in its side. The stench of firepowder was strong. It would have been impossible to see had the wind not driven the smoke down the pass.
Pebbles rattled around a few yards out front. Prosek and Stern bringing the second falcon down. Cursing the thinness of the air, Prosek told Helspeth, 'It's too far off, now. The charge scattered too much, last shot. We're going to go blow one up its… We're going to hit it point-blank.'
'Mr. Prosek.'
'Uh… Ma'am?'
'False flight. Watch out.' She could not be sure because of the mist but thought the monster might have resumed healing.
'Good thinking,' Prosek said. 'Never take the Night at face value.' He and his falconeers made sure the weapon was ready. Then they moved it toward the ascended Instrumentality.
Helspeth was right. It was less severely injured than it pretended. It would have destroyed Prosek, Stern, and the others had they not been ready.
Prosek had risked another overcharge. Some of the shot passed all the way through the monster.
Echoing thunder faded. Out of the ensuing silence came Drago Prosek's continuous cursing. He and his men came back down fast. 'Time to leave, ma'am,' he said as he reached Helspeth. 'That last one did for this falcon, too.'
The mouth of the tube had peeled back like the petals of a lily. 'If that thing gets up again there ain't a lot more we can do.' He did not keep running, though. He barked at his own men and co-opted two of Drear's. He got the damaged falcons moving downhill, then collected the remaining firepowder. 'The thing knows the scent of its pain, now. It'll smell the powder and not want to get too close. That was why I planted those torpedoes. To teach it to fear unspent firepowder. Go back to your lifeguards. Get out of here. I couldn't forgive me if you got killed, now.' He got busy with the powder. 'Go, woman! Go.'
Helspeth retreated. She found Algres Drear on his feet. 'You said your leg was broken.'
'I was insufficiently optimistic, Princess. It's just a bad bruise. Ouch!'
Helspeth had prodded his calf with her toe. 'Be stubborn and manly all you want, Captain. But don't expect the rest of us to hang back because you can't keep the pace.'
'In that case, I'll get a head start now.'
The teamsters had arrived, bringing litters. The Braunsknechts sent the wounded down first. No one rode. Not even the Princess Apparent. Whose attitude scandalized some and made a lot more love her because she did not set herself beyond those who served her.
That news would not set well when it reached Alten Weinberg. 'Hilda, my days of independence are definitely numbered. Even if this is a howling success.'
'More probably, especially if this is a success. A girl your age conquers a monster none of the grand old farts of the Empire even dared attack? The daughter of Johannes Blackboots? Not good, Helspeth. Your sister will be afraid of you, now. So will the blackhearts who whisper wickedness in her ear. And her foes will all want to use you. Arguing that you're the truer daughter of the Ferocious Little Hans.'
Algres Drear, injured leg in a splint despite his protests, observed, 'No good deed goes unpunished, Princess. And the loftier your intentions, the worse the unintended consequences.' He took another long drink of distilled painkiller.
Helspeth wanted to argue but was too tired and emotionally spent.
Brilliant light flashed above the pass they had recently deserted. Smoke or dust rose to be painted orange by the setting sun. Pale green threads wormed through it.
The roar of the explosion tumbled down the pass, arriving only after the light faded.
'Can we run?' Drear asked.
Helspeth said, 'It's never come this far down.'
Drear reminded, 'It did on the other side of the Knot.'
The teamsters were not too tired to run. And their teams were fed and rested. They loaded up and moved out, all the injured fighters riding.
'He'll catch up,' Stern promised his fellow falconeers. But Drago Prosek never did.
Neither did the terrible ascendant Instrumentality.
That suited everyone perfectly.
Traffic through the Jagos resumed almost instantly.
16. Castreresone: Siege
'I'm an observer,' Brother Candle told Socia Rault. 'I belong here, doing what I'm doing.' The ferocious young woman tried to glower but failed. She was in a good humor, confident the Patriarchals had made a fatal error by coming to besiege Castreresone.
As had become their custom, the two were atop a wall, watching the unfriendly folk outside. This time including the Captain-General of the Patriarchal armies himself. Accompanied by an impressive armed gang.
Impressed, Socia said, 'There sure are a lot of them.'
'The Captain-General has strong backing from Sublime and the Collegium.'
'But those are forty-day men. Right? If we hold out for a month, they'll go away.'
She was whistling in the dark. Wishful thinking. The backbone of Sublime's crusade were the professional, full-time soldiers raised and trained by the Captain-General. A huge anomaly in an age when army commanders were not professionals. Not in the Chaldarean world, outside the fighting orders.
'Some of them,' Brother Candle said. 'I'd guess some forty-day levies have cycled in and out already. But the majority of those men will stay till they starve or succumb to disease.' Brother Candle was no fierce patriot, yet the notion of successfully besieging Castreresone was outside his Connecten conception. Roger Shale had rendered the White City proof against any attacker.
The Patriarchals arrived in a businesslike manner. They established their camp and saw to its safety before doing anything but put out patrols. No herald came to demand surrender, offer terms, or suggest any other interaction. The invaders began to dismantle the undefended Inconje suburb, using the lumber to build their engines and camp and the stone to erect towers at the ends of the bridge, and as ammunition.
The professionalism of the Patriarchals preyed on the imaginations of the Castreresonese. They went about their work like it was, indeed, just a job. They ignored the city until their first artillery pieces began lobbing stones at the outer wall-concentrating on exactly those points the Castreresonese knew were weakest. And on the carpenters belatedly trying to install hoardings.
Socia opined, 'We should've kept on going to Khaurene. Or even into the Altai.' She watched a siege engine loft a huge stone almost directly toward them. This crew were not yet expert in their craft. They had not scored a solid hit yet. This stone flew way long. When it landed it shattered like a thrown dirt clod.
Local field stone was soft and broke easily.
'You may be right,' Brother Candle said. The absolute confidence of the besiegers troubled him. This was no mob of Grolsachers, nor an undisciplined mix of fanatics and adventurers like the Arnhanders who had come and gone. These men all had jobs, knew how to do them, and worked hard at them. And their efficiency and competence were being shown deliberately.
'They can't last,' Socia decided. 'There isn't enough food and fodder. We just need to hang on.'
Food and fodder were likely to be problems inside Castreresone, too. Every refugee from farther east had been allowed into the city, where the Maysalean partiality for sharing was strong. Useless mouths would consume stores better reserved for fighting men.
Uncharitable of him, to think such things.
He should put the world aside and go into retreat. He was no longer Perfect. Not even close. The mundane had insinuated itself too deeply into his being.
The people of the White City mocked the Patriarchals. Their confidence in their walls remained high. And the enemy had not surrounded the city. For all his numbers, he was not that strong. Round to the northwest and southwest, where new suburbs had been added on, people came and went as they pleased. The enemy did not
