“You’re afraid Lorn is going to kill him if he breaks through the southern city walls first,” I guess. “Aren’t you.”

“You know their history.”

“I do.”

“And do you trust Lorn not to finish an old grudge?”

“Lorn isn’t a murderer.”

“No. He hurts men who deserve it, like Tactus. My father deserves it as much as any man. So we must hurry. And you must tell the rest of them about the Sovereign.”

“Roque found out. Praetorians on the Warchild.”

We walk back and I address my small council.

“You know we come here for Augustus, but there’s a second reason we press on Agea. The Sovereign is here.”

“No shit?” Clown mutters.

Rotback scratches his head. “Goryhell.”

“In the Citadel?” Pebble asks, excitedly nudging anxious Weed with her knee.

“In all probability. We traced Aja here. Residual radiation from the bomb we hit Aja with on Europa. The other assaults are designed to draw manpower away from Agea so that we will have a chance to break through her walls and capture Octavia before her Ash Lord arrives with the full might of her armada.” And if the Sons have done their part as Ares promised, we should be able to get into the city without fighting through a hundred thousand armored men and women.

“Is Cassius in the city?” Sevro asks.

Mustang nods. “We think so.”

Sevro smiles.

“If you come upon Cassius, do not engage him,” I say. “Nor Karnus, nor Aja.”

“You’d have us run?” Clown asks, insulted.

“I’d have you live,” I say. “The prize is the Sovereign. Don’t be distracted by revenge, or pride. If we seize her, we are the new power in the Solar System, my friends.”

The Howlers share wolfish grins. Sevro squares his shoulders.

“So let’s stop picking our butts.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Friendly ripWings roar overhead to clear out enemy forces along our path.

With all our powers marshaled, we move through the green canyon. No creeping column. We go fast. Speederbikes have more pace than starShells. Those Grays and the ones on spiders tear ahead after the ripWings and heavily armored dropships that will deposit men even closer to the wall. Flashes ahead indicate they’ve detonated mines or the mine killers have done their job. No way to tell. The canyon here is narrowing. Verdant canyon walls tower hugely in the distance to either side, colossal and unreal, like the terrain of a greater, larger race than man. I can’t see all my force in so vast a place, just the tip of the spear. We come after the fast-moving Grays, a skipping column of dreadful knights in starShells of black. The deluge of rain falls even harder. Behind us roll tanks and the infantry columns in their hover skiffs, lightly armored vehicles that can carry a hundred men in a flatbed. They’ll deposit them a kilometer from the walls. Lorn’s attack from the south will be much similar.

“Drones!” Sevro shouts through the com. A cloud of metal rises toward us from a small depot in the canyon wall to the east. The Howlers streak after the threat, their guns ripping holes in the air. Still, dronefire shreds a squad of flying Obsidians. They plummet to the ground, bodies unrecognizable. We skim over buildings now. Small towns. Resorts. Estates. Granaries. We find ourselves over a lake. See our shadows as lightning flashes above, silhouetting us.

I see the defensive wall now. It falls over the horizon like an iron curtain. Ninety kilometers across, at this stage of the canyon, and nearly two hundred meters high, it nips the lower edge of the shield. Lakes and rivers don’t find their terminus here, but instead run beneath the wall through a thick network of durosteel bars that are strong as a ship’s hull. It would take a hundred men ten hours to drill their way through those bars.

Most cities do not have walls so massive. They cost too much. Agea and Corinth are alone in the quality of their fortifications. We could have come through the tunnels that wend through the belly of Mars and connect every city with their mines, but I didn’t want to. There are tactics I must save. And there is an example I must set.

Assaults like this are not protracted things. I’ve seen the histories. They are wild and manic. Technology against static objects always wins, so long as the besieger’s resolve never runs dry. Once upon a time, castles were nearly impossible to take through direct assault on a capable garrison without the price of Pyrrhic victory. So field armies laid siege and starved defenders into submission. Now, no one has the patience.

Agea is a city of twenty million souls, but how many of those will give a lick who wins today? There is no difference between the rule of the Bellona and the rule of the Augustus. Coppers and Silvers will care. But the Reds, the Browns, the Pinks will just watch another master take the chains.

Now they’ll see ships fill the sky. Bombs rupture the air. And they will huddle in their public tenements and fear faceless marauders. Since the dawn of man, the taking of a city has been echoed by the screams of rape, theft, and drunken horror. Peerless Scarred do not partake in such savagery. It is not profitable nor in keeping with their tastes. But if one takes a city by force, it is the belief of the Golds that the city and all those therein are now property of the conqueror. If you are strong enough, you deserve the spoils. Some spare the spoils. Some give them to the wolves, feeding cities to their Obsidian and Gray armies as reward for blood spilled.

If I can protect this city of Agea, if I can show them that there is a better breed of man, then just maybe I’ll win Agea’s heart. Capture it. Protect it. Be loved by those in it as I’m loved by my army. But first I must crack her open.

All along the vast defensive wall, fire ripples over steel. Like tiny flowers fast blooming upon the ninety-kilometer-wide sheer gray wall. Two feint assaults are led to my left and my right. The ripWings there fire railguns, sliding sideways as they pump munitions at the wall. Return fire from the turrets on the walls causes my eardrums to shiver and hum. I want to clutch Mustang’s hand. A nod from her stills the terror in me. But only just.

Grays in combat armor rush forward like so many ants. Rocket teams deploy and soon send slithering death into the defenders. It is too much to absorb, like the space battle above, layers upon layers of activity and counteractivity. Except this has sound.

Mines rip holes in my force. Bellona kill squads slip out of the wall a hundred meters up, flying out in glory—banners waving, gold glistening. Their shields shimmer as they’re lanced by weapon fire. I see an eagle banner amid the Bellona, and ready to set myself against it, thinking it must be Cassius, but Mustang grabs my arm.

“The plan!” Mustang reminds me, pointing to the river. “We’ll all die against that wall. The plan.”

Hard to remember. Hard to remember all this chaos is a distraction. What matters is the river and the work done in the night by the Sons. If they did it. The river slithers under the wall. One hundred meters wide, and more deep, it already carries corpses toward the city.

I dive into the water. Feel the tension as the current slows, then speeds my path. Fish scatter before us. Odd not feeling the chill. The Howlers move like torpedoes beside me. Then Ragnar is with us along with his group of Obsidians. Jupiter too, all splashing down under water. Mustang is closest to me. I scan the river ahead through the murk we kicked up and find Ares’s gift.

There. A hundred meters deep, I see it. If there’s one thing Reds can do, it’s drill. And the Sons spent the night preparing to give us passage into the city. My men will think some elite lurcher squad was sent here before the armada. They will not question how the huge grates were cut, or how the sensors meant to detect damage to the grating were fooled.