The stones and pitch hurled by the catapults broke open the crown of the cathedral, crashed into the walls to reveal an empty library and small rooms. Some fires burned in the building, but most were further down, littered across the stairs to the cathedral. The stones and pitch also fell across the flat-roofed buildings below, just as they tore into the streets and soldiers friendly and not, and left the battle beneath the cathedral one of chaos.
Heast’s first instinct was to find cover behind him, back in the ruins of Ranan. With one exit, he was confident that he could drain the Leerans from their position around the cathedral. The lines of command in the opposition were, if not broken, then damaged and able to be exploited. But the presence of the single bridge was exactly why he ordered Refuge and the Brotherhood towards the cathedral and did not retreat. He didn’t hold the bridge. He couldn’t hold it. It was not even a bridge, technically. It was the remains of a fallen giant, an animated figure Heast had no control over. If the giant fell into the crevasse, it fell, no matter what he said. If it rose up, it rose. If it did either, it would leave Heast with no immediate path to return to the centre of Ranan. He would be forced to make a new bridge and, in doing that, he would lose the momentum he had gained from both the fire lances and the Leerans’ indiscriminate use of catapults.
He had to press forwards.
He had to spend the soldiers to take the ground.
To his left, Sergeant Qiyala and a squad of six were dragging the bodies of the god-touched behind the battle lines. The fire lances had brought down most of Aela Ren’s force and, though they had not risen, some were not dead, and Heast was taking no chances. When the bodies were dragged far enough from the fighting, Qiyala swung a heavy axe over the heads of each of them, while others dropped stakes into their bodies.
The loss of the Innocent’s soldiers had blunted the Leeran counter-attack. The silent, ear-blocked soldiers still controlled the centre of Ranan, especially to the left, where Refuge fought in a long line over debris, but Heast did not believe they would take back what they had lost. Before the siege bombardment started, he had not been sure, but after, neither Refuge, the Brotherhood, nor the Saan would give up their hold. Still, Heast had seen Bliq and three others fall two houses up. It had been a combination of bolts and swords. Leerans had swarmed around the corner. Part of the Brotherhood had swung towards Bliq, Essa at its head, and the attack had broken against his wicked mace, but it highlighted what a small part of the Leerans was broken. To his right, a block over from Essa and his soldiers, the Saan fought. A pair of Ren’s soldiers had cut through a handful of Heast’s soldiers when the bombardment started, heading towards him, and the bridge, but the Saan had flooded into the breach that the god-touched made and pulled down Ren’s soldiers. The old woman who led them ordered them into the streets with her strange, compelling voice. When she passed Heast after the barrage of siege fire that damaged the cathedral, she offered him the faintest nod, before she was lost behind some houses. Beside her walked Miat Dvir and his wife. There was something about the Lord of the Saan’s stance that bothered Heast, but whatever it was, it would have to wait. The battle line on his left that Refuge and the Brotherhood made drew his attention. The fighting there was dense hand-to-hand combat and, through a broken buildings, Heast could see Lehana and Oya holding the centre. He could hear Lehana’s voice ringing out, again and again, with the command to hold the line. At the end of that line, towards the cathedral, Kye Taaira and a small squad held the flank.
They would need reinforcing.
The question was from where, however. Essa was still fighting further up. The line to his right had no fat in it. Qiyala was still dealing with the god-touched. In the bloodstained ruins around him, Anemone and a pair of soldiers tended to the wounded carried out of combat by a dozen soldiers led by Corporal Isaap.
Heast would not send Anemone. He was not sure how much the witch had left in her since the bridge, and if he wanted those soldiers to be of any use again, he had to keep her with them.
That left the Corporal.
‘Isaap,’ he cried out, then stopped.
Beneath him, the ground began to shake. In the damaged cathedral, a piece of a window fell out, twisting and turning until it splintered on the ground.
Setting his steel leg to hold his balance, Heast at first thought that an earthquake had begun, but to his surprise, he felt the ground rise, much like a wave on a boat. Ahead of him, he saw his soldiers and the Leerans stumble and struggle to regain their footing as the ground rose again. As Heast caught his balance, he heard a loud crack and turned, just in time to see the bridge break, and the giant’s body slide with a loud crash into the chasm.
Beyond it, Ranan disappeared.
Awkwardly, Heast made his way stiff-legged towards the edge of the crevasse, unable to believe what he was seeing, unable to believe what was happening.
The centre of Ranan was rising.
Below him now, he could see the ruins Refuge and the Brotherhood had fought through, but on a much smaller scale, as if he were looking at a theatre set, shrunk to half the actual size for the actors to loom over. From his height, he could see the sprawling frames of the catapults throughout the city. They fired as the city rose, but the stones hit the pillar of earth beneath him: a pillar, Heast realized, that had taken the shape of a face.
He stood over one of its eyes – an eye that was opening – and could clearly see in profile the hugeness of it, the massiveness that led to the rest of its features being mashed together. The ugly face was repeated to his left, and again to his right, revealing three identical faces, three faces defined by eyes of stone and dirt, a thick nose of darkest soil, and lips made from clay.
‘LEERANS,’ it said in a grinding voice. ‘YOUR GOD IS DEAD.’
A dirty hand reached over the edge as it spoke. It was human and it reached onto the broken ground near Heast, bloodied and lined with black scars. A second hand covered in mud followed it. When the man’s filthy and bloody head came into view, Heast released the hilt of his sword, and stepped forwards to help the man who had made the bridge to his feet.
Eidan sagged against Heast so heavily that the Captain of Refuge almost stumbled. The blow he had taken across his head appeared to be the worst, but there was no real way to tell, given the dirty state of his clothes. Once Heast adjusted to the weight of the other man, he led him away from the edge, past where Qiyala and the others had staked out the god-touched, to Anemone. At the sight of the god-touched, however, Eidan whispered and the ground spoke again.
‘LEERANS,’ the giant head said. ‘YOUR GOD IS DEAD. AELA REN’S SOLDIERS HAVE FALLEN.’
‘You’re not going to keep saying that, are you?’ Heast asked as he pulled the man along. ‘It will disturb the focus of my soldiers as much as it’ll demoralize the Leerans.’
Eidan laughed roughly. ‘No,’ he said, his voice staggered with pain, ‘but you have to shout to be heard when the enemy blocks its ears.’
The Captain of Refuge grunted in agreement. Before him, the fighting had resumed and, with a shout, he called out to Anemone. As he did, Heast saw two lines of fire flare within the broken crown of the cathedral, the sudden light illuminating not just the faint shadows of people in the ruins, but a green-cloaked man two floors below.
He was on the left-hand side of the cathedral, the most damaged side. The broken frame was like an exposed ribcage on a body, and the cloak a flickering hint of something emerging. Behind it, Heast saw two shapes, the first larger than the other. They were nothing more than shadows until the first grabbed a piece of the cathedral’s frame and used it to swing outwards like a giant gorilla. Its misshapen body – a body Heast had seen the likes of before – landed ahead of the green cloak, but the man it landed in front of ducked and darted forwards, his sword cutting a bright line through the dark of the cathedral.
‘Jae’le,’ Eidan whispered.
The creature’s arm shot out and grabbed the man, but as it dragged him into the night sky, Jae’le drove his sword into the misshapen head. As the creature roared, he grabbed the broken edges of the cathedral above him and swung out into the open. The creature’s grip remained tight, but Jae’le’s boot slammed down on his sword and the creature’s grip failed. A second later, he swung backwards and then inwards and landed in the darkness of the cathedral, unarmed.
Next to Heast, Eidan’s breath caught, and he whispered, ‘Brother,’ but Jae’le appeared to be oblivious to the shadow waiting for him. He turned towards it and was struck twice, both times in the chest as the shadow bore him to the ground.
Jae’le jammed his knee into the groin of his attacker and, with a burst of strength, flipped him off the cathedral.
Eidan’s grip was tight on Heast, but the Captain of Refuge pulled his arm free and pushed him not towards Anemone, but towards Sergeant Qiyala. The ledge Jae’le had lain on was empty, but Heast barely noticed. He shouted again, but this time he shouted for Anemone and Isaap. He ordered them forwards, away from the injured, and towards Kye Taaira’s side.
There, the ancestor who had fallen burst through the line of Leerans.