'Casamir's Wall was first breached three days ago,' Marshal Varuz was explaining in a monotonous drone. 'We drove back the first two assaults, and held the Three Farms that night, but the next day there was another breach, and another. This damn fire-powder has changed all the bloody rules. A wall that would have stood a week they can bring down in an hour.'

'Khalul always loved to tinker with his dust and his bottles,' muttered Bayaz, unhelpfully.

'They were in the Three Farms in force that night, and carried the gates into the Arches soon afterwards. Ever since, the whole western part of the city has been one running battle.' The tavern where Jezal had celebrated his victory over Filio in the Contest was in that district. The tavern where he had sat with West and Jalenhorm, Kaspa and Brint, before they went away to the North, and he to the Old Empire. Was that building now burning? Was it already a blackened shell?

'We're fighting them hand to hand in the streets by daylight. We're mounting raids in the darkness, every night. Not a stride of ground is given up without it being soaked with Gurkish blood.' Perhaps Varuz hoped to be inspiring, but he was only succeeding in making Jezal feel sick. The streets of his capital soaked in blood, whoever's blood it might have been, was hardly his first aim as king of the Union. 'Arnault's Wall still stands firm, though there are fires burning in the centre of town. The flames almost reached the Four Corners last night, but the rain doused them down, at least for now. We're fighting for every street, every house, every room. Just as you said we should, your Majesty.'

'Good,' Jezal managed to croak, but he almost choked on the word.

When he so blithely turned down General Malzagurt's terms, he was not sure what he had been expecting. He had dimly imagined that someone would soon come to the rescue. That something heroic would occur. Only now the bloody business was well underway, and there was no sign of instant deliverance. Probably there was heroism going on down there in the smoke. Soldiers hauling injured comrades to safety through the sooty darkness. Nurses stitching wounds by screaming candlelight. Townsfolk plunging into burning buildings to drag out coughing children. Heroism of an everyday and unglamorous kind. A kind that made no difference to the overall outcome.

'Are those our ships in the bay?' he asked quietly, already afraid of the answer.

'I wish they were, your Majesty. I never thought I'd say it, but they have the best of us by sea. You never saw so many damn ships. Even if most of our navy weren't ferrying the army back from Angland, I'm not sure what they could do. As it is, the men will have to be landed outside the city. It's a damned inconvenience, and it could get to be a great deal more than that. The docks are a weak spot. Sooner or later they may try to land men there.'