The Queen touched Elizabeth McArthur's shoulder gently.

"Elizabeth, let us go. Lord Henry and the others have the matter in hand, I'm sure. Our part is to simply stay out of danger." She effortlessly mounted a waiting horse, held by a nervous stable hand, with other mounts ready for the rest of the royal party. "Come, let us away from here for the time being and trust in our fellows to drive the enemy away." She waited until the others were mounted before steering her stallion around and gently easing her heels into the horse's sides so that it trotted forwards; neither hasty nor too slow and the Queen didn't even look over her shoulder, feigning a nonchalance while worry ate at her insides.

---------------

Seeing Gwen and Fenrir, Henry made his way towards them. A few eager horsemen had made it through the gate before Caroline had successfully plugged the defences with the golems but the aggressors were being hunted down by those veteran nobles who had recovered quickly from the shock of the explosion. Two more fell to Henry's sword before he made it to Gwen and they embraced, the battle around them forgotten at the relief. Finding himself relax, even in the midst of battle, Henry found the dark cloud hanging in his mind fade even while a quite voice warned that he needed the battle rage to survive.

The moment was broken when a dull thump followed by the crashing of metal made them both turn towards the gate. They were just in time to see a spherical object smash through the ranks of golems, hurling them aside or ploughing directly through them, with no apparent difficulty before shooting into a pile of barrels and crates stacked next to the two. Henry covered them both with his shield as splinters showered them; a single piece less than a foot in length passing through his guard and embedding itself in his upper arm. Wincing, Henry yanked the wooden spike from his arm and tossed it aside. Another thump was followed by another sphere crashing through the ranks and flying off on the other side of the two.

"Take Fenrir and head for the barricade." Henry said, leading Gwen to her familiar and helping her climb up. "Don't stop no matter what you hear, it's too dangerous here." He ignored the obvious fact that he would remain behind, turning and bounding up the steps to the top of the wall. It was clear that their defence at the wall would not last long but at least Caroline's quick action with golems had bought them enough time to regroup and prepare to enact the plan. Seeing the young woman firing down into the flames blindly with a blow, the enemy still hidden in the burning town below, he pushed past the golems on the wall and shook her to free her of the battle reverie that had taken her over.

"We can't hold here, come on! We need to get to the horses!" He half dragged her from the wall to where the picketed horses were and helped her mount one before climbing onto another horse's back himself. Just as they were ready to pull back to regroup with the other students there was the sound of a shower of metal on metal and the defence by the gate collapsed completely followed by a pouring of enemy cavalry through the gap. The two rode after Gwen towards the others with the enemy cavalry hot on their heels.

[i]Come on Revaz, get these bastards off of us and into the woods.[/i]