Dolorous bells rang out over the plateau, and the marching ranks began to pivot. Steadily they shifted and merged, until a giant red-robed wedge stood just beyond the bridge’s far end. Chel could almost pick out individual faces, dead-eyed or seething with righteous ire, weapons gripped tight in calloused hands, unburdened by doubt or equivocation. They parted, forming an aisle to their formation’s centre, making way, the glimmer of their armour mingled with the heavy swish of their robes. Behind the first ranks stood another wagon, far smaller than the engines, almost of a size Chel considered normal. It was thickly plated with the same dark metal that had shielded the first engine, low on reinforced axles, a chipped bell dangling from a swaying gibbet above its empty bench. The team that had pulled it into place were cut loose, sent cantering back toward the church lines.
Matil leaned forward. ‘What are they doing now? What is that wagon?’
Chel saw the narrow dust-plume approaching from the depths of the plateau and knew it immediately. He blinked, an echo of the past flashing past his eyes. A circular chamber at the top of a citadel tower, converted to a holding cage, its gate a rotating mechanical marvel; before them a giant in plated steel, impervious, invulnerable, a wolf’s hide cloak flowing from his shoulders, its head proud from his helmet.
‘It’s Hurkel.’
The chariot thundered through the ranks, sending lead-footed confessors sprawling. The two steaming horses at its head were fully barded, little more than shimmering beasts of metal, great hooves crunching on loose stone. Hurkel stood tall, a monster of metal, wolf cloak streaming into the dust behind. He closed on the armoured wagon then eased the reins, rolling to a stop in its shadow. Chel heard the clank of Hurkel’s harness over the wind’s lull, and remembered the great metal legs, stiff and solid, braces for his shattered knees. He remembered with satisfaction, and trepidation.
They waited – the ranks of confessors at the bridge’s end, the nervous defenders among the ruins of the walls. Blood pounded in Chel’s ears as he waited for Hurkel to stomp into view. Behind the wagon, the chariot’s horses stamped and steamed.
Very slowly, the armoured wagon began to move. It wobbled at first, shifting on its reinforced axles, then it was rolling, advancing at a grinding pace, but advancing nonetheless. It began to move toward the bridge.
‘Fuck me,’ Chel said, ‘he’s pushing it? Alone?’
As one, the first ranks of confessors stepped forward, marching onto the bridge. They marched ahead of the wagon, shielding it with their bodies, their bodies with their shields, chanting as they came.
Matil snarled. ‘They mean to finish this today. Barricades! Archers!’
Mira gave an imploring look. ‘We should fall back to the inner gate—’
The Keeper’s glare stilled her words, and she repeated her cry. ‘Archers!’
Reserves of reserves scuttled into view, pressed against the rubble of the collapsed gatehouse in the courtyard, manning the walls that remained above and around it. Volleys of arrows and bolts swept the length of the bridge, ineffective at first, then scoring hits as the confessors advanced. Overhead, another clutch of demon eggs flew high over the gates. Cracks and blasts echoed from within the city where they fell. Screams carried over the wind, along with the sound of falling stone. Cursing, Matil wheeled on her beleaguered staff. ‘Evacuate this side of the city!’
One of the seneschals quibbled, raising the challenges of such an order, as well as the problem of the wrecked bridges to the plains. The Keeper neither screamed nor shouted, but her words, left untranslated by a trembling Mira, sent the man fleeing from the rampart as if a black arrow had lodged in his nethers and was driving him to a skyward expiry.
The confessors on the bridge were over the apex, but dwindling, and some sported shafts jutting from bloody wounds, the colour of their robes masking the extent of the injury. The plated wagon rumbled into view, no longer obscured, but with no team to aim for, the archers could do little to slow its progress.
‘What do you think it is?’ Tarfel asked, gesturing toward the coffin-like wagon. ‘It’s all wrong for a ram. A close-range launcher of some kind?’
Rennic paced beside them, seemingly itching to join the fray. ‘What kind of assault is this? Where are their own archers? Why are they marching ahead of the wagon, not hiding behind it?’
‘Maybe this time they do intend to stack the walls with kegs,’ Chel said. ‘With the first gatehouse gone, there’d be no risk of destroying the bridge.’
‘Saints’ breath, of course,’ the prince said. ‘Exalted, flame arrows!’ Matil turned, questioning. ‘That wagon, it is likely loaded with the black powder. They mean to destroy the gates with it. We must detonate it before it reaches us.’
Matil stepped back from the rampart, lamenting the loss of the first batch of Kosh’s crossbows and their armour-piercing abilities, muttering to herself on the whereabouts and moral character of the woman she’d put in charge of the workshops. Behind her on the bridge, the wagon rolled inexorably onward as the first of the fire arrows dropped like dying fireflies around it.
‘It’s not working,’ Chel sighed, watching the flaming arrows bounce and flutter from the wagon’s armoured carapace. ‘They’re not catching on it, the armour’s too thick.’
‘Maybe oil, once it’s close enough?’ Tarfel suggested.
‘By then it’ll be too fucking late for the gate,’ Rennic grunted. ‘We need to stop it on the bridge. We need to bring that metal monster down.’
Behind them, Matil had begun pacing the rampart. At once, she stopped. ‘All the armour in the world can’t save a man from a knife through his eye-slit,’ she muttered, then turned away, barking orders. She called and gestured to a nearby flunky, cowering beneath a tower doorway. The man dashed over, carrying her helmet.
Tarfel looked at her in shock. ‘Exalted, you’re not …?’
She smiled, low and pursed. ‘I hope it will not come to that, but some things require the personal and public attention of a leader. Mother was never slow to bring that up. Here—’ She fished around her neck, removing the Keeper’s chain, then pressed it into Tarfel’s hands.
‘What? I can’t—’
‘There’s none in the city who will see to your welfare better than you will. Anyone else would sell you to them before the breath left my body.’ She turned to the tower that overlooked them, wherein lurked the remainder of the council. ‘The moment I set foot on the bridge, Prince Tarfel has command of the city, until the moment I request its return. Do we understand?’ She repeated the question in Serican, extracting promises and oaths from all in earshot.
‘Well,’ she said with a small grin, ‘that’s likely the best we’ll manage from them. Let us wish each other luck, and pray for the best on all outcomes.’
Tarfel nodded, swallowing, desperate, and made the sign of the crook, much to Matil’s amusement. Calling for her horse, she strode from the rampart.
A moment later, Kosh came huffing up from the opposite stairway, a bundle of oilskin in her arms. She was sweaty, distracted, singed, and pungent, moving like a startled bird over the rampart. She blinked in confusion at the scene before her, the collapsed gatehouse, the massing troops on the bridge, the absence of Serican Keeper.
Chel intercepted her. ‘Kosh, what tears you away from your work?’
She blinked again, slow to recognize him, then offered the bundle. ‘A messenger … several messengers. They said the new crossbows were lost, demanded more. I have only this.’
Chel opened the bundle. Within lay her original work, her demonstration piece. He nodded his thanks and turned for the rampart.
‘Wait,’ she said, one girlish hand outstretched. ‘Where is the Keeper? Where is the Lady Matil?’
‘In the courtyard below. You should know … she has called for her horse.’
‘I see.’ Their business was concluded, but Kosh made no move.
‘You should get out of here, Kosh. This is not a safe place for anyone.’
‘I would prefer to remain.’
‘Really?’ He changed tack. ‘What of your work, of our project? Surely it needs your attention?’
She shook her head, her eyes scanning the seething rubble in the courtyard below. ‘It is complete. I can do no more with it without you.’
‘Without me?’
‘Indeed.’
He looked down at the crossbow in his arms. ‘Then I will be there as soon as I can.’
‘Foss, Lemon. Time to get below. We’ve got our work cut out.’ Rennic was at his shoulder, peering over at the weapon. ‘Oh. That for me? Got any bolts for it?’
***
Rennic hunched over the crossbow, perched against the thick stone of the rampart wall. ‘Come on, you beetroot-faced fucker,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s test the thickness of that tin suit.’
Chel saw Foss and Lemon reach the courtyard below, fanning out across the rubble among the sparse defenders. Chel hoped it wouldn’t come down to them.
Its confessor guard shot down or driven back, the powder-wagon was half-way over the bridge, pushed over the peak of its arc with a great shunt from the armoured giant in its shadow. It lurched forward, edging away from the steel-clad figure at its tailgate, and in that moment Rennic fired.
The bolt arced over the wreckage of the gatehouse, whistling over the bridge. It slammed into Hurkel’s head, coming to a shivering halt, jutting from between the eyes of the snarling wolf’s head. Hurkel rocked backward and dropped from view behind the slowing wagon.
Those on the walls held their breath. The wagon rolled to a heavy stop.
‘Have that, you f—’ Rennic began, then fell silent. The wolf’s head had appeared over the wagon, the bolt still proud of its furry brow.
‘He’s still up. Little man, we’re going to need more bolts!’
The wolf’s head sailed through the air and thumped down onto the cracked stone of the bridge beside the wagon, the empty pelt cape flowing after it. With a grinding screech, the armoured wagon began to move again.
Tarfel had left the cover of the rear doorway, and was peering beside them. ‘Can you shoot him again?’
Rennic gave a withering look. ‘Now he’s hugging his gut to that wagon? No, princeling, there must be three fists of black iron between us and his vitals, and even our alchemist has limits.’
Chel expected a correction from Kosh, but none came. The wagon rolled onward, its pace increasing, horse collars bouncing empty before it.
‘You could shoot him once he’s beneath us, but …’
‘… It’ll be a bit fucking late then, yes.’
‘Then what in hells do we do? He’ll be at the gate in moments! Where in God’s name is Matil?’
The rider thundered out from beneath them, pounding over the debris in the courtyard, leaping the bulk of wreckage where the gatehouse had fallen. Tall in the saddle, armour gleaming, the rider carried only a shield and a long spear, pennant streaming from its end: a swan.
‘Five hells,’ whispered Chel, ‘it’s her.’ He felt Kosh go still beside him, as if she were holding her entire body rigid.
The Keeper clattered onto the bridge, throwing sparks from hot shoes. The wagon rumbled on toward her, toward the wrecked gatehouse and the vulnerable structures beyond. Matil bore down on the trundling wagon, flying over the stone, closing the distance in mere heartbeats. Then, at the last, she swung wide, dropped the spear, and steered her horse straight into the wagon-side. Horse and rider slammed shield-first into the dark metal of the wagon’s flank at a full charge, rocking it upwards. The two nearside wheels left the ground and for a moment, the wagon tipped on to two wheels, hanging in mid-air. The horse staggered back, dazed, lurching drunkenly to one side. Its rider came with it, loose in the saddle, flopping from impact.
‘It’s going to tip!’ Tarfel cried in triumph.
The wagon wobbled, two wheels spinning useless in the air, then, to the collective dismay of the watchers on the walls, it groaned back downward toward the bridge. The wheels smashed down onto the stone, held for a heartbeat, then the axles collapsed. The wagon slewed as its support gave way, swinging around on shattered wheels until it came to rest, perpendicular to the path of the bridge, still thirty strides from the walls. There it lay in a rising dust cloud, axles split, wheels ruined, its iron belly pressed against the battered stone.
The wall erupted into cheers, chanting their Keeper’s name, singing her praises, jeering the surviving confessors who lurked at the fringes of bow-range at the bridge’s far end. In the lee of the wagon, Matil reeled on her befuddled horse, slowly coming around to the success of her actions. Blinking, she raised one battered gauntlet in salute to those on the walls.
The arm came from nowhere, from the shadow of the dark wagon, viper-quick and grasping. It snatched the Keeper’s leg and yanked, dragging her from her horse and out of sight behind the wagon.
Kosh gasped, her entire body flinching. ‘No!’
The horse danced away, still dazed, uncertain of what it was supposed to be doing. Slowly, it began to walk back toward the gates. The Nort grabbed Tarfel with both hands, almost screaming. ‘Save her!’
He looked back in panicked impotence, then down at the chain still held tight in his sweaty grip. Understanding dawned. ‘Captains—!’
‘Look!’ Kosh squealed beside him, in delight or dismay. ‘Look!’
Matil rolled into the sunlight, face bloodied and coated in dust. She stumbled up to her feet, helmet loose on her head, dented shield still strapped to her arm. Hurkel’s massive armoured shape loomed over her, its metal grinding with his every step.
‘Come on, you meat-stack,’ Rennic rumbled. ‘Come out where I can see you and let’s put this to bed.’ Something pinged in his hand and he ducked back, cursing. ‘Nine goat-fucking hells,’ he cried, ‘not now!’
Chel couldn’t take his eyes off the scene below. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘Fucking string’s snapped! Nort! Do something!’
Kosh blinked and shivered as her eyes refocused, brain adjusting to the task at hand. She looked around the ramparts. ‘Wait there,’ she said, and scuttled away, as if there were nothing else occurring beyond the wall.
One of the captains approached, face etched with worry. He rattled urgent words, which the seneschal translated. ‘Do we sally, your highness? With the walls undefended, the red men on the bridge will advance.’
Tarfel nodded, whey-faced. ‘Hold. For now. But be ready.’ He swallowed. ‘Be ready for my command.’
On the bridge, Matil drew her long, straight sword, keeping her shield pressed against her body. Chel suspected she had already broken her arm. He felt his shoulder throbbing in sympathy. Hurkel advanced, towering over the gold-armoured woman, a giant in black iron. She swung, slashed, stabbed, each blow of her sword meeting only impenetrable plate metal. The giant continued his stomping advance, good hand empty, the other a gleaming metal trident. Her blade boomed away once more from his shell, and then he lunged, wrapping the prongs of his fork-hand around the blade of Matil’s sword and twisting. With a cry, she dropped the weapon, and as it clattered to the stone he lunged with the trident again. She dragged the shield in front of her body, but the prongs punched straight through and into the arm beneath.
Despite the wind, her scream echoed across the city.
Matil fell to her knees, free hand struggling against the gruesome spikes that transfixed her arm and pressed into her body beneath. Hurkel bent over her, driving the fork-arm forward again and again, a slick grimace pulling at his uneven mouth with every thrust. Then, with his remaining hand, he picked up Matil’s fallen sword.
He turned to face the city, yanking the stricken Keeper with him, and began to speak.
‘The fuck is he saying?’ Rennic muttered.
Chel shook his head. ‘Can’t hear over the wind.’
‘Bombastic prick. Where is that fucking alchemist?’
Hurkel was still speaking, gesturing with the sword and occasionally refreshing the Keeper’s screams with a fresh twist of his trident hand. Then he reached some kind of crescendo, and yanked her to her feet. Slowly, Hurkel made his way onto the smashed wagon, clambering stiff-legged until he stood upon its groaning roof, then dragged Matil out into empty air above the bridge, dangling by her ruined arm, still impaled upon his fork-hand.
Kosh came bustling back onto the rampart, a bundle in her arms. ‘I have enough for a temporary repair, although the force of another shot may snap it again. Really, it needs to go back to the workshop for a proper replacement, but it was only ever a prototype, and in the newer models I’ve—’ Her gaze slipped beyond the battlements to the bridge and her mouth formed a small O of horror.
Rennic filled her vision, crossbow extended. ‘Just fucking fix it!’
Hurkel was speaking again, his words lost to the wind, while Matil hung limp and lifeless from his extended arm. Chel had to give horrified respect to the man’s strength; the Keeper was a solid woman, no waif, and he had her entire body weight swaying from his replacement hand. Hurkel roared something at the walls, presumably in triumph, then raised Matil’s sword.
‘Hurry up, Nort,’ Rennic growled, one eye on the bridge.
‘What is—’
‘Just hurry the fuck up!’
Hurkel swung. The first blow smashed against the Keeper’s stranded shield, tearing a chunk from its edge. Hurkel hacked away, bellowing all the while, hewing through wood and metal, splitting the mail beneath. Then bright blood sprayed, and with a sickening crunch the sword bit bone. Matil’s screams pierced the wind as she sagged lower, muscles tearing, then Hurkel delivered the final blow. The Keeper dropped like a sack to the bloodied stone beneath, while Hurkel threw down the sword and tore the ruined shield from his metal prosthesis. Feet planted wide on the wagon roof, he raised the shield over his head while blood streamed from the severed arm still strapped within, and roared his challenge at the walls.
Wordlessly, Kosh pushed the crossbow back into Rennic’s outstretched hands. ‘Finally,’ he tried to say, but his voice faltered, and he swallowed the word. The Nort began to edge away from the ramparts, her gaze like cracked glass, on the verge of shattering. Rennic slotted a bolt against the newly drawn string, and met the little Nort’s fractured glance.
‘I will put this between that fucker’s eyes.’
He propped the crossbow back against the fortifications, drawing a bead on the rampaging giant above the wagon. Already the confessors were flooding forward onto the bridge, their own shields held high in triumph and as protection from archers. An arrow flashed from the wall, slamming against Hurkel’s armoured hide. It splintered on impact, falling away as shards. Hurkel was laughing.
‘Laugh it up, metal man,’ Rennic muttered. ‘Let’s see you chuckle with a bolt in your teeth.’
‘Wait!’ Chel had one hand on his arm, meeting his glare with a gesture to the bridge. ‘Look.’
On the bridge, Matil was moving. Mutilated and bleeding heavily, the Keeper had dragged herself upright against the back of the flattened wagon, and was leaning lop-sided against it. Her remaining arm flapped against its thick hatch, leaving streaks of rusty blood on the metal.
Rennic froze. ‘Nort. Nort!’
Kosh stumbled forward, her mind a thousand miles away.
‘I need fire. I need a flaming bolt. Like in the citadel, you understand? Just like that.’ He grabbed her arm, shaking her, forcing her to acknowledge him. ‘Can you do it?’
Hurkel ripped the dismembered arm clear of the shield and hurled it to the dust below, laughing. Another shot from the walls pinged from his armour, increasing his mirth. Behind him, the confessors advanced. They had begun to chant again.
Kosh focused. She grabbed the bolt and withdrew to the back of the rampart, rummaging in the bundle she’d brought. A moment later, she scurried back, handing Rennic the bolt, a thick wad of something dark slathered around its shaft.
‘What’s—’
She only shook her head, then extended her hand, ready to drop something onto the bolt. ‘Ready?’
Rennic slotted the bolt, and took aim. ‘Almost.’
On the bridge, Matil flailed at the metal hatch. The sounds of her one-armed attempts reached Hurkel at last. Frowning, he began to stomp toward the wagon’s end, making it tremble with every step.
Kosh looked beyond Rennic, and her eyes widened. ‘She’s alive!’
Hurkel reached the wagon’s edge and saw his victim beneath him, her hand on the hatch handle, and roared a murderous challenge. The confessors were a wall of red robes approaching the wagon, shields high against the tepid rain of arrows. Their chants were clear up on the walls now.
Matil opened the hatch. It swung wide, revealing a dark interior stacked with pitch-sealed kegs, and as Matil collapsed back to her knees, she grasped the closest, dragging it into the light.
‘Now,’ Rennic said.
Kosh didn’t move.
‘Fucking now!’
The Nort started, and emptied her hand. Something sparkled, and with a flash the bolt was aflame. Choking back a cough, Rennic sighted through streaming eyes, and fired.
Matil was already moving, crawling away like a three-legged cur, when the smoking bolt hissed from the walls. It streaked down, heavy and wobbling, and missed the exposed keg. Instead, it hit the inside of the wagon’s hatch and ricocheted within, lost from sight. A curl of acrid smoke blew in its wake, joined a moment later by a thin plume from within the wagon.
Hurkel’s eyes widened. He glanced at the smoke, at the wall, at the crawling form of the maimed Keeper, leaving a thick trail of blood in the dust. Then Pentarch Hurkel leapt from the wagon, landing in a clashing heap of iron and frantic rage, scrabbling back from the smoking wagon toward the confessors. Their advance faltered as those in the vanguard saw their commander’s retreat, and a moment later the smoke blew over the column, leaving men choking and turning to flee.
Kosh pointed down at the crawling Keeper, who had made it as far as the shattered iron shield from the first engine, hope kindling in her voice. ‘Can we—’
Something flashed within the wagon, bright and fierce, and then it tore itself apart in a pounding roll of balled flame. Panels of iron blasted into the air, flying as if blasted from another infernal engine, smashing against the walls, the sides of the bridge, the fleeing confessors. Chunks of flaming metal soared into the morning sky, arcing out over the gorge before vanishing into the darkness, their plumes of filthy smoke borne onward by the indifferent wind. Confessors and city guards cried out in pain and terror as molten metal rained around them, a smoking chunk of black iron as big as Chel’s fist cracking the stone of the ramparts beside him.
The rising wall of smoke began to clear, aided by the wind. As the inky fog lifted, it revealed Hurkel, lying prone on the bridge, his armour steaming like a hot cooking iron. It revealed swathes of confessors struck down by flying debris, their screams and cries carried away with the smoke. It revealed no trace of the wounded Keeper, nor the great chunk of iron shield beside which she’d crawled. And it revealed a great rent in the bridge of the ancestors, a blasted hole where the wagon and chariot had sat, which crumbled and spread as Chel watched it. In a rising puff of stone dust, the unsupported sections either side of the gap collapsed inwards, crumbling back to stumps from pillar to the ruin of the city wall. When the collapse at last waned, a gap of thirty strides stood between city and bridge, beneath it only the dark yawn of the gorge and the spindly aqueduct below.
Hurkel lay at the lip of the collapse, and to Chel’s disappointment he began to move. He climbed to his feet, tearing at his armour, shrieking for assistance from the cowering confessors nearby. He snatched at the panels, trying to tear the steaming metal from his flesh, howling and cursing and stomping. At last, the confessors bore him from view, as the red tide fell back from the bridge one more time.
Shouts from the ruined courtyard below brought people running. With shock, Chel saw Lemon and Foss picking their way through the debris, and over Foss’s shoulder lay the slumped and mutilated form of Matil. She was unmoving, deathly still, but their calls for help were answered by running guards and the few staff who remained at the gates. A messenger appeared a moment later, one stride ahead of the guard captain, delivering an update via Mira the seneschal to a dazed and startled Tarfel.
‘She lives, but perhaps not for long, highness.’
He nodded too many times, his head shaking like a rattling cart. ‘Bring her doctors, surgeons. Bring her everyone.’
‘Of course, highness.’
They looked back at the shattered gatehouse, the smoking ruin of the bridge, the massed army beyond it, licking its wounds.
‘And get everyone out of here. Off the walls, out of the gatehouses. Get them to the back of the city.’
The captain frowned, long moustache drooping. ‘Abandon our posts? I do not understand.’
Tarfel pointed at the wrecked bridge. ‘Fear of bringing down the bridge was the only thing holding back their bombardment. Pretty soon, someone over there is going to remember that too.’
The man’s eyes flickered, then with a swift bow he turned and began crying orders. Chel and the others joined the exodus, retreating back through the twisting stairs and narrow passages that interwove the walls, expecting at any moment to hear the whistle and blast of demon eggs.
As they reached the streets beyond, the first explosions tore at the walls.