We made it back inside the walls with less than a quarter hour to spare, which in hindsight felt like the Concordat's plan working exactly as intended rather than a margin we'd earned.
The gate garrison had held the six new banners at a standstill for most of that quarter hour through sheer stubbornness—forty demons against a vanguard that outnumbered them ten to one, buying time on nothing but the promise that the rest of us were coming. When I came through the inner courtyard at a dead run, Noa Genesis already burning hot up my arm, I could see exactly how thin that promise had worn. The outer gate doors, oak reinforced with iron bands Simon had forged himself, were shuddering under blows that landed in a rhythm too even to be anything but a ram crewed by soldiers who didn't tire.
"Report," I said, finding Zereth already at the gatehouse stair, voice raw from shouting orders the whole way up from the crater.
