Nealrith bellowed for a continuous stream of fireballs. He shouted a message to his pede riders within the city to relay to the other rainlords elsewhere. Behind him, the warning drums started thrumming, the sound picked up by the drums of other levels, one after the other up through the city.
He took the water from the face of the nearest pede driver and wished he had enough power to drain the pede itself through its carapace. Useless to waste power blinding it; their eyesight was poor, anyway. They relied on their feelers, not their eyes.
Too hard to target human eyes at this distance. Faces, just grab water from their faces. That one. Another. A third. Then another. Other riders took over the reins from the affected, damn them. A fifth, sixth. That one there. He lost count.
No ziggers. Which meant they intended to scale the walls.
And then there was no more time.
The first of the packpedes leaped at the wall. Spears flew from both sides. Men scrambled. The pede dug the points of its feet into the sheer face of the wall and hauled itself upwards, a giant centipede climbing a rock. It was so huge its back segments were still on the ground when its mouthparts crunched into the top of the wall. The men it carried crawled up its body and over its head to the parapet. One part of Nealrith's mind-the cool, unruffled part that refused to listen to his fear or hear his despair-noted that they had screwed more handles than usual into the pede segments to help them climb.
Pedes all along the wall now, scrabbling to raise their enormous bodies. Living, armoured ladders. The Reduners' mode of entry into the city.
They learned a thing or two, the calm part thought, in Qanatend. Now I know how the city fell.
He used his power again and again, until he had none left. On either side of him, his men died. And were replaced. Fought. And died. Until the man next to him was a grinning Reduner and he had to use his sword to fight a red bladesman whose joy was battle. He knew before he started he was unlikely to win. But he had to try.
And not long afterwards, he was falling, falling. Off the wall. Down, his bloodied sword still in his hand and Senya calling out to him, in that cool part of his head, Don't die, Papa! Don't die! He woke into a darkness so profound he thought it was death. Pain soon told him a different truth. He hurt so much there was no way he could be dead. Something jabbed him in the genitals, sending waves of agony to drown the rest of the pain. He groaned then, and light filtered through the dark of his vision.
He was lying on his back in the street, where he had fallen. He was surrounded by men. Red faces, red clothes, red braided hair. Zigger stink. One of them was holding a spear far too close to his privates. He couldn't move. Everything ached too much and his shaken body would not respond. Waves of pain made nonsense of his thoughts.
From a long way off, he heard a voice speaking in an accent so thick he wasn't sure he understood.
"I, Sandmaster Davim the drover. You, rainlord, son of stormlord. Nealrith, your men say. My men say you no power more. Your men dead now."
His mind struggled with that-and then found an explanation he didn't like. Davim had tortured his men into identifying him and then killed them. The monstrous ache inside him prevented a reply.
"Where stormlord?"
Nealrith looked up at Davim through a haze. "Dead," he said finally. "Died even before the battle started. You'll find his body, what's left of it, in the House of the Dead. You can pay your respects there, to the man who brought you the water you drank every day of your life."
Father. I wanted to say goodbye. Oh, Mother, don't be there when the Reduners arrive! I cannot save you. Maybe Father was the lucky one.
He tried to focus on the sandmaster. Not a large man; he'd expected someone taller. But he reeked of power for all that.
Senya. She will have gone by now. Laisa, too. That was the arrangement: for them to flee the moment the walls were breached.
He tried to reach the man with his power. Tried to take his water. But he had nothing left, nothing. And maybe it wouldn't have made any difference if he'd still had power. Davim was water sensitive, surely, and must have known enough to keep his own water safe.
The withered bastard was smiling, amused.
He knows I tried. Did it tickle him, perhaps? He feels safe now, the rotting piece of shit.
"And the youth? Shale Flint?" Davim asked. His eyes glittered in the flame of a burning torch.
It was night still, then. His own eyes were behaving oddly. He couldn't focus. And his head ached. But then, so did everything else.
"Shale Flint?" The spear poked at him again.
Pedeshit, that hurt! "Jasper left the city. I sent him away."
"Where? When?"
"Sorry. Can't remember. My head hurts. I think I fell off the wall."
An upwards quirk of the lips, a flash of ire in those black eyes: they promised horrors.
Davim turned to the man with the spear and spoke in his own tongue. Then he turned back to Nealrith. "This man cut Nealrith's eye. Give to his zigger. Then number two eye. You no see. Then number one ball, then number two. You no have more children. Then he cut your pleasure stick, feed to cat. You no more pleasure women. You still no say where Shale Flint, he cut tongue. Then you no more tell anyone anything. Understand?"
"I think so. Sounds plain enough."
"Where Shale? You say, I kill you now. All finish quickly then. No hurt more."
Nealrith drifted away from the pain, then deliberately brought himself back. He battled for coherence. It seemed important, although he was no longer sure why. "I have seen all I ever wanted to see. I have the child I desired." Senya, oh, Senya. "There can be no more pleasure when my city is in your hands." Laisa, I wish you could have loved me.
He fought to stay lucid. "To help you find Jasper Bloodstone would be a greater agony. Do your damnedest, Davim the drover, and may your heart shrivel in the waterless land you'll leave behind you."
Davim unsheathed a knife and rapped out a command. Men grabbed Nealrith's arms and legs and held him hard to the ground. He didn't struggle.
No point, he thought. No point to anything now.
Davim leaned over and held the eyelid of Nealrith's left eye open with the fingers of one hand.
I must really have riled him, he thought with grim humour. He's going to do it himself.
Then Davim stuck his knife into the eyeball and cut it out. Agony lanced deep into Nealrith's brain like a stream of molten fire. He struggled then, and screamed. He hadn't known what pain was till then. Blood poured down his face and into his mouth.
Davim straightened up and pushed the eye through the bars of the zigger cage he wore at his belt.
Nealrith didn't see, and no longer cared.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Scarpen Quarter Breccia City Past noon, and the reeve at the Cistern Chambers on Level Six was still alive and still on duty. He unlocked the door to the main water tunnel for Lord Kaneth and fifteen exhausted, wounded men.
"They are killing reeves," Kaneth said as the man lit a candle lantern for them to use in the tunnel. "Level by level. Come with us to Breccia Hall. If you stay here at the waterhall, you'll die."
"It's hard to walk away from your duty," the reeve replied, shaking his head. "My father was the reeve here before me. And his father before him. I grew up here." He sighed. "I shall probably die here. What else is there for me?"
Kaneth looked away. Honour, he thought, comes at a terrible price. He had seen too many good men die this day. Aloud he resorted to ritual words. "May the Sunlord send you solace."
"Take care, my lord."
Kaneth urged his small group of guards uplevel. Tired as they were, bleeding and bruised and limping, they found it a tough dimb. Worse, there were grilles blocking the tunnel on every level, each with a water lock to be opened and closed, which meant Kaneth had to find power somewhere inside himself to manipulate them. He had never been so close to dropping with exhaustion. Blighted eyes, but he was tired!