The answer lifted a city.
Two knocks rolled through the graveback again. A suspended keep rose with the animal's spine, tore half its tendon bridge from a black trunk, and swung over open road with people still on its balconies.
Bone Orchard fighters ran toward the falling end.
Raska ran the other way.
She dragged Jiang under the shelter of a root while his high-root line burned across the torn coat.
"Root down!" she shouted.
Every guild fighter dropped flat or hooked into black bark. The graveback's next convulsion traveled from its buried shoulder to its tail, turning the orchard into a wave of bone, glass, and hanging homes.
Maelin's hall took the wave broadside.
Its temporary brace held. The boarding branch did not.
Black wood split beneath the seated flight rib. The hall rolled away from the graveback, and its wounded wing opened under weight it could no longer carry.
Myrn chose the first impact.
