weren’t at least crawling towards the city were surely dying.
Abbess Wheel raised her crozier and led the sisters into a field, the cattle absent long enough for the dung they had left behind to have crusted over. She clambered onto a stile to address the nuns and novices before her.
‘We won’t go through the city to join the defence. The North Gates will be jammed and the streets behind them choked. I aim to take us around the walls and enter closer to the palace.’
The collective intake of breath was audible. Nona had reconciled herself to standing before the Ark but she had imagined that they would at least have the city walls between themselves and the foe. Surely Crucical wouldn’t have his troops out in the open. If he could stop Adoma’s forces in the field he would have done it two hundred miles east of his front door.
The abbess continued, unmoved by the shocked faces before her. ‘Mistress Shade will select three Sisters of Discretion to scout ahead of us. We will act on their reports. If need be the defenders on the wall will bring us over with ropes.’
‘How many Grey Sisters do we even have with us?’ Ruli hissed.
‘Two,’ Nona said. ‘If you don’t count Sister Apple.’
A hand fell on her shoulder. ‘Sister Cage.’ Apple turned Nona to face her. ‘I’m appointing you to the Grey temporarily. Get out there with Kettle and Cauldron and try not to die. Also, anything you can do to keep Wheel from marching us into ten thousand Scithrowl while singing at the tops of our voices will be much appreciated.’
Nona gave a curt nod. She let Ruli and Jula hug her, bracing herself against their combined impact. Over her friends’ heads she met the eyes of Ketti, Ghena, Alata, Leeni, and others of her former classmates. They all looked frightened. A weight of responsibility settled on her as her friends released their hold.
Kettle went by grim-faced but as she passed Apple her fingers trailed across the other woman’s hand, and Apple, turning bright-eyed to watch her go, whispered something after her.
Kettle joined Cauldron who was already changing into clothing taken from the dead Scithrowl on the Vinery Stair. It was more convincing than what they’d brought with them from the Shade stores, less than a uniform but more than random garb: the soldiers had worn similar tabards that had once sported bright designs, and their garments had elements of design that set them apart from what was common in the empire.
‘Take the bloodiest stuff, Nona. You’ll be the injured one if we’re challenged.’ Kettle tossed a rough shirt her way, stained with crimson at the breast. ‘No mail for you. We’ll be bringing you back to be bandaged up. It’ll also hide the fact you can’t speak Scithrowl.’
‘And you can?’ Ghena asked from the ranks of watching novices.
‘Yar, irh ken hem gutya.’ Kettle didn’t look up from fastening the buckles of her chainmail shirt.
Within a few minutes they were ready to leave.
‘Watch. Take your chances. We left Sweet Mercy behind us, show none to the enemy.’ Apple handed Nona the standard Grey Sister field kit: a bandolier holding all the poisons, antidotes, wires, picks, and tricks of the order.
‘I will, Mistress Shade.’ Nona fixed the belt beneath the heavy shirt. Kettle and Cauldron were already moving off.
Nona glanced once more at Jula and Ruli, then back at the convent, almost invisible in the distance on the edge of the Rock. A deep breath and she took off running, hard on Kettle’s heels.
Kettle led the way into the next field where the corn grew to chest height, the husks withering. Bhenta veered across to join Nona, corn stalks whispering their complaints behind her. Cauldron! Nona hadn’t grown used to Bhenta’s bride name. She made a mental note to get it right when they spoke, then settled into her running and her clarity trance, letting the countryside ahead open itself to her and shout out its secrets.
To their right the walls of Verity curved away. Here and there the ancient blocks of the original wall were replaced by sandstone quarried from the plateau and the wall dipped to as low as fifty feet in height, but in the main the structure was the one that had stood for centuries, an even seventy-foot barrier broad enough to support a walkway along the top with a guard wall to protect those who patrolled it.
The defenders weren’t exactly thickly clustered. Nona imagined that most had