The first jar came over before anyone on the tower had finished looking at the bridge.
Maeve did not try to stop it, because stopping it directly would have burst it in the air above four hundred people. She put a barrier under it on a slant instead, and the clay shattered against the light and the burning liquid ran down the incline she had built for it and went into the river, where it floated and kept burning on the water.
A second rider was already lifting the next one.
That was the whole problem in one movement. She could hold the settlement, or the span, or the far mouth of the crossing, and the moment she committed to one of the three the other two were open.
James looked along the bridge and did the arithmetic he did not like.
