Not a single groan as the Perish picked themselves up again and set off along the rippled, weed-knotted field.
Swinging round, Syndecan looked up the road.
Was that a glitter of pike points?
He glared back at his Grey Helms. ‘Step lively! Enemy sighted on the road!’ Wolves preserve us this day .
High Watered Festian gestured, watched as the columns plunged down off the road on the inland side, breaking up as they entered the hedgerow fields. He saw crews rushing ahead with picks to ensure that the passage gates through the walls were serviceable.
Seven hundred paces up the road he could see the cursed Perish – but they had fully discounted the enclosed fields.
Festian intended to lock fiercely with the Grey Helms, pushing forward with the weight of fifteen thousand Kolansii heavy infantry, and then send eight thousand through the enclosures, to take the road behind them. They would first crush the defenders on the road itself, and then drive the rest south across the field, to the very edge of the valley – where the only retreat was a deadly tumble down the steep valley side.
He intended to make quick work of this.
In the distance to the east, he could make out the top third of the Spire. Everything below that, on the ridged ascent of the isthmus, was obscured in clouds of dust or smoke. The sight chilled him.
And now Brother Diligence is dead. Slain by some foul trap of sorcery. It all falls to you, Sister Reverence. But we shall prevail. Justice is a sword without equal. I pray to you, Sister, hold on. We are coming .
Gillimada slowed her pace to match that of the Warchief, and he glared up at the huge woman as he struggled for breath.
‘I sent a scout up to the road – there are soldiers on it.’
Spax nodded but could manage little more. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d led a raid, and while his warriors were thumping along in his wake with all the infernal ease of youth, his own legs were cramping, there was a stitch in his side, and sweat was stinging the vicious bite Abrastal’s daughter had delivered to his penis the night before. That she’d been trying to tear it off with her own teeth was only because of her frustration and anger at getting pregnant – nothing to do with him, really – and it was just his bad luck that his champion was the nearest thing at hand on which to vent all her anger and whatnot.
‘We could attack,’ suggested the Teblor in her stentorian voice. ‘A surprise!’
‘Can – can we overtake ’em?’