'Which wall were you on?'
'North, just this side of Lektar House, as if it makes any difference. And you? I forgot to ask earlier. Did the bastard go hunting the streets last night?'
'No. I told you, the Camps are helping. I think he's still trying to figure out why he came up empty the night before last — it's got him rattled, enough for Bauchelain to notice.'
'Not good news. He'll start probing, Buke.'
'Aye. I said there'd be risks, didn't I?'
Aye, trying to keep an insane murderer from finding victims — without his noticing — with a siege about to begin. Abyss take you, Buke, what you're trying to drag me into. Gruntle glanced up the ramp. 'Help, you said. How are your new friends taking this?'
The old man shrugged. 'Korbal Broach prefers healthy organs when collecting for his experiments. It's their children at risk.'
'Less so if they'd been left ignorant.'
'They know that.'
'Did you say children?'
'Aye, we've got at least four of the little watchers on the house at all times. Homeless urchins — there's plenty enough of the real kind for them to blend in. They're keeping their eyes on the sky, too-' He stopped abruptly, and a strangely furtive look came into his eyes.
The man, Gruntle realized, had a secret. 'On the sky? What for?'
'Uh, in case Korbal Broach tries the rooftops.'
In a city of widely spaced domes?
'The point I was trying to make,' Buke continued, 'is that there's eyes on the house. Luckily, Bauchelain's still holed up in the cellar, which he's turned into some kind of laboratory. He never leaves. And Korbal sleeps during the day. Gruntle, what I said earlier-'
Gruntle cut him off with a sharply raised hand. 'Listen,' he said.
The two men stood unmoving.
Distant thunder beneath their feet, a slowly rising roar from beyond the city's walls.
Buke, suddenly pale, cursed and asked, 'Where's Stonny? And don't try telling me you don't know.'
'Port Road Gate. Five squads of Grey Swords, a company of Gidrath, a dozen or so Lestari Guard-'
'It's loudest there-'
Scowling, he grunted. 'She figured it'd start with that gate. Stupid woman.'
Buke stepped close and gripped his arm. 'Then why,' he hissed, 'in Hood's name are you still standing here? The assault's begun, and Stonny's got herself right in the middle of it!'
Gruntle pulled free. 'Sing me the Abyss, old man. The woman's all grown up, you know — I told her — I told you! This isn't my war!'
'Won't stop the Tenescowri from lopping off your head for the pot!'
Sneering, Gruntle pushed Buke clear of the door. He gripped the weighted bar in his right hand and in a single surge lifted it clear of the slots and let it drop with a clang that echoed up the corridor. He pulled the door open, ducking to step through onto the stairwell.
The sound of the assault was a thunderous roar once he reached street level and emerged to stand in the alley. Amidst the muted clangour of weapons were screams, bellows, and that indefinable, stuttering shiver that came from thousands of armoured bodies in motion — outside the walls, along the battlements, on either side of the gate — which he knew would be groaning beneath repeated impacts from battering rams.
At long last, the siege had unsheathed its sharp iron. The waiting was Over.
And they won't hold those walls. Nor the gates. This will be over by dusk. He thought about getting drunk, was comforted by the familiar track of that thought.
Movement from above caught his attention. He looked up to see, arcing in from the west, half a hundred balls of fire, ripping paths through the sky. Flames exploded within sight and beyond as the missiles struck buildings and streets with hammering concussions.
He turned to see a second wave, coming in from the north, one of them growing larger than the others. Still larger, a raging sun, flying directly towards him.
With a curse, Gruntle flung himself back down the stairwell.
The tarry mass struck the street, bounced in a storm of fire, and struck the curved wall of the Camp not ten paces to one side of the stairwell.
The stone core punched through the wall, drawing its flames after it.
Rubble showered the burning street.
Bruised, half deafened, Gruntle scrambled free of the stairwell. Screams sounded from within the Uldan Camp. Smoke was billowing from the hole. Damned things are fire-traps. He turned as the door at the bottom of the stairwell banged open. Buke appeared, dragging an unconscious woman into the clear.
