At long last, the siege had unsheathed its sharp iron. The waiting was Over.
And they won't hold those walls. Nor the gates. This will be over by dusk. He thought about getting drunk, was comforted by the familiar track of that thought.
Movement from above caught his attention. He looked up to see, arcing in from the west, half a hundred balls of fire, ripping paths through the sky. Flames exploded within sight and beyond as the missiles struck buildings and streets with hammering concussions.
He turned to see a second wave, coming in from the north, one of them growing larger than the others. Still larger, a raging sun, flying directly towards him.
With a curse, Gruntle flung himself back down the stairwell.
The tarry mass struck the street, bounced in a storm of fire, and struck the curved wall of the Camp not ten paces to one side of the stairwell.
The stone core punched through the wall, drawing its flames after it.
Rubble showered the burning street.
Bruised, half deafened, Gruntle scrambled free of the stairwell. Screams sounded from within the Uldan Camp. Smoke was billowing from the hole. Damned things are fire-traps. He turned as the door at the bottom of the stairwell banged open. Buke appeared, dragging an unconscious woman into the clear.
'How bad?' Gruntle shouted.
Buke glanced up. 'You still here? We're fine. Fire's almost out. Get out of here — go run and hide or something.'
'Good idea,' he growled.
Smoke cloaked the sky, rising in black columns from the entire east side of Capustan, spreading a pall as the wind carried it westward. Flames were visible in the Daru quarter, among the temples and tenements. Judging that the area safest from the burning missiles would be close to the walls, Gruntle set off east down the street. It's only coincidence that Stonny's ahead, at Port Road Gate. She made her choices.
It ain't our fight, dammit. If I'd wanted to be a soldier I'd have joined some Hood-damned army. Abyss take them all-
Another wave from the distant catapults clawed paths through the smoke. He picked up his pace, but the balls of fire were already past him, descending into the city's heart and landing with a staccato drum-roll. They keep that up and I'm liable to get mad. Figures ran through the smoke ahead. The sound of clashing weapons was louder, susurrating like waves flaying a pebble beach. Fine. I'll just find the gate and pull the lass out. Won't take long. Hood knows, I'll beat her unconscious if she objects. We're going to find a way out of here, and that's that.
He approached the back of the row of market stalls facing Inside Port Street. The alleys between the ramshackle stalls were narrow and knee-deep in refuse. The street beyond was invisible behind a wall of smoke. Kicking his way through the rubbish, Gruntle arrived at the street. The gate was to his left, barely visible. The massive doors were shattered, the passageway and threshold heaped with bodies. The block towers flanking the aperture, their blackened sides bearing white scars made by glancing arrows, quarrels and ballista bolts, were both issuing smoke from their arrow-slits. Screams and the clash of swords echoed from within them. Along the wall platforms to either side, soldiers in the garb of the Grey Swords were pushing their way into the top floors of the block towers.
Thumping boots approached from Gruntle's right. A half-dozen Grey Sword squads emerged from the smoke, the front two ranks with swords and shields, the rear two with cocked crossbows. They crossed in front of the caravan captain and took position behind the pile of bodies at the gateway.
A wayward wind swept the smoke from the street's length to Gruntle's right, revealing more bodies — Capanthall, Lestari, and Pannion Betaklites, continuing down the street to a barricaded intersection sixty paces distant, where there was yet another mound of slain soldiers.
Gruntle jogged towards the troop of Grey Swords. Seeing no obvious officer, he elected the crossbow-woman nearest him. 'What's the situation here, soldier?'
She glanced at him, her face a flat, expressionless mask covered in soot, and he was surprised to realize she was Capan. 'We're clearing out the towers up top. The sortie should be back soon — we'll let them through then hold the gateway.'
He stared at her. Sortie? Gods, they've lost their minds! 'Hold, you said.' He glanced at the arched passage. 'For how long?'
She shrugged. 'Sappers are on their way with work crews. There'll be a new gate in a bell or two.'
'How many breaches? What's been lost?'
'I wouldn't know, citizen.'
'Cease your chatter over there,' a male voice called out. 'And get that civilian out of here-'
'Movement ahead, sir!' another soldier shouted.
Crossbows were readied over the shoulders of the crouching swordsmen.
Someone called from outside the passageway, 'Lestari Troop — hold your fire! We're coming in!'
There was no relaxing evident among the Grey Swords. A moment later the first elements of the sortie trundled into view. Cut and battered and bearing wounded, the heavily armoured foot-soldiers began shouting for the Grey Swords to clear a path.
The waiting squads split to form a corridor.
Every Lestari among the first thirty who passed through was encumbered by a wounded comrade. From beyond the gateway the sound of fighting drew Gruntle's attention. It was getting closer. There was a rearguard, protecting those bearing the wounded, and the pressure on them was building.
'Counterattack!' someone bellowed. 'Scalandi skirmishers-'
A horn moaned from high atop the wall to the right of the southside block tower.
The roar was growing from the killing field beyond the gateway. The cobbles beneath Gruntle's boots trembled. Scalandi. They engage in legions of no less than five thousand-
Ranks of Grey Swords were assembling further down Inside Port Street, swordsmen, crossbowmen, and Capanthall archers, forming a fall-back line. An even larger company was gathering beyond them, along with ballistae, trebuchets and hurlers — the latter with their buckets of scalding gravel steaming like cauldrons.
The rearguard stumbled into the passage. Javelins sliced among them, glancing off armour and shield, only one finding its mark, sending a soldier wheeling with the barbed shaft through his neck. The first of the Pannion Scalandi appeared, lithe, leather-shirted and leather-helmed, wielding spears and scavenged swords, a few with wicker shields, pushing against the yielding line of Lestari heavy infantry, dying one after another, yet still more came on, voicing a keening warcry.
'Break! Break!'
The bellowed command had an instant effect, as the Lestari rearguard suddenly disengaged, spun round and bolted down the corridor, leaving their fallen behind — to be claimed by the Scalandi, dragged back, vanishing from sight. Then the skirmishers boiled down the passageway.
The first line of Grey Swords re-formed in the wake of the Lestari. Crossbows snapped. Scores of Scalandi fell, their writhing bodies fouling the efforts of those behind them. Gruntle watched as the Grey Swords calmly reloaded.
A few from the front line of skirmishers reached the mercenary swordsmen, and were summarily cut down.
A second wave, clawing past their fallen kin, surged towards the line.
They withered beneath another flight of quarrels. The passageway was filling with bodies. The next mob of Scalandi to appear were unarmed. Whilst the Grey Swords loaded their crossbows once more, the skirmishers began dragging their dead and dying kin back through the passageway.
The door to the left-side block tower slammed open, startling Gruntle. He spun, hands reaching for his Gadrobi cutlasses, to see a half-dozen Capanthall stumbling into view, coughing, blood-smeared. Among them: Stonny Menackis.