The net burst from Kosh’s device, a maelstrom of shrapnel strung with wire. It spread wide as it flew, enveloping the lead breakers, bearing them from their feet. It carved into flesh and splintered armour, savage cuts of wire driven on by jagged chunks of metal, blasted from the device by a spark and a roar of accelerant. The slicing wire tore beneath shields and wrapped shins, slashing the Mawn’s legs from beneath them. At last it came to rest, the front wave of assault hobbled and downed, struggling beneath the merciless grip of the cleaving wire.

Rennic had already given the second signal. From around the courtyard, the guards threw their clay vessels. Pottery shattered around the beleaguered Mawn, and their cries of pain rose to panic when the oil within splashed over them. The breakers struggled to free themselves against the cutting wire, scrambling to escape the sprays of warmed oil that doused them. Those at the back of the ranks, their progress blocked, tried to fight their way through to where they assumed their comrades were joined in battle. Screams and shouts filled the courtyard, and Rennic raised his fist to give the final signal.

She was staring right at him. Trapped beneath the scrabbling bulk of a stricken siege-breaker, the blood from the man’s deep wounds running thick over her, she was looking straight at him. Her helmet was gone, her long hair spread thick around her. Grassi was staring into his eyes.

With great strength, she nodded.

Rennic gave the signal, and the courtyard billowed bright with flame. A filthy smell overpowered the wind, burning flesh, hair, and lacquer, screaming panic torn from throats by the hunger of the flames. Chel looked away, up at the sky, at the distant fractured wall. Then back, unable to keep his gaze away.

Rennic’s hand rapped Kosh’s shoulder, his eyes still fixed forward.

‘Give me the crossbow.’

‘What?’

‘Give me the fucking crossbow.’

He lifted, drew, loaded, sighted, all with his eyes on her, wavering through the heat. She never looked away, never screamed or struggled, just held his gaze as her hair began to smoke and curl.

‘Goodbye,’ Rennic said to Grassi, and was sure she said the same.

He fired.

***

The dust from the blasted gate was settling, somewhere out on the plateau, but the stinking fire in the courtyard roared ever higher. With a face like a tombstone, Rennic had ordered the guards to stop wasting their own arrows on the downed attackers. Instead, they circled the roiling pyre, jamming their spears wherever they detected movement, whether from mercy or vengeance Chel had no will to judge. He could bear the sight no longer, nor the smell with it, and retreated to the courtyard’s edge, where the breeze kept the worst of the smoke off him.

‘Rennic, the aqueduct …’ Chel coughed, swallowed, wiped at his streaming eyes. ‘Can we send people now?’