‘Look!’ Bendikt spat as he forced Holzhauer’s face to look up and about him. From the upper circuits of Tor Tartarus, a Cadian banner flew. ‘Your Chasseurs lie dead. Your heretic preachers have been cut down. My forces have broken your own. You, the un­defeated general, have been routed.’

‘Never!’ Holzhauer hissed, but his words ended in a choked wheeze as Bendikt’s augmetic fist started to crush his neck. The traitor’s struggles became increasingly weak as Bendikt ground his windpipe between his fingers.

‘I am Cadia,’ Bendikt said at last, ‘and even after death, Cadia has broken you.’

With that, and with a flick of his augmetic hand, Bendikt broke the traitor’s neck and flung his carcass to the floor.

He turned to his warriors arrayed about him, tired but triumphant, wounded but standing. He raised his bloodied fist to the sky, and spoke the truth.

‘We are Cadia.’

Six

SIX

As soon as the fall of their commander was known, the will of the traitors was broken. Most surrendered, but some fell back in confusion towards the Cathedral of Saint Helena Richstar. The Cadians pursued them.

Seventh Company of the Cadian 101st were in the fore of these attacks and Minka was among the lead. The resistance was half-hearted and sporadic. By the evening of the attack, the enemy had largely been driven from this quadrant, the last desperate commanders reportedly holing up in the bastion of Margrat.

Minka paused as her platoon regrouped and took shelter beneath one of the buttresses that lined the cathedral. Baine had found a bottle of grog somewhere, and now they were passing it along and taking long swigs from it, and laughing.

Minka was exhausted. She turned and looked about the scene of the battle. Despite the smoke and ruin there was a strange calm. As the last hour of sunlight cast long shadows, Minka found herself marching around to the cathedral front.

Void shields had protected it from the worst of the bombardments, but its east façade was scarred with impact craters. The stained-glass windows were shattered and half the niches on the façade were empty. The statues of saints that did not suit the Tendency had been pulled down and smashed.

However, it was not the ruins or the destruction that held Minka’s attention. She was looking into the vast parade square before the cathedral where a forest had grown.

A forest of creaking gibbets.

There had to be ten thousand of them. She started forward. The stink of death caught in the back of her throat.

For a moment Minka was back in her home of Kasr Myrak.

She strode up to the nearest. The post had been driven into the stone square. Inside the metal hoops, the imprisoned corpse was brown with age.