The church infantry was closing, the near flank advancing with spears low, the far side making for the crossbowmen by the bridge. Chel waited for them to fall back to the safety of the walls, but instead they made a break for the engine, dashing with weapons over their shoulders to where the lancers waited. The former Company of Stars pursued them, breaking into a run, closing the distance.

Matil spoke angry Serican to those in earshot, then turned to Tarfel and Chel. ‘What are they doing? Why is that infernal machine not already aflame?’

The crossbowmen reached the engine, forming into a ragged line to face their pursuers. The lancers moved again, splitting down the middle. Half wheeled inwards, turning back onto the pursuing mercenaries, while the remainder went wide, circling slowly back toward the plateau’s edge, moving to flank the confessors. Both units ceased their advance, consolidating their formation, levelling their spears. They began to move again, step by step, like the imperial hedgehogs of old. The lancers slowed, circling, prowling like cats.

The engine rocked, then lurched forward a few strides. It slowed, then lurched again, beginning a glacial turn toward the bridge.

‘Gods,’ Matil whispered. ‘He means to take it. The fool!’

Bells pealed once more over the plateau, and the mercenaries and confessors redoubled their advance, ignoring the cavalry, closing on the engine. The crossbowmen huddled back against it, firing half-volleys at both units, thinning but not slowing the dense ranks. The lancers wheeled again, their threat ignored, and began to pick up speed for another charge.

Chel saw it, but it was Tarfel who spoke. ‘Exalted, you must order their retreat,’ he said, one hand on Matil’s arm in defiance of propriety. ‘Get them back immediately.’

She ignored his grip. ‘If they fall back now, the bowmen and their weapons will be lost, and the men exhausted for nothing. If this is all they commit, the horse will rout them. Fool he may be, but Ghiz has played a bold hand.’

Chel was beside his prince, voice urgent. ‘The other engine, at the back of the plateau. It is moving. They are bringing it to bear.’

Her voice was guarded. ‘On what?’

‘On the first engine.’

Their collective gaze fell back on the great dark mass of wood, iron, and alchemy, its hidden team lurching slowly back toward the bridge under unfamiliar command, while crossbowmen pressed against its great iron shield, firing blindly at the approaching pincers of confessor and mercenary spearmen. Behind those columns, beneath rising plumes of bleached dust came the lancers, two halves of a column converging on the loping squares.

‘Their own men are too close, they can’t possibly take the risk—’

Tarfel’s voice was unlike anything Chel had heard from him. ‘Exalted, you don’t know my brother at all.’