Sergeant Whiskeyjack was studying the wreckage on the hill. Tattersail watched him piece together what had happened. A muscle in his cheek twitched. He looked at her with new understanding, a hint of softening behind his grey eyes that almost broke Tattersail then and there. 'Are you the last left in the cadre?' he asked.

She looked away, feeling brittle. 'The last left standing. It wasn't skill, either. Just lucky.'

If he heard her bitterness he gave no sign, falling silent as he watched his two Seven Cities soldiers crouching low over Hairlock.

Tattersail licked her lips, shifted uneasily. She glanced over to the two soldiers. A quiet conversation was under way. She heard Hairlock laugh, the sound a soft jolt that made her wince. 'The tall one,' she said. 'He's a mage, isn't he?'

Whiskeyjack grunted, then said, 'His name's Quick Ben.'

'Not the one he was born with.'

'No.'

She rolled her shoulders against the weight of her cloak, momentarily easing the dull pain in her lower back. 'I should know him, Sergeant. That kind of power gets noticed. He's no novice.'

'No,' Whiskeyjack replied. 'He isn't.'

She felt herself getting angry. 'I want an explanation. What's happening here?'

Whiskeyjack grimaced. 'Not much, by the looks of it.' He raised his voice. 'Quick Ben!'

The mage looked over. 'Some last-minute negotiations, Sergeant,' he said, flashing a white grin.

'Hood's Breath.' Tattersail sighed, turning away. The girl, she saw, still stood at the hill's crest and seemed to be studying the Moranth columns passing into the city. As if sensing Tattersail's attention, her head snapped around. Her expression startled the sorceress. Tattersail pulled her eyes away. 'Is this what's left of your squad, Sergeant? Two desert marauders and a blood-hungry recruit?'

Whiskeyjack's tone was flat: 'I have seven left.'

'This morning?'

'Fifteen.'

Something's wrong here. Feeling a need to say something, she said, 'Better than most.' She cursed silently as the blood drained from the sergeant's face. 'Still,' she added, 'I'm sure they were good men, the ones you lost.'

'Good at dying,' he said.

The brutality of his words shocked her. Mentally reeling, she squeezed shut her eyes, fighting back tears of bewilderment and frustration. Too much has happened. I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready for Whiskey jack, a man buckling under his own legend, a man who's climbed more than one mountain of the dead in service to the Empire.

The Bridgeburners hadn't shown themselves much over the past three years. Since the siege began, they'd been assigned the task of undermining Pale's massive, ancient walls. That order had come straight from the capital, and it was either a cruel joke or the product of appalling ignorance: the whole valley was a glacial dump, a rock pile plugging a crevice that reached so far underground even Tattersail's mages had trouble finding its bottom. They've been underground three years running. When was the last time they saw the sun?

Tattersail stiffened suddenly. 'Sergeant.' She opened her eyes to him. 'You've been in your tunnels since this morning?'