Bernard sagged until he sat down on the bench against the outer wall of the tower, behind them. “Pluvus said an explosion is a very different thing when it starts off surrounded by flesh instead of occurring in the open air. Much more devastating. Apparently a crow ate one of our little fire-spheres one day, and a boy tried to knock it out of the air with his sling before it could escape. Normally, one of the little ones we used at first would only singe some feathers if they went off nearby. This time they found feathers and bits two hundred yards away.”

“I see,” Ehren said. “How very... very nauseating.”

The vordbulk let out another distressed cry. It staggered like a drunkard.

“This bow can put an arrow right through a couple of sides of beef,” Bernard said. “I wouldn’t practice on live cows, of course. Cruel.”

“Mmm,” Ehren said faintly.

The vordbulk shook its head. Fluid slewed out and splattered in great, sickening arcs.

“So I shot at the roof of that thing’s mouth,” Bernard said. “I figure the arrow stopped three or four feet past that. Somewhere up in its brain, maybe. Then...” Bernard made an expanding motion with his hands and settled down to watch the vast creature in silence.

The vordbulk gradually listed to one side and fell. It was a motion more akin to a tree’s toppling—to several trees’ toppling—than any animal’s movement. The ground shook when it landed, and dozens of stones were jarred loose from the side of the bluff, to come crashing down among the buildings of the town. Dust and dirt flew twenty feet into the air around the creature. The vordbulk let out one last slow, gasping cry that trailed off from an earsplitting roar to gradual silence.

Ehren turned his eyes to Bernard and just stared at the man.

“Anybody could have done it,” Bernard said wearily.

Wild cheering, faint by contrast, rang up from the city below, and from the reserve positions behind them.

The Count of Calderon closed his eyes and settled back against the wall of the tower, clearly exhausted, and winced as his shoulders moved. “It was a crowbegotten big target.” He opened one eye to squint at the second vordbulk. “Now. If only I had another one of those arrows. And a sphere to match it. And a night’s sleep.” He shook his head. “We’re all just so bloody tired. I don’t know how Cereus keeps going.”

Ehren sat down beside Bernard, frowning up at the second vordbulk. “Count? What are we going to do about that one?”