Blades fall, severing sinews, tendons, the backs of knees.
A few of the crews aren’t quite quick enough, and get caught by a clumsy blade or a hurled spear, but, somehow, it works. The marines peel back, scattering into the ruins. When the dead follow, garrottes swing out razor-sharp and heads tumble.
Shroudweaver watches it all with a faint vertigo. Pulled up out of his own body, it feels like. He’s never really been in a fight like this before.
A man windmills at him, arms flailing, teeth spread wide in a savage grin. Instinctively, Shroudweaver pulls with the silver threads of his left hand, tugs him off-balance, and strikes with the red of the right, sending a clutch of little souls lancing into the side of the man’s face. His jaw explodes in white fire and the body lurches sideways and away.
Shroudweaver steps forwards, ducking against a wall as a spear whirs past inches from his face, and reties frayed threads around his shaking hands.
The living soldiers of Thell are advancing in the wake of the dead. Shields locked, spears out.
The marines try to flank them but they’re outmatched. Rapidly,Hesper’s frontline is pushed back into the ruins of the outer city. Thrust against walls, speared against the stones.
The fighting is brief and brutal. A shield batters Shroudweaver, knocking him to the ground. Glimpsing a raised spear, a helmet, he tries to roll before the shield explodes from the side, and a whirring, buzzing rain of punches drives his attacker to the ground. Shipwright hauls him to his feet, ducks a thrust from a charging warrior, then recoils as Arissa’s sword rises from behind him, cutting into the man’s neck, briefly sticking on his spine. She tugs it free, pushing the body off the sword with her boot. Looks at the pair of them.
‘This is bad. Where are they?’
Shroudweaver shrugs, heart racing. ‘I don’t even know who I’m looking for.’
They backpedal as a squad of marines roils past.
‘We don’t have the numbers for a drawn-out fight like this,’ Arissa yells, as they hurry up some broken stairs to crouch on a low roof.
Distantly, the Gem watches the struggle. Shroudweaver can feel its gaze from here, like a sore under the skin.
Shipwright steadies his shaking shoulders. ‘We’re not done yet, not by a long shot.’
She calls down to the marines below. ‘Hellfire, like we practiced.’
Within the press, a few men peel off, digging into satchels to produce clay jars stuffed with the powder for which Hesper is so rightly feared. Ship weapons originally, a gunners’ mix that would burn sails, and people, in a pinch.
Thell’s shield-bearers advance, implacable. Hesper had tried to plan for this too.
Slings arced up, burly tattooed arms sending the hellfires spiralling over and down towards the centre of the shield-walls.
Shipwright watches them like a hawk, eyes narrow and steady. Not enough in these to break a formation, usually, not enough fire in whatever stones they’d ground down. Not without a little push.
As the pots hit raised shields, bodies, the ground, they splinter. Shipwright opens her spinners at the sound of the first crack, lifting and firing each little grain of dust with energy beyond anything it should ever see.
The shields of Thell light up with scorching flame. It clings to iron, to bone, to hair and lips, and sears until there’s nothing left. A head ignites like a flare.
The formation reels, crumples, and the marines surge forwards.
Shipwright falls to her knees, and vomits. Her nose filled with the stink of burnt meat. On the ground below, half-charred voices call out in liquid, looping misery.
Western wars are not the same.
Hesper advances. The captains and marines finish off the injured with merciless efficiency.
The Gem’s head tilts, and Shroudweaver feels its gaze on them, before its horse turns and files back into the city. The remainder of its army pulls back with it. The stragglers are unceremoniously cut apart. Hesper pulls no punches once her blood is up.
Shroudweaver watches axes fall to sunder limbs. He feels faintly sick, but professionally, relieved. They’ve paid attention to his advice.
Arissa vaults to the ground and takes a fresh horse. Her hair’s wild and mussed, cheeks flushed, her eyes electric. ‘We need to take the gates.’
‘It could be a trap,’ Shroudweaver replies.
She checks a clasp. ‘Of course it is. I have confidence that you and Shipwright can carry us through any surprises.’
