Shroudweaver sighs. ‘Lead on, I suppose.’
Arissa smiles. ‘You’re getting the hang of this.’ She glances to Shipwright, ‘You going to be OK?’
Shipwright nods.
‘Sure. Just not used to’ – she waves a hand – ‘all of this.’
Shroudweaver laughs. ‘Me neither.’
Arissa snorts. ‘You don’t get used to it. You just win it. Otherwise, it happens to you. Mount up.’
They do, the horses picking their way over the remains,stepping carefully around twisted bodies.
Teams pull Hesper’s wounded back towards the boats, cutters already at work. There will be time for the dead later.
Ships’ surgeons stalk the battlefield, grim-faced as gargoyles, shepherded by burly men and women moving four-cornered, bows and eyes roving warily.
Shroudweaver watches them. ‘Can you do anything for them Shipwright? With the spinners?’
She thinks. ‘Possibly, one or two. But I’d need one or two per person. Unless you can pull that trick again.’ She flexes her red, stripped fingers. ‘And I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘I need you both here,’ Arissa calls over her shoulder. ‘Otherwise none of us are getting out of this alive.’
Shipwright shoots Shroudweaver a glance, and he presses his lips tight.
A few clipped shouts and the trumpets pick up a different rhythm. The marines jog towards the walls, some teams with ladders, others with long, whip-thin poles. There’s clearer ground before the wall, beyond those outlying ruins.
Here had been the fairground. The feast of Dreaming Flowers. Here the heralds had sung for the great and good of the city.
The ground was churned to mud by dead feet.
The army forms up before the walls, shields raised and cautious. Not too badly hit at all, despite the ferocity of the fighting. Maybe forty, fifty down.
The horses sidestep, whinny. Something rank in the air still, beneath the obvious horror of the city.
Shroudweaver tries to quest out along the threads, but everything’s a mess. Battlefields always were, somehow. Too many fractured little deaths. This one was worse than most, though.
As his horse resettles its hooves they crunch down through a mouldered breastplate, worn paper thin by the years. The mace held in the withered hand is like no design he’s ever seen, green as a bird’s egg, smooth as its shell.
He reaches down, pries it loose, hefting it experimentally. The haft is made of some dark wood, worked as smooth as the head.
He catches Shipwright eyeing him. ‘You’re an odd fish, aren’t you?’
Smiles sheepishly, feeling a flush scorch his cheeks. ‘Just a curious one.’
She laughs. ‘The fish bit is supposed to be the problem.’
‘Oh.’ The mace suddenly a little slick in his sweating palm.
She rides a little closer, and elbows him in the ribs. ‘We’ll work on it.’
Within minutes the army is arrayed, the ships’ captains striding the front like peacocks, crowing exhortations to blood and infamy, with a side of bribery. Teeth gleaming, hats trimmed with feathers, and helms tooled with designs of the deep.
Luss itself is quiet, aside from the odd creak of a settling building, or the rattle of stone.
The only quick way in is through the great gates, hewn from gilded whalebone but lying half-fallen now, aslant each other like loose teeth in a spinster’s mouth. Beyond that, the walls were a tough climb, still strong on the sea-facing side. According to the scouts, it was only on the inland approach that those vast slabs had caved inwards, as if pushed by a great weight.
A shiver runs down his spine.
