'No, there is a war right now. The Scorpions have come against your city.' Che saw their derision and pressed forward. 'They have broken through your walls! When we came down here, they were at the river. By now they may even have driven your people out into the wastes.'
The Masters exchanged amused glances. 'Our city is proof against what the rabble of the desert can bring against it,' sneered the man. 'Our people shall become stronger for the testing.'
Che stared at them in disbelief. 'Your people are praying to you,' she said. 'It's like nothing I've ever seen anywhere else. The homeless crowd the streets and call to you to save them. You have slept too deeply.'
There was enough passion in her voice, just enough evidence of pain and truth, that their mockery dried up slowly, like the landscape of their memories.
'Such nonsense,' said Elysiath finally, 'but let us witness this prodigy. Watch with us if you will, and you shall see your fears dispelled.' Forty-Three When the Iteration blew, it sprayed debris as high as the bridge and beyond, showering it with shards of twisted metal and fragments of wood. They pattered down across the stones, on attacker and defender alike. The thunderous explosion forced the two combating sides apart, halted even the frenzied activity of the archers. Totho broke from the line and rushed over to the bridge's north parapet, peering down at the ship's ruin below. His heart lurched. Oh, I've done it now. The pride of the Iron Glove's tiny fleet had been destroyed in some backwater, in a war it had no business taking part in. Drephos would be…
Drephos would be interested, if Totho ever got to pass the news back to him. Drephos would see the whole expensive business as a field test, and order someone to work on an improved design. In fact, Drephos would not be remotely upset. The thought of that reaction, shorn of all emotion, washed clean of the blood of Corcoran and his crew, made Totho feel even worse.
Then the Scorpions let out a great roar of triumph and came for them again, made newly bold and fierce by their artillerists' victory. Amnon began shouting for solidarity, and then the charge caught them, denting their line so deeply that Amnon almost skidded off the low rampart and fell back onto the bridge. The Scorpions almost had them then and there, by sheer weight of numbers, for, in the packed crush at the centre, there was precious little room for axe or spear. The Khanaphir resorted to their short swords to hack at their enemies, while the Scorpions used the savage claws their Art had given them.
Meyr loomed behind the lines, reaching past the Khanaphir with his mailed hands, heedless of the blows any Scorpions aimed at him. He caught them up at random, plucked them from their places and hurled them back into the mass of their fellows. It was blind, brutal work. Amnon's backplate was against Meyr's breastplate, and that was the only thing stopping him being forced to give ground.
There was a high, keening cry and Mantis-kinden began dropping among the Scorpion throng. Having discarded their bows, some now wielded knives of stone or chitin, while others relied only on their barbed forearms. It was enough for them, as they plunged into the enemy like strong swimmers and began to kill. Moving with a dazzling economy of effort, they sought out the edge of every piece of armour, aiming for throats and eyes. They were swift, almost dancing across the face of the enemy host where, slender and deadly, they spent themselves on behalf of the city that had conquered them long ago, buying time and room with their blood.
The Scorpions could not match them for speed, but their numbers were inescapable, and their strength enough to kill with a single blow. Totho could track the whirlpools of the Mantids' passing amid the surging sea of enemy, and could track each Marsh-kinden death by their sudden stilling. Soon only a few of them remained, cutting a path of death through the tight-packed Scorpions, then only one. Teuthete herself lived still, and slew, the two inextricably linked in her Mantis mind. By then the Khanaphir line was solid again, though perilously thin, and Amnon was calling her. With a sudden leap she joined him back in the lines, her arms drenched in blood to the shoulders. She was smiling, ablaze with madness.
Totho joined them, climbing to a higher position at one end of the line where he could take a clearer shot. The Scorpions had fallen back a few paces, shields linked again to ward off the archers, but this time they were not going away. There would be no retreating for them now, not until the breach was won. They could smell victory as close as their next breath.
Moments. We have just moments.
'Be ready with the ropes!' Amnon shouted.
It took Totho a moment to recall what he meant, that the stacks of loose stone on either side of the bridge were to serve as a defence and a trap.
The Scorpions struck the Khanaphir shield-wall with a single metal sound. They were fighting mad now, heedless of the archers' arrows striking down at them. They howled and foamed and battered against shields, splitting and cracking them with axe-blows or the solid strikes of halberds. They ran on to the Khanaphir spears and yet kept running, dragging the weapons from their wielders' hands. It was down to close-in sword work again in moments.
Totho loosed and loosed his snapbow, reloading and recharging as fast as his shaking hands could manage. I could do this in the dark, now. I could do it in my sleep. My hands know the drill off by heart. His mind just watched numbly, seeing the Khanaphir line edge slowly back, anchored at either end by the higher stone of the barricade, in the centre by Amnon, his dark armour awash with the blood of his enemies, backed by the whirling, murderous Teuthete and Meyr's bludgeoning reach and strength. Each time the Mole Cricket lashed out it seemed he held some new weapon. He took up whatever the enemy had left him, laying about him with halberds and axes whose shafts splintered and broke after a few swings, with swords whose blades he bent and shattered under the force of his striking. The centre was holding now, but the line bowing to either side. It would only take one breach for them to lose everything.
A crossbow bolt suddenly ricocheted off Totho's helm, snapping his head back, and he clutched at the stonework, while letting his vision clear. Another struck his pauldron, and flew off behind the lines. He turned his snapbow on the enemy archers, killing them through the shields that were supposed to protect them. They will remember this, he thought. If they are writing the last chapter of Khanaphir history, yet we are writing a chapter of theirs. They will remember all of this.
'Archers back!' Amnon yelled, and he shouted it again and a third time before they would obey him. They dropped back from the barricades, and fled straight for Praeda's second line of defence: that huge maze of stone and wood that blocked the far end of the bridge.
'Totho, ready with the ropes!' came Amnon's next order, his voice loud enough to be heard clear over the Scorpions' howling. Totho found himself obeying automatically, slinging his snapbow over his shoulder and dropping back to the taut cables with his sword drawn. Between the surfaces of stone the line of defenders still held tenuously, straining and bulging. If I cut now I'll crush them. He waited, sword raised, looking back towards them as their line fell apart.
'Back!' Amnon shouted, and they tried, but the Scorpions would not let them go without further blood. A half-dozen of the Royal Guard were able to hurl themselves clear. Most of the rest either stayed and died, or died trying to withdraw. Totho noticed Dariset, half a shattered shield still held high, try to jump away, but a Scorpion moved with her, lunging with claws outstretched. He drove one spiked hand into her chest, and she rammed her sword into the huge man's belly, so that the point jutted from his back.