‘Take a look. They're prepping.’

Sighing her annoyance, Hurl pushed her piece of chalk into a pouch and cautiously uncrossed her numb legs. ‘It's almost bloody dark, for Fanderay's sake!’

‘Guess they think they need all the help they can get.’

She looked out, studied the Talian entrenchments, and was displeased to have to admit that Shaky was right. ‘Well, so do we,’ she said absently as she watched the fires lighting down the lines, moveable shield platforms being raised and buckets of water being tossed on hides hung over every piece of wooden siege equipment. The increasing activity of the besiegers extended as far as she could see east around the curve of the outer wall. ‘Looks like a general assault,’ she said, amazed.

‘It's ridiculous. They don't have the men to take the walls.’

‘And they know we don't have the men to defend them.’

That silenced Shaky. He glanced up and down the top of the curtain wall. ‘You think maybe they've got a chance?’

‘There's always a chance.’

‘Yeah. Well, maybe someone ought to do something.’ He was looking straight at her. Hurl stared back until she realized that that someone was her. She stepped into the tower archway, leaned out. ‘Ready fires! Prepare for assault!’

‘Aye, Captain!’

Hurl fought the urge to look behind her whenever anyone called ‘Captain’ her way. She heard her orders repeated down the curve of the defences. She adjusted the rank tore at her arm – the damned thing just didn't seem to fit right. ‘Get up top and ready the Beast,’ she told Shaky.

The old saboteur winked, bellowing, ‘Oh, aye, Captain!’

‘Just get up there.’

Laughing at her discomfort, Shaky climbed a ladder affixed to the stone wall and pushed open the roof trap. ‘Stoke the fire!’ he yelled, pulling himself up.

The squat, broad figure of Sergeant Banath entered the stair tower, saluted crisply. ‘Sergeant,’ Hurl greeted him.

‘Orders?’

Hurl eyed the Malazan regular, a red-haired Falaran veteran of the Genabackan campaigns, tanned, always looking as if he needed a shave, even at the morning muster. She'd yet to detect any definite sign either way of his attitude to this new command structure. A careful career soldier, she was coming to think. She said nothing at first. Orders should be blasted obvious, she thought. ‘How do the urban levies look?’ The levies were the majority of their forces: citizens hired, cajoled and plain coerced into the apparently distasteful duty of actually defending their city. She'd been given four hundred to hold this section of the wall. Banath led the three garrison squads that formed the backbone of her command.

The sergeant frowned the usual professional's distaste for amateurs. ‘Nervous and clumsy. Not pissing their pants, yet.’

‘Keep an eye on them.’

‘Aye.’

‘And hold fire until I give the word. Dismissed.’

Another crisp salute, a regimental turn, and exit. Maybe, the thought occurred to her, the exaggerated parade-ground manner was one long extended finger for her to spin on. Well, that was just too bad. His buddy isn't the Fist. She peered out of the loop to gauge the activity. Metal screeched and ratcheted overhead, vibrating the stones of the tower. The Beast was being wound. Hurl could hear Shaky gleefully cursing the lads he had helping him and she couldn't keep down a smile; Gods, Shaky was never so happy as when he had a machine to pour destruction down on someone. And the Beast was his own special design. A winch had been installed at the rear of the stair-tower to bring up the enormous clay pots, big enough for a kid to bathe in, that were its ammunition. Only you wouldn't want to bathe in these. Sealed they were, and filled with oil. World's biggest munition.

Hurl watched while flagmen signalled out at the lines. Sappers took hold of the broad-wheeled shield platforms, and bowmen were forming up behind their cover. A lot of bowmen. Narrowing her eyes, Hurl tried to penetrate the gathering dusk. They looked like Seti tribals. Dismounted horse bowmen? What in the name of Dessembrae were they up to? Horns sounded in the night, and Talian siege engines, medium-sized catapults and onagers, fired. Burning bundles of oil-soaked rags arched overhead streaking smoke and flames in their wake. Stones cracked from the walls. Hurl ignored it all: the Talians had yet to field a single engine capable of damaging Heng's walls. It was just nuisance fire meant to keep everyone's heads down. A flight of arrows darkened the sky, climbed, then fell full of deadly grace. Though she had cover, Hurl winced at the havoc such salvos would cause along the walkway. While she watched, a staccato of answering fire darted from the lines. Hurl ran to the archway, yelling, ‘Who fired? Hold, I said!’

She returned to the loop. The besiegers could waste all the arrows they wanted; they had something Heng would never get: resupply. She squinted again far out to the small hill behind the Talian investments. It was an inviting hill with a view of the river, and a good chance of a steady breeze to keep the midges away. She and Sunny and Shaky knew all this because weeks ago they'd spent a few nights clearing away rocks to make it even more attractive. And sure enough, their work had paid off because the first thing whoever it was commanding this flank had done was obligingly raise his, or her, command tent right on the spot. Hurl couldn't keep from shifting from foot to foot. C'mon, man, fire! Now. It was all calibrated and set! What was Shaky waiting for?

The mantlets were close now, the bow fire more targeted on the parapets. Hurl leaned out the archway, Tire! ‘Fire at will!’ She watched the exchange of salvos with a critical eye – wrong, it was still going all wrong. No matter how many times you had them practise… She returned to the portal. ‘Aim up, for Hood's sake! Up, dammit!’

Banath stalked the walkway, bellowing, ‘Into the sky! Rain it down on them, damn you dogs!’

Something strange caught her eye on the darkening field of burnt stubble and flattened burned hovels. Something low but moving. She stretched to stick her head out through a crenel. Arrows pattered from the stones around her, the iron heads sounding high-pitched tings. A catapulted rock exploded against the wall of the stair-tower above sending shards raining down. Everyone hunched, cursing. A nearby Heng levy raised a tower shield over Hurl. Leaning forward once more she could see that the object was some kind of low rectangular platform covered in sod and grass stubble. It was edging up toward the base of the wall and there were more of them all up and down the lines. ‘Cats!’ she yelled. ‘Sergeant, we have cats! Bring up the stones – I want them broken!’

‘Aye, Captain.’

‘Come with me,’ she said to the soldier who had raised the shield.

At the loop she leaned forward to try to get a look straight down. Not that mining the wall would do the poor bastards any good – the foundations went down a good three man-heights – she should know as she and Sunny had spent most of their time lately digging around down there.

The tower shuddered then as if it had taken a terrible blow from a stone as big as a horse thrown by a monstrous trebuchet such as those Hurl had seen rotting and broken after the siege of the island fortress of Nathilog. Dust and stones sifted down and she coughed, waving a hand. The Urban Levy had instinctively crouched. Hurl darted to the loop. At first she saw nothing, the brightly lit white command tent remained. Shadows moved against the canvas, messengers came and went. Then she flinched away as a blossom of orange and yellow flame suddenly lit the night. The eruption reached her as a shuddering boom echoing along the curtain wall. Hurl jumped up and down, yelled to the roof, ‘You nailed it, Shaky! Beautiful. Just beautiful!’ War whoops reached her from above. She could imagine the old saboteur doing his war dance. ‘Reload,’ she yelled, and went to the portal. The soldier joined her, a portly older fellow, probably a shop-owner. ‘What's your name, soldier?’