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I twisted enough to reach a second, smaller knife attached toFink’s hands Once they were free, he was able to get a stronger grip on the wall, though his knuckles hite and his face was showing the strain on hisup is one thing, buthappens on the way down Every et to be stupid when stepping down, not even once"

"Stupid?" Fink cried "Like ju step down, Jaron!"

He was still too panicked to make safe choices The wall directly beloas too set up to rescue us Far to our right was a tree rooted into the cliff It wasn’t thick, but it would handle our weight I still had my end of the rope that I’d used to juet us pretty close to the floor

I cocked " Then I called down to Mott "I aht into this valley We’ll be trapped if you don’t get out!"

"Nobody is leaving you!" Mott yelled back

It put a terrible strain on h ere at some distance from each other, I tried to make Mott see the earnestness in my face "Leave," I told hio or they will die I’ll find a way down"

This ti orders and directed the commanders to move our men out of the valley and away from the lake Once he had them in motion, he returned to the base of the cliff and called back, "Now you have your way But I will not leave until you’re with me"

It was my turn to nod back to him I handed the rope to Fink and told hi could keep me on the cliff to move horizontally, but that wasn’t certain My nificantly weakened froan’s ca from the jump just now and my shoulder throbbed worse than it should have I truly didn’t know if I could keep myself up here

So we took each , and chose ave Fink specific instructions for each hold he must make That was the harder part since he was smaller and didn’t have my reach We were uni With a little patience and a great deal of endurance, ould reach the tree And once there, it would be a simple matter to tie off the rope and slide down to the floor

But nothing in my life was ever simple And this time, it wasn’t only me ould suffer Beyond the well of this valley, exactly where reat battle had begun Vargan’s army had met them We had failed to retreat in tiet off the cliff as quickly as possible I pushed Fink to ainst the strain I tried to distract hian

"After I left Byain," Fink said "Nobody bothered an recruited nearly all of Erick’s thieves into his arh the border into Carthya, one of thenized me They kneith you now, so they sent "

I showed Fink his next hold on the wall, then asked, "Other thanelse?"

"Yes" Fink s this war against you That’s when he got angry"

We continued nore the sounds of the battle and feared whatIt was torture to hear the cries of injuredof sword against sword, all while I remained trapped on this wall At best, I was useless, and at worst, a deadly distraction