The chariot thundered through the ranks, sending lead-footed confessors sprawling. The two steaming horses at its head were fully barded, little more than shimmering beasts of metal, great hooves crunching on loose stone. Hurkel stood tall, a monster of metal, wolf cloak streaming into the dust behind. He closed on the armoured wagon then eased the reins, rolling to a stop in its shadow. Chel heard the clank of Hurkel’s harness over the wind’s lull, and remembered the great metal legs, stiff and solid, braces for his shattered knees. He remembered with satisfaction, and trepidation.

They waited – the ranks of confessors at the bridge’s end, the nervous defenders among the ruins of the walls. Blood pounded in Chel’s ears as he waited for Hurkel to stomp into view. Behind the wagon, the chariot’s horses stamped and steamed.

Very slowly, the armoured wagon began to move. It wobbled at first, shifting on its reinforced axles, then it was rolling, advancing at a grinding pace, but advancing nonetheless. It began to move toward the bridge.

‘Fuck me,’ Chel said, ‘he’s pushing it? Alone?’

As one, the first ranks of confessors stepped forward, marching onto the bridge. They marched ahead of the wagon, shielding it with their bodies, their bodies with their shields, chanting as they came.

Matil snarled. ‘They mean to finish this today. Barricades! Archers!’

Mira gave an imploring look. ‘We should fall back to the inner gate—’

The Keeper’s glare stilled her words, and she repeated her cry. ‘Archers!’

Reserves of reserves scuttled into view, pressed against the rubble of the collapsed gatehouse in the courtyard, manning the walls that remained above and around it. Volleys of arrows and bolts swept the length of the bridge, ineffective at first, then scoring hits as the confessors advanced. Overhead, another clutch of demon eggs flew high over the gates. Cracks and blasts echoed from within the city where they fell. Screams carried over the wind, along with the sound of falling stone. Cursing, Matil wheeled on her beleaguered staff. ‘Evacuate this side of the city!’

One of the seneschals quibbled, raising the challenges of such an order, as well as the problem of the wrecked bridges to the plains. The Keeper neither screamed nor shouted, but her words, left untranslated by a trembling Mira, sent the man fleeing from the rampart as if a black arrow had lodged in his nethers and was driving him to a skyward expiry.

The confessors on the bridge were over the apex, but dwindling, and some sported shafts jutting from bloody wounds, the colour of their robes masking the extent of the injury. The plated wagon rumbled into view, no longer obscured, but with no team to aim for, the archers could do little to slow its progress.

‘What do you think it is?’ Tarfel asked, gesturing toward the coffin-like wagon. ‘It’s all wrong for a ram. A close-range launcher of some kind?’