Memory

Chapter Sixteen

Rain. Rain, just like bloody always. Rain, when he really didn't want it; because Runting had just woken him up out of his recurring nightmare, the one he was glad he could never remember when he woke up, and told him to get his trousers on, because the enemy were at the gates The enemy, he muttered to himself, at the gates. Which would've been just fine, absolutely no fucking problem, if it wasn't bloody raining. Because if only it was dry, the enemy at the gates would be the perfect test medium for the four finished, fettled, furnished, burnished, done and dusted but not actually yet test-fired Poldarn's Flutes sitting comfortably in their wooden cradles like cats on rugs on top of the watchtower. The defence of Dui Chirra would've gone down in history as the day when the world changed for ever; when all the art-of-war manuals and all the precepts of religion had to be rewritten, because a few hundred scruffs with four brass parsnips had beaten off the Empire's best troops led by the Empire's best general in the time it takes to boil a kettle. If only it wasn't raining.

Instead, Monach reflected bitterly, we're all going to be killed; and some other bugger, someone who hasn't had to put up with Spenno and Galand Dev and all the mind-meltingly annoying politics they go in for in this horrible place, is going to get all the glory and be a footnote in the appendix at the back of the history of the world. And And I wouldn't have let down my friends. That's the worst-no (he decided firmly as he dragged on his wet boots), no, dying's going to be the worst thing, but failing Cordo, and Xipho, when they trusted me-the Earwig, they'll say, give him a simple job to do, and a weapon that sneezes hellfire and lightning to do it with, and he screws up, all because of a little spot of rain. Should've known better than to trust 'Are you coming or not?' someone was yelling: 'They're coming up the east road. There's bloody thousands of them.'

And why are wet boots so much harder to get your feet into than dry ones? That said, a man in charge, commander of the garrison of the most vital strategic point in the world, ought surely to be entitled to more than one pair of fucking boots Monach stumbled out of the drawing office, trying to find the right hole in his sword belt by feel alone and failing, and splashed through the puddles on his way to the watch-tower stair. People everywhere, of course; most of them foundrymen, standing about looking miserable, muttering, not showing any inclination to make themselves useful-damn it, better that they should be trying to open the gates and let the enemy in than just standing about getting under hard-working soldiers' feet. If they were actively hostile, we could massacre the whole useless lot of them, and then we'd only have the enemy to put up with Wet boots on the wet wooden stairs, squelch. Rain gets in your eyes, makes them blurry, stings. Up to the top of the stairs, up to the rampart-people getting out of his way, that's more like it-and look over, and-never seen so many people all together in one place before in my life. Not a parade in Sansory, or Torcea hiring fair, or Formal Service at the Chapel Royal, when everybody who's anybody piles into the great courtyard, pushing and shoving and trampling each other underfoot to get a seat and hear the Chaplain in Ordinary's sermon (Cordo, shooting his mouth off in front of all those people; must be a sight to make a pig laugh). Yes; you measure scenes like that by the thousand, but this is tens of thousands, a huge army The enemy, coming to get us, the defending garrison. Shit.

Never wanted to be a soldier. Not cut out for soldiering, let alone being in charge. Perfectly happy doing research in the library, teaching school, running murderous little errands for Father Tutor, rolling out of bed at three in the morning for the first office of the day. Leading armies, preparing defences, no. We must've done defending small wooden fortresses against overwhelming odds in sixth year, but maybe I was off sick that day, or I had a music lesson.

'Right.' The loudness of his own voice shocked Monach. But 'right' was always a reasonable place to start. 'I want five, seven and eight companies here on the front elevation. Two, three and four on the other three sides. One, six and nine in reserve in the yard, ten's going to be a flying reserve on the walls-I want you to stand by, wherever the action is, get yourselves there soonest. There's a fucking lot of them, but the only way they're getting in is through the gate or over the wall, and it's like my old gran used to say, doesn't matter how big the bottle is if it's only got a little tiny spout. Now, unless they're incredibly stupid, they won't try and burn us out with all this volcano dust on the premises, so that's one less thing to piss ourselves about-'

'Sir,' someone said (someone really insignificant, because of the half-hearted attempt at respect), 'the Flutes. Aren't we going to use the Flutes?'

Monach rolled his eyes; theatrical gesture, helps relieve the pent-up fury. 'Don't be so stupid,' he growled, 'it's raining. The Flutes don't work in the wet, remember? That's why we haven't even tested them yet.'

'Actually.' Another interruption; painfully familiar voice. Meanwhile, the front line of the enemy is now so close, we can see the buckles on their belts. 'Actually,' Spenno whined, 'so long as we take care not to let the wet get into the volcano dust or the touch-holes-'

'Fuck you, Spenno, you told me they wouldn't work.'

The most annoying man in the world shook his supremely irritating head. 'That's not quite what I said. I said we ought to hold off testing till it stopped pissing it down, because they might not work in the wet and you really do want optimum conditions for scientific testing of a prototype. They may work. They may not.' You evil bastard, Spenno, I ought to have you stuffed down the throat of a Flute and farted up into the biggest cloud in the sky. 'Got to be worth a try, though, surely.'

'No.' Monach surprised himself by the amount of pleasure he got from just that one word. 'Use your common sense, why can't you? They know we've got the Flutes, they're expecting us to use them. Means they'll be holding back, expecting us to lure them into a trap, with the Flutes as the spring; us not using them'll confuse the hell out of the bastards. We try and set them off and they don't go, we'll lose the only advantage we've got.' Not bad, Monach had to admit, for the spur of the moment, when I'm still three parts asleep, not bad at all. 'We do this the old-fashioned way, like I tell you to, or we might as well open the gates now and have done with it. Now, is anybody else going to waste my time making me explain things, or can we get on with the job?'

Moment's embarrassed silence-confidence-inspiring generals don't throw temper tantrums-followed by wholesale scurrying about. Monach paused, standing still while everybody else was moving, and spared a moment to review the dispositions he'd just made. Again, not bad at all. The three best companies, full strength, best morale, haven't yet realised about the hiding-to-nothing aspect or don't care, to maintain the point of maximum impact; three companies in the yard, standing by or holding ready if they burst straight in through the gate. Flying reserve: where did that idea pop up from? Must've read about it in some book. Monach peered out to see if there were battering rams, scaling ladders or siege towers anywhere among the advancing multitudes, but all he could see was rain and more rain. Fucking arsehole-of-the-universe Tulice.

For what seemed like a very long time, they seemed to be moving very slowly-until they were very close, and then it became apparent that they were in fact moving very fast. I've forgotten something, I've bloody forgotten something shrieked a voice in Monach's head as the soldiers of five, seven and eight company bunched up against the rampart palings, trying to make themselves as small as possible under helmets, behind stakes. There must be something I've forgotten to do, because I haven't really done very much, just these men here, those men over there; surely a general ought to be studying maps, sending runners, busy, busy, busy. He shouldn't just be standing here waiting for stuff to happen The enemy had stopped. Monach hadn't seen them stop, he'd been kneeling down trying to get his toes the last three-quarters of an inch into his boots, and when he'd looked up again, there the bastards were, standing still in the rain, getting wet, not moving. Why're they doing that? What're they up to? Shit, I wish we had something nasty we could throw at them or shoot at them. He leaned out as far as he dared (not very far) hoping to see something significant, but all he got was two eyefuls of cold water.

Do something, please, don't just stand there. But there was something; the front the-gods-only-knew-how-many ranks were standing still, but behind them there were large, rain-mist-shrouded contingents of men moving about; the enemy taking up his position, skilful chess moves that a competent general ought to have been able to read like a book, but Monach couldn't; all he could see was vague grey shapes shifting about through a curtain of flying wet. Calm down, he told himself, let's think about this. They're out there, we're up here, exactly how much scope is there for tactical genius? Still only got two options, you bastards: through the gate, or over the walls. And they're both covered (assuming I haven't forgotten something).

They're waiting. No sweat, we can wait too. They're waiting, because they're expecting to be blasted at by the Flutes. Can they see them? Good point; no, dammit, they can't, because I had the smart idea of masking them with shutters. They don't know where the danger is. They don't know what to do next.

Monach could hardly keep from laughing. Bastards, he thought. Call themselves soldiers, don't know what to do. Serve them all right if I suddenly whisked the shutters away and thundered them all into bloody shit. Only I can't, because it's Rain trickled down his forehead, down his face, over his lip into his mouth, as he suddenly realised. Yes, but it's not raining in the animal-fodder store. Namely, the long rectangular wooden building whose longest side was directly parallel to the gate, at a distance no greater than thirty yards. Good, weathertight slate roof; of course, we'd have to tear down the lath-and-plaster wall-would that bring the roof down? Fuck, it'd really help if I knew how buildings work, or if there was a book you could look stuff up in. But assuming not: we drag down the shutters and prop them up in front of the Flutes; they force the gates, and when they're pouring in, jammed tight in the gateway like a turd in a constipated bum, we give fire Brilliant, Monach thought. Never learned that at school, can't teach stuff like that, it comes from inside. Of course, it'd mean having to move the Flutes…

'Spenno!' Hadn't meant to yell that loud; but here he was, little black tendrils of sodden hair crawling down onto his forehead. 'The Flutes. Got to get them off the tower, into the fodder shed. Mustn't let the enemy see what we're about. Can you do it?'

Spenno stared at him, swearing silently under his breath. 'Yes,' he said. 'But I'll need-'

Monach grinned like a lunatic. 'Help yourself. Take command. You're in charge, and give me a shout when you're done, or if the fuckers attack in the meantime. Otherwise I'm going to the drawing office for something to eat. All right?'

Spenno nodded. 'Fine,' he said, his mind a long, long way away from inanities such as military hierarchies, chains of command. Then he started calling out names, cursing and swearing aloud, waving his arms. Monach smiled. Someone was in charge at last, and they wouldn't be needing him for quite some time. Fine.

He reached the drawing office unmolested. No food anywhere to be seen, nobody to send out to fetch some; so he lay down on his bed in the corner of the main room, and (just for five minutes) closed his eyes 'Xipho,' he says. (And who was he?) 'You're looking very well. Your condition suits you.' He makes it sound like vampirism or lycanthropy; but she's used to him after all those years, and smiles him down like a man whistling to a boisterous dog.

'Ciartan.' She in turn makes his name sound like a criticism, a familiar complaint, wantonly unheeded, just this side of nagging. 'Wonderful that you could spare the time.'

(And he, himself, the mere Earwig is there too, sitting in the corner of the room-no, it's high up in a tower, circular, no corners; but anywhere the Earwig happens to sit is a corner, by definition. Strange, to see himself through Ciartan's eyes, even though it's only a dream-)

'Always got time for you, Xipho, you know that.' A reproach, and a point scored. Reckoning back seven years to the start of their duel, that makes the score fifteen thousand, four hundred and ninety-seven to Ciartan, fifteen thousand, four hundred and eighty-one to Xipho. 'So, when's it due?'

So calm, her smile. 'Winter solstice,' she says promptly, 'give or take a day or so. Talking of which,' she goes on, just a hint of mischief showing in the cracks under her voice, 'we were meaning to ask, would you like to be godfather?'

Ciartan can feel the pressure on the perimeter of his circle: a hostile intention, if ever there was one. But he doesn't want to fight on this ground quite yet, so he makes a show of turning to Rethman, as though noticing him for the first time. 'Hello, Rethman, how's tricks?' he asks; a question that expects and requires no answer. Then he turns his face back towards Xipho, drawn like a lodestone. 'I'd be absolutely delighted, of course,' he says. 'Though I've never been a godfather before. What'll I have to do?'

'Oh, nothing much.' Ciartan realises she's got something in her hands-embroidery, by God, Xipho Dorunoxy is sitting there with a belly on her like a beached whale, and she's doing embroidery. Ciartan can't help shooting a very swift glance at Rethman; what in hell's name have you done to her, you bastard? 'You hold him up while Father Tutor says the magic words, then you say "Yes" or something equally incisive-'

'Father Tutor?' He isn't surprised, or if he is he doesn't give a damn; but he's trying to make it sound like an enormous issue. 'Since when has Father Tutor lowered himself to doing the births, marriages and deaths stuff?'

Xipho shrugs. 'Since I asked him, actually. He seemed quite pleased to be involved.'

'Bloody hell.' Ciartan can't help being impressed; it's as if she'd just told him that she was paying some god five quarters a week to do her laundry. 'Well, in that case I'd be honoured-thanks.' He needs a moment to adjust his guard and settle himself on his feet after an unexpected backwards jump out of danger. 'So, Rethman, how are things in the charcoal business?'

Insignificant Rethman smiles, as though he's flattered that Ciartan managed to remember how he earns his living. 'Not at all bad, right now,' he says. Xipho's husband has a broad, flat face-blandly pleasant apart from an unfortunate chin-and enormous brown eyes like a sick cow's. She could only have married him as a gesture, making a definitive statement of her unavailability, and no need to guess whose benefit such a statement is for. But Xipho was always more of a man than most men; and if Ciartan could marry a dim, wispy, fragile little mouse with huge eyes, loads of money and no brains, so could she. 'Of course, the charcoal trade's very seasonal, and this is usually a slow time. But we're actually up by a sixteenth on this time last year, mostly on account of some very useful new contacts in the Tulice ironworks-'

Ciartan has to try very hard not to stare. This wetslap got Xipho pregnant? How? With what? Instead, he consults his mental library, precepts of religion: the strongest defence is to counter-attack the enemy's attack. Since the only purpose Rethman served was to be used as a weapon against him, this was obviously the place to cut, at the fingers holding the sword. Ignore her, talk to him, like he's more important 'Ah yes,' he hears himself say, 'Tulice. Fascinating place, with a lot of potential. Lumber growing up out of the ground, iron ore underneath it. Pity that communications are so difficult-bad roads and the incessant rains; otherwise, I'd say the region is wide open for sustained development.'

Rethman's eyes sparkle. And why not? It can't be every day that someone in this house actually listens to a word he says. 'Actually, the consortium I'm in with are working on that right now,' he burbles. 'We're looking into the possibility of using waterways-rivers, of course, and building canals; and half the year the lowlands are flooded anyhow-'

She can see right through the ploy, needless to say. The man of the moment doesn't come trundling halfway across the Empire on treacherous roads just to spend an afternoon chatting about commercial prospects in Tulice to the man who married the woman he loves. She's annoyed, in spite of herself, but she's well back inside her circle, guard up, balance perfect, and just sufficiently pissed off to be extremely dangerous.

Fortunately, some servant or other announces that dinner's ready, Excellent. When facing a tactical stalemate, change the locale.

Dinner is a bizarre experience. If the real Xipho, the one he knew at Deymeson, ever thought about food, it could only ever have been in the context of how much valuable time had to be wasted each day, taking food in at one end of the body, flushing it out the other end once it'd been processed. The real Xipho would never, ever, have participated in anything involving devilled eggs in sour cream, or sea bass with mushrooms on a bed of wild rice. For pity's sake, he can hear Real Xipho saying, is this garbage supposed to be food? And then she tips a whole jug of vinegar over it to drown out any suggestion of flavour, and loads it into her face like foundrymen stoking a furnace. But this Xipho (married, pregnant; those fingers, that can whisk a sword blade through three tightly rolled reed mats straight from the draw faster than any man in the Empire, now used only for stitching little mauve flowers onto a linen cushion-cover) eats like it's a matter of religion: serious, attentive eating, as if there's going to be a test afterwards. So; either the pathetic Rethman has corrupted her utterly, or this is all an act of war The meal lasts for ever; lichen smothers trees and rocks crumble into loam, and still they bring on more food, tiny bits of minced-up fish in silly little pastry fortresses, encompassed about with redoubts of rare, weird vegetable. But eventually it ends; and she gives Rethman a look, and suddenly he's deep in conversation with the Earwig (forgotten he was there; don't you always?) while Xipho walks across the furniture-cluttered floor towards the fireplace, choosing her ground for single combat.

'Well, then,' she says. 'You've been busy.'

Ciartan frowns a little. 'Lots of running about, nothing much actually gets done. That's the military for you.'

Her lip twitches. Ciartan could draw you detailed maps of her lips. 'And how's the family?' she asks-an expected opening attack, but hard to defend nonetheless. If you ever really loved me, how could you possibly go off and marry that popsy?

'Fine.'

She steps into his circle, following up remorselessly. 'Lysalis doesn't go with you when you're in the field, then?'

Ciartan makes himself show his teeth in a weak imitation of laughter. 'No,' he says. 'Life under canvas isn't really her thing. She'd come along if I asked her to, but-'

'You spend so much time away, though. Don't you miss her?'

Cruel Xipho: because of course he does, and that's the shameful part of it-insipid, flavourless Lysalis, Lysalis who every day renews her fatal crime of not being Xipho; and yes, he misses her. Because he loves her. In a sense. 'It's something we've had to figure out how to deal with,' he lies (floods of tears each time he leaves. I can't help it, she always says, I know you've got to go, but-) 'I guess it must be the same for you when Rethman's away on business.'

'Not really.'

He lets the words hang, not prepared to commit to what might be a feint. 'Seen Gain lately? I haven't heard from him in ages.'

'He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth,' she replies. 'Last I heard, he was in Josequin.'

'Josequin.' Fine; why not? 'Doing what?'

'No idea. Some errand for Father Tutor, presumably-assuming he's still in orders, that is. For all I know, he could've quit and gone into trade or something. He never struck me as the contemplative type.'

'He'll turn up again soon enough,' he says. 'He always does. The Earwig still hanging round, then.'

Xipho's face softens. Ploy. 'He gets on very well with Rethman,' she says. 'They go and watch the horse races together.' Fine; so why couldn't he have married Rethman? Then all four of us could be happy. 'It's good having him so close, otherwise I'd be completely out of touch.'

Religion: invite the attack you want to defend against. Religion: disconcert the enemy by doing the expected thing. 'So, do you miss-well, the old days?' There, battle joined at last. Took long enough.

'I don't know.' She's looking over his shoulder. 'I guess it's different for a woman. You start off on something, then marriage comes along, children-I can see why they don't like having women in the Order, it must seem like a terrible waste of resources when we suddenly up and leave.'

'Like me.' Step forward to parry, lean back to cut. 'I left before you did.'

'Ah yes.' Smile. 'But look at you now: captain of your own free company, with a prince for a father-in-law. Half the Order's work is training the likes of you-it's just as important as the contemplative side. You go out there, do the things that need doing in the world, taking religion with you. Every bit as important, maybe more so.'

(Xipho, why in God's name did you marry him? It wasn't just me, or any of us. Certainly not just me; it was only the one time, and we made more hate than love, and ever afterwards you treated me like I was the most evil man in the world. But yes, I did leave, and I did marry Lysalis-)

'But you're happy,' he hears himself say. 'You don't regret-'

A smile can be as fast as a draw, a moment that doesn't exist, in religion. She smiles: cold, bitter, vindictive. 'No,' she says. 'I'm happy, this is what I want.' She doesn't move, but the swelling in her body threatens him like a sword in the first or perfect guard. 'This is what I've always wanted.'

A challenge. You got me into this mess, it's your fault; if it was your brat I'm carrying, it couldn't be more your fault. And she thinks she's got me beaten, put me where I can't fight back, all out of options. And that, Father Tutor, is why I am the best of our year; because there is a way…

(Monach, in his dream, on the other side of the room, talking to Rethman, knows what will happen, because Monach, awake, will remember what happened. Three weeks later: Ciartan, angry about something, very drunk, hammered on the door of Rethman's house, demanding to see Xipho. Rethman, half asleep, trying to calm him down, believing he's good at handling drunks and excitable people, telling Ciartan to come back in the morning; something in his voice, or maybe an inadvertent gesture misinterpreted as a threat, breaching Ciartan's circle. The draw happens in a moment so brief that it exists only in religion; but after the draw, when the sword had completed its perfect movement and was back in the scabbard, Rethman dead on the floor, sliced from ear to collarbone. Xipho came down to see what all the shouting was about; having no sword, she attacked with a candlestick, which isn't a proper weapon in the eyes of religion, and therefore not covered anywhere in the syllabus. Ciartan, just managing not to draw, defending himself as best he could: a kick in the stomach, no big deal under normal circumstances-Monach, asleep, has all this locked down in his memory, as he dreams of being Ciartan, on the day that caused the act that finally eliminated all remaining options.)

'Wake up, for crying out loud.' Someone shouting in his sleep: is that Ciartan at the door, drunk, violent, wanting to see Xipho? 'For God's sake, wake up-they're attacking. You're supposed to be in charge!'

Monach sat up, swung his legs off the bed, opened his eyes. 'Was I asleep?'

'They've got battering rams.' Runting, wide-eyed, shaking. 'Bloody great big trees from the forest. They're-'

Monach yawned and stood up. 'How's Spenno getting on? Finished yet?'

Runting shook his head. 'Technical problems-the crane keeps breaking or something. Look, are you coming, or what?'

'Sorry,' Monach said, 'I was miles away. Right, let's get to it, shall we?'

When the world closes down around you and forms a clamp that seems to be squeezing your brain out past your eyes, there's nothing quite as effective as a temporary palliative than taking it out on strangers with a sharp tool. It was their fault; they'd smashed open the gate and come bursting in before everything was ready for them. For a short while, under the gatehouse arch, Monach's life suddenly became pleasantly, wonderfully simple. It was all disgracefully self-indulgent, but at least, for the most part, they wouldn't have felt anything, and they were the enemy. Presumably.

He'd already sliced a dozen necks to the bone before he realised: this was all very well, and his performance of the eight approved cuts would've wrung a nod of approval out of Father Tutor himself, but it wasn't the job he was supposed to be doing. True, he was forging ahead like a scythe through dry grass, but all around him the enemy were streaming past, pushing their way into the yard as if he was somehow irrelevant, while his men were either falling back or being killed. All his perfectly executed strokes were doing was putting him in a position where he'd be cut off, surrounded and hacked to death, leaving the garrison without anyone to tell them what to do. He stopped in his tracks, trying to figure out how to retreat-not covered in the syllabus, because sword-monks don't-and wondering what in hell's name he could do to rally his people and push the enemy back. No idea, not a clue. Then, while he stood still and helpless over the body of the last man he'd chopped down, something slammed into the back of his head and he found himself sprawling on the ground.

Beautiful irony; because it was Monach's getting knocked silly by a stone that saved the moment, not his supreme skill and grace. Someone in the retreating line of defenders saw him go down, and yelled, The chief's been hit, they got the chief; whereupon half a dozen of them pulled up short, faced about and rushed towards him. At least one of them ran straight up an enemy spear; at which, more defenders waded in to try and rescue them, and the general falling-back turned into a reckless but effective counter-attack. By the time they reached Monach he was on his feet again, sword in hand and looking round for the bastard who'd hit him. They surged round and past him, as soon as they realised he was all right; just as the enemy had done, they ignored him, as though he belonged to some other battle that happened to be going on next door. The hell with this, Monach thought; but the sheer ignorant energy of his followers stove in the advancing line and rolled them back under the gatehouse arch. There were plenty of other sword-monks in the garrison besides Monach, and they seemed keen to make the most of their chance to indulge themselves, too.

Right, he thought, and glanced up at the gatehouse tower, hoping to see if Spenno had managed to dismantle the Poldarn's Flutes yet. But the angle was too steep-all he could see were palisades. Not to worry; the job in hand was obvious enough. He needed to rally his men, make sure they didn't pursue the retreating attackers too far, then organise work details to patch up the smashed gates.

Monach tried shouting, but he couldn't make himself heard. His voice had always been soft and quiet, and he'd never had occasion to learn how to project it. As he stood in the yard, feeling unpleasantly foolish, he caught sight of Galand Dev. The short, wide engineer was engaged in a faintly ludicrous duel with two enemy soldiers, both of them a head and a hand taller than him; but he was using their height against them, warding off their blows with a captured shield as they cut down at him, and making them skip backwards as he slashed at their knees with a short-handled adze. A few strides brought him up close enough to join in; one soldier didn't see him coming until it was far too late; the other swung round to face him and forgot about Galand Dev, an omission that cost him his life.

'Thanks,' Galand Dev panted, wiping sweat out of his eyes, 'but I was doing just fine-'

'Listen,' Monach interrupted. 'You can shout louder than me. I want you to call them back before they go chasing off through the gate and get themselves cut off. Then I'll need you back here.'

One thing Galand Dev excelled at was giving orders. Soon the last of the enemy had scuttled away under the gate, and the defenders had regrouped in the yard, with Galand Dev barking out assignments by platoon.

Fixing up the gates didn't take nearly as long as Monach had expected it to. One platoon lifted them up and walked them back into position-they'd been ripped off their hinges, and the locking bar had snapped in two, but the panels themselves were hardly damaged at all. Another platoon fetched heavy poles and bricks; they weren't master masons or joiners, but they knew how to prop and wedge. Besides, Monach reflected, he didn't want the gates to keep the enemy out permanently. Just long enough.

He shuddered, not really understanding why. There was, after all, no difference. He could feel the damp warmth in the cuffs of his shirt, other people's blood, an occupational hazard for those who favour the lateral cut off the front foot. Severed veins spurt; there's a knack to blinking the blood out of your eyes quickly, so you don't lose the plot in the middle of a complex sequence of moves. No difference, not even in religion, between a subtle feint that deceives one swordsman, and the setting up of a fire-spitting monster behind a wicker screen…

Inappropriate thoughts: you could maybe just about get away with them as a foot soldier, a follower of orders, but not when you're in charge. Instead, he should be playing chess in his mind, figuring out the move after the move after next. (But Monach hadn't got a clue what he was going to do, let alone what the enemy were planning; he couldn't play chess worth spit, either.)

Still.

'We'll need to reinforce the east wall,' he heard himself telling someone. 'Who's in charge up there, anyhow?'

The man Monach was talking to mentioned a name he didn't recognise; it was as though his memory had been wiped away, like moisture off glass. 'Fine,' he replied. 'Take one man in five off the south wall, they won't try anything there.'

Whoever it was he was talking to didn't seem to agree with that. 'You sure? It's high ground on that side, if I was figuring where to put ladders-'

Monach grinned. 'You've forgotten your precepts,' he said. 'Strength is weakness. East wall's the strongest point, so they'll reckon we won't bother so much with defending it. Same principle as with the gates,' he added, for his own benefit mostly. 'Weakness is strength.'

The man (a sword-monk, Monach remembered) grinned suddenly. 'I remember that one from classes,' he said. 'I thought it was a load of shit back then, too.'

Colonel Muno, or whoever was commanding the enemy, couldn't have read the precepts of religion; or else he shared the sword-monk's low opinion of them. He attacked the east wall, just as Monach had anticipated; he brought up siege ladders-the trunks of fifty-year-old ash trees, taller by a yard than the walls and cut with slots up one side to serve as rungs-and sent his men clambering up them like terrified spiders. Monach had his men push down the first three or four; but the wall was too low for the drop to be fatal or even debilitating, and most of the ladder-climbers picked themselves up after they'd hit the ground and immediately set about righting the ladders for another attempt. So Monach told his people to let the bastards come, and placed sword-monks on the walkway at regular intervals. He denied himself the indulgence of joining them.

The essence of religion is, of course, simplicity; it aims to pare away distractions, on the assumption that the divine is an indivisible perfection. There was something wonderfully simple about sword-monks setting about religion, if you could put out of your mind the (distracting) fact that they were cutting human tissue and bone. A purist-Father Tutor, say-might have quibbled, pointing out that their choice of cuts was too diverse for perfection; some of them favoured the downwards diagonal into the junction of neck and shoulders, others the rising diagonal across the throat, while others opted for a flamboyant, almost blasphemous celebration of variety, ranging from the minimal thrust to the full sweep of the arms, laterally off the back foot, shearing the head off the neck in a shocking waste of energy. Monach (who had specialised all his adult life in just the one cut, a swift drawn slice across the windpipe) didn't really mind, which in a sense was a failure on his part. His only real concern was to keep the enemy out of the enclosure, and so far his approach seemed to be working.

So efficient were the sword-monks, in spite of their lack of true focus, that the enemy commander abandoned the direct assault with ladders after a few minutes-long enough for the dead bodies to become a nuisance and a hindrance to movement on the narrow walkway, but not nearly as long as Monach would have liked. Since there was no danger of losing at this game, he'd have preferred it to continue for an hour or more, with less mayhem but more time-wasting, so as to give Spenno a chance to get the Flutes down from the tower and into the yard. Instead, the enemy withdrew their ladders and almost immediately resumed their attack on the already mangled gates. It wasn't hard to follow the reasoning behind the switch. Monach could only have so many of these bloodthirsty maniacs at his disposal, and the rest of his sad little army was made up of day-labourers, farm boys, runaway apprentices, thieves and outlaws. It would take minutes to get the sword-monks down off the wall and into the yard. It ought only to take half a minute to bash through the botched-up gates and match regular Imperial troops against the rabble. By the time the sword-monks rejoined the action, there should no longer be any scope for a series of single combats. It'd be back to proper grown-up soldiering, in which the trained unit invariably stamped flat the undisciplined individuals. Good plan.

So good, it was the strength that Monach, devout believer in precepts, was planning to attack. His idea had been to lure the bulk of the enemy force into the gateway in just this fashion, and then open up with the Flutes, charged with leather sacks full of gravel. It was annoying that the sword-monks had thwarted his unimpeachably orthodox planning by doing their job far too well.

Never mind. Yelling at Galand Dev to keep the men on the wall at their posts, Monach led the rest of his forces (even he caught himself thinking of them as 'the rabble') across the yard at a run. Mathematics, he thought, as he threw his weight against the planks of the left-hand gate. Factor: the gateway is wider on the inside than on the outside. Accordingly, it ought to be possible to get more bodies, therefore more weight, against the gates on our side than they can on theirs. A straightforward shoving match, mere muscle and body mass, and we have the numerical advantage. Simplicity.

He was right, of course, though it was a closer thing than he'd assumed it would be. But they were cheating, using the battering rams (mechanical advantage), which not only increased the force they were able to apply, but also smashed the woodwork up still further, making it harder to push against. As he shoved, his mind elsewhere (clearly they hadn't got archers with them, which was a blessing, but why? Because, stupid, they were expecting to fight light infantry in a forest with visibility restricted to thirty yards, terrain that would turn archers into casualties-in-waiting) Monach felt a slight twinge in his shoulder, which he recognised as minor damage to a tendon. Big deal, except…

Cutting it too fine. It was only a minute or so before the battering-ram assault suddenly broke off that Monach managed to figure out what their next move ought to be. The enemy commander, he guessed, either kept cats or had played with one as a boy. He knew about flicking the piece of wool backwards and forwards, making the frantic cat lunge left, then right, wearing itself out. So: the master strategist had timed how long it'd take to get the sword-monks down from the wall into the yard, and then he relaunched the attack on the wall. That much Monach had had the wit to anticipate, hence his orders to Galand Dev; what he hadn't considered until it was very nearly too late was that his opponent was a man whose mind wasn't saturated with the precepts of religion, and who therefore didn't know the importance of attacking strength rather than weakness. Accordingly, entirely at odds with religion, he would see nothing wrong in launching a simultaneous attack on the hitherto unmolested south wall Monach peeled himself off the door and tried to push his way through the scrum, but no chance; it was like a nail trying to walk through a hammer. When the rams suddenly didn't slam home, and the gate-side mob promptly lurched forward against the impact of a blow that didn't arrive, he was knocked to the ground. Staring up through a forest of legs, he could just see the tops of scaling ladders poking above the south rampart.

Shit, he thought; but apparently there were smarter men than him inside the compound, for which he felt unreservedly, unselfishly grateful. Someone with a brain had sent the two platoons of mobile reserves to the south wall, in good time to push down the ladders before the enemy could come surging up them. Meanwhile, the butcher noises from the east wall told him all he needed to know about what was going on there. In that respect at least, he was ahead on points. What mattered, of course, was the progress or lack thereof up in the guard tower, and he couldn't see that since he was directly underneath it.

By the time he'd contrived to excavate himself out from under the gatehouse mob, the enemy had once again given up on the scaling-ladder approach. In fact, they didn't seem to be doing anything. That was bad; because, according to the scenario in Monach's mind, they ought now to be pressing home an attack on the gate and the south wall. If they weren't, it had to be because they'd thought of a better idea.

It was a good better idea, too. The master of strategy had been fooling with him. The direct assaults had been nothing more than playing for time (him and me both, Monach thought unhappily), while his pioneers were busy in the woods nearby, felling the tallest, straightest trees they could find and lashing them together with the ropes and chains they'd fortuitously decided to bring with them. They were as quick and efficient about it as you'd expect trained soldiers to be. The result of their efforts was a single massive ram, consisting of a dozen substantial tree trunks bundled up together like the twigs of a broom and hoisted onto the two biggest carts in the baggage train. While one section of their comrades-in-arms had been thumping on the gates, and others had been providing Monach's brothers-in-religion with live cutting practice, the pioneers and the reserve had dragged the super-cart round to the hitherto undisturbed north side, which happened to face a long, gentle slope.

The 'walls' of Dui Chirra were, of course, no such thing. The compound was defended by a stockade-as tall and well-built as a stockade can be, but still nothing more than a row of posts driven into the ground. When the cart-mounted ram rolled down the northern slope and crashed into it, there was an alarming splintering of timber, like a violent gale blowing down tall, spindly trees in a crowded wood. Before Monach could do anything, the enemy started to pour in though the breach.

Impossible, Monach thought; where's the religion in that? The whole purpose of this dismal affair (he reasoned as he sprinted across the yard, narrowly missing the corner of the charcoal store) was to provide a pivotal moment in history, a day when the world would change; this would be the day when the full devastating force of the Poldarn's Flutes was unleashed on unsuspecting flesh and muscle, or else why were any of them there, why had Cordo, his friend, stranded him here in an impossible situation that he otherwise simply wasn't equipped to handle? If Dui Chirra fell to a breached stockade, with the Flutes dangling in the air on ropes, not a solitary charge loosed from a single one of them, where in Poldarn's name was there any religion in it at all?

The first man he happened to run into was some kind of officer; brave, conscientious man, leading by example. He was wearing a thick waxed-leather breastplate, and Monach had to tug hard to free his sword blade from it, where he'd cut into it far too deeply, because he'd been angry and afraid and had slashed down far too deep. In doing so, he wrenched that abused tendon a little more. Very bad; nothing, of course, to an ordinary man, but the slightest imperfection in religion undermines everything else. If his shoulder hurt him a little bit as he moved into the cut, his timing would be very slightly off. If his timing was off, the cut wouldn't be exactly as it should be and there would be no perfection. Any deviation from perfection would render him mortal; like the hawk, masterpiece of economy of design, condemned to death by the loss of three feathers. The realisation hit Monach hard: he was no longer in absolute control of his actions in the one tiny area of existence where he should have been able to rely on a predictable outcome to anything he did. It was as though he'd just watched a god being killed in front of his eyes.

It took more than courage to keep him steady in his ground, or loyalty to his friends or his men, or belief in the cause (whatever it was) or religion itself. The instinct to run away would've overridden any of those, or all of them together. But the thought occurred to him, even as panic smashed through his defences into his mind, that if he ran, or if he didn't maintain the defence and drive the enemy out, then the Flutes wouldn't be discharged and everything would be wrong: history wouldn't turn, the world would stay the same, and it'd all be because of one weak tendon. He couldn't face the embarrassment.

He overdid his next cut recklessly, swinging with far too much force and not enough direction. The stroke went home, sure enough, but there hadn't been any need to chop bone, and Monach saw an accusing spark fly up as the hard steel of his sword blade chipped against a steel belt-buckle. The slightest notch in the cutting edge would ruin it for the perfect drawn cut, the stroke in which he'd striven all his life to find religion. Everything had gone completely wrong, and he hadn't even lost a square yard of ground yet The best and only chance was to close and seal the breach before the decisive number (a constant easily discovered by simple maths) got through it and into the yard. If the decisive number was sixty and he let through sixty-one, he'd failed. One hell of a time to screw up a tendon.

Even so, he thought; and he swung at the next man to get in his way with everything he had. It was a poor cut, a lousy cut, Father Tutor would have rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue, but the dead man hit the ground with a thump, and his sword clattered against the rim of his shield as it dropped. The next one was slightly better, but the annoying fool of a target stumbled, was in the wrong place, and the edge cut into the ball of his shoulder instead of his neck; Monach had to waste a whole cut finishing him. From there, it was all simply dreadful. Some of them had time to hit back and he had to parry, something he hadn't needed to do for ten years. One of them even slipped past a third back guard and nicked the lobe of his ear before Monach could deal with him. He was tired, he'd wickedly abused his shoulder, he was filthy with mud and blood and he'd knocked a splinter as wide as the nail of his little finger out of the edge of his sword, a forefinger's length down from the tip. History and the world owed him badly for all this.

Fortunately, he'd underestimated his men. Their efforts were so shabby as to be practically an abomination, but they did contrive to hustle the enemy back into the breach without getting themselves wiped out-and, to do them credit, they took a respectably long time about it, unlike the haughty sword-monks who couldn't be bothered to spin out a simple job in a good cause. How much longer could Spenno need, anyway? Two old women and a three-legged dog could've shifted those Flutes by now Only three men were left from the party of enthusiasts who'd tumbled in through the breach after the ram. Two of them promptly vanished, cut to bits by a couple of sword-monks who'd wandered down from the wall, presumably out of boredom. That left just one for Monach himself, not that he was really fussed. Still, it'd be no big deal getting rid of a lone infantryman-a long, thin, spindly individual with a badly burned face. Monach decided to start from sword-sheathed and do a proper draw. An act of religion was just what he needed right now, to soothe his mind and take it off the pain in his shoulder.

As the back of his hand brushed the sword hilt before flipping over, the infantryman stepped into his circle and grinned. 'Hello there, Earwig,' he said.

Monach froze, just managing to check the draw in time. 'Gain?' he said. The infantryman nodded, and drew.

Back in third year, before they'd learned anything worth knowing, Monach had sparred with Gain in the exercise yard: two-foot hazel sticks wrapped in cloth, with a wicker handguard. After the bout had gone on far too long, Gain had lost his temper and lashed out blindly, allowing Monach to do the two-step sideways shuffle that still gave him problems all these years later, and flick a little cut across Gain's forehead, drawing enough blood to establish victory. Curiously, the thin, straight scar had survived whatever had happened to Gain's face in the meantime.

The tip of Gain's sword nipped the very end of Monach's nose, spurting a few drops of blood into his eyes as he rocked back. He heard Gain swearing, couldn't blame him-nobody had reflexes fast enough to get them out of the way of a perfectly executed rising throat-cut straight from the draw; most definitely not the Earwig. Nonplussed, Gain neglected to double his hands and step out with a left downwards diagonal; there was an instant, a full moment in religion, in which time wouldn't exist. If Monach could reconcile himself to killing an old friend, Gain was already as good as dead.

Monach drew.

But you couldn't do religion with a trick shoulder; only the perfect could attain perfection. The hard edge of his sword slithered off the opposing flat of Gain's sword, like a skater losing his balance on the ice. Because the anticipated resistance of bone to steel was missing, Monach stumbled forward, turned over his right ankle and flopped on the ground, while Gain's coaching-manual lateral beheading cut sailed over him, slicing air. As Monach scrambled frantically to his knees, he saw Gain step back and shake his head. 'See you, Earwig,' he called out, then stepped backwards through the splintered palisade like an actor leaving a stage.

Someone else must've given the order to bring up logs and stakes to plug the gap torn by the ram. Monach watched them do it-better carpenters than they were soldiers-then trudged back across the yard, just as the rain began to fall. Perfect, he thought bitterly.

But as he came up to the gate, he heard the now-familiar sound of somebody cursing a blue streak: Spenno, at last. Monach broke into a run, and found himself in front of the fodder store, staring at a large round black hole that seemed to go on for ever, right though to the edge of the world and out the other side into infinity. Instinctively he ducked; a burst of laughter greeted his movement. He glanced up and saw Spenno grinning at him down the length of a Poldarn's Flute. 'We did it!' Spenno was shouting. 'We're all done and dusted and ready to go, just got to load up the charge-'

Spenno's next words were drowned out by the hollow thump of battering rams on the tortured remains of the gate. 'Perfect,' Spenno said. 'Right on time-couldn't be better if we'd all been practising for a week. You, for fuck's sake, where's the goddamned vent pick?'

Monach didn't need to know what a vent pick might be. He skipped out of the way, ducked under the muzzle of the Flute and into the shed. A man he didn't know brushed past him, lugging a leather sack the size of a plump cushion; his. knees were bent and he was straining. Behind the knobbly stump end of the Flute-he'd heard Spenno call it the cascabel, the gods only knew where he'd got the word from, but knowing Spenno it was the right one-someone else was blowing gently on a manky little stub of smouldering rope, fetching up a tiny red ember. 'Watch what you're fucking doing with that match,' Spenno's voice rasped, and its malevolence was the most reassuring thing Monach had ever heard. 'Clear away, make ready,' someone else yelled-Galand Dev possibly, but it didn't actually matter. The rest of the exchange was blurred by the cracking of timber; Monach turned round to face the gate, and saw the nose of a four-foot-diameter log poking through shattered boards, like a worm in an apple. They were coming. The slayer was set up, and they were smashing their way towards it, pressing forward in their haste to be the first to crawl into the narrow black tunnel to nowhere. My idea, Monach reflected; and the horror of what he was about to achieve made his stomach lurch. They hadn't tested it on wicker screens or sacks stuffed with straw or even just a wall of soft mud: this would be the first time, against muscle and sinew and bone, but there could only be one possible outcome. A hundredweight of gravel, spat out of a short tube at unimaginable speed; the first man through the gates would simply disintegrate, like a rotten apple thrown up in the air and smacked hard with a stick.

The ram crunched into the gates, a sound like a giant eating celery. Monach saw a man stretch out a hand holding a bit of smouldering rope, then jerk it back as Spenno bawled him out; not yet, apparently, because whoever made those gates had done far too good a job. The noses of the rams were having to chew them slowly away, like a child unwillingly eating up the last of his greens. We could loose now, blast them through the last of the boards. Yes, we could, but we'll kill even more of them if we're patient just a little bit longer. Next to him, men were already lugging out the gravel-sacks for the next charge, dipping tin jugs into the tall barrel of volcano dust, wetting the heads of mops in the water pail, as though the first charge had already been loosed (in a moment existing only in religion, like the draw). I think I'll look away now, Monach suggested to himself, I don't think I want to see He heard the crack of failing timber, saw an arm stretch out and touch a red glow to a spot on top of the cascabel, watched a small, perfect, round white cloud float up, before a wall of burning hot air hit him in the face like a giant's hammer.

Monach was already toppling backwards when the noise came. He could feel the shock wave of raw black sound ramming air into his ears, the pain unbearable as his brain was squeezed in, just as he hit the ground. Wetness splashed his face and hands, then something heavy fell across him. He could feel every inch of the skin on his face and neck, the sensation of flesh suddenly exposed and raw. People were screaming somewhere, a distant background noise like the constant purring of the sea.

Something had gone wrong.

The first thing that was wrong was his legs; they wouldn't work, and neither would his arms. It was dark, and he couldn't see if the problem lay with the heavy weight that had fallen across him, or whether it was more serious and permanent than that. He tried to think, but thinking through so much pain was like trying to swim in mud. If things hurt, you can feel them; if you can feel them, you aren't paralysed. It sounded good, crisply logical like a precept of religion, but he still couldn't move his legs. Something unbearably heavy pressed on the side of his head; weight and pressure consistent with, say, a boot-someone was treading on him, thinking him dead or simply not caring.

Monach felt horribly cold. The pressure eased and with its passing his right leg came free. He kicked out, shifting something very heavy a little way. He blinked, and the darkness broke up; instead, it was a thick coating of something over his eyes. He could smell burnt meat, and cloth, and iron, like the smell of fresh filings, which was also the smell of blood. He pushed with his left arm and shifted something, but that accounted for the last of his strength. Time to rest, no matter what the hell was going on. No choice.

The answer dropped into his mind all clean and perfect, like a gold coin dug up out of the ground. The Flutes had burst; all or just one of them had failed under the pressure of the charge, and all the fire and death and altered history he'd meant to bring down on the heads and bodies of the enemy had spat out in his face instead.

It hadn't worked. The Poldarn's Flutes were a failure. Nice idea, but no dice. Pity about that.

Monach moved his head, and as he did so he felt something sharp slicing into his chin. Whatever it was, he judged from its position that it was lodged deep in his shoulder. Best guess was, a jagged chunk of brass from the wreck of a Flute. It didn't hurt, the same way that you can't hear one voice out of a huge choir. Another problem he didn't need.

That was enough rest for now. Another boot landed an inch from his nose-it seemed like days ago that Gain had nipped him there, a slight cut that didn't actually matter, except that it had sliced him right down to his heart. Assuming that he still had a nose, or ears, or cheeks or a chin, because his whole face was glowing, radiating pain like the stones of a hearth heated red by the fire. Fire, he thought suddenly, that'd do it: the pain and such are burns-fire gushing out from the Flute as it failed, stripping the skin off his face and neck. No fun at all, but probably better than what he'd been doing to human bodies all day.

Monach blinked over and over again, until he scrubbed through the smear into the light, and could see. What he saw confirmed his initial hypothesis.

He saw the remains of the Flute he'd been standing next to, ripped open along one side like a letter. Parts of bodies were scattered around, like clothes flung off by a drunk staggering into bed. Next to him on the ground was an arm and shoulder, and some bits of tube; a torso was spread across the barrel of the tube, opened up as if throughly pecked over by crows (one side of the ribcage was still there, bones picked clean, the other side was missing). Monach wondered if any of the bits had belonged to himself at any point. Remarkably, there were living men moving about through all the mess and ruin; but they were the enemy, which explained it, because surely nobody could have been within twenty yards of the Flutes when they failed, and survived (Except me. Apparently.)

Then he must have fallen asleep; and when he woke up, he wasn't lying in the shambles and offal any more. He was on his back, on the ground, and above him he could see the beams of a roof, which he recognised as the charcoal store. There were three people looking down at him, impossibly tall, like long, spindly trees in a forest.

One of them Monach didn't recognise, though context would suggest it was Colonel Muno. The other two were the burned man who sounded like Gain Aciava, and Cordo.