Since the Goldbrick Wall's collapse, battle returned with savage intensity. Initially, both armies concentrated their forces around the breach. The Godman troops had yet to complete their redeployment, giving Cynthia's defenders a momentary advantage. Within half an hour, however, the scattered Godman forces regrouped, and Cynthia's thinning ranks began surrendering ground.

  Patrick Fort, clutching a desperate sliver of hope, attempted to restore the Magic barrier, but failed utterly. After hurried consultation with the Duke of Pafaheim, they implemented the mage's contingency plan: contracting the Goldbrick Wall's perimeter. The withdrawal order came with reasonable timeliness, but achieved little. Orchestrating an orderly retreat amid the bloody chaos of combat requires precious time—time the young mage could not afford them. Every moment's delay rendered the Magic barrier increasingly unstable. The Headmaster severed the barrier's connection to its gold powder medium; the breach sealed instantaneously. The Goldbrick Wall began shrinking its protective embrace, abandoning more and more Cynthian soldiers to direct exposure against Godman steel.

  Many of these troops remained ignorant of the planned contraction; they had simply fought with desperate valor at the breach. When they witnessed the barrier retreating behind them, no longer sheltering their flesh, they felt cruelly abandoned—betrayed by their own. Yet many of them understood the grim calculus of war. This was the price for their commanders' over-reliance on magic. These men had never placed their faith in spells, but in the cold steel in their hands and the hard courage in their hearts. They understood their duty mirrored the barrier's former purpose: to arrest the Godman advance. They recognized their homeland had consigned them to death—yet they maintained their positions, determined to fulfill their final charge. Only a small minority of Cynthian soldiers pursued the retreating barrier, hurling bitter curses, attempting to regain its protection. Most died where they stood, their honor intact.

  Patrick Fort guided the barrier's contraction with excruciating precision. Without its anchoring medium, the Magic flowing through the barrier moved with greater freedom and fluidity—but significantly reduced stability. Each time he tightened the wall's perimeter and mended a breach, the Headmaster could maintain the barrier for scarcely fifteen minutes. Beyond that threshold, Godman forces would invariably smash fresh openings with battering rams or catapults—frequently multiple breaches simultaneously. Repairing each rupture depleted precious Source; consequently, each breach necessitated an increasingly dramatic contraction to restore integrity. Patrick attempted to anticipate the assaults—preemptively shrinking the barrier before it shattered—to conserve his dwindling Source. The delicate control it required was like that of a dying crone, her hands trembling, trying to thread a needle in a pitch-black room. Later magical authorities would determine that even sorceresses renowned for their precision would struggle to replicate such control.

  Hours of fragmented resistance crawled by. Eventually, Godma's iron tide thundered across Wafflo's final stretch of earth, arriving at Cynthia's very threshold. An hour earlier, the Duke of Pafaheim had partially opened the Gate of Cynthia, permitting the bulk of the garrison to withdraw into the city proper. Now fewer than five hundred infantrymen held the ground before the gate, separated from the nearest Godman cavalry by merely five hundred and twenty yards—with only one increasingly unreliable barrier standing between them. The relentless slaughter had turned Wafflo into a blood-soaked charnel house. Not a single trench could be seen beneath the carnage; the horses' hooves found purchase on a carpet of the dead as if it were solid earth. Behind the desperate defenders, the massive iron gate had sealed shut with terrible finality, severing any possibility of retreat. These were the warriors who had fought at the vanguard—and whose withdrawal came too late for sanctuary. Though they privately scorned those countrymen who had escaped behind the city walls, they nevertheless clung to life with fierce determination. Remarkably, not a single man among them hammered upon the gate begging for entry.

  The setting sun's glare upon dark-gold armor dazzled their vision, rendering enemy numbers incalculable. They scanned the flanks of the Godman cavalry formation and found no terminal point.

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  Accompanied by a crescendo of horns, trumpets and war drums, the Godman forces launched their final charge outside Cynthia's walls. Archers, catapult crews, and crossbowmen positioned along the Wall of Cynthia watched numbly as the human tidal wave surged toward them, yet remained inexplicably passive. Sir Harvey desperately wanted to issue the command—to unleash every implement of destruction upon the advancing enemy. But he too was paralyzed by the same futility, a cold fury burning in his gut. None of the weapons on the wall could fire over the towering Goldbrick Wall, and anything thrown against it was rendered useless—the barrier deflected arrows, altered the trajectory of launched stones, even pulverized softer projectiles into harmless dust. The barrier's contraction had inflicted casualties among the garrison as well—fortunately non-lethal. Sir Harvey had briefly considered asking Patrick Fort about lowering the barrier's height, but one glance at the mage's condition—drenched in sweat, crimson rivulets streaming from his nose and lips—dissuaded further inquiry. He could only pray the young mage wouldn't collapse dead where he stood.

  For the first time in his life, the young mage experienced the raw power of absolute will. Alternating between gripping his staff and extending his hands, he manipulated the barrier's contraction and movement through precise finger gestures and sweeping arm motions. Having maintained this posture for countless hours, numbness had hollowed his physical awareness until only his consciousness remained intact. The offensive enchantments woven throughout the barrier had deteriorated significantly; where once a man's fist against it would sustain severe burns, now it produced merely a stinging sensation. Innumerable Godman riders pounded relentlessly against the magical wall, their battle cries and the sizzling impacts creating a rhythmic cacophony. Patrick Fort contracted the barrier; they swarmed it; he contracted it further—again they swarmed. Eventually, his fading willpower signaled he had reached his absolute limit.

  Three hundred and twelve battered Cynthian soldiers pressed their backs against the city gate. The barrier stood less than one hundred and fifty feet before them. Though the enemy force remained uncountable, they desperately believed the wall would protect them until their final breath.

  Patrick Fort remained ignorant of whether the majority of Cynthia's defenders had successfully retreated. He didn't know the death toll—and actively resisted knowing the full scope of the tragedy his oversight had helped create. He clutched his staff, wedged firmly into a crevice between stones, but his legs weakened and his body sagged inexorably. He might have been weeping—or perhaps merely groaning from the excruciating strain of prolonged spellcasting. It was only when he saw the dark pool spreading at his feet that he realized he had been bleeding for hours. He wiped his nose with his hand; blood gave way to mucus, then mucus yielded again to blood. The boy collapsed in despair; the world began spinning treacherously; his core identity began dissolving into nothingness. Heat scorched his eye sockets; tears streamed down his face; the Headmaster frantically scrubbed his cheeks with trembling hands.

  "Don't cry," he commanded himself, his voice quavering. "Don't cry, Patrick. Don't—don't cry!" The screams from the men dying at the foot of the wall, just before the gate, filled his head. Save them, Patrick. Stop crying and save them. Think. There must be a way.

  "To save them—to save Cynthia—I must maintain the barrier..." He steadied his breathing and engaged in self-dialogue. "But my Source is insufficient to sustain it much longer. What alternatives remain? Is there any possibility...?"

  "Magic is not bound by shape, only by imagination." Pierce's youthful voice echoed through his consciousness.

  "Not bound by shape..." he repeated contemplatively. "He means—alter the barrier's configuration?" Patrick frowned deeply. "That accomplishes little. Regardless of its appearance, its fundamental nature remains unchanged. It won't enhance the shield's resilience..." His brow furrowed in concentration. (Unless... unless its surface area was so small that its integrity and strength became absolute. But a barrier that small could never shield the vast expanse of Wafflo...)

  A flash of inspiration struck him—though fundamentally flawed. It would require sacrifice. He shook his head violently, attempting to banish the thought. (It would condemn those valiant souls outside the gate to certain death...)

  "But it would save the majority—even if merely to purchase time."

  He ripped the garland of flowers from his chest—the hero's wreath—and made his decision.