‘Maybe twelve hundred paces, if they stay out of the river.’
She grunted. ‘Two hundred extra steps won’t kill them. All right, Beak, north it is. Lead on.’
Aye, Captain. We can use the old walkway.’
She laughed then. Beak had no idea why.
There was a sound in war that came during sieges, moments before an assault on the walls. The massed onagers, ballistae and catapults were let loose in a single salvo. The huge missiles striking the stone walls, the fortifications and the buildings raised a chaotic chorus of exploding stone and brick, shattered tiles and collapsing rooftops. The air itself seemed to shiver, as if recoiling from the violence.
Sergeant Cord stood on the promontory, leaning into the fierce, icy wind, and thought of that sound as he stared across at the churning bergs of ice warring across the strait. Like a city tumbling down, enormous sections looming over where Fent Reach used to be were splitting away, in momentary silence, until the waves of concussion rolled over the choppy waves of the sea, arriving in thunder. Roiling silver clouds, gouts of foamy water-
A mountain range in its death-throes,’ muttered Ebron at his side.
‘War machines pounding a city wall,’ Cord countered.
‘A frozen storm,’ said Limp behind them.
‘You all have it wrong,’ interjected Crump through chattering teeth. ‘It’s like big pieces of ice… falling down.’
‘That’s… simply stunning, Crump,’ said Corporal Shard. ‘You’re a Hood-damned poet. I cannot believe the Mott Irregulars ever let you get away. No, truly, Crump. I cannot believe it.’
‘Well, it’s not like they had any choice,’ the tall, knock-kneed sapper said, rubbing vigorously at both sides of his jaw before adding, ‘I mean, I left when no-one was looking. I used a fish spine to pick the manacles-you can’t arrest a High Marshal anyhow. I kept telling them. You can’t. It’s not allowed.’
Cord turned to his corporal. ‘Any better luck at talking to your sister? Is she getting tired holding all this back? We can’t tell. Widdershins doesn’t even know how she’s doing it in the first place, so he can’t help.’
‘Got no answers for you, Sergeant. She doesn’t talk to me either. I don’t know-she doesn’t look tired, but she hardly sleeps any more anyway. There’s not much I recognize in Sinn these days. Not since Y’Ghatan.’
Cord thought about this for a time, then he nodded. ‘I’m sending Widdershins back. The Adjunct should be landing in the Fort by now.’
‘She has,’ said Ebron, pulling at his nose as if to confirm it hadn’t frozen off. Like Widdershins, the squad mage had no idea how Sinn was managing to fend off mountains of ice. A bad jolt to his confidence, and it showed. ‘The harbour’s blocked, the thug in charge is contained. Everything is going as planned.’
A grunt from Limp. ‘Glad you’re not the superstitious type, Ebron. As for me, I’m getting down off this spine before I slip and blow a knee.’
Shard laughed. ‘You’re just about due, Limp.’
‘Thanks, Corporal. I really do appreciate your concern.’
‘Concern is right. I got five imperials on you living up to your name before the month’s out.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Shard,’ Cord said after they’d watched-with some amusement-Limp gingerly retreat from the promontory, ‘where is Sinn now?’
‘In that old lighthouse,’ the corporal replied.
‘All right. Let’s get under some cover ourselves-there’s more freezing rain on the way.’
‘That’s just it,’ Ebron said in sudden anger. ‘She’s not just holding the ice back, Sergeant. She’s killing it. And the water’s rising and rising fast.’
‘Thought it was all dying anyway’
‘Aye, Sergeant. But she’s quickened that up-she just took apart that Omtose Phellack like reeds from a broken basket-but she didn’t throw ‘era away, no, she’s weaving something else.’
Cord glared at his mage. ‘Sinn ain’t the only one not talking. What do you mean by “something else”?’
‘I don’t know! Hood’s balls, I don’t!’
‘There’s no baskets over there,’ Crump said. ‘Not that I can see. Marsh pigs, you got good eyes, Ebron. Even when
I squint with one eye, I don’t see-’
‘That’s enough, Sapper,’ Cord cut in. He studied Ebron for a moment longer, then turned away. ‘Come on, I got a block of ice between my legs and that’s the warmest part of me.’