For four days, Pirin helped the Sirdians and weavelings hold the outer wall at the base of the Sheercliff. He never revealed himself with direct arcane techniques, in case Lord Three was extending his senses and hunting for Pirin, but he used his battle meditation from a vantage high up on the cliff wall.

Whenever he began a bout of battle meditation, he first snuck around the hastily-made walled encampment at the base of the walkway. The walls weren’t tall—only thrice his height, if that—and they weren’t thick. It shouldn’t have held the Dominion for even a night.

But, once Pirin caught hold of his army’s minds, he coordinated them, alerting them instantly to threats, and directing their efforts. Archers held off crowds of explosive-carrying fodder who tried to blast holes in the wall, and whenever ladders or siege towers trundled up to the wall, he directed his weavelings to hold them back.

It wasn’t about tactics so much as improving their reaction speed and alerting them to their companions’ troubles.

At first, he only started with helping the closest fifty soldiers at the wall, but with his three Inner Gates open, it barely strained his system at all. He targeted a hundred soldiers the next time, and it still wasn’t a struggle. A hundred and fifty? It strained him, and cycling wasn’t enough to absorb new Essence from the Eane—not fast enough to replace what he’d lost, that is.

But when he helped all five hundred men at the bottom of the cliff hold their positions, they beat back the waves of Dominion fodder with ease. It wasn’t until Pirin ran out of Essence and had to take a break that the Dominion approached again.

For the next three days, he experimented. He tried ensnaring the minds of the Dominion soldiers outside the wall and turning large swaths into incoherent masses, but they were much more resistant to his tampering.

For one, there were more of them. But their intentions opposed his, and they couldn’t easily be convinced to turn against their masters—not on a large scale. When he focussed on individual soldiers, he could convince them to retreat, or at the very least, confuse them, but his target didn’t last long anyway.

So, after a few failed experiments, he returned to providing support to his own army. For each soldier they lost, the Dominion lost twenty-five more.

The constant barrage from the city at the top of the cliff continually bombarded the Dominion army as well. Most of the higher-ups and those not immediately embroiled in a wave of attackers had retreated out of range when they realized it would be a long siege, but whenever a new wave of soldiers approached the base of the walkway, the city’s artillery pounded them with rubble and alchemical bombs.

On the fifth day, the Dominion made their biggest push against the cliff-base fortifications. A huge column of heavy infantry with thick plate armour and shields advanced, with a core of wizards at their center. Fifty Flares approached the wall, using techniques to stave off arrows and artillery.

That’s not good, Gray remarked.

“Not good at all,” Pirin said. “They realized they can’t break this wall with fodder, and sent in the big guns.”

They should’ve done it sooner. Maybe they didn’t want to take the city?

“Or they didn’t want to risk valuable wizards,” Pirin said. “Even on the mainland, they’re hard to come by.”

Ah, well. A bird can hope.

“They seem more than happy to place higher value on some lives than others. Their own soldiers are no different.”

Regrettably. Should…should we be killing them?

“If we let them in, they’ll butcher everyone within the city. We can’t do that, either.” Pirin winced. “Think of it this way. If we destroy the Dominion here, destroy Neria’s leadership and cause their empire to collapse, we’ll be saving a lot more young men in the future—saving them from other battles like this.”

A nagging voice in the back of his head told him he was doing mental gymnastics to justify his healer’s upbringing, but he also couldn’t abandon a patient in need. Right now, that was Northvel.

The city above, and Marshal Teanor, must have figured out that a clump of wizards was approaching—their multicoloured barrages of arcane techniques were bright even in the direct sunlight of the mid-morning—because he sent down an an extra group of weavelings with hopes of directly facing the wizards.

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They held onto the smaller wall for a few more hours. Pirin directed the weavelings, and with their greater strength, they took down a few of the wizards. Impaling them with spears, or swarming them as they scaled the walls, they used their numbers and coordination to their advantage.

But they were too much of a distraction. Alchemical bombs detonated at points along the wall, and Dominion soldiers poured in.

A horn finally sounded in the city above, signalling their retreat. Archers on the winding walkway fired volleys to hold off the soldiers streaming through the broken wall, allowing the weavelings and Sirdians lower down to retreat. The Dominion once again slowed down to make a shield wall.

Pirin was the last one through the gate. They sealed the heavy wooden doors, then slammed a heavy timber down to lock them in place. Soldiers packed debris and logs against the door, and archers pressed up against arrow slits in the narrow bands of man-made wall between the doors and the edges of the cave.

Pirin ran up through the cave and up the stairs, then to the battlements at the front of the city. They still had a view over the waterfall, with an angle to fire down on any approaching army and stall them on the walkway, but the Dominion had no stable ground to set up ladders or siege towers.

Yet another chokepoint where he could hold the Dominion back for days as they struggled to break down the gate.

He turned to Marshal Teanor and asked, “How are our supplies doing, marshal?”

“We will last two more weeks,” said the marshal. “But with the influx of refugees and soldiers, we won’t survive much longer than that. Perhaps another week, but that’s if we ration and distribute food as frugally as possible.”

Pirin nodded. “When we break the siege, we’ll get help from the rest of the nation. We just need to hold on until then. Do whatever you need to survive a long siege.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Between waves of attacking Dominion soldiers, Pirin retreated to the forge to work on his weapons and armour. Nomad still oversaw the forge. He monitored the Charges and the melting Ichor-steel, ensuring it formed properly.

On the second day after retreating from the lower wall, the Ichor-steel was ready to pour. Pirin placed the sand-mould down on the anvil and, holding the small Ichor-steel crucible with metal tongs, poured veins of gold into the cracks between his sword’s shards. It formed a patchwork map of rivers and veins.

Then they let it cool. He let it sit for another day (it didn’t need that long, but the siege distracted him) before returning to pull it out of its mould. He brushed off the sand and cleaned the fuller, then pressed the Charge against its hilt-block using one of the forge’s clamps. While it imprinted the runic circle, he smoothed the blade and shaved down any ridges of Ichor-steel that remained from the moulding process.

But he had to take breaks. For one, when the waves of soldiers crashed on the wall or assailed the gate, he provided the defenders battle meditation. But, even as advanced as he was, he hadn’t forgone the need for sleep or food. He took meals on the ramparts or in the forge, so he never lost sight of what was happening—or if there were any wizards approaching. If he needed to respond to a threat, he could drop his bowl of steamed boreagrain and braised pork, and assist immediately.

To sleep? He took a few hours wherever and whenever he could, keeping the exhaustion at bay.

The streets of Northvel were empty, save for soldiers, footmen, and retainers all maintaining the outer wall, but whenever he visited the inner city, passing through the gates to the inner wall, he kept, if only to reassure the citizens that he could keep back the enemy forces and keep them safe.

But if that was truly possible…he couldn’t think about that.

Aerdia would come. There was still time. Chancellor Ivescent and Myraden would come through.

He retrieved his armour from the forge, then donned it. The Charges had imprinted perfectly, even if the templates were now dull, shrivelled, and cracked. Single use, like Nomad had said.

“Pirin,” Nomad warned, “Lord Three is out there. He is waiting to fight you. Do you want to be seen with the armour?”

“If I sense him?” Pirin tried to put on a brave expression. “If I sense him, I have my plan. But I won’t seek a fight until I’ve reached Wildflame proper.”

He’d been trying to advance throughout the siege, but it hadn’t worked. He contemplated the overall Path revelation, the question of who he was. But it didn’t come.

What did it mean to be a wizard with a gnatsnapper Familiar? No one had done it before, and the creator of his old sparrow Path manual hadn’t ever reached Wildflame, so it was no help.

“What was your Eane revelation?” Pirin asked Nomad. “How’d you do it? You do remember, right?”

“I’m not that old, yet.” Nomad crossed his arms. “You must seek the same profundity that you touch when you use Reign, but instead of with just a weapon, you must apply it to your entire body and soul. Mine was: ‘I cannot reclaim what I lost.’ ”

“How’d that work?”

“I sought to reclaim my place in the Aremir family for many years before I advanced to Wildflame. But it was a misadventure, as I came to realize. I was to be a piece of the puzzle in bringing down the Dominion. Revenge wasn’t my destiny.”

Pirin hung his head. It didn’t really put him on the right track, but he had no other choice. He just had to keep contemplating, keep searching, keep looking at the Eane and drawing closer to it.

And he had to be ready in time to face Lord Three.