for all he cared. No, only one life mattered: his own.
And, Errant be praised, Sirryn had lived. Escaping that dark slaughter.
The Chancellor would have an answer to all of this. The Emperor-his Tiste Edur-Hannan Mosag-they would all give answer to these foreign curs. And in a year, maybe less, the world would be right once more, Sirryn ranking high in the Chancellor’s staff, and higher still in the Patriotists. Richer than he’d ever been before. A score of soft- eyed whores within his reach. He could grow fat if he liked.
Reaching the wall, he made his way along its length. There were sunken posterns, tunnels that invited breaching yet were designed to flood with the pull of a single lever. He knew the thick wooden doors would be manned on the inside. Working his way along the foot of the massive wall, Sirryn continued his search.
He finally found one, the recessed door angled like a coal trap, thick grasses snarled on all sides. Muttering his thanks to the Errant, Sirryn slipped down into the depression, and leaned against the wood for a long moment, his eyes shut, his breathing slowing.
Then he drew out his one remaining weapon, a dagger, and began tapping the pommel against the wood.
And thought he heard a sound on the other side.
Sirryn pressed his cheek against the door. ‘Tap if you can hear me!’ His own rasp sounded frighteningly loud in his ears.
After a half-dozen heartbeats, he heard a faint tap.
‘I’m Finadd Sirryn Kanar, an agent of the Chancellor’s. There’s no-one else about. Let me through in the name of the Empire!’
Again, another long wait. Then he heard the sound of the bar scraping clear, and then a weight pushed against him and he scrabbled back to let the door open.
The young face of a soldier peered up at him. ‘Finadd?’
Very young. Sirryn edged down into the entranceway, forcing the soldier back. So young I could kiss him, take him right here, by the Errant! ‘Close this door, quickly!’
‘What has happened?’ the soldier asked, hastening to shut the portal, then, in the sudden darkness, struggling with the heavy bar. ‘Where is the army, sir?’
As the bar clunked back in place, Sirryn allowed himself, at last, to feel safe. Back to his old form. He reached out, grasped a fistful of tunic, and dragged the soldier close. ‘You damned fool! Anybody calling himself a Finadd and you open the damned door? I should have you flailed alive, soldier! In fact, I think I will!’
‘P-please, sir, I just-’
‘Be quiet! You’re going to need to convince me another way, I think.’
‘Sir?’
There was still time. That foreign army was a day away, maybe more. And he was feeling so very alive at this moment. He reached up and stroked the lad’s cheek. And heard a sudden intake of breath. Ah, a quick-witted lad, then. It would be easy to-
A knife-tip pricked just under his right eye, and all at once the soldier’s young voice hardened. ‘Finadd, you want to live to climb out the other end of this tunnel, then you’ll leave off right here. Sir.’
‘I’ll have your name-’
‘You’re welcome to it, Finadd, and may the Errant bless your eternal search-because I wasn’t behind this door as a guard, sir. I was readying to make my escape.’
‘Your what?’
‘The mob rules the streets, Finadd. All we hold right now are the walls and gate houses. Oh, and the Eternal Domicile, where our insane Emperor keeps killing champions like it was a civic holiday. Nobody’s much inter-ested in besieging that place. Besides, the Edur left yesterday. All of them. Gone. So, Finadd, you want to get to your lover Chancellor, well, you’re welcome to try.’
The knife pressed down, punctured skin and drew out a tear of blood. ‘Now, sir. You can make for the dagger at your belt, and die. Or you can let go of my shirt.’
Insolence and cowardice were hardly attractive qualities., ‘Happy to oblige, soldier,’ Sirryn said, releasing his hold on the man. ‘Now, if you’re going out, then I had better remain here and lock the door behind you, yes?’
‘Finadd, you can do whatever you please once I’m gone. So back away, sir. No, farther. That’s good.’
Sirryn waited for the soldier to escape. He could still feel that knife-tip and the wound stung as sweat seeped into it. It was not cowardice, he told himself, that had forced him back, away from this hot-headed bastard busy disgracing his uniform. Simple expedience. He needed to get to the Chancellor, didn’t he? That was paramount.
And now, absurdly, he would have to face making his way, unescorted, through the very city where he had been born, in fear for his life. The world had turned on its end. I could just wait here, yes, in this tunnel, in the dark-no, the foreigners are coming. The Eternal Domicile-where, if surrender is demanded, Triban Gnol can do the negotiating, can oversee the handing over of the Emperor. And the Chancellor will want his loyal guards at his side. He’ll want Finadd Sirryn Kanar, the last survivor of the battle at the river-Sirryn Kanar, who broke through the enemy lines to rush back to his Chancellor, bearer, yes, of grim news. Yet he won through, did he not?
The soldier lowered the door back down from the other side. Sirryn moved up to it, found the bar and lifted it into place. He could reach the Eternal Domicile, even if it meant swimming the damned canals.
I still live. I can win through all of this.
There’s not enough of these foreigners to rule the empire.
They’ll need help, yes.
He set out along the tunnel.
The young soldier was twenty paces from the hidden door when dark figures rose on all sides and he saw those terrifying crossbows aimed at him. He froze, slowly raised his hands.
One figure spoke, then, in a language the soldier did not understand, and he flinched as someone stepped round him from behind-a woman, grinning, daggers in her gloved hands. She met his eyes and winked, then mimed a kiss.
‘We not yet decide let you live,’ the first one then said in rough Letherii. ‘You spy?’
‘No,’ the soldier replied. ‘Deserter.’
‘Honest man, good. You answer all our questions? These doors, tunnels, why do sappers’ work for us? Explain.’
‘Yes, I will explain everything. I don’t want to die.’
Corporal Tarr sighed, then turned from the prisoner to face Koryk. ‘Better get Fid and the captain, Koryk. Looks like maybe we won’t have to knock down any walls after all’
Smiles snorted, sheathing her knives. ‘No elegant back stab. And no torture. This isn’t any fun at all.’ She paused, then added, ‘Good thing we didn’t take down the first one, though, isn’t it? Led us right to this.’
Their horses had not been exercised nearly enough, and were now huffing, heads lifting and falling as Sergeant Balm led his small troop inland. Too dark now to hunt Letherii and besides, the fun had grown sour awfully fast. Sure, slaughter made sense when on the enemy’s own soil, since every soldier who got away was likely to fight again, and so they’d chased down the miserable wretches. But it was tiring work.
When magic wasn’t around in a battle, Moranth munitions took its place, and the fit was very nice indeed. As far as we’re concerned, anyway. Gods, just seeing those bodies-and pieces of bodies-flying up into the air-and 1 was getting all confused, at the beginning there. Bits of Letherii everywhere and all that ringing in my ears.
He’d come around sharp enough when he saw Cord’s idiot sapper, Crump, running up the slope straight at the enemy line, with a Hood-damned cusser in each hand. If it hadn’t been for all those blown-up Letherii absorbing so much of the twin blasts then Crump would still be standing there. His feet, anyway. The rest of him would be red haze drifting into the sunset. As it was, Crump was flattened beneath an avalanche of body parts, eventually clambering free like one of Hood’s own revenants. Although Balm was pretty sure revenants didn’t smile.
Not witless smiles, anyway.
Where the cussers had not obliterated entire companies of the enemy, the main attack-wedges of advancing heavies and medium infantry with a thin scattering of skirmishers and sappers out front-had closed with a hail of
