“Third Antillan!” Raucus bellowed, all the while. “To me! Antillus, to me! Antillus, for Alera!”

“Antillus for Alera!” came the thunder of his legionares’ reply, and his soldiers began to reverse the tide and drive the foe from the walls. The veteran legionares, bellowing their war cry, fought their way to the side of their lord, hammering through the enemy who had been close to overwhelming them moments before.

The enemy resistance melted abruptly, vanishing like sand washed away by a tide, and Raucus sensed the change in pressure. The Third Aleran’s Knights Ferrous cut their way to his side and fell in on his flanks, and after that, it was only a matter of dispatching the animals who remained on the wall.

“Shields!” Raucus barked, mounting up on a crenel, where he could overlook the Icemen’s snow ramp below. A pair of legionares immediately came to his side, covering all three of them with their broad shields. Spears, arrows, and thrown clubs hammered against the Aleran steel.

Raucus focused his attention on the snow ramp. Fire would melt it, right enough, but it would be an enormous effort. Easier to shake it apart from beneath. He nodded sharply to himself, laid a bare hand on the stone of the Shieldwall, and sent his attention down through the stones. With an effort of will, he bade the local furies to move, and the ground outside the Shieldwall suddenly rippled and heaved.

The great structure of ice cracked and groaned-and then collapsed, taking a thousand screaming savages with it.

Raucus rose, nudging the shields aside, as a great cloud of ice crystals leapt into the air. He gripped the burning sword in hand, and stared out intently, waiting for his view of the enemy. For a moment, no one on the wall moved, as they waited to see through the cloud of snow.