Good, Minka thought. She had no love of Termites. ‘How long until Sanguinalia?’

‘Twenty days.’

‘So we need a knock-out blow. We can’t just bleed them to death.’

‘Yes. But how?’

No one had any breakthrough ideas, so the meeting dissolved without any resolution.

That evening Minka went back to the guard tower on the southern face of the Cadian camp. She scrambled up the ladder and pulled herself through the hatch at the top. Karni was on duty with Belus and Asko.

‘Look who’s come to say hello,’ Belus called out. He and Asko had clearly been playing cards. Both hands lay face down on the floor.

‘Maybe save the cards for later,’ she said. Minka was here to look at Crannog Mons. She had brought her field-auspex.

Across the water the steps of Tor Tartarus were visible. The massive fortress had been reduced to a ragged rockface of chewed rockcrete and exposed tunnel arches beneath. It looked more like a cliff of caves than a fortress. At the very top were the upper batteries, unloading a weight of fire into the Imperial trenches. She could see at least twenty Hydra platforms. Any aerial assault would be doomed. Valkyries were slow, for fliers, and there was no cover for them on the long sea crossing. They could try a Naval bombardment, of course, but mists would make an aerial landing fraught.

Minka put the auspex down. She stared intently, trying to work this puzzle out.

If only they could take that top terrace, she thought, then any attacks might have more success. But there was no way she could see to do it.

She turned away. She’d consult the regimental histories to see if there was any precedent for a battle of this kind.

Minka went back to visit Dido. Her former commander had been moved into a fresh ward away from the dying.

‘We’re the convalescents,’ Dido said, waving a bored hand down the line of bandages and metal cots. ‘You can set your watch by that one,’ she said, pointing to the end of the line. All Minka could see was a breathing tube sticking out of the place where the man’s mouth should be. ‘Every two hours he wakes up and starts screaming. He’s going to start in about ten minutes. Then they dose him up with soporifics and he falls asleep again.’

Minka sat down on the side of the cot. The metal creaked. The mattress was hard, and the sheets smelt of carbolics.

‘How is my platoon?’

‘Good,’ Minka said, but she suddenly felt wary of speaking too much. ‘They miss you.’

‘Good. None of them have visited me.’

‘They’re confined to camp.’

Dido rolled her eyes. ‘All I see is Banting. He feels my pulse and tuts and then he gives me a syringe. Nothing you can’t fix with an injection.’ Dido laughed, and gestured at her body. ‘How’s he going to fix this?’