Pella checked his sword one more time. He'd tied new leather strapping round the grip's tang – not as tight as he would have liked. He hadn't soaked it yet, either, not wanting the grip still wet when he went into battle. He drew the crossbow from his shoulder, kept a quarrel in hand, ready for a quick load once the order came to advance.
Bloody marines. Should've volunteered for plain old infantry. Should' ve gotten a transfer. Should've never joined up at all. Skullcup was more than enough for me, dammit. Should've run, that's what I should' ve done.
****
Night wind whistling about them, Corabb, Leoman, L'oric, Dunsparrow and a guard stood on the gently swaying platform atop the palace tower. The city spread out in all directions, frighteningly dark and seeming lifeless.
'What are we here to see, Leoman?' L'oric asked.
'Wait, my friend – ah, there!' He pointed to the rooftop of a distant building near the west wall. On its flat top flickered muted lanternlight. Then… gone.
'And there!'
Another building, another flash of light.
'Another! More, they are all in place! Fanatics! Damned fools! Dryjhna take us, this is going to work!'
Work? Corabb frowned, then scowled. He caught Dunsparrow's gaze on him – she mouthed a kiss. Oh how he wanted to kill her.
****
Heaps of rubble, broken pots, a dead, bloated dog, and animal bones, there wasn't a single stretch of even ground at the base of the wall.
Bottle had followed on the heels of the sappers, up the first tier, brick fragments spilling away beneath their boots, then cries of pain and cursing as someone stumbled over a wasp nest – darkness alone had saved them from what could have been a fatal few moments – the wasps were sluggish – Bottle was astonished they had come out at all, until he saw what the soldier had managed. Knocking over one rock, then thumping his entire foot down the nest's maw.
He'd momentarily relinquished Meanas, then, to slip into the swarming soul-sparks of the wasps, quelling their panic and anger. Devoid of disguising magic for the last two tiers, the sappers had scrambled like terrified beetles – the rock they had hidden under suddenly vanishing – and made the base of the wall well ahead of the others.
Where they crouched, unlimbering their packs of munitions.
Bottle scampered up to crouch at Cuttle's side. 'The gloom's back,' he whispered. 'Sorry about that – good thing they weren't black wasps – Maybe'd be dead by now.'