He glanced down and found he had a seaweed briquette in his hand.
Salted hells, he mused, just as well I didn't clobber Senya with that. She'd never have let me forget it. He said, "I'll find a bit of cloth to put across the opening of the shaft, but it was probably just sheer chance. It was looking for a way back to its cage." He pointed at the floor. "Ziggers don't have red blood. It had already eaten its fill."
Laisa casually threw the remains into the fireplace. "Revolting things," she said.
As he turned back to the task of laying the fire, Jasper considered what he had just done. He'd killed a zigger. He pondered that, and his thoughts were a revelation.
I've been a withering idiot, he thought. There is more than one way to eat a bab fruit.
And he smiled.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Scarpen Quarter Breccia City Level 40 At sunset on the first day of the attack, Nealrith stood on the wall near the South Gate and felt a moment's brief satisfaction. He hadn't really believed the Reduners would come, but ever since Qanatend had fallen he had prepared for it anyway, and he thought they had all done well.
Considering everyone's lack of experience, not bad at all.
His gaze roved up and down, searching out any activity on the part of the besieging red warriors. Most were hidden among the bab palms of the groves or behind the buildings outside the gates, well out of range of his power to seize their water.
Mistake, that, he thought, to allow the livery stables and the smelters and so many other noisy and grimy workshops to build so close to the walls. Bad strategy for defence of a city. They should have been sited further away.
And now it was too late.
He glanced along the wall at the line of guards. Too few of them, but still, more than he'd expected. Ordinary citizens, determined to do their best, had joined them. They'd be useless under real attack, but armed with butterfly nets, they didn't do too badly against ziggers.
He allowed himself a smile. Ryka's idea, that. The nets, soaked in bab oil, were designed to catch the butterflies that came to lay eggs on the green bab fruit, but they were effective against ziggers. Once the little stinkers were caught, their soft hind wings stuck to the oil and they couldn't fly. Helpless, they were easy to squash. Breccia had not lost as many people as he had feared, even at night, when it was hard to see ziggers.
At intervals along the wall's walkway were catapults, another idea of Ryka's. Inspired by a child's toy, they provided a way of launching fireballs to illuminate what was happening beyond the walls at night, or to heave rocks during the day.
"You sent for me, Rith?"
He turned to look into the street below. Kaneth, mounted on the back of a myriapede, greeted him with a wave. Watergiver damn, but the man looked exhausted. He couldn't have had much sleep in three or four days, and he'd made a ride that would go down in history-if there was anyone left to write it after this was all over.
"Yes," he said. "Wait there; I'll come down." He turned to the overman standing next to him. "I'm going to grab a bite to eat. Let me know immediately if there's any change."
"Yes, m'lord."
By the time he was down in the street, Kaneth had dismounted. Nealrith clapped him on the back, saying, "You've got to snatch some sleep. But come and eat with me first. How are things on the north wall?"
"Quiet. I think the red bastards are sleeping. At a guess, we can expect an attack about two hours before dawn."
"Make sure you get some sleep between now and then." He guided Kaneth towards the guardroom across the street. "But you know, they need not attack at all. They could just maintain a siege and send ziggers in until there are too few of us left to defend the walls."
"They are Reduner warriors hankering after their supposedly more glorious times as nomadic raiders. They'll attack. And I bet they know a lot more about our vulnerabilities than they did before they took Qanatend."
Nealrith grimaced. "You're probably right, unfortunately. I suppose it means we don't have to worry too much about our water supply or our food stores, because those will last longer than we do. Seen Davim at all?"
"Who knows which one he is? They all look alike from up on the wall. And he's probably too damned canny to make himself a target."
"We've done well with killing their ziggers. I'm proud of the men of Breccia."
Kaneth gave a lopsided grin. "Better mention the women, too, or you'll have Ryka punching you on the nose. She's just spent the day keeping ziggers and Reduners out of the waterhall. They've been attacking through the tunnel."
Nealrith nodded. He knew they had lost both the mother cistern and the tunnel to the invaders.
When they entered the nearby guardroom, the aroma of hot food drifted from covered dishes on the table. "Sunlord above," Nealrith said, "that smells good. I don't think I've eaten today, come to think of it, which is foolish of me." He spooned some food into an empty plate. "You heard about my father, didn't you?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, and not just because he was our Cloudmaster."
"I loved the stubborn old goat. I haven't had time to take it all in yet, let alone grieve. I couldn't go to his water gifting. I haven't even seen my mother since he died. I hear she's refusing to leave the city with the others. Sunlord damn it, it's hard to take. All of it." He shook his head wearily. "Eat something, my friend. That's an order. You need it." He watched while Kaneth piled up his plate, then asked, "We are going to lose this one, aren't we? Eventually."
"I… hmm. Yes, I think so. Well, the city anyway. But as long as we get Jasper and Senya out of here safely, there's hope for… something. Jasper is special, Rith. If he stays free, the Quartern has a future."
Nealrith looked at him in surprise. "So says Kaneth the cynic, who always takes the gloomy view?"
Kaneth smiled. "Oh, I think my view is sufficiently dark to please the worst pessimist. It's not weeping likely either you or I will live to see many more sunrises. I just wish…"
"What?"
"That I could save Ryka."
"Ah." He didn't know what to say. I'm lucky, he thought. Senya and Laisa might live through this. He said, "You really love her, then?"
"Sandblast it, Rith," he burst out, "you should see her. Those bastards have been battering at the barrier into the waterhall. Every time they dislodge a brick, they send in more sodding ziggers, and she deals with them until her men get the hole covered. Ryka, who's half blind! She can scarcely see the little stinkers, yet she deals with them, and I can't even stay to help because it's more important I'm out on the walls." He was silent. Finally he threw up his hands. "Yes, I love her. How's that for a sodding joke? Kaneth the tomcat of Level Three, tamed by the edge of the sharpest mind and the barbs of the sharpest tongue in the city, hankering after a woman most men would call plain."
Nealrith was silent.
"You know what will really make you laugh?" Kaneth added, and his voice softened. "To me, she's wise, not shrewish. To me, she's the most beautiful woman in Breccia, not the plainest." He gave a laugh, half amused, half bitter. "And she hasn't let me near her in nearly half a year." Nealrith snatched a nap up on the wall, wrapped in a blanket. All too soon, one of the guards was shaking him awake.
"Highlord," he said, "There's some kind of activity out there."
Nealrith scrambled to his feet and looked over the parapet. "Pedeshit," he whispered, then roared, "Sound the alarm! Get some fireballs out there for light. Move it!"
Little could be seen in the darkness, but what he sensed heaped the terror in his soul. There was a solid line of pedes moving towards the wall. Each carried too many people for him to count. A fireball lobbed over the wall a moment later illuminated the scene. A running pede shied away from the burning ball of woven palm leaves doused in oil, but the others kept on coming, tens of animals, each packed with chalamen and bladesmen.