The breaking point was near. Within a few moments more, the vord would gain a foothold on the wall, somewhere, and would begin pouring over it in the thousands. The enemy sensed it as well. More and more of the vord pressed closer to the wall. Ehren could have stepped off the wall and walked a mile without touching the ground.

It was time.

He turned and nodded to the armored old Citizen on his left. “Now?”

Lord Gram had been watching the attack with his helmet off. His hair had been bright red in his youth, but was now mostly grey, with only a few lone, defiant sprigs showing a ruddy hue. He nodded and took his helmet from beneath his arm and settled it onto his head. “Aye. Pack them in any closer, and they’ll overflow the wall.”

“Should we send up the signal?” he said. Once a signal went up, it would propagate along the wall from one firecrafter to the next.

Gram grunted, scowling. “Wait for the order, boy. All we’re looking at is what’s right in front of us. That’s our job. Bernard is looking at the whole picture. That’s his job. He’ll give the order when it’s time.”

A vord gained the wall not twenty feet away, a screaming legionare skewered on one of its scythes. It batted away a second legionare like a toy, then died under the massive maul wielded by a Knight Terra who rushed to plug the breach—but three of its companions had reached the top of the wall in the time that took to happen and drove outward. More vord would join them in a few seconds.

“Lord Gram?” Ehren called. His voice cracked again.

“Wait!” Gram thundered back.

Count Calderon would wait to signal the next phase of the plan until as many of the enemy as possible were in position. Ehren knew that. He also knew that as a commander of a battle this critical, Calderon would be willing to sacrifice the lives of some of the defenders if necessary. He had to be. That was the entire reason to have battle commanders in the first place—so that one man could balance the advantages of logic and reason against the emotional, insane demands of close battle.

It was just that, at the moment, with three vord having mounted the wall and with, oh dear, one of them looking directly at him, it did not seem to Ehren like a sound approach to warfare. He also suddenly thought that it would have been a fine idea to have accepted the set of lorica he had been offered yesterday. Thirty or forty pounds of steel over his fragile flesh (which had seemed impossibly cumbersome for the use of a man who was essentially a glorified rapid-messenger boy, a few hours before) suddenly sounded splendid.