'I wouldn't recommend it. I have only done it once and I am not keen to repeat the experience.' He shifted the handle of his cane in his sweaty palm. Not that that's terribly likely now, of course. 'I fought on horseback often enough. Charged small bodies of infantry, broke and pursued them. A noble business, cutting men down as they run, I earned all kinds of praise for it. I soon discovered a battle on foot is a different matter. The crush is so tight you can hardly take a breath, let alone perform acts of heroism. The heroes are the ones lucky enough to live through it.' He snorted with joyless laughter. 'I remember being pushed up against a Gurkish officer, as close to each other as lovers, neither one of us able to strike, or do anything but snarl at each other. Spear-points digging everywhere, at random. Men pushed onto the weapons of their own side, or crushed underfoot. More killed by mishap than design.' The whole business is one giant mishap.

'An ugly affair,' muttered Vissbruck, 'but it has to be done.'

'So it does. So it does.' Glokta could see a Gurkish standard waving around above the boiling throng, silk flapping, tattered and stained. Stones flung from the broken walls above began to crash down amongst them. Men pressed in helpless, shoulder to shoulder, unable to move. A great vat of boiling water was upended into their midst from high above. The Gurkish had lost all semblance of order as they came through the breach, and now the formless mass of men began to waver. The defenders pressed in on them from all sides, relentless, shoving with pike and shield, hacking with sword and axe, trampling the fallen under their boots.

'We're driving them back!' came Vissbruck's voice.

'Yes,' muttered Glokta, peering through his eye-glass at the desperate fighting. 'So it would seem.' And my joy is limitless.

The Gurkish assault had been surrounded and men were falling fast, stumbling back up the hill of rubble towards the breach. Gradually the survivors were driven out and down into the no-man's-land behind, flatbows on the walls firing into the mass of men as they fled, spreading panic and murder. The vague sound of the defenders cheering filtered up to them on the walls of the citadel.

One more assault defeated. Scores of Gurkish killed, but there are always more. If they break through the barricades, and into the Lower City, we are finished. They can keep coming as often as they like. We need only lose once, and the game is done.