Rennic paced beside them, seemingly itching to join the fray. ‘What kind of assault is this? Where are their own archers? Why are they marching ahead of the wagon, not hiding behind it?’

‘Maybe this time they do intend to stack the walls with kegs,’ Chel said. ‘With the first gatehouse gone, there’d be no risk of destroying the bridge.’

‘Saints’ breath, of course,’ the prince said. ‘Exalted, flame arrows!’ Matil turned, questioning. ‘That wagon, it is likely loaded with the black powder. They mean to destroy the gates with it. We must detonate it before it reaches us.’

Matil stepped back from the rampart, lamenting the loss of the first batch of Kosh’s crossbows and their armour-piercing abilities, muttering to herself on the whereabouts and moral character of the woman she’d put in charge of the workshops. Behind her on the bridge, the wagon rolled inexorably onward as the first of the fire arrows dropped like dying fireflies around it.

‘It’s not working,’ Chel sighed, watching the flaming arrows bounce and flutter from the wagon’s armoured carapace. ‘They’re not catching on it, the armour’s too thick.’

‘Maybe oil, once it’s close enough?’ Tarfel suggested.

‘By then it’ll be too fucking late for the gate,’ Rennic grunted. ‘We need to stop it on the bridge. We need to bring that metal monster down.’

Behind them, Matil had begun pacing the rampart. At once, she stopped. ‘All the armour in the world can’t save a man from a knife through his eye-slit,’ she muttered, then turned away, barking orders. She called and gestured to a nearby flunky, cowering beneath a tower doorway. The man dashed over, carrying her helmet.

Tarfel looked at her in shock. ‘Exalted, you’re not …?’

She smiled, low and pursed. ‘I hope it will not come to that, but some things require the personal and public attention of a leader. Mother was never slow to bring that up. Here—’ She fished around her neck, removing the Keeper’s chain, then pressed it into Tarfel’s hands.

‘What? I can’t—’

‘There’s none in the city who will see to your welfare better than you will. Anyone else would sell you to them before the breath left my body.’ She turned to the tower that overlooked them, wherein lurked the remainder of the council. ‘The moment I set foot on the bridge, Prince Tarfel has command of the city, until the moment I request its return. Do we understand?’ She repeated the question in Serican, extracting promises and oaths from all in earshot.

‘Well,’ she said with a small grin, ‘that’s likely the best we’ll manage from them. Let us wish each other luck, and pray for the best on all outcomes.’

Tarfel nodded, swallowing, desperate, and made the sign of the crook, much to Matil’s amusement. Calling for her horse, she strode from the rampart.