It was a week since the conference, sufficient time to plan their attack and complete the approach. At Catheline’s instruction the entire affair had been left in Morradin’s hands. Sirus found his own role restricted to overseeing the running of the fleet. He suspected she either wanted to stoke the rivalry between them or obtain an unvarnished example of the marshal’s abilities. Perhaps both.
Morradin’s plan had been characteristically straightforward, though he borrowed some of the more subtle elements from Sirus’s attack on Feros. A small flotilla of ships, disguised as refugee vessels with besmirched hulls and unkempt works, approached the port in late evening, their signal pennants displaying a request for safe harbour. The Melkorin authorities, however, had staunchly refused to raise the door in their wall, gathering their garrison and militia in and around the docks. Sirus felt his sympathy for these people erode slightly when gun-batteries on the wall began casting shells at the supposed refugees.
Yes, Catheline agreed, sensing his disdain. Yet more souls deserving of their fate. But then, they all are.
Whilst the attention of the Melkorin defenders remained fixed on the ships outside their wall, the White’s host of Reds swept over the coast to the east. They flew north for several miles before turning west as the sun began to fade, swooping low to deposit Spoiled and Greens on the port’s outlying suburbs. Meanwhile, Morradin led the bulk of the fleet to land the main force of Spoiled infantry on a broad stretch of beach three miles to the west. Within hours the entire port was in chaos and the Corvantine troops and militia were unable to mount an organised defence. Resistance was still fierce, however, especially amongst the militia who were defending their homes and families. A few companies barricaded themselves into the more substantial buildings in the commercial district, holding out against repeated assaults until Morradin lost patience and asked for assistance from the Reds. Any action undertaken by the drakes that lay outside the original plan had to be approved by Catheline, their lives being regarded as so much more precious than the Spoiled.
Are you sure, Marshal? Catheline asked. Seems a trifle excessive to me. Can’t you just wait for them to run out of ammunition?
They’re blocking the main thoroughfare into the residential neighbourhoods, Morradin replied. My scouts report a large number of people fleeing to the hill-country to the north. The longer this lot holds out the smaller our yield of recruits.
This had been enough for Catheline to unleash the Reds, Katarias leading several dozen out of the night sky to blast the buildings with flame from top to bottom. This attack succeeded in eliminating resistance but also birthed a conflagration that soon spread to much of the port’s western districts.
What a marvellous strategist you are, Marshal, Catheline observed. I ask for recruits and you give me charred corpses.
Morradin’s response consisted of a sullen, reluctant pulse of apology which provoked a surprising laugh from Catheline. “What a simply dreadful man,” she commented to Sirus. “But useful. Not as useful as you, dear General, but still worth keeping around. Don’t you think?” Sirus sensed a genuine enquiry in her tone, eyebrows raised above her wine-glass as she added, “I’ll kill him if you like.”
He felt Morradin tense, the Spoiled of his personal guard immediately turning towards the marshal with levelled rifles. Sirus let the fear seep into his mind, masking his thoughts. Morradin was useful to the White, it was true. He was also supremely arrogant and self-interested to the point of mania, not to mention an Imperial butcher with the blood of thousands on his hands. But, more than that, he hated his enslavement just as much as Sirus did, and such hatred might suit his own ends in time.
“In land warfare he has no equal,” Sirus said, reaching for his own wine-glass. He shrugged as he took a small sip. The wine was an expensive Mandinorian white of impressive vintage, part of the copious stocks looted from the Ironship stores in Feros. Sirus doubted even his father could have afforded a single bottle of the stuff. He had found since his conversion that his senses had been enhanced, including his taste-buds, and he savoured the tingle the wine left on his tongue. Notes of apple with a hint of lemon, matured in oak for at least eighteen years. He shared the taste with Morradin, feeling the marshal’s hatred swell along with his terror.
“However,” Sirus went on, lowering his glass, “his instinctive aggression can cause problems, as you’ve seen. Perhaps punishment would be preferable to execution. But, of course, I leave the matter in your hands.”
“Do you seek to teach me restraint?” Catheline’s lips pursed in mock offence. “I should hope not, sir. I was never one for moderation. But you speak sense. Punishment it is.”
Sirus flinched as she blinked and sent a pulse of pure agony into Morradin’s brain. The marshal stiffened and collapsed, writhing on the cobbled street as the port burned around him. Catheline held out her glass to the Spoiled waiter near by, who dutifully filled it. She had drained the glass by the time the pain faded from Morradin’s mind.
I trust such lessons will not be necessary in future, she told him, all humour gone and her thoughts chilly with sincerity. Now be about your business. Twenty thousand recruits is what I was promised, and what I expect.
Sirus felt the marshal’s thought-command spread to the rest of the army, carrying strict injunctions against any unnecessary killing. Apart from the children, of course, he added. They’re of no use.
“Ah,” Catheline said, brightening as a second waiter approached bearing a tray. “Dessert!”
“This is the point in the evening when most men would try to fuck me.”
She had him stroll with her after dinner. Sirus had been required to dress for the occasion and wore the uniform of an Ironship Protectorate colonel of infantry, complete with several medals won by its former owner. Catheline was attired in an elegant gown of black silk embroidered with flames of red, the product of a skilled dress-maker captured and converted in Feros. She also wore a shawl about her shoulders, fine lace threaded with jewels that glittered as they caught the flickering flames from Melkorin. Sirus supposed that, but for their deformities and the dying city across the water, an ignorant observer might have thought them the image of a romantic young couple.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she added, sensing his surprise at the coarseness of her language. “Seduce me.”
Sirus found himself at a complete loss for words. He had experienced a great deal in a short space of time, but some things were still far beyond his abilities.
“Despite my reputation I was quite choosy, you know,” Catheline went on. “Married men were always my preference, especially if their wives were one of those managerial bitches who loved to sneer at me so. I always found sex and revenge a potent mix.”
They came to the prow of the ship where she paused, rearranging her shawl to reveal her shoulders. Sirus found himself momentarily distracted by the way the light of the burning city played over her flesh, smooth, unscaled and wonderfully human.