On the bridge, Matil flailed at the metal hatch. The sounds of her one-armed attempts reached Hurkel at last. Frowning, he began to stomp toward the wagon’s end, making it tremble with every step.

Kosh looked beyond Rennic, and her eyes widened. ‘She’s alive!’

Hurkel reached the wagon’s edge and saw his victim beneath him, her hand on the hatch handle, and roared a murderous challenge. The confessors were a wall of red robes approaching the wagon, shields high against the tepid rain of arrows. Their chants were clear up on the walls now.

Matil opened the hatch. It swung wide, revealing a dark interior stacked with pitch-sealed kegs, and as Matil collapsed back to her knees, she grasped the closest, dragging it into the light.

‘Now,’ Rennic said.

Kosh didn’t move.

‘Fucking now!’

The Nort started, and emptied her hand. Something sparkled, and with a flash the bolt was aflame. Choking back a cough, Rennic sighted through streaming eyes, and fired.

Matil was already moving, crawling away like a three-legged cur, when the smoking bolt hissed from the walls. It streaked down, heavy and wobbling, and missed the exposed keg. Instead, it hit the inside of the wagon’s hatch and ricocheted within, lost from sight. A curl of acrid smoke blew in its wake, joined a moment later by a thin plume from within the wagon.

Hurkel’s eyes widened. He glanced at the smoke, at the wall, at the crawling form of the maimed Keeper, leaving a thick trail of blood in the dust. Then Pentarch Hurkel leapt from the wagon, landing in a clashing heap of iron and frantic rage, scrabbling back from the smoking wagon toward the confessors. Their advance faltered as those in the vanguard saw their commander’s retreat, and a moment later the smoke blew over the column, leaving men choking and turning to flee.

Kosh pointed down at the crawling Keeper, who had made it as far as the shattered iron shield from the first engine, hope kindling in her voice. ‘Can we—’

Something flashed within the wagon, bright and fierce, and then it tore itself apart in a pounding roll of balled flame. Panels of iron blasted into the air, flying as if blasted from another infernal engine, smashing against the walls, the sides of the bridge, the fleeing confessors. Chunks of flaming metal soared into the morning sky, arcing out over the gorge before vanishing into the darkness, their plumes of filthy smoke borne onward by the indifferent wind. Confessors and city guards cried out in pain and terror as molten metal rained around them, a smoking chunk of black iron as big as Chel’s fist cracking the stone of the ramparts beside him.