chosen to talk to him at that moment.
Noran corrected himself with a further realisation; he was not lucky, he was an idiot. Nidan had talked to him precisely because he knew the runner was late being sent, and had even shown the good grace not to remark on Noran's ineptitude.
Noran checked that his sword would come out of the sheath easily, and glanced around at the other men. Now that the plan was set in motion, all his anxiety was gone. His eyes turned towards the dawnwards walls while he waited for the first bloom of the fire.
V
Cities stink, thought Gelthius. Not the natural smell of cattle dung or the musk of sweating turncranks, but the rotting stench of refuse, the smoke from a thousand fires, and the accumulated waste of too many people living in such a small place. The tanneries, where he was crouched in an alleyway with three other men, stank of the piss used to treat the leather.
Since coming to Magilnada, he had decided that he didn't care for cities, not one bit. Magilnada was too crowded and everybody living there considered themselves far more important than everybody else. Part of him wished that the fire he was about to set would spread out of control and eat up the whole wretched place in a glorious blaze.
But that wasn't the plan, so he and the others would be careful to set the fires closest to the stone wall, and they would raise the alarm quickly before disappearing into the night. When Gelthius had first heard of the distraction the general wanted, he had thought about the poor tanners that would lose their businesses. They had families to feed. The guilt did not last long, not when he considered the huge amount of trade that would come their way once the city was in the general's hands.
The padding of running feet drew his attention to the street. Lihrin appeared out of the darkness, emerging like a shadow from the lingering smoke that blanketed the city from the festival fires.
'We're on!' Lihrin said, waving for the group to join him.
Checking that nobody on the city wall was looking down on them, they gathered at the side door to the closest tannery. It was not barred; the owner and his family would be at the celebrations. Gelthius was the first inside, the gloom within the low stone building no darker than the unlit street. He fumbled around with the flint of his firebox and managed to strike a small flame into life. Lighting a candle from the small bag hanging at his belt, he found himself in a side chamber. The noxious reek of the tannery was even stronger here, and Gelthius wondered how anybody could live so close to such a stench.
'Let's just do this and get going,' whispered Grendlin, pulling a flask of lamp oil and a rag from his sack.
Gelthius and the others soaked their rags with oil and stuffed them between vats and barrels. They splashed more oil onto the piles of treated leathers, and on the frames where the stretched skins were hanging. Their work done, all but Lihrin retreated back to the door. Lihrin walked backwards after them, dribbling a trail from his flask. Gelthius checked outside and, seeing that no one was nearby, tossed his lit candle onto the slick stream of oil on the floor.
They bolted out of the door one after the other as flames licked in a line across the room. None of them was sure how quickly the blaze would take, but their orders were to raise the alarm only when the fire was large enough to take considerable time and effort to put out. They headed back to the alley where they had been hiding before, and watched smoke wreathing from the windows and around the doors. A distinct orange glow could be seen through the slot-like windows, and the wooden planks of the roof began to smoulder. Pops and crackles could be heard from inside.
'Do you reckon that's big enough?' asked Gelthius. 'Should we start shouting?'
'Let's just give it a f-'
Lihrin's reply was interrupted by a huge sheet of flame that shot up through the boards of the roof, scattering smouldering planks into the street. As the debris clattered down onto the stone, Lihrin turned to the others with a jubilant grin.
'I think that's going well enough,' he said. Lihrin ran out into the street and headed towards the tower on the wall, hands cupped to his mouth.
'Fire!'
VI
Noran and his men staggered towards the gate as a clamour of shouts and banging swept through Magilnada. The thick smoke from the tannery fire billowed across the roofs of the buildings and the dull glow from bonfires was engulfed by the towering flames that reached up higher than the curtain wall. There was a commotion at the gatehouse as warriors poured out onto the wall to see what was happening, while others came out of the arched doorways of the flanking towers.
'What's happening?' Noran slurred his words as he draped his arm across the shoulders of one of the guards and looked dawnwards toward the pillar of flame. 'That's the tanneries!' the warrior shouted up to the wall. 'It's spreading into the city!' came the reply.
An argument ensued between several of the guards, regarding whether to abandon their posts to help fight the blaze or to stay at their posts. Many of the warriors did not wait for permission and streamed up the street towards the centre of the city, calling out concerns for homes and families. Unseen, the group of 'drunks' sidled closer to the towers and gate.
Noran saw that there was nobody at the door of the closest tower and slipped inside. Treading lightly, he walked up the wooden stairs within. He turned on a landing and came face to face with a bearded warrior heading the other way.
'What are you doing?' the guard demanded.
'Better view from the wall,' Noran replied and pushed past, not giving the man any time to refuse.
The guard looked as if he would stop Noran for a moment, but ignored him and carried on down the steps. Noran found a steep flight of steps at the top of the tower and pulled himself up to the battlement of the wall.
There were more than a dozen men on the stretch of rampart between the towers, all of them looking into the city at the flames spreading from building to building. From this vantage point Noran could see hundreds crowded into the streets close to the dawnward wall, while chieftains in long cloaks waved swords around and ordered groups this way and that to fetch water or rally more people.
Noran glanced over his shoulder, out of the city. He could see nothing in the dark, but he knew that out there somewhere was Ullsaard and his legion. They could surely see the fire now and would be on their way.
The thud of footsteps heralded the arrival of Nidan and halfa-dozen of the men at the top of the wall.
'You can't be up here,' one of the guards said, shouldering past Noran to berate the new arrivals.
Nidan drew his sword and plunged it into the man's throat.
Behind Noran, the guards shouted in alarm and readied their spears and shields. The noble threw himself aside and skulked at the bottom of the parapet as the guards ran towards Nidan and his soldiers. The Magilnadan warriors didn't give him a second glance as they pressed towards the armed men coming out of the tower. As soon as they passed him, Noran rose to his feet, sword in hand.
He ran to the edge of the wall and looked down at the gate arch. Bodies littered the ground; he recognised a couple of them as his own men, but most were guards cut down by the surprise attack, dead before they could even raise a shout of warning. Certain that nobody down there was going to be calling for help, he turned his attention to the men fighting the legionnaires.
He thrust his sword into the back of the nearest guard and was struck by how unlike the measured, ceremonial duels of the bloodfields the hack and slash really was. Another man turned to see what had happened to his falling companion, to be greeted by the edge of Noran's sword in his face. The man fell back with a scream and Noran leapt after him, stabbing and stabbing, driving his swordpoint into the man's chest and gut over and over, even after he had fallen to his back and lay still.
A guard swung backwards with his shield as he fought, unintentionally smashing it into Noran's shoulder. Noran stumbled and lost his grip on his sword, the weapon clattering beneath the feet of another guard. Noran back-stepped quickly as the Magilnadan turned on him, but the threat was short-lived; Nidan's sword took the man
