Colours in the Steel

I…

It’s going to be all right-

It had been close. Another ten minutes or so and the enemy would have rounded them up like sheep in a pen; but the counterattack by Ceuscai’s men (who must have finally cleared the wall, or else they wouldn’t be here) had come, not perhaps at the last moment, but fairly close to it. Now the enemy had fallen back; they’d lost fewer men and inflicted an alarming amount of damage, but the important part of it was that they’d been forced to retreat. In effect, it was an admission that they could no longer defend the landward side of the lower city. Which meant, in turn, that if Ceuscai’s people now controlled the wall, all exits from the city apart from the docks were cut off. The number who could escape through the docks was strictly limited by the number of ships and the space available on them, and the rest had nowhere to go but uphill. It’s going to be all right.

Temrai wrapped a strip of cloth around the cut on his arm, using his teeth to draw the knot tight. It was a scratch, nothing more; the jagged edge of a damaged shield, dragged across him in the squash as they bundled through the hole in the wall. So far, he hadn’t come within arm’s length of the enemy, and for that he was extremely grateful.

‘All right,’ he said, raising his voice to make himself heard. ‘Heads of companies to me, now. Captains, you’ve got five minutes to sort yourselves out and then we’re moving on. Anybody seen Bosadai? No? Oh, right. In that case, you two are in charge of arrow supplies; get some squads organised to pick up what you can find and pass them around.’

The heads-of-companies meeting was short and to the point. Now that the hard work had been done, it was almost time to wrap it up; in fact, by the time the carters had returned to camp, loaded up the stuff and come back, it ought to be time. And then it would be finished.

Loredan stepped forward, putting his weight on his front foot and lunging. The other man was off balance and couldn’t have made an effective parry even if he’d known how to. The first seven inches of the blade went in just below his throat, in the gap where the collarbones meet. He slid off the blade and dropped, making way for the next one.

It’s all very well killing people, but we’re losing this. They weren’t just coming in twos and threes; the flow was continuous, and as soon as one went down there was another behind him and two squashing through on either side. Loredan stopped using the thrust and switched to slashes only; less risk of getting the blade stuck, and what he wanted was wounded men still on their feet and impeding the scrum rather than more corpses getting in his way and upsetting his balance. No place for finesse or precision in a ruck; hard swipes off the back foot, keep the blade moving fast, as close to the body as possible to make it harder to parry effectively, and, if possible, hit them around the face and neck, where it hurts and frightens most.

Dimly he was aware that the man next to him in the line had gone down, which meant his right side was exposed. He stepped back three paces, covering his retreat with a powerful slash that connected with something soft. He realised that he was resigned to the fact that the counterattack, which was more or less their last realistic chance, wasn’t going to happen now; the wall had definitely fallen, so even if they did somehow push the enemy back down the hill, all that’d happen would be that ultimately they’d be enfiladed by archers on the wall, pinned down and surrounded. The plain truth was that there were too many of the enemy now inside the city for his forces to push out again.

Without knowing why, he ducked. As he did so, a poleaxe flashed over the top of his bent neck, slicing the air just where his chin would have been. He estimated where the poleaxe-user must be and lunged at that extrapolated spot, dropping on one knee as he did so just in case the other man had a friend. The blade went into something; he twisted it sharply to the left and freed it, then moved smartly right out of the way of a lance-thrust. He was getting left behind again, which wouldn’t do at all. From his kneeling position he sprang backwards, taking a chance on landing cleanly, and made it. As he landed he swung his sword again, feeling a jarring shock as it rang on a helmet.

Up the hill, then; and once they started on that road they might as well call it a day. Even if they were able to get the second-city gate closed and manned the wall, it’d only be a matter of time. They’d be penned up in a smaller, less advantageous siege, with no prospect of supply or eventual relief. The best they could hope to achieve by holding the second city would be slightly more favourable terms of surrender.

Then to hell with this, Loredan said to himself; nothing more I can do, so let’s just see if there’s a hope in hell of getting through to the docks and out of here.

Easier said than done. It wasn’t just a matter of deciding he didn’t want to play any more; he still had to find a way through the attack and round the hill. Quite possibly he’d left it too late, in which case he might as well lower his sword and get it over with. But that went against the grain, somehow; it was offensive to all the instincts he’d acquired over a decade in the legal profession. It would be tantamount to throwing the fight.

There was only one way he could think of, and if it didn’t work he was finished. On the other hand, he wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice. First he let fly with a broad sweep, very hard and slightly wild; it connected, sure enough, and while the other man was plunging about in panic with half his face carved off, Loredan dropped to his knees, his face only a few inches above the mat of corpses and nearly corpses. He found himself looking into the eyes of a man – one he’d just seen to? Quite possibly, no way of knowing, and did it matter? – who was still just about alive, his eyes wide in a horrified stare, his lips moving without sound, as if he was trying to pass on some tremendous revelation about death. Loredan crawled over him, first a hand on his face, then a knee, and then onwards, scrabbling and slithering over the dead and dying-

– This is adding insult to injury, Bardas. Bad enough to be facing the greatest of all horrors, alone, frightened and in pain, without having some uncaring stranger kneeling on your face while you’re at it-

– For what seemed like hours, with shuffling feet and knees kicking and banging into him, stepping over his head, treading on his outstretched fingers. Still, it had to be done, and so long as nobody looked down, so long as they assumed he was just another nearly dead man wriggling about underfoot, there was a chance he might even get away with it.

He reached a point where there were feet but no more dead bodies, and decided it was time to stand up. He did so, and found himself face to face with a clan warrior, a kid of about sixteen who stared at him in horror as if he’d just shaken hands with the occupant of a freshly made grave. Loredan treated him to a knee in the groin and moved on, slipping sideways between two others and then-

– Out of the battle, as far as he could tell. Nobody was looking round at him, let alone following. He stood still to catch his breath, then hurried at a fast trot for the cover of an archway.

Maybe it’s going to be all right. Perhaps; too early to tell, though. Anyway, the next bit’s the easy part.

He peered into the darkness behind the archway. Now then; this leads to an alley which runs up behind the old fruit warehouse and comes out opposite the pin-makers’ courtyard; turn right there past the chisel-grinders’ row, carry on as far as the tavern with the barmaid with the unfortunate squint, then left down the plane-makers’ arcade as far as the junction with the westernmost ropewalk, alleyway to the left, straight down that, should come out just behind the customs sheds.

He hadn’t gone more than twenty yards into the darkness when his foot caught on something and he went sprawling. He landed on his side, jerked his knees up, pushed against the alley wall and was on his feet again in just over a second, with his sword in a classic two-handed guard. Whatever he’d just tripped over groaned.

Options: kill it in case it follows, leave it or investigate. While he was deciding, it groaned again. Ah, the hell with it, Loredan muttered under his breath.

‘Who’s that?’ he said.

No reply except another low moan. Wondering what in gods’ name he thought he was doing, he sheathed his sword, stooped and put out a hand. He felt a face; smooth, soft, a girl or a young boy.

‘What’s the matter?’ he whispered.

‘Arrow,’ the voice replied.

‘Can you get up?’

Groan. Loredan sighed. This was a complication he really could do without.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

Somehow he got its arm round his shoulder, then straightened his back and knees and lifted. It wasn’t very heavy; almost certainly a girl by the feel, which maybe explained a little why he was doing this extremely rash thing.

‘Now walk,’ he said. ‘Please. If you don’t, I’m going to have to dump you.’

‘I’ll try,’ she said. ‘Difficult.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘If it was easy, everyone’d be able to do it, and where’d be the point in that? All right, I’ve got you. Try and hold on if you can.’

‘Can’t.’

‘All right, then, be difficult. But I’m warning you-’

‘Can’t,’ the girl repeated. ‘No fingers.’

‘What?’

‘No fingers-’

No fingers, no fingers. Who did he know in this city, young girl, skinny, no fingers?

Oh, for crying out loud-

Gorgas Loredan knelt behind the stairs that led up to a gallery of shops, waiting for the men to go by. There were about twelve of them – in other words, too many – and they had a wagon. He considered jumping on, hoping they wouldn’t notice in the dark. No, forget it, not feeling lucky. The wagon, he noticed, was piled high with barrels.

To his intense annoyance, the procession halted about ten yards away from where he was hiding. The escort – they were close enough for him to confirm that they were plainsmen – lit torches from the lantern that swung from the side of the wagon and set about investigating the surrounding area. Gorgas began to feel decidedly nervous, and he had made up his mind to run for it and hope they were too busy to follow him when they stopped poking about and, splitting up into pairs, began to unload the barrels.

The idea of a quick sprint was still appealing. True, there was an archer sitting on the driver’s bench with an arrow nocked and ready, but it seemed a reasonable assumption that his function was primarily defensive. No advantage to be gained by wasting valuable arrows taking pot shots at fleeing civilians in bad light. He made up his mind to start running on the count of five.

He’d reached four when two of the plainsmen rolled their barrel into a shop doorway and flushed out a pair of children, a boy and a girl, approximately six and ten respectively. They had the native common sense to run in different directions; but the archer swivelled round on his bench, followed the girl and shot her through the kidneys at about twenty yards, then drew and nocked an arrow in a single flowing movement and hit the boy square in the middle of his neck at close on forty yards, just as he was about to reach the safety of the alleyway Gorgas had been planning to use himself. By the time he’d looked back at the wagon, the archer had nocked another arrow and was looking round for something to loose it at. One of his companions muttered, ‘Shot!’ under his breath; the rest seemed to take it all in their stride and carried on with their work.

Running for it wasn’t such an inviting prospect any more. Gorgas swore under his breath. Time was getting on and he had things to do and a long way to go. He also had a rough idea of what was in the barrels; if he was right, there would soon be yet another unwelcome complication.

The men nearest to him deposited a barrel no more than ten yards from where he was hiding, which made deciding what he was going to do that bit easier. The prospect was still galling in the extreme; he disliked doing the sort of thing he was now resolved to do even more than the type of people who tended to do it. Nevertheless; in extreme situations there comes a point when heroism is the safest and most logical course of action. As quietly as he could he wriggled up onto his haunches, pulled an arrow from his quiver (only three left; damn), held his bow out at a slant because of the confined space, with his head canted over to compensate; nocked, drew, held and loosed.

Even in bad light it was a routine enough shot, and Gorgas was a perfectly competent archer. Even so, it was a great relief to him when the arrow went home, making that tchock! noise unique to a bodkin-head arrow in manflesh, and the plainsman toppled sideways off the box and onto the ground.

Gorgas nocked another arrow as he stood up, fumbling a little and staggering as his cramped legs protested at the short notice. Only one of the other men had seen what was going on; and in the time between his seeing the shot and calling out to his mates, Gorgas was on his feet and moving well, to the point where he was nearer to the wagon than any of the plainsmen.

He heard several shouts and a grinding noise (sword leaving scabbard) as he vaulted up onto the bench, dropped his bow and grabbed the long-handled whip from its rest. The wagon team were mules, of course; better than one-in-three odds that they weren’t going to budge, and that would be embarrassing. His luck was in, however, which made a pleasant change; even so, there was a man in the act of hauling himself up onto the tailgate by the time the mules moved off at a sharp trot. Without moving from his seat, Gorgas pivoted and lashed out behind him with the whip. He missed, but a couple of barrels chose that moment to fall over and roll against the tailgate, dislodging the one-man boarding party. Another plainsman grabbed one of the canopy stays and ran alongside holding it. Gorgas waited until he’d managed to hop up onto the running-board, his head nicely level with Gorgas’ toecap, before booting him off. By the sound and feel of it, he went under the nearside wheels, which served him right for trying too hard.

He expected further efforts, but they didn’t happen, and before he knew it he was round the corner of the street and going well. From the lack of pursuit he gathered that the remaining carters had written the wagon off to experience and were getting on with their work; a hypothesis that was largely confirmed by a whoosh-boom behind him, a disturbance in the air and a red glow visible out of the corner of his eye. The effect was repeated a number of times before he was out of earshot.

He’s got the recipe right, then, Gorgas said to himself. Not bad going for someone who’d been brought up to regard the wheel as the high-water mark of his people’s technological achievement.

As he drove (north-west and downhill, as far as the streets would let him), he heard and saw a lot more of the same, and blessed his luck for putting him in the way of a clan wagon. One of the first things he’d done was stick the deceased archer’s cap on his head, and the parties of carters and soldiers he passed as he drove took no notice of him. They were all, needless to say, plainsmen; panic, fire and enemy soldiers had cleared this district of everyone who was capable of moving. The logic of it was probably what made him complacent, so that he stopped bothering to keep an eye out; with the result that he didn’t see a man slip out of an alleyway as he drove past and run up on the outside. The first he knew was when someone vaulted up onto the box, pushed him off the bench and grabbed the reins.

He landed painfully, jarring his shoulder and snapping his two remaining arrows. If he’d had time he’d have been in pain; as it was, he only managed to hop on to the tailgate and drop down out of sight because his attacker reined up and brought the wagon to a stop.

This is all Bardas’ fault, he couldn’t help thinking; I try to look after him, and this is what happens. But he knew the accusation was unjust. Properly speaking, it was all of his own making, and one thing he’d always taken pride in was accepting the responsibility for his actions.

Even so; all this scrapping with strangers and running about… And me a respected member of the international banking community.

The cart-thief, whoever he was, had jumped down and gone back to the alleyway he’d first appeared from. Gorgas grinned; a fine athlete, his assailant, but an idiot. He crept forward, sat himself down on the bench and took up the reins.

Just a minute-

There had been something familiar about the way the man had got down off the wagon. It had reminded him of another wagon, a creaky old haywain with a warped front axle; Clefas, Zonaras, Sis and himself underneath pitching up the stooks, Father and Bardas up on the wagon catching them and packing them down, cramming in more than the wain was ever built to carry to save having to make another trip-

‘Bardas?’ he called out. ‘Is that you?’

The man had been on the point of hurling himself at the wagon, all set for an energetic free-for-all on the moving box. He stopped as if he’d run into a wall.

‘Gorgas?’

He grinned, so widely that the glow of the fire on the opposite side of the street shone on his bared teeth. ‘Now that’s lucky,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

‘Gorgas? ’

‘Well, don’t just stand there, get on the damn wagon.’

Bardas Loredan seemed to collapse, like a punctured grain sack as its contents flow out onto the ground. Everything else he’d managed to cope with, even the bizarre shock of tripping over his ex-pupil sworn-enemy in a pitch-dark alley. But this wasn’t something he could take in his stride; not on top of everything else. The headache was a fairly obvious clue, of course; similarly the suspicious ease with which he’d managed to get this far.

He was beginning to wish he hadn’t. Likewise, the fish who suddenly comes across a fat lugworm floating motionless in the water changes its mind about the quality of its luck once it feels the hook draw through its lip.

‘Bardas,’ said the man on the wagon, ‘we haven’t got time. Get your bum on this seat and let’s be going, while there’s still a chance of getting through.’

Bardas had almost made up his mind as to the right thing to do when he suddenly remembered the girl, lying bleeding in the alleyway behind him. He closed his eyes and mouthed a curse. Gorgas’ letter had mentioned a ship; the ship could carry the girl out, if she lived and Gorgas really could get through and he did have a ship waiting, and about a dozen other provisos. Once again, he had no choice in the matter. Once, just once, it’d be nice to be able to decide for himself. One day, maybe.

‘You’ve really got a ship waiting?’ he said. ‘No lies?’

‘If it’s still there, which is getting less certain by the minute.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘There’s a badly wounded girl in the alley back there. You help me get her up on the wagon, and you see to it that she gets away. Understood?’

‘Do we have to? No offence, Bardas, but is this really the time or the place?’

Anything, anything to be able to make him pay, for the sheer satisfaction of ramming my fist into his face and hearing something crack. But I can’t. ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘Over here.’

Fortunately it was too dark in the shadow of the tall buildings behind him to see Gorgas’ face clearly. He was sure he couldn’t have taken that. As it was, there was an indistinct male shape who took the girl’s feet while he scooped her up under the shoulders. They staggered as far as the tailgate and slid her onto the bed of the wagon. Then her face came under the light of the lantern, and Gorgas said, ‘Gods, Bardas, this is unreal.’

‘What?’

‘I was looking for her, too.’ He lifted his head, and the light revealed him. ‘Of course, you don’t know who she is, do you? Bardas, this is your niece.’

No. What did he say? Isn’t it ever going to stop?

‘I’m not kidding, you know,’ Gorgas said. ‘This is your niece, Iseutz. Niessa’s daughter.’

Bardas started to back away, trod in a pothole, staggered and fell over, landing on his backside and jarring his spine. ‘Sorry to have to break it to you like this,’ Gorgas was saying. ‘Obviously, what with one thing and another, it must be a bit of a shock. But we haven’t got time, Bardas. If you want to have a fit, do it when we’re on the goddamn ship.’

Bardas Loredan shook his head, about the only part of him he could still move. ‘I’m not coming on any ship with you, Gorgas. I’m going to stay here and get killed, just to spite you. Now get out of my sight, you and your…’

‘Niece,’ Gorgas said. ‘And you’re getting on this wagon, if I have to pick you up and carry you.’

Bardas smiled; at least, he opened his lips and showed his teeth. ‘You’ve got to catch me first,’ he said; then he turned and started to run.

He’d gone about fifteen yards when the stone hit him.

From the second-city gatehouse, the Lord Lieutenant had a splendid view of the fire; probably the best in the city. It was the sort of spectacle that had to be admired, regardless of the circumstances. The sheer impersonal beauty of the flickering red light was breathtaking. One thing was certain: there wasn’t another man alive who’d ever seen the like.

Fire in the lower city was a nightmare that haunted everybody who held office in Perimadeia. Quite simply, there was nothing anybody could do about it. The place was and always had been a hell of a good bonfire poised and ready to happen. Once a fire managed to get established, it moved faster than a man could run, jumping from roof to roof across the thatched eaves that overhung the narrow streets, surging and swelling as it lit upon oil stores, pitch refineries, distilleries, sulphur bins, grain bins, cloth warehouses, timberyards; it was as if the people of the city had deliberately gone out of their way to provide a relay of inflammable materials, like a string of signal beacons spanning a country.

The critical point was past now; nothing to do but let it burn itself out. Tradition had it that the risk of fire in the lower city was the reason the second city had been founded; a high wall to keep the flames away from the important buildings, the houses of substantial citizens, the libraries of the Order, the offices where vital records were kept. The wall would do its job again, even with the fire-oil lashing up an inferno beyond all precedent. Whether that made him feel better or worse, the Lord Lieutenant wasn’t sure. It meant that in spite of the fire they’d started, the enemy would inherit the second city – and the upper city too, of course, with all its empty wealth of decoration and embellishment – completely intact. The best part of Perimadeia, its beauty and opulence, would survive. Its people wouldn’t.

Two hours ago, the enemy had forced the second-city gate. They’d improvised a highly efficient battering ram out of the driveshaft of the glorious new publicly funded municipal water mill. Three years of diligent searching it had taken to find a single tree trunk long and thick enough to make the driveshaft; then they’d had to pay an exorbitant price for it to the loathsome merchant cartel of Scona, and then a special ship had had to be built up to transport it, the Grand Avenue had been widened (at ruinous expense) to bring it up; special wagons, special cranes – the trouble and expense had been enough to chill the blood. In fact, the administrative part of the Lord Lieutenant’s mind had marvelled at the ease and efficiency with which the enemy had torn the thing out and dragged it, by unassisted manpower, up the hill and against the gate, which had given way like a paper window.

A shout from below told him that the enemy were attacking again. The first attack had pushed them back onto a stretch of wall four towers in each direction on either side of the gate. The second attempt had failed; what remained of the city forces had thrown them back with substantial losses, had even recaptured a further five towers. The third – well, they’d lost fewer than a hundred men at a cost to the enemy of at least a thousand; but here they were, cooped up in the gatehouse and fifty yards of wall on either side, all of the city that remained under the control of the Perimadeian government. It was a realm you could cross in fifteen paces, and the Lord Lieutenant was in sole charge of it. For now, anyway.

On the wall to both the right and the left, the enemy line shuffled forward. The Lord Lieutenant noticed something different, and realised that they’d somehow managed to dig out the old archers’ shields, big wickerwork screens behind which two bowmen could shelter, which had been mothballed at least twenty years ago. They seemed to work just fine; the few arrows left to the city archers were chunking into the wicker as if they were targets in the butts, and the line was advancing steadily. And below-

Below, they appeared to be setting up a couple of torsion engines – ah, yes, the two additional mangonels he’d ordered to fill gaps on the wall, which they’d been due to crane into position tomorrow afternoon. Now the enemy had them, and they appeared to be loading them with medium-sized barrels

… The Lord Lieutenant nodded as he resolved the problem. The barrels were obviously full of fire-oil. A bit risky (drop one short and you’d risk causing damage to the buildings immediately above the wall) but a quick and thoroughly economical way of solving the tactical problem.

The Lord Lieutenant indulged himself with a last view of the city. From this high point he could see the docks – even at this distance he could clearly make out the crowds milling round the docks area, wedged solid in all the streets and roads that led to the harbour district. Everybody must have decided to head for the docks and take their chances; and now the fire was spreading that way, helped slightly by a gentle breeze. It was already licking around the edges of the crowd, and the mere thought of what it must be like down there, trapped between fire and water, crowding in tighter still as the flames advanced, was enough to reconcile him somewhat to the prospect of dying up here in relative peace and quiet.

In the event, the first barrel was a failure. As it flew upward the fuse blew out, and the barrel smashed harmlessly against the top battlements. Well, relatively harmlessly. A fair number of people, including the Lord Lieutenant, were soaked in the fire-oil, which was going to make life interesting as soon as one firebomb did what it was supposed to do.

The second barrel worked just fine, and the engineers watched with dumb fascination as the defenders, their hair and beards suddenly full of fire, streamed out of the choking smoke and melting heat inside the tower, straight into massed volleys of arrows from the archery contingents behind their shields on the wall.

‘All done,’ a captain reported, when it was over. ‘What now?’

Uncle Anakai, who had never seen the like before in all his many years, had regret in his voice when he gave him Temrai’s order. ‘Burn the lot,’ he said, ‘everything that’ll take. But not till we’re through that gate up there – what’s it called? Upper city? Whatever. Shouldn’t take you long to get through there; apparently it isn’t even garrisoned. So, torch the upper city first, then this. And then,’ he added quietly, ‘get yourselves up on this wall before it catches up with you, unless you want to play candles too.’

When he came round, Loredan was lying on his back on the bed of a moving wagon. For a moment he thought he was somewhere else entirely (maybe he’d been dreaming); then he remembered, all too clearly.

He turned his head and saw the outline of Gorgas’ back, silhouetted against an alarmingly red sky. The thing he could feel lying under his left leg was the body of a girl, apparently his niece or what was left of her. He knew without having to check that she was still alive. That’s one of the infuriating things about natural-born pests, the really tiresome and pernicious variety. Knock them about, cut their fingers off, stick them with arrows, hurl them about like stooks of hay; no chance at all of killing them. They’re the ones that always survive, somehow or other. Probably, Loredan realised, why there’s so many of them and so few of us.

Gorgas wasn’t looking at him; his eyes were on the road ahead, a burning house that was starting to slide into the street, a platoon of the clan being herded onto a similar wagon for transport out of danger now that the job was over and the mopping-up could be left to the fire. And that’s what Gorgas is going to do, damn his hatefully intelligent soul; he’s going to creep out of the city in a convoy of enemy wagons. Then all he’s got to do is slip away, find a boat or a small raft, and paddle out to meet this ship of his. The part that really burns me is, I’d never have had the wit to think of that.

The hell with it. Taking care to keep his head down, Loredan edged his way backwards along the bed of the wagon until his feet were hanging over the edge of the open tailgate. Then he pushed away with the palms of his hands until he slid off and landed, face down, on the hard ground.

You may be clever but you don’t catch me, he said to himself as he scraped himself up and somehow found the strength to scramble to his feet. As he ducked down behind the pillar of an archway, he caught sight of his brother’s head, outlined against a backdrop of fire, as if he was wearing the flames. If only that could be the last he ever saw of Gorgas Loredan, he’d be a happy man.

And the rest of your life’s your own. The city was beyond saving, so his obligations in that direction had obviously lapsed. His chances of getting out alive were negligible, which released him from his obligations to his family. Athli was safe. Alexius – well, it would have been nice to have made an effort, but the old man was surely dead by now. He could choose what to do with his last half-hour or so with nobody to please but himself. If he wanted to, he could rush up to the first enemy unit he came across and die fighting. Or he could kick down a tavern door and get as drunk as time permitted. Or he could sit cross-legged in the street and meditate on the infinite. Wouldn’t matter a toss what he did.

Or he could try and escape.

Futile, of course. He had no chance, none whatsoever. On the other hand he was starting from a point of accepting his own death (and taking it pretty damn well, at that). The intellectual challenge would be stimulating, if nothing else. He decided to have a go.

Putting aside what he thought of brother Gorgas as a man, his idea wasn’t a bad one. By now, the docks were out of the question; burning people jumping into the sea and drowning, not the sort of thing you want to have going on around you during your final moments. But if he could get back along the Drovers’ Bridge, possibly even find a horse, once he was safely over the river he could go anywhere, west, east or south by land, north if he could hitch a ride on a ship-

(No money; damn. If I see any it’d be worth picking it up, for food and clothes and fares).

– Anywhere but here, in fact. Maybe he wouldn’t exactly be popular, but nobody would bother to chase him, surely. And he’d still be free, able to do what the hell he liked. It was an intriguing prospect, almost worth staying alive for.

Assuming, of course, that he could make it as far as the bridge and then across the river somehow. Instinct suggested that he should hurry, and he rationalised the urge by arguing that Temrai’s next logical move would be to pull out his remaining men, take up the drawbridge and let the people left inside the city fry. In which case, it’d make sense to get to the bridge before closing time.

It’d be quicker by the backstreets, but that might prove to be a false economy. The fire would make the high-walled alleyways impassable, so he’d do best to stick to the wide streets. The best way, in fact, would be along the ropewalks, which were the nearest thing the city had to natural firebreaks. True, the warehouses on either side would be full of inflammable material, under ordinary circumstances. But ever since the now-discredited Colonel Loredan had bought up all the rope, the stock level in the warehouses had been well below normal. Loredan thought for a moment of the merchant Venart and his rope; now there was a man who had no cares and no worries beyond the trivial aggravations of the commercial life. It would be nice to be someone like that.

To reach the ropewalks from here without using the back lanes meant following this highway down as far as the potters’ district, doubling back up the hill along the bowyers’ avenue as far as the pipemakers’ quarter, then taking the downhill fork through the sack-weavers’ district. Nice wide roads all the way, but quite a lot of distance to cover. Running might be a good idea, except that a running man is never inconspicuous. He’d have to do it by walking fast.

It was all clear until he reached the pipemakers’ arch. Then, as he came round a bend into the main square, he found he’d walked into some kind of last-minute battle; the pipemakers’ company defending their homes and families to the last, that sort of thing. But he didn’t have the time…

Walked into it, quite literally; as he rounded the corner he collided with a man clutching a pike backing away from another man wielding a poleaxe, albeit with more enthusiasm than science. Loredan tried to get out from under the warriors’ feet; but the jolt had broken the pikeman’s concentration, giving the poleaxe man his chance. It wasn’t neglected. The pikeman had been city. Embarrassing.

Loredan stepped back and drew his sword as the clansman cleared the spike of his poleaxe from the wound. The fool made the mistake of attacking; Loredan sidestepped to his right, fending the lunge away from his body to the left, hands reversed, left elbow high; that put him in perfect position for a counterthrust the clansman had neither time nor space to parry. He went down like a coat dropped on the floor; but before Loredan could make himself scarce, another one appeared out of the shadows and came at him with a big Zweyhender sword. Crass mistake; the sword, which was loot, plainly wasn’t the man’s usual weapon, because he was swinging it like a woodcutter’s axe instead of fencing with it, the way the maker had intended. He was completely open as Loredan stepped in under his raised arms and punched the blade of the Guelan through his ribcage. A quick and crafty twist freed the blade before the body hit the ground, which was just as well since it allowed him to bring the sword up in more or less the same movement to block an axe-cut from his left while shuffling right to get out of the way of a lance-thrust from directly in front. From that position it was no real trouble to work himself over to the right-hand side of the axe-wielder, using him to block the man with the lance. Then it was just a matter of disabling the axeman with a jerk of the knee, lunge behind him into the lancer, twist to disengage and bring the sword back across and sharply down to finish off the axeman with a cut across the back of his neck. Easy as shelling peas, Loredan thought with a slight surge of disgust. But then, poor devils, they never had the advantages I’ve had.

Not five yards away, a clansman was holding a city man by the arms while another two clansmen stuck pikes in him. Against his better judgement, Loredan came smartly up behind them and sorted out the two pikemen with successive cuts. The remaining clansman tried to use the dying Perimadeian as a shield, but he was a head taller than his victim, at least to begin with. When he’d finished, Loredan stooped down to look at the city man but he was past help; so that had been a waste of time.

Nobody else got in his way between the arch and the colonnade that connected the pipemakers’ district with the ropewalks. The colonnade itself was a problem; the thatched roof was starting to burn, and Loredan just made it through before it collapsed. But that was all right; he was in the wide open spaces now, with no threat from the fire and room to run instead of having to fight. The ropemakers had rigged up a futile but ingenious barrier of cables, which he had to cut through. Some enthusiast in an upper window loosed a crossbow off at him while he was doing it, not doubt assuming he was the enemy. He missed. Someone else yelled, hold, he’s one of us, and Loredan kept going. Dangerous as well as pointless to rectify the man’s mistake, which was in any event a perfectly natural one. How was he to know I’m no longer one of us, just one of me?

As far as adventures in the ropewalk went, that was about all. The fun started again when he left the wide street and went under the perfumiers’ arch into the square beyond. The perfume quarter wasn’t a healthy place to be, what with all the distilled spirits and aromatic oils that were kept there, and Loredan arrived in it at more or less the same time as the fire. On all four sides of the square buildings were going up in fireballs and the air hummed with flying shrapnel from exploding storage jars. He managed to get out of there with no more than a few scratches and a small shard of jar embedded in his left thigh, but as he ducked under the remains of the arch he found he’d walked straight into a platoon of plainsmen indulging in a little last-minute looting in the pearl-drillers’ courtyard.

I really don’t have time for this, he mused, swinging hard from the left and feeling the blade carve a deep slice into someone’s shoulder. The worst part was that even while he was fighting, part of his mind was on the time and the way ahead. He tried not to allow himself to get distracted, but it wasn’t easy. One man nearly got past his guard while he was daydreaming; he had to take the thrust on the chainmail of his left shoulder, and his riposte was clumsy, though entirely efficient. Nevertheless, in spite of his haste he took ninety seconds or so out to retrieve a dead clansman’s substantial collection of strung pearls. That ought at least to resolve the money problem, though it left his pockets uncomfortably stuffed.

Getting closer now, and that was a mixed blessing; not so much fire here but plenty more clansmen. Fortunately, these weren’t aimless looting parties; most of them were too busy trying to sort out the horrendous traffic jam of wagons full of wounded or evacuated soldiers. He looked for Gorgas in the queue but couldn’t see him. Grabbing a wagon for himself was out of the question with so many enemy soldiers around, while strolling along up the side of the jam wouldn’t be too smart, either.

All right, then, we’ll go under the wretched things. It meant crawling on his hands and knees, but time was no longer a problem. The gate wouldn’t be shut until all the wagons were safely through. He could keep on wriggling until he was actually on the bridge itself; then all he’d have to do was slip out from under, drop unobtrusively into the river and swim to the shore.

I suppose sappers and people who work in mines must get used to this. Wouldn’t suit me. More than the confined space and the pain in his elbows and knees, it was the general feeling of helplessness that troubled him. If anybody did happen to see him, he’d have no chance; they could flush him out like a rabbit into a purse-net, or come within five yards and shoot him, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. After so many years in the racket, hand-to-hand fighting no longer frightened him particularly. He understood it, and though he was always one mistake away from death, at least he knew what he was doing and could estimate the odds. And besides, he was good at it, better than all but a few. Being in a position where he was surrounded by enemies but wouldn’t be able to fight them was a new experience and a very unsavoury one. Still, can’t be much further now. Another two hundred yards, and we’ll be…

He stopped wriggling and held perfectly still.

The light wasn’t marvellous, but the glow of torches and the fire in the background produced enough illumination to let him see a substantial contingent of the enemy straight ahead, working their way slowly down the line of wagons. From what he could see of what they were doing, he guessed that they were looking for someone or something – loot hidden under the box, a stowaway curled up in the back. They were even kneeling down and giving the undersides a cursory glance.

Bad news.

Praying that his hunch was right, Temrai paced along the line of wagons while his men continued with the search. He knew he was holding everything up, that the gate was still open when it should have been shut well over an hour ago; but it was his war, for which he would have to take the ultimate responsibility, so he was going to indulge himself by finding Colonel Bardas Loredan. Until he’d done that, nothing was decided.

He saw something curled up and wrapped in sacking in the back of a wagon and immediately stuck it with his sword. As it slit the coarse fibre, the blade clashed on silver, and a fine gilded chalice dropped out of the cut. More looting, in defiance of strict orders; but he couldn’t be bothered about it now. He cut away the rest of the sack and swept the silver trash out onto the muddy ground, then called forward a detachment of his guards and ordered them to stamp the loot into the mud until there was nothing left visible.

Supposing he’s dead already? Supposing he died and I wasn’t there? Supposing he died early, when there was still a chance that the city might be saved, and he never got to see the fire, the women and children wearing fire in their hair? It’d be like organising the best surprise birthday banquet ever, and the guest of honour not showing up. Oh, gods, if anything’s happened to him I’ll never forgive myself…

Someone was talking to him, behind his left shoulder; Ceuscai’s voice, reporting that his men had forced the gates of the upper city, that the whole of Perimadeia was theirs. The gold, he was saying, the silk and purple carpets, the onyx and sandalwood and silverware and tapestries, the amber and pearls and lapis lazuli and finely carved ivory, reliefs as delicate as fern fronds, the cushions and robes and curtains, the books – oh, gods, the books, how could there be so many words in all the world? – the porcelain and enamel and cloisonne and lacquerware, the flutes, lutes, guitars, trumpets, cymbals, bells, harps, lyres and tympana, the inlaid and damascened weapons, bows, bow-cases, quivers, armour, shields, caparisons and harnesses, the sandals, boots and slippers, the inkwells and writing tables and jewelled styluses, the water clocks and sundials, the plates, cups, jugs, platters, servers, finger-bowls, tureens, knives and napkin rings…

‘Burn it,’ Temrai interrupted him. ‘And no looting. Understood? I want everything burnt.’

For once, Ceuscai knew better than to argue. ‘I’ve put in twelve wagon-loads of barrels,’ he said, ‘and the fuses are laid. When are we closing the gate?’

‘When I’ve finished,’ Temrai replied. ‘Now get the fuses lit and pull your men out. I want everyone ready to go as soon as I’ve done here.’ He turned and faced his old friend, his eyes full of fear. ‘You haven’t heard anything of Colonel Loredan, have you? Nobody’s reported him killed, or taken?’

Ceuscai shook his head. ‘I’ve had all the sergeants questioned,’ he replied. ‘Nobody’s seen or heard anything. Is that why we’re…?’

‘Are you still here?’

Ceuscai dipped his shoulders and walked away. A detachment of men came up, returning from fire-raising duty. Temrai called them over and set them to work searching the wagons. ‘And look out for plunder,’ he added. ‘If you find any, I want the men’s names. We’re taking nothing out of here with us; I want that clearly understood.’

The men didn’t look at all happy, but none of them said a word. The search continued, and the longer it went on, the tighter the knot grew in Temrai’s stomach. Somehow he’d assumed it would be absolutely straightforward; that virtually the first thing he’d see when he entered the city would be Colonel Bardas Loredan, probably standing in the middle of the Grand Avenue with his sword in both hands, challenging him to single combat.

Maybe he’s escaped…

Temrai closed his eyes. If Loredan had escaped, then how in the gods’ names would be ever justify all this, all these thousands of burnt people and all this meaningless, horrible destruction? It’d be enough to drive a man mad; to burn down a whole city and destroy an entire nation just to kill one single individual, and for that one individual to escape… He drove the thought out of his mind, repulsing the assault it had made on the citadel of his sanity. The gods who had given him Perimadeia wouldn’t do that to him.

He bent down and peered under a wagon, and saw a pair of eyes fixed on his. It was a boy, eleven or twelve years old, his overgrown arms and legs folded awkwardly under the chassis, his face full of the sort of terror Temrai knew so much about. In his eyes, Temrai thought he could see an afterimage of fire and running, things he’d seen himself so long ago, as if he was staring into his own unpleasant memories. Did you see your mother burn? he wondered. Your brothers and sisters wearing fire until all the flesh and skin was gone and there were only black bones, like the ruins of a city? He felt pity clawing inside him, like a cat scrambling up a curtain, like the old white cat his mother had loved so much scrambling up the inside of their tent when it caught fire, and the cat had moved faster than the fire until he had nowhere left to go. He thought of a boy carrying that much fire inside him for the rest of his life, never being able to close his eyes without it being there. He thought about that, and took pity, and nocked an arrow onto his bowstring. I’ve become a very cruel man, he thought, but not that cruel. I’ll spare him that, at least.

He bent the bow and looked across the belly, taking aim. He felt the string biting the joints of his fingers; then there was someone calling his name, Temrai, look out! and a terrible pain as something hit him across the back and side of the head. The arrow fell off the bow and he slumped forward, hitting the ground in a heap. It had been Ceuscai’s voice; he looked up and saw Ceuscai, and between Ceuscai and himself the back of a man, familiar-

Colonel Bardas Loredan.

– Who was swinging a sword in both hands while Ceuscai was moving the shaft of his pike to parry the blow. Temrai could see Ceuscai had got it wrong, but there wasn’t time; Loredan’s sword hit him under the jaw on his right side and sliced, with a thick fleshy noise, the sound of butchers quartering carcasses or deer being dressed after the hunt, until it came out the other side; and Ceuscai’s head toppled off his shoulders and hung by a strip of unsevered skin over his left shoulder; and then he wobbled and fell over, and Loredan had turned to stand over him.

– Like a dream he sometimes had, in which the man he now knew to be Colonel Bardas Loredan had seen the boy cowering under the wagon, dismounted and walked over, stood over him, bent down and reached out a long arm, an arm that seemed to stretch for ever, following him wherever he scuttled and scrambled to, grabbing his arm or his wrist, pulling until he could feel the ball of the bone pull out of the socket and the arm come off, and when that happened the hand would grab his other arm or his leg or his neck, until he’d been pulled to pieces, the way children tear the petals slowly from a flower, and there was nothing left of him but whatever it was that was dreaming the dream; and then the hand grabbed that and he woke up…

Didn’t they say that if you could break into a dream and catch the moment in your hand, you could twist it round the other way, make things happen differently? Was that what he’d done-?

‘Get up,’ Loredan said. Temrai tried to back away, get under the wagon; he could see men behind Loredan’s shoulder, hurrying to rescue him, but just like in the dream they were too far away, there wasn’t time. Loredan’s hand was in his hair now, as terrifying as fire; Loredan pulled and suddenly he was on his feet, yanked round, one arm twisted agonisingly behind his back so he couldn’t move for fear of it being torn out. He felt something cold and sharp under his chin.

‘Get back or I’ll cut his throat,’ Loredan was shouting. ‘Right, you, for once in your life do something useful and tell them to go away.’

Temrai tried to obey, but all he could do was squeak. He had never felt so terrified. It was the worst moment of his life.

‘You,’ Loredan was shouting, ‘under the wagon, get out of there, you’re coming with me. Anybody lays a finger on him and I’ll kill the chief.’

Temrai saw movement out of the corner of his eye; the boy he’d been aiming at, wanting to spare him the pain, was scrambling out of the mud and standing up, scared out of his wits, not knowing what to do.

‘Over here,’ Loredan’s voice boomed. ‘Get the knife out of my belt and prod this bastard under the armpit – gently, for god’s sakes, it’s insurance, so if they try and pick me off their boss’ll still die.’ Gods, how calm he sounded, how terribly good he was at all this; how stupid, Temrai realised, even to try and measure himself against this man, who was clearly Death itself. All these years he’d been daydreaming of a grand battle, sword against sword like a Perimadeian lawsuit, with Justice guiding his thrust at the last and confirming the righteousness of his cause. How stupid-

‘Easy,’ Loredan breathed in his ear, ‘do as you’re told and everything’s going to be fine. Now, we’re going to take a walk, just as far as the bridge. You got that? Now move.’

A little twist on his arm, enough to have made him scream if he’d still had a voice; then Loredan’s knee against his, nudging him forward, completely under the other man’s control. He knew that Loredan could snap him in two like a twig, or slice off his head, or rip off his limbs one by one, and there’d be nothing he could do. He wanted so much not to die; or at least not this way, not killed by Colonel Bardas Loredan, as if death at his hands would be so much worse, more painful, more final than any other kind. Loredan could destroy him, break off his head, drink his blood and eat his soul; he was Death and the devil and all the horror in the universe, all the horror that he, Temrai the Sacker of Cities, Temrai the Slaughterer, had brought into the world-

‘That’s it,’ Loredan’s voice, intimate inside his ear, ‘we’re doing fine. Don’t you just love it when stories have a happy ending?’

It seemed as if the whole clan was there, watching, backing away as they passed; because in spite of everything, the engines and the fire and the several million arrows he’d had made and caused to be loosed, there was no power on earth, let alone one puny nation, that could stand up against the horror of Colonel Loredan, the eater of souls, the bringer of Death and Justice, this terrible force his blind folly had let loose upon the world. As for what would happen when the monster had finished playing with him, he couldn’t begin to imagine; the extremity of pain, or everlasting torment-

‘Keep back,’ Loredan snapped. ‘Further off, you know better than that. Keep that knife steady, son, if you scrag him we’re both dead. Right, you, we’re going to turn around. When I say turn-’

It was an awkward, ludicrous, crab-scuttling-sideways manoeuvre, like a little child being taught to dance; and then Temrai was facing the clan, the line of wagons and a splendid view of the whole of the city, burning. He’s making me look at what I’ve done before he kills me, Temrai said to himself, because he’s Justice and everything’s my fault. There was blood running down Temrai’s face from the cut across his scalp; it was dripping into the corner of one eye, making him blink. They were under the arch of the gatehouse now, walking backwards onto the drawbridge. He could see the glow of fire reflected on the water; they were stepping awkwardly over dead bodies.

‘This is as far as we go, Temrai,’ Loredan whispered. ‘Thanks for your help. You know, you remind me a bit of me when I was your age. You-’ He was speaking to the boy, the one who’d been under the wagon. ‘Can you swim?’

The boy said that he thought he could.

‘That’s good. Now put my knife back and jump.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Don’t just stand there-’ Temrai heard the splash; then there was another horrible pain in his arm, and Loredan was whispering again, so close that the voice was inside his head. ‘I ought to kill you, but I never could see any point in revenge. You might care to think about that.’ Then a great force in the small of his back sent him sprawling on the planks of the drawbridge, and from the water below a great splash.

Then there were people round him, helping him up, shouting, holding up torches and lanterns, loosing off arrows into the water. Temrai shook himself free and stared at the water, but there was no sign of anything there; a few bodies floating, but not his. He’s swimming underwater, Temrai thought; or the weight of his armour’s pulled him down and drowned him. No, don’t be stupid, he can’t die. He’s vanished, or grown wings and flown away. He’s gone, and I’m still alive-

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Leave it. Get everyone out of the city, close the gate and break up the causeway. I want this finished with now.’

His lungs were bursting and all his joints were full of pain. The mailshirt was a man grabbing hold of him and pulling him down; there was no escape this time, he was going to die – ironic, really, that he should die now, after the great escape-

‘Wake up,’ said a voice overhead. ‘It’s all right, it’s just a dream.’

He opened his eyes, and saw the face of the boy, the kid he’d rescued from under the wagon. ‘Wassis?’ he mumbled through a mouthful of sleep. Behind the boy’s head was blue sky, a few seagulls circling.

‘It’s all right,’ the boy laughed, ‘you’re safe. You’re on a ship, remember?’

Loredan sat up and winced; he’d forgotten about all the wrenched muscles. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I must have been having a nightmare or something.’

The boy grinned.‘Look,’ he said, pointing at the horizon, ‘we’ve arrived.’

On the skyline, Loredan could see the outline of a city; a high wall, towers and domes, sunlight flashing off the gilded roof of a great temple. It was a place he’d heard of, one of those once-upon-a-time places that are reputed to exist, but he’d never thought he’d ever go there. And now, here he was.

It was smaller than he’d imagined.

‘How are you feeling?’ the boy asked. ‘I think the fever’s well and truly broken by now, but the captain says he knows a good doctor, just in case. He’s been really nice, hasn’t he?’

Loredan nodded grimly. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘he has.’ He saw that his tone of voice was worrying the boy, and he smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘we’ll be all right. I’ve got relatives here who’ll look after us.’

He stood up, stretching his cramped legs, and studied the city in the distance. That big shiny thing with the gold roof and the bobble on top was presumably the Great Temple. Even he’d heard of the Great Temple. It was the one building in this city that everyone knew about.

Then he turned round and looked at the mainsail of the ship, with the distinctive symbol painted in the middle. It was familiar enough, though strange in this context, the logo of the company whose ship this was; a bow fully bent, and seven arrows.

‘This is wonderful,’ the boy said, shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed at the distant city. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Scona.’