that now. A letter had arrived after his wife’s funeral. In his black grief he had ignored it, and somehow over time it had become lost.
‘I wept, when I heard the news of her passing,’ Vanichios said bravely, then looked away quickly, as though to stop himself from saying more. He had loved Rose deeply himself.
Creed patted the arm of his chair, not knowing what to say in return. How poor he was at these things.
A puddle was gathering on the floor beneath him, his greatcoat shedding its melted sleet. Droplets plopped into it loudly. ‘They’re right on our heels, old friend,’ he declared. ‘We need to burn the bridge now, before they can storm it.’
Vanichios drew his hands together beneath his chin. Again that tiny nod of the head, his lips pursed.
‘That should hold them off for a few days at most until they string a new one across. After that . . .’ Creed shook his head, thinking on his feet. It was the talent he most relied upon. ‘We must begin a full evacuation of the city,’ he decided. ‘And we must begin it now.’
The Principari’s left eye twitched. ‘You really think our situation is as bad as that? I heard rumours that the Matriarch was dead.’
‘Rumours, aye. We don’t yet know for certain. Either way, they’ll want Tume before they push on for Bar-Khos. It’s too risky for them to leave us here at their backs.’
Vanichios inhaled, filling himself up with it. ‘This citadel has stood for three hundred years, Marsalas. I have five hundred men in my Home Guard. Sound men, men who will fight hard.’
‘This citadel was built for different times. For armies with ballistae and tub-thumpers. With the Empire’s cannon, they’ll have the gates down in a matter of hours. You know this, old friend.’
‘That is hardly the point,’ said the Principari. ‘Tume has been my family’s home for nine generations, Marsalas. I cannot simply desert it.’
‘If you don’t, you’ll die here.’
A lively silence fell between them.
‘I should never have allowed them to take away the city’s guns all those years ago,’ Vanichios mused. ‘We would not be in this fix now, if only I had stopped them.’
‘Then the Shield might have fallen. This is hardly the time for ifs and buts.’
‘The Shield may yet fall. It’s under heavy attack even as we speak. General Tanserine is hard pushed to hold Kharnost’s Wall.’
It was Creed’s turn to wince. Tanserine was the soundest defensive general that they had. If he was struggling to hold, the attack must be as bad as they’d ever seen.
The doors of the hall swung open, allowing a gust of sleet to enter. A breeze blew across the nape of his neck.
Men cursed and shouted to close the door. For a moment, as the new arrivals struggled to close them, the sound of cannon could be heard in the distance, the army’s pitifully few guns firing onto the shore.
‘We must hurry,’ commented Creed, though he found that he was unable to rouse himself.
‘Yes,’ agreed Vanichios, not stirring either.
In exhaustion, Creed looked around him, seeking to call out for Bahn. But then he recalled that Bahn was not with him this time. That Bahn was dead.
He rubbed his face and eyes as though shutting out the world for a welcome moment. Grief for the men he had lost lay waiting at the back of his mind; but there was relief too, that his plan had worked, miraculously, that somehow he’d led them into battle and led them out again without losing them all.
The sensation of it was so powerful it made Creed’s fingers tremble, his eyes smart with emotion.
‘Are you all right, Marsalas?’
‘I’m just tired,’ said Creed, feeling lost for a moment. Old.
‘War is for young men,’ Vanichios offered, ‘and fanatics of self-worship bent on conquering the world.’
‘That it is.’
‘Well, piss on all of them,’ the Principari declared, and his eyes gleamed with a sudden proud fierceness.
It was a look that took Creed back fifteen years and more, and it brought a lump to his throat, and sharp affection in his heart.
He realized that his old friend was preparing himself to die.
Ash pulled his cloak over his head, though it irritated the stitched swelling of his wound. He was trying hard not to cough for the pain that it caused him. The zel plodded wearily along the wooden boardwalks of Tume, and he lolled with the rhythm of it, half asleep, half awake, aware of all that was happening in a