The first misjudged his jump. He got one knee onto firm ground, then Jachen slashed open his face and sent him falling back. After

that they came en masse, and the soldiers found themselves brutally repelling the leaping attackers any way they could. Isak had it easier than most, for he had the weight to stand almost on the very edge of the trench and use his shield to swat away those that jumped towards him. One by one they fell into the trench, and the rush towards the defenders slowed.

'This ditch isn't deep enough,' Jachen yelled, crouching down to stab a man in the throat as his fingertips reached up to try and pull himself up.

'If you think you could do any better, feel free to try,' Isak shouted, hacking inelegantly down into a woman's shoulder as she leapt empty-handed, clawed hands reaching for him. The magical edge sheared through her torso with horrific ease and as the two halves fell into the trench a great spray of blood spattered over Isak and the soldiers on either side.

'Piss on you,' roared Shinir, blinking hard through the blood cover¬ing her face, 'that's in my damned eyes!'

'Private!' Jachen shouted. 'Keep that mouth shut! My Lord, this trench isn't going to be enough; look at them.'

Isak had to agree. Now too many were slowing their pace and will¬ingly dropping into the trench, clambering over their fallen and scrab¬bling at the crumbling edge for enough purchase to pull themselves up. The number of corpses down there would soon start to count in their favour.

From the noise he realised they were fighting on both fronts now. The mob had grown again, and fatigue hadn't robbed them of any ferocity; his soldiers had been fighting for hours against enemies who didn't care about their own safety.

'This isn't warfare,' he said aloud. 'In battle you know the enemy's got some sort of sense left.'

'Bugger that,' Jachen said, 'this is a race of numbers, and we're going to lose unless we get help. The damn trench is filling up wilh dead and that's got to be more than a legion queuing up to walk across.'

Isak took a moment to watch the crowd of spitting and wailing citizens only half a dozen yards away. This was the first time he'd stopped to look at them closely. They were starved and filthy, some trembling and unsteady as they tumbled into the trench towards him. They looked like the sort of people a duke should be protecting, not desperately thinking of ways to slaughter them.

'There's more of them,' Jachen continued, 'the fighting must have drawn others.' Isak realised the commander of his guard was right as he looked over the heads of the nearest. The plaza was filling up, a bobbing carpet of heads spreading back to the break in the ring of shrines they had been defending only minutes before.

'Then we really do need help,' he admitted. 'Whoever shot Mariq must have realised that as this became more desperate, I'd likely give him one of the Skulls. The effort would have killed him pretty quickly, but Mariq had more skill than I ever will; perhaps enough to burn us a path through this lot.'

'What help are we going to get out here?' Jachen puffed, his sword strokes laboured as he smashed away yet another salvaged spear and stabbed his attacker in the neck.

Isak stopped still for a moment, leaving Suzerain Tori to chop through the wrist of man with a cleaver as Isak's feet. The suzerain was puffing hard too, sounding like he was feeling his age at last, but he didn't hesitate to redouble his efforts to give Isak a moment to think. Tori had fought alongside Lord Bahl often enough to know there was good cause.

Help? Not from the ancestors above us, he though with a growing sense that an idea was looming. 'Of course, bloody ancestors,' Isak cried suddenly.

'What are you talking about?' Jachen said.

'What do we have here?' Isak asked before answering his own ques¬tion. 'Nothing, that's what; only the souls of ancestors in the sky and six empty temples.'

'I hope you've got a point here.' Jachen sounded more than a little concerned that Isak had gone insane.

'More than that,' Isak laughed. He saw the ranger, Jeil, on Jachen's other side and raised his voice. 'Jeil, do you remember when we got to Saroc and I had a look around to see if I could find something to help us?'

'I-' The ranger looked confused for a moment before understanding dawned. 'That water elemental you woke? My Lord, you do remember that it attacked us, don't you?'

'A minor detail,' Isak said cheerfully.

'Lord Isak,' interjected Jachen, 'I recognise that tone of voice by now; it means you're going to do something to worry me.'

Isak clapped him on the shoulder, causing Jachen to wince at the unintended force, then paused to drive back two attackers scrambling over the edge of the trench. 'It looks like I chose right, then,' he said in a more serious tone. 'What I need from a commander is for him to worry when I forget to.'

Isak reached into both of his Crystal Skulls and his smile broadened as sizzling trails of energy began to snake over the surface of his armour. The air around him shimmered. 'What you get in temples is Gods,' he explained, as though to a room of schoolchildren. 'Every temple and shrine is touched by the God when it's consecrated – that's what consecrated ground is. While the Gods might have been driven out of the city, some trace of that spirit must remain.'

He took a step back from the line and let two men fill his space. Behind him, Vesna ordered a company of Devoted troops to join the Farlan. The trench was filling fast, though blood and gore had made the edge treacherous. The stink of loosed bowels and perforated intes¬tines filled the air, which shook to the sound of wordless shrieks.

Isak tried to clear his mind, ignoring the fearful shrieks echoing up from the writhing mass below him. He tried to black out the glee on the faces of those jumping deliberately down as the screams intensified, closing his eyes and focusing on the magic surrounding him, finding a selfish refuge there. He wasn't sure exactly what he was doing now, but he didn't want to see what would happen if he made a mistake.

'My Lord, what are you doing?' cried Jachen, butting an attacker with his steel helm as the man grabbed his sword arm. They were holding the line, but it was starting to get desperate. The losses at the other pickets had been too great.

'I've woken one God here this evening by mistake,' Isak muttered, trying to gain a grip over the magic flooding his body: he needed the energies to be settled, not raging. 'Here, in their own temples, no minstrel's magic will stop them incarnating.'

'Them?' Jachen almost shrieked. 'You're summoning Death and Nartis? Oh Gods, you're going to summon Karkarn?'

'Let's see what we can see,' Isak murmured and turned the magic inward to seep into his soul, drawing his senses out into the hot night air. He found his bearings as the confusion of battle and pain cut through him, stirring strange eddies in the drifting currents above. He could feel the warmth of latent power coming from the temples, the familiar call from Nartis' house only a few-score yards away, though overshadowed by the looming shadow of Death, so close behind. After a moment he heard quiet voices echoing through the dark, then the scraping of knives and a low, bestial pant, just on the edge of hear¬ing.

A moment of doubt made him pause as he recalled waking the Malviebrat in Saroc. Adding to their troubles really would be the final nail in their coffin. If, somehow, he brought something other than his intended target into being, there would be no going back.

He held his breath and listened, reaching out as far as he could with his mind to whatever lingered on that plain. A dark cloud hung over everything, and he had to push at every step, trying to find a way around the dulling effect of the minstrel's now-visible magic. After another few dozen heartbeats, Isak made out a number of indistinct presences nearby. He couldn't distinguish them, though he knew they were separate entities. Five stood closest to him. He felt their eyes on him as, lingering at the edges of his perception, they became aware of his questing tendrils of power.