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“Pick out the biggest loudmouths and put them in front of a firing squad,” Varkash suggested at the council of war Lizanne convened at the Redoubt. “Or hang them if you’d rather save the ammunition.”

“That will set the whole army to riot,” Arberus said. “A few days of rest and decent food will do much to restore their discipline.”

“If the Spoiled will give us that long,” Alzar said. “Besides which, cowards they may be but it doesn’t make them wrong. If we couldn’t stand against the monsters at the Sands, how can we stand against them here?”

Arberus began to reply but Lizanne caught his eye and shook her head. “We can’t,” she told them. “Not indefinitely. But General Arberus assures me that we can hold out for several days, perhaps longer. And it is important that we do so.”

“Why?” Alzar asked. “We can transport the army to Iskamir, gather more strength.”

“Leaving the White to advance into the heart of the peninsular,” Lizanne said. “Where there are far more people than we could ever hope to evacuate. Once there the White can gather an army so great there will be no force in this world that can stop it. We have to hold here, for as long as we can.” She paused, unsure of how to explain her reasoning. She was asking a great deal of these people, many would die if they continued to follow her lead. But many more might live. “A man is coming here,” she said. “A Blood-blessed, bearing a new weapon found in the Arradsian Interior. Something that can kill the White.”

“What kind of weapon?” Alzar demanded. “And why haven’t we heard of this before?”

“Because the White knows the secrets of every human it makes into a monster,” Lizanne replied. “Which is why I will not tell you the nature of this weapon. Suffice to say that if we can keep the White’s attention on us for the next month, we have a chance to end this.”

“We wounded them badly at the Sands,” Arberus added. “They’ll be more wary of us now, more cautious, and a cautious enemy is a slow enemy.”

Alzar’s doubts were plain but he gave a slow nod. “Very well. I’ll take a tour of the camp, speak to these malcontents. See if I can’t harden a few hearts.”

“My lot will happily form the firing squad if you can’t,” Varkash offered.

“Good to see time has done a lot to mellow your soul,” Alzar observed dryly.

Lizanne expected Varkash to bridle at this but he just laughed. “What use is a mellow soul in an age such as this?”

CHAPTER 45

Sirus

The glass crunched under his boots as he strode to the centre of the near-perfect circle blasted into the Jet Sands. Hotter than a furnace, he concluded, crouching to retrieve a shard of the glass produced by the heat of the explosion. He found the way it caught the light oddly beautiful, resembling obsidian in its lack of transparency. Casting his gaze around, he could find no corpses within this circle, despite Veilmist’s estimate that over three thousand Spoiled had died at this very spot. The blast and the heat had been so powerful they had simply been vaporised. The first explosion hadn’t been so well placed, claiming only about two thousand Spoiled, but together they had sown enough disruption in the advance to make his victory a flawed one.

Morradin would have been spitting bile, he thought with a grim smile, tossing the shard of glass away and rising as Catheline spoke in his head.

He’s ready, she told him. Best if you hurry. I’ve no idea how long he’ll last.

The captive was the only survivor of the airship the Reds had brought down, plucked from the Sands with near-fatal burns, multiple broken bones and crushed organs. Reasoning that a small experiment would cost nothing, Sirus had him taken to the Blue crystal. After the conversion many of his injuries remained beyond repair, but his brain was still intact.

Where are the airships made? Sirus enquired, staring down at the lopsided face of the newly fashioned Spoiled. The fall had robbed him of a cheek-bone and one of his eyes in addition to shattering his jaw, but Sirus didn’t need to hear him talk.

Aerostats, the Spoiled corrected, his thoughts possessed of a surprising coherence. A brief rummage through the man’s memories revealed him to be a former locomotive-driver with a level of technical understanding Sirus would be sorry to lose. They are manufactured at a place called the Mount Works, the Spoiled went on. Along with many other weapons.

Sirus felt a flare of excitement from Catheline, one he couldn’t help but share. He summoned a mental map of the Varestian Peninsular and pushed it into the Spoiled’s mind along with a question. Where is it?

* * *

“You shouldn’t be risking yourself like this,” Catheline had said as he climbed onto Katarias’s back. She reached out to him as he settled between the spines, one hand clutching her shawl about her shoulders whilst she grasped his forearm. He supposed that to an ignorant observer they might have made a romantic tableau, the hero being sent off to war by his beautiful, golden-haired paramour. But he wasn’t a hero, he was a monster and Catheline, in any way that mattered, was far from beautiful.

“The mission is crucial,” he replied. “The outcome must be certain. I need to lead in person.”

She didn’t object, the White’s approval overriding any objections she might harbour though Sirus was struck by the anguish evident in her face. “If you don’t come back . . .” she began, then faltered before continuing. “It will be . . . difficult.”

“Veilmist will make an adequate replacement,” he said.

She looked up, meeting his gaze, red-black eyes wide and expression devoid of the arch cynicism he had come to expect. “That’s not what I meant.”

Katarias banked steeply to avoid a thick patch of cloud, bringing Sirus back to the present with a jolt. Looking down, he could see the two moons reflected on a calm sea, meaning they had crossed the coast-line north of Blaska Sound. He had opted to cover much of the distance in an overland flight, avoiding the many eyes of the Varestian fleet whilst also affording the Reds the opportunity to rest along the way. Even a drake couldn’t stay aloft indefinitely. After flying from midnight to noon, Sirus had the formation set down where the mountains rose some fifty miles north-west of their objective. There were thirty Reds in all, each carrying a veteran Spoiled. Hardly a mighty force but it was important their approach not be noticed. Sirus also calculated that the intelligence provided by the aerostat pilot before his inevitable death would more than compensate for a lack of numbers.

He waited for nightfall before setting off again, skirting the northern flank of the mountains and making for the coast whereupon the Reds made a sharp turn into the Sound. They flew low over the placid waters, wary of being silhouetted against the two moons. The Mount Works soon came into view, Sirus quickly confirming that the description of the defences matched the mental image supplied by the pilot. Lizanne Lethridge clearly hadn’t taken the settlement’s security for granted. There were a dozen gun emplacements surrounding the town and the manufactory, with another six within, all manned day and night by the town militia. However, it was the manufactory that captured most of his interest, a large building with light streaming from its windows and open main doors, illuminating the copious steam and smoke rising from its vents.