**North — Ronan**
They nearly had him.
Fourteen across the shield and more behind, all pushing, and Ronan had given the two metres and then the last half and his right boot was on the line with the blue light coming up through the sole of it.
James's skeletons arrived into the back of the press and started pulling men off their feet.
It helped. It was not enough, because a skeleton weighs what a skeleton weighs and could not hold the ward point if every human being on the floor died, and the only thing on that platform that mattered was one exhausted man with a shield.
Ronan felt his heel start to go.
Then something hard and grey wedged itself in behind his back — one of James's skeletons, thrown flat against his spine, arms braced against the stone, two hundred metres from the necromancer who was steering it and turned side-on like a chock under a wheel.
Ronan braced against it and took the impact.
