Janessa could only stare. What was Isabelle after now? Was she goading her? If she was, Janessa was struggling to discern the barb, but from what she knew of the woman there had to be one somewhere.
‘I am proud,’ said Janessa. ‘Of them. Not of me.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. There was little else you could do.’
‘No? Little I could do other than stand and watch as my city burns?’
‘You mean the Rafts? That was necessary. A pragmatic decision that had to be made. And remember, the city has been suffering for days. We are beset, my child. Do not blame yourself for this.’
Janessa felt fury rising within her. All the pain, all the misery of the past days rose within her like a well overflowing.
‘I am not your child!’ she screamed. ‘I am no one’s child. I am a queen and I have just watched my people die. Innocents who were killed on my order. I am to blame for that. Me!’
Isabelle nodded solemnly. There was no trace of malice in her expression, no deceit. Hers was a look of genuine sympathy.
‘And that is your burden … Majesty. I have felt it too, as did my husband, Arlor rest him. But it is better that a hundred perish than a thousand. Than ten thousand. We must all do what is necessary.’
Janessa just stared into the woman’s eyes, looking for some excuse, some trace of scorn, some trickery, but there was none there. Slowly she nodded.
Before Janessa could speak any word of thanks, the door to the hall opened. Kaira walked in; even from this distance Janessa could see the blood that spotted her bodyguard’s armour. She could only hope that it was not Kaira’s.
‘Majesty, the wall stands. Victory is ours for the night.’
‘Yes, I …’ Janessa turned but Baroness Isabelle had already left the hall. She looked back to Kaira, whose eyes stared out with a fire from behind the blood staining her face. ‘Victory is ours.’
Even as she said the words there was no thrill in it. No sense of triumph.
As though to confirm as much, Kaira stepped in close. ‘They will be back, Majesty. As soon as they have regained their breath, they will attack again.’
Janessa nodded, resisting the temptation to grasp the hilt of the Helsbayn.
‘And we will be waiting.’
SIXTEEN
Waylian’s ears were ringing so bad it hurt his head. There were bruises on his body but he couldn’t remember for the life of him where they’d come from. He’d been in a fight all right, there was no forgetting that, but no one had struck him. Surely he shouldn’t have been aching this much.
He sat in his small chamber, just remembering the horror of the previous night. He had tried to sleep since, but all he’d managed were a few minutes before the nightmares in his head jolted him awake. As if the Khurtas hadn’t been bad enough, the magick of their wytchworkers had left an indelible imprint in Waylian’s mind. That writhing, thrashing thing reaching over the wall. So swift, so deadly.
The horror of it had almost made killing a man seem insignificant.
Waylian could still see his face, still hear his voice screaming in anger and pain.
‘I’m sorry,’ he had said.
Bloody sorry?
It was too late for sorry now, but what did it matter anyway? It wasn’t the first man Waylian had killed. Many more attacks like the one last night and it would most likely not be the last. Kill or be killed definitely seemed to be the order of the day — and Waylian was in no mood to be dead any time soon.
He opened his mouth wide, trying to relieve the ringing in his head. He made a sound through his nose. Stuck a finger in one ear and waggled it. That seemed to work a little as the noise changed from a ringing to a dull drone. It was almost as though someone were calling his na-
Something hit him over the back of the head. It cleared the ringing in his ears instantly and he turned to see Magistra Gelredida standing there looking none too pleased.
‘Are you deaf, Grimm?’ she demanded.
He scrambled to his feet. ‘Er … no, Magistra. I was just …’
‘Come along. There is much to do before the next assault.’
She turned and left the room, Waylian following obediently in her wake.
The next assault. The words filled him with dread. Part of him wanted to believe the Khurtas had thrown everything they had at them the first night, but he knew that was unlikely. They’d probably just been testing the city’s defences and tonight would be even worse — more savage, more deadly.
Waylian was about as far from a battlefield general as you could get, but even he knew that first attack had cost the city dear. As he and his mistress moved through the tower he began to get an idea of just how dear.
Raven Knights and magisters filled the corridors and chambers. The dead and dying were strewn all around being tended by those magisters and apothecaries fit enough to offer them aid. One Raven Knight reclined against a wall, his eyes staring blankly, his leg missing below the knee. It had been hastily bandaged but blood still pooled around him. Beside him was one of his fellow knights, his breastplate removed, a hole in his chest. Waylian couldn’t tell if he was still breathing or not.
More bodies were laid out on the next floor down. These were clearly corpses, their faces covered with sheets. The frail bodies of old magisters lay beside the hulking forms of knights in smashed and rent armour, protocol and hierarchy seeming to matter little in death.
Down another flight of stairs and more voices were raised in agony. Waylian expected more wounded, but instead he saw a young novice, her fingers gripping her knees so hard there was blood on her robe, her mouth moving, spouting unintelligible words as she rocked back and forth. Beside her stood a magister, uncertain of how to help the girl from her malady. Looking in the chamber as he passed, Waylian saw yet more figures, and not all of them young, babbling inanities, the horrors of battle and tapping the Veil having taken their toll.
Past all this Magistra Gelredida walked impassively, not sparing a glance for any of the dead or dying or insane. For a moment Waylian could only admire her callousness; he would have much preferred to ignore it himself. But as he thought on it he knew she could never be so pitiless as to feel nothing for these people.
Or could she? Over the past weeks she’s put you in danger enough times. Not given a shit whether you lived or died to further her aims.
But they weren’t her aims. It was never for herself that she had sacrificed those around her. Everything she had done, everyone who had died as a result of her actions, had done so for the greater good. To preserve Steelhaven. To keep it safe from the enemy, when everyone else would have shirked the hard choices.
Waylian knew that had it fallen to him to make such impossible choices he would have failed utterly.
Gelredida led them into the library. It had become the surrogate meeting room for the Archmasters; the Crucible Chamber obviously meeting with his mistress’ distaste. Inside they waited for her patiently — Folds, Marghil, Kalvor. It was obvious that each man had been affected deeply by the night’s slaughter and none of them seemed able to hide the fact.
Drennan Folds gripped his thick arms, his mismatched eyes glaring at Gelredida as she entered. Crannock sat at a desk, drumming his arthritic fingers against the table top, one lens of his eyeglasses broken in a web of cracks. Lucen Kalvor reclined against a bookshelf, feigning indifference as he always did, but the blood he had yet to wash from his face and robe showed he had seen as much death as any of them.
Gelredida fixed them all with her inscrutable gaze. If they wanted any sympathy from the Red Witch they were about to be sorely disappointed.
‘Drennan?’ she said. ‘How do your apprentices fare?’
Drennan Folds held her with that glare, his white eye unblinking. ‘How the fuck do you think they fare? Of twenty-eight, seven are dead. Four have been driven mad by the horrors they endured and the rest are scared so shitless I doubt they will be able to perform so much as a parlour trick tomorrow.’