needs or following the doctor's direct commands.
Casualties were laid out according to the severity of their injuries. From broken or dislocated limbs, lacerations, abrasions, punctured lungs, up to severe haemorrhaging, the wounded soldiers were admitted and distributed according to probability of their survival. Minor injuries were confined to the far end of the chamber, while Voland's duties involved the almost-dead. It seemed futile at first, temporarily patching up wounds that were simply too severe, too brutal; they continued to arrive at a steady rate. He smiled at the sweet thought of Nanzi whenever he came across one whose wounds had been treated with her silk.
Nanzi herself would stagger back into the makeshift hospital in between her missions. In her human form, of course, she came to check on how effective the silk was at sealing wounds. The substance acted as a coagulant, was quite inert with regards to the human body, and she had undoubtedly saved many lives.
'But they look at me and say vile things,' she mumbled into his shoulder, trying not to cry. 'They really hate us. They hate me, the things they say…'
He knew it must be worse for her, being so rare and precious a design, and people always feared what they did not understand.
F ORTY-SIX
The invasion force ate further into the city, and Brynd despaired. Four hundred yards deep, huge enclaves of Villiren were being thieved from them. All the way from the seemingly distant rubble of Port Nostalgia, right into the heart of the city, and they now occupied streets in the Shanties and way down the western flank of the Wastelands.
In a few hours, Brynd estimated that over a thousand lives would vanish.
The Seventh Dragoons were now a shattered force, and the remnants filtered in among the troops of the Second and Fourth. The Regiments of Foot had felt the brunt of the attacks, losing ten thousand warriors so far. Garudas reported simply that more of the enemy were coming, via ship, but ultimately through the gates.
As night settled across the city, a strange calm could be felt. It seemed as if this new race and their red- skinned rumel allies did not want to operate without daylight. He knew already how the captive Okun had been sensitive to changes in light, so perhaps they were somehow dependent upon the sun.
Reports from the city:
Soldiers stood now in silence, under a cold, star-filled sky, waiting and watching the edges of buildings for movement, just in case. But darkness also meant respite, a chance to rebuild on both sides. It was also a chance to release the souls of the dead, and pyres sprouted everywhere, bright and morose blossoms, offering the stench of burning flesh to the sky.
But at some point in the night Brynd accepted that the Imperial front line would fall back further the next day. More of the invasion fleet would arrive – they seemed endless – and of the garudas dispatched with relics, only a few might return. He still knew so little about the enemy, about their strategies and their weaknesses.
And people were whispering throughout the city that the elite force was needed.
He summoned Nelum to the obsidian room, where they conversed in the half-light. 'Lieutenant Valore, I believe we require a second level of augmentation,' Brynd suggested. 'The cultists believe it will enable us to be an indestructible force. Your thoughts on the risk?'
'Would we simply become stronger, with greater prowess, or would such a level of artificial enhancement kill us?' the lieutenant enquired. 'I argue that we fight initially without this second reinforcement, to see how we fare, but for the cultists to prepare the enhancements just in case. Power isn't everything. Integrity and good morality goes a long way.'
*
A clear day for once, and the fighting resumed as the first red rays of the sun hit the city. More warships came, breaking a path through the sea, bringing with them the same kind of hell. Brynd issued tactical briefings to the Night Guard as noise spilled up from below the Citadel, which shuddered as they looked down from their crenellated sanctuary. Within a few minutes of the recommencement of combat, two key defence positions were lost near Scarhouse. Scouts later told him how rumel had poured into the district in great numbers, slaughtering every soldier in their path. Then they trampled over the dead to kill yet more.
In instant retaliation, Brynd summoned the garudas.
*
Erupting out of the morning sky, they soared over the northern streets of the city, then showered their replenished munitions on the main advancing units of the invaders, exploding flesh and rubble with equal intensity.
Enemy forces staggered back under the flash-flames that ripped through the narrow lanes till only a few Okun survived. Had there been an endless supply of Brenna relics to deploy in this way, Brynd might have had some cause for optimism. But the reality left him as morose in spirit as ever. And worse still, the mute bombs launched from the ships cramming into the harbour kept picking off the garudas in mid-flight, so that they tumbled towards the streets, exploding in a shower of feathers and flesh across the rooftops.
*
More industrious weapons were released. There was enough sheer bulk of the enemy now that the Empire's forces deemed it appropriate to utilize catapults. Normally reserved for sieges, the Ninth and Tenth Regiments of Foot deployed trebuchets and mangonels from behind their front lines. On the Citadel Brynd watched these great constructs, the length of five horses, being wheeled into position, like slow-moving beasts, their tops breaching the rooftops.
Soon they were busy launching colossal chunks of broken masonry at the mass of invaders. Boulder-sized debris also shattered the surrounding buildings, disabling the progress of the enemy and making their ability to reinforce key positions more difficult. They were fast destroying much of the city, Brynd realized, but this had to be done to save the rest of it.
The last sight that Brynd witnessed, before he departed the Citadel, was of rumel and Okun corpses being slung back towards the enemy.
But he then gave an order for these machines of war to hold fire.
Now was the hour of the Night Guard.
*
They lined up, twenty elite fighters, garbed in shadowy darkness. All were mounted on black horses that stood motionless despite the commotion going on around them. Brynd withdrew his sabre and watched faint flickers of cultist technology skim and shimmer across its metal surface. Well armed, and well protected by contoured body armour, they headed east along the wide boulevards, past onlookers from the civilian militia. Brynd felt the heavy weight of expectation, as smoke began to blow back from the Brenna bombs.
Only minutes from the front line.
He was disturbed by the numbers of civilians that had stayed put here – refusing to abandon their homes right in the warzone – and had not evacuated themselves through the tunnels as instructed. A woman in rags ran screaming towards the soldiers, and gripped Nelum's feet. She screamed for them to stop the fighting, shrieked that four of her sons had died in the first wave of attacks. Brynd nodded to his lieutenant, who pushed her gently away, and she collapsed to the floor sobbing, as the Night Guard continued past.
This war would be an endless, thankless task.
He took a deep breath and felt the thunder in his heart. To Brynd, these minutes seemed like the longest in his life.
Some missile collapsed the corner of a building about fifty yards away, and rubble clattered across the plaza. Frustratingly, at any given point, Brynd couldn't see what was firing the mute bombs.
Suddenly, another one connected with a nearby store, but the expected explosion didn't follow. And stranger still was how it fell to the ground – so slowly, and almost changing shape.
A nearby Dragoon moved his horse over to investigate. Brynd ordered for Lupus to ride with him in pursuit of the soldier.
The terrain was littered with minor debris and large chunks of masonry, so they dismounted, and hitched
