He chose mostly tribal Spoiled and former Islanders for the initial assault, they being the most attuned to the stealth required for such a task. Each squad was small, only ten fighters apiece, but in an operation of this nature surprise would offset any disadvantage in numbers. They had been dropped by Reds at various locations in the surrounding country-side, Sirus choosing a moonless night to maximise the concealing power of the dark. He decided to lead one of the squads himself, something that had provoked concern from an unlikely source.
“Who will I eat dinner with if you get yourself killed?” Catheline asked, her apparent flippancy diluted somewhat by the tic of genuine worry he saw in her red-black eyes.
“The operation will be dynamic,” he said. “Requiring swift modification. First hand experience of the conditions . . .”
“Oh, don’t be boring,” she chided, pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Her demeanour had remained largely unchanged since suffering the White’s punishment outside Melkorin, though any impulse she might have felt towards confiding in him had vanished in the aftermath. “No unwise heroics,” she said, stepping closer to press a kiss to his cheek. Her lips felt soft and warm on his scaled flesh. “We need our general.”
They steered clear of roads or marked paths during the approach to the city, moving in a loose formation at a steady run. Sirus called a halt when the lights of the outlying western quarter came into view. Veilmist had advised that this was one of the wealthiest districts, which meant a lack of people on the streets at night and, hopefully, fewer patrolling members of the Corvantine Constabulary.
Report, he commanded the other squads as his keen inhuman eyes surveyed broad, neatly kept streets lined with cherry-blossom and acacia. There was no sign of a living soul beyond the lights in the windows. The other squads all reported an untroubled approach, apart from Forest Spear pausing to dispatch a farmer who chose an inopportune moment to visit his outhouse.
A trap? the tribal warrior wondered, sharing his own view of the narrow but empty streets of the much poorer northern quarter. They must know what happened to Melkorin.
More likely a curfew, Sirus replied. It’s probably been in place since Corvus fell to the rebels.
So the garrison is on guard.
Against their own people, not us. We’re likely to encounter patrols the deeper we go. Keep to the roof-tops, kill any sentries you find. Otherwise, proceed as planned.
He led his squad forward, increasing the pace as they entered the first streets, then scrambling up the wall of one of the larger houses to reach the roof. Spoiled hands were perfect for climbing, the claws hard enough to dig into the brickwork as the muscles of their remade limbs carried them upwards. The squad covered the distance to their objective in little under ten minutes, leaping from roof-top to roof-top. A few attic windows blazed into life as their boots sent some slates clattering to the streets below, but they had moved on by the time any curious eyes came to investigate.
The squad encountered the first sentry only when the gatehouse came into view, a youthful and bored-looking conscript fiddling with the rearsight of his rifle. He was perched on the roof of a shop opposite the gatehouse, Sirus taking note of his unkempt uniform and unsoldierly disregard for his surroundings. A Spoiled Islander used his short-bow to sink an arrow into the base of the boy’s skull as Sirus quickly scanned the vicinity for more look-outs. There were two atop the gatehouse itself but none in the street or enclosing roof-tops.
Whoever has charge of this place deserves a court martial, he decided, sending the squad into their prearranged assault plan.
His two marksmen took up position close by, rifles aimed at the sentries on the gatehouse roof, whilst Sirus and the rest of the squad descended to a shadowed alley. He paused for a moment as they prepared their munitions, confirming that the other squads were all in position, then struck a match and touched it to the fuse of the grenade in his hand.
The two marksmen fired as they charged across the street, Sirus glancing up to see the two sentries falling back from the parapet. When they were close enough he threw his grenade, the smoke from the fuse describing an elegant arc as it flew through the narrow gun-port in the gatehouse’s upper floor. The rest of the squad followed suit, save for one who sprinted forward to lay his grenade against the building’s heavy door. The multiple explosions cast an instant pall of dust and smoke over the entire street, Sirus leading his squad through it to hurdle the remnants of the door and charge inside.
A Corvantine sergeant came stumbling down a spiral staircase to Sirus’s left, hands clutching at a bloodied face, then falling dead as one of the tribals slammed the spike of her war-club into his back. The other soldiers on the ground floor were dispatched with similar swiftness, each of them too stunned to offer resistance. Sirus led the squad up the stairs, lighting another grenade then casting it ahead of him. They crouched in the stairwell, waiting for the explosion and when it came charged into the resultant carnage to cut down any survivors. They repeated the process until they reached the roof, finding both sentries dead, each with a bullet-hole through the forehead. The entire assault had taken less than ten minutes.
Sirus checked on the other squads, finding all had met with similar success apart from one who had the misfortune to encounter a Blood Cadre agent in the dock-side gatehouse. The woman clearly had a good deal of experience from the way she set about killing his Spoiled, crushing the skulls of three in quick succession before lighting the rest on fire. Despite this Sirus considered the assault a success, since the agent had done them the service of setting light to the gatehouse before making good her escape.
It’s done, he told Catheline as she watched the distant port from the deck of the Malign Influence. Send them.
You see, Marshal, she said, casting her thoughts wide so as to encompass Morradin’s mind. This is how it should be done.
She shoved Morradin’s dark, envious thoughts aside to share her vision with Sirus, his mind filling with the sight of the army’s entire contingent of Reds alighting from the decks of the fleet, each one carrying Greens in their talons. They’ll spare the docks and the harbour, she said. Just as you asked. We do need more ships, after all.
Veilmist had calculated a carefully co-ordinated sequence in which the fires would be set. Sirus expressed doubts that the drakes would be capable of keeping to such a complex plan but Catheline assured him it wouldn’t be an issue. Even so, he noticed she had spent several hours in silent communion with the White before giving the final assent to his stratagem. It needed something from me . . . the words for which she had been punished replaying in his head as he watched her entwine herself about the beast’s forelegs, both she and the White barely seeming to breathe as their minds touched.
In the event, the drakes kept rigidly to their allotted schedule, first setting fire to the market square near the docks, then the houses to the east and west. There was no repeat of the mass, uncontrolled conflagration that had consumed Melkorin, instead the fires advanced across the city from south to north in a steady progression that had the population fleeing before it. Streets became choked with people, some clutching bundles of hastily gathered belongings, others herding screaming children. Those who attempted to flee to the east or west found themselves menaced by packs of Greens and forced into an unco-ordinated horde which by morning had begun to straggle in loose order along the region’s principal road. This highway led into a shallow river valley to the north where Marshal Morradin waited with seventy thousand Spoiled. The first conversions began by the end of the day.