foot in the stirrup and dragged the string back with both hands until it caught.

His arms burned.

Even now, he was not a strong man.

Then the window appeared.

[ ✦ Emergency Quest ✦ ]

[ The command post of the Fifth Bastion is under direct attack. If it falls, the central section of the northern face will lose its eyes. ]

[ Objective: Hold the inner stair of the Fifth Bastion until reinforcements arrive. ]

[ Time Limit: None ]

[ Reward: Gannon Family Swordsmanship proficiency increase / Narrative Relevance increase ]

[ Failure: Death of Ansel Corr. Loss of the Fifth Bastion. Narrative Relevance decrease. ]

Encrid read it in a single glance.

The inner stair.

Behind the map table, a narrow flight of stone steps ran down from the bastion platform to the signal room below. If the defenders were pushed back past the map table, the stair was the only way down.

And the only way in.

Corr was sitting right beside it in his chair.

He could not run. He had one hand and a leg that had healed crooked.

"Gus!"

The boy was already there, sword drawn.

"Get Corr down the stair. Then come back up and hold the top of it."

"Young master, I can fight-"

"Of course you will. But get him down first."

Gus grabbed the back of the chair and dragged it, Corr and all, toward the stairs. Corr did not complain. He simply held the tally board tightly against his chest.

At the corner, the line was bending.

The first Rackhorn lowered its head and charged. Its three horns caught two spears at once and snapped them like twigs. The men behind them stepped back.

The Talljack reached over the Rackhorn’s back, grabbed a soldier by the collar, and threw him off the Wall.

He did not even have time to scream.

Encrid lifted the crossbow.

He was not a good shot. He had practiced perhaps twenty times since arriving at the Wall, mostly because he felt he should.

But the Talljack was very tall. And it was only thirty paces away. And its head was above everyone else’s.If he could not hit it from this distance, then he was better off dead.

He aimed at the head and pulled the trigger.

-Tak.

The bolt struck the side of its neck.

It was not where he had aimed but it did not matter.

The Talljack flinched and turned toward the pain. In that half-second, two spears came up from below and drove into its ribs.

It screamed and swung its long arm wildly, knocking a man flat. Then it staggered back toward the edge.

"Push it!" Holt shouted. "Push it off!"

They pushed.

It went over.

Encrid was already spanning the crossbow again. His hands were shaking.

He made them stop.

The two Rackhorns were fully on the walk now, side by side. Behind them, more shapes were coming up the ramp. Grinners spilled over the parapet in a flood of teeth, and below them, there was something else Encrid could feel but could not yet see.

The line of spears gave another three paces.

Then another two.

Encrid looked at the distance.

The map table was fifteen paces behind the line. The stair was five paces behind the map table.

He had signaled for reinforcements the moment the first Rackhorn appeared. Reinforcement was one of the few orders the flag chain could carry.

The nearest men were Second Watch soldiers stationed at the seventh mile. The flag would take four minutes to reach them. The men would need another six to arrive.

Ten minutes.

Encrid looked back at the bending line of spears.

It would not hold for ten minutes.

He set the crossbow on the map table, aimed at the nearer Rackhorn’s eye, and fired.

The bolt sank into the soft flesh beside its eye.

The Rackhorn shook its whole head violently, throwing off two spearmen. Then it turned toward the table.

Toward him.

Encrid drew his sword.

It was the blade Corvan had handed him on the morning he left the Gannon estate. It had been forged by the family’s own smith, in the old style of the house.

He had never killed anything with it.

Behind him, he heard Gus come back up the stair, taking the steps two at a time.

"Young master, get behind me."

Encrid did not move.

"No," he said. "Stand beside me. We’ll hold the stair together."

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