“They’re backed up to some burned-out buildings. I’ll make my way through the rubble, slip in behind them, and start cutting throats. The Urghul aren’t very well organized on this side. They don’t expect an attack on their prisoners.”

Gwenna stared, aghast. “They don’t need to be fucking organized! You might kill five or six, Talal . . . ten at the outside, and then they’ll be all over you. There’s no cover in that ’Kent-kissing square, nowhere to hide.”

Talal took a deep breath. “I know. But it’s this, or we lose the town. Il Tornja’s army is nowhere in sight. I don’t understand Balendin’s well nearly as well as I’d like, but even ten prisoners might make a difference. I have to try.”

“Well, fuck,” Gwenna said, shifting onto her knees. “I guess that makes two of us.”

“No,” Talal said, glancing at her broken ankle again. “You’ll just slow me down.”

“I might slow you down,” she replied, gritting her teeth, “but I’ve got the explosives.”

The armies were close—maybe nine miles off and marching at the double—but they might as well have been lazing around on the Godsway back in Annur for all the good they were able to do the people of Andt-Kyl. For the better part of an hour, Valyn had watched the Urghul swarm over Balendin’s unnaturally supported bridge, pressing forward against the crumbling barricade at the far end. Three times they’d made it across, only to be driven back by il Tornja’s scouts, Annick, and Pyrre, who seemed to be holding themselves in reserve to deal just with such breaches. Each time the Urghul managed to thrust through, the small knot of soldiers hammered them back, holding the line while the reeling loggers regained their footing and their confidence. They were saving the town, and with it the northern atrepies of the empire, while Valyn watched, hidden on the roof of the tower, holding to a discipline that felt crucial and evil at the same time.

He watched the Annurians beat back another attack, then cursed under his breath, jerking the long lens around to the south, studying the two armies once more. Judging from the standards, the Sons of Flame were to the east, while the Army of the North was working up the western shore. Il Tornja’s group was making better time than the Intarran troops, but not enough better.

“Just get here,” he muttered. “Just get here, you fucking bastard. Get here.”

The words, of course, changed nothing. The army could only march as fast as it could march, and Valyn could only watch, first the battle below, then the distant troops, running the numbers over and over in his head, hating the answer every time he arrived at it.