“You'll grow out of it.”
Mock's Vane squealed as a wayward gust from the harbour cleared the grainy smoke. Ganoes could now smell rotting fish and the waterfront's stink of humanity.
Another Bridgeburner, this one with a broken, scorched fiddle strapped to his back, came up to the commander. He was wiry and if anything younger-only a few years older than Ganoes himself, who was twelve. Strange pockmarks covered his face and the backs of his hands, and his armour was a mixture of foreign accoutrements over a threadbare, stained uniform. A shortsword hung in a cracked wooden scabbard at his hip. He leaned against the merlon beside the other man with the ease of long familiarity.
“It's a bad smell when sorcerers panic,” the newcomer said. “They're losing control down there. Hardly the need for a whole cadre of mages, just to sniff out a few wax-witches.”
The commander sighed. “Thought to wait to see if they'd rein themselves in.”
The soldier grunted. “They are all new, untested. This could scar some of them for ever. Besides,” he added, “more than a few down there are following someone else's orders.”
“A suspicion, no more.”
“The proof's right there,” the other man said. “In the Mouse.”
“Perhaps.”
“You're too protective,” the man said. “Surly says it's your greatest weakness.”
“Surly's the Emperor's concern, not mine.”
A second grunt answered that. “Maybe all of us before too long.”
The commander was silent, slowly turning to study his companion.
The man shrugged. “Just a feeling. She's taking a new name, you know. Laseen.”
“Laseen?”
“Napan word. Means-”
“I know what it means.”
“Hope the Emperor does, too.”
Ganoes said, “It means Thronemaster.”
The two looked down at him.
The wind shifted again, making the iron demon groan on its perch-a smell of cool stone from the Hold itself. “My tutor's Napan,” Ganoes explained.
A new voice spoke behind them, a woman's, imperious and cold.
“Commander.”
Both soldiers turned, but without haste. The commander said to his companion, “The new company needs help down there. Send Dujek and a wing, and get some sappers to contain the fires-wouldn't do to have the whole city burn.”
The soldier nodded, marched away, sparing the woman not a single glance.
She stood with two bodyguards near the portal in the citadel's square tower. Her dusky blue skin marked her as Napan, but she was otherwise plain, wearing a saltstained grey robe, her mousy hair cut short like a soldier's, her features thin and unmemorable. It was, however, her bodyguards that sent a shiver through Ganoes. They flanked her: tall, swathed in black, hands hidden in sleeves, hoods shadowing their faces. Ganoes had never seen a Claw before, but he instinctively knew these creatures to be acolytes of the cult. Which meant the woman was:
The commander said, “It's your mess, Surly. Seems I'll have to clean it up.”
Ganoes was shocked at the absence of fear-the near-contempt in the soldier's voice. Surly had created the Claw, making it a power rivalled only by the Emperor himself.
“That is no longer my name, Commander.”
The man grimaced. “So I've heard. You must be feeling confident in the Emperor's absence. He's not the only one who remembers you as nothing more than a serving-wench down in the Old Quarter. I take it the gratitude's washed off long since.”
The woman's face betrayed no change of expression to mark if the man's words had stung. “The command was a simple one,” she said. “It seems your new officers are unable to cope with the task.”
“It's got out of hand,” the commander said. “They're unseasoned-”
“Not my concern,” she snapped. “Nor am I particularly disappointed. Loss of control delivers its own lessons to those who oppose us.”
“Oppose? A handful of minor witches selling their meagre talents-to what sinister end?”
“Finding the coraval schools on the shoals in the bay.”
“Hood's Breath, woman, hardly a threat to the Empire.”
“Unsanctioned. Defiant of the new laws-”
“Your laws, Surly. They won't work, and when the Emperor returns he'll quash your prohibition of sorcery, you can be certain of that.”
The woman smiled coldly. “You'll be pleased to know that the Tower's signalled the approach of the transports for your new recruits. We'll not miss you or your restless, seditious soldiers, Commander.”