City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [181]
In the obsidian chamber, arranged around the vast table, the Night Guard held a council of war. They ate hastily provided food and someone had brought in ale, though none of them touched a drop. There were lingering silences as they nursed their bruises from earlier, all the while mourning a comrade.
Smoke, as usual, commented about the plight of the horses. Syn seemed to relish the opportunity to fight against new techniques. Brug spoke diligently about the enemy’s weaknesses.
‘How long can we last?’ Nelum asked. ‘What happens if we’re eradicated? They all seem to fight as one coherent, slick organism, as if they can communicate telepathically with each other. What can be done against such a level of organization? If we fall, the city’s doomed.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Lupus argued. ‘The Dragoons have held the front since earlier.’
Then the idea of further augmentation was again mooted, and in principle everyone seemed eager to seek advantage. Towards the end of their discussion, a new report came through that civilians had been recently rounded up by the enemy and were being kept in a fishing warehouse behind the Shanties. No one knew if they were to be slaughtered, or would be taken from the city as hostages. At least a hundred had been snatched so far.
FORTY-SEVEN
Just after sunset, there had been a minor skirmish: two rumel enemy scouts were constantly checking the state of a deserted plaza, a tentative step to sense the depth and breadth of Imperial lines.
But the red-skinned rumel didn’t realize they were already being watched by the Rumel Irregulars One. They crouched by the bomb-wrecked ruins of what was once a bakery, making a final inspection before darkness fully descended.
Right, that’s as close as you’re coming, you bastards.
From his hiding place behind a thick barricade of rubble, Jeryd leaned over and signalled the order to fire. In relative silence: crossbow bolts were suddenly let loose, skimming across the cobbles, shattering the window of an overturned fiacre, then hammering into the two scouts. One target was struck in the arm, the other clipped in the thigh before both fell to one side, raising shields as they dived for cover. Once safely out of sight, the two rumel sprinted to safety, pissing Jeryd off immensely. He had wanted at least one prisoner, so they could extract further information. Or even just to see what they were made of . . .
He couldn’t decide how he felt about the presence of these differently coloured rumel. Seeing them changed the texture of his world. It unsettled him, having to contemplate how his own race might have a history bigger than he’d previously thought.
*
Dusk became darkness, into his third night of the war now.
Bored shitless, Jeryd leant on the barricade, pointing his crossbow into the darkness beyond. Nothing had moved for some time. Moonlight skidded off the surface of shining cobbles at this point where Althing, Saltwater and Scarhouse converged.
His orders were to hold this position and should an attack seem imminent overnight, to relay an immediate warning to the Citadel. Such communication might make the difference between the city staying in Jamur hands or falling to the invaders.
‘It’s fucking freezing out here, and not so much as a rat has farted tonight,’ he grumbled to Corporal Bags of Rumel Irregulars One.
‘Aye, sir,’ the young brownskin rumel replied. ‘Better that than fighting, yeah?’
‘Guess you’re right,’ Jeryd conceded.
The son of a fellow Inquisition officer, Bags himself was a barber who seemed to know half the residents in Villiren. And when it came to those he didn’t know about, Bags would tap the side of his broad nose and scamper off to have a word with some contact or other, returning shortly afterwards with the necessary background information, and occasionally a little scandal.
Jeryd liked that quality, and had