A figure stood on the plains, not two miles from the fortress hill. The earth was grey over there and fewer bony trees disguised it. I squeezed my way between the men around Rusper, to that crenel. Heat blazed from the sandstone and leather jerkins of the watch, their pole-flags fluttering above our heads in the light breeze. Now, while I stared out, Rusper made his study of the figure through the glass. It faced the fortress, I could tell, and even at a distance its shape brought back that night full of horror. The shape, not its stillness. The stillness was wrong.

From the turret to our left, three guards in tabards and swathes jogged out to meet us. Two carried spears, the other had a sword at his hip. Rusper looked to the sword-man. He nodded smartly, ‘Ekharan.’

‘What do you make of it, guardsman?’ said Rusper.

‘Sheriff,’ the man corrected. ‘Sir. Northgate Sheriff Arras.’

Rusper passed him the scope. ‘My mistake, Sheriff.’

‘A scout perhaps?’

‘They’ve never scouted before, not like this at any rate. Nor ranged so close.’

Once Sheriff Arras had looked through the glass for himself, Rusper surprised me by tapping the scope on my shoulder. I took it and put the hot brass against my eye. A smudgy circle was inside: grey and brown, flashes of blue. Earth—sky—earth—sky. Then I felt a hand guiding the end, and the circle blackened with detail. My body tensed. Like a beetle appearing at the bottom of cup, it was there, as if standing only ten feet from me.

This one wore cobbled scraps of hide and ratty rags. Its hands were bound with ropey cloths, its head and shoulders by the shabby upper half of an old cloak. The cloak might once have been green. Spoils of its kills, I imagined, and wondered just how much of what it wore might be Naemian. I dared to meet what I could of its eyes: oily black under their cover.

‘It’s not moving, just watching,’ I said.

Then it did move. Through the smudges on the glass I saw it stoop, drop a white arm towards the ground and lift a spear. It straightened slowly.

‘The scope please,’ Rusper said.

I gave it back, and the Rath shrank to a tiny mark on the plain; a mark that was still again. Too still. How could Rusper be so sure they’d never been this close before? They were night-crawlers, he knew that, and the watch on the walls wouldn’t be able to see them through the darkness. I thought of the reports and that “northwest arc” of Ratheine movement.

‘Could be curious,’ offered a watchman.

‘They’re invaders, Kereth, not banqueting guests,’ another chided. Sheriff Arras shot a reprimanding glance at both of them.

‘Curious,’ mused Rusper, softly, as if considering it himself. ‘Well, it doubtless makes Kereth here as uncomfortable as it makes me to think of the Rath as dispatching their own scouts.’

I twisted my neck to look back at the watchman called Kereth. Bright brown eyes, a few days’ stubble. Like the others of the watch, he wore the cream-coloured headdress and red jerkin in his swathes. His grip was tight on his flagpole. The man beside him looked like him, a little older. Brothers, maybe.

‘It’s backing off,’ said Arras.

‘I can see that,’ murmured Rusper.

‘Look, another.’

The scope swung left, with all our eyes. About a mile west of the first one, straight ahead, there was a second. It stood as still, its spear held out and away from its body. ‘Head and hands covered again. I don’t like it,’ Rusper marked.

‘Does it mean something, ekharan?’ asked Kereth, leaning a little forward.

‘Planning perhaps,’ said Rusper. ‘They avoid the sun where they can. Few would have cause to cover their bodies quite so thoroughly as this. It would suggest that any journey that brought them here from up north was deliberate, not mere wandering. That they mean to be here.’ I looked at him: his forehead glistened below the cusp of his cap.

‘Our view is clear for leagues,’ said Arras. ‘We’d have surely seen larger numbers. And the gates are well manned.’ Rusper didn’t answer. He collapsed the scope under his palm to a triple-click, and took a breath.

Then—‘Another, Viceroy!’ blurted Kereth. ‘To the north!’ The scope clicked open again. I ducked as it swept over me and then looked, seeing—‘No, two more!’ I shouted.

‘Where’s the other?’

Further off, more like three miles, on a gypsum rise. I couldn’t make out much detail of this one, but it was obviously there beyond that one Kereth had sighted, and I pointed until Rusper and Arras could find it.

Others appeared. A fifth and sixth, each new arrival isolated from the last by at least a mile. Then, after the seventh, farthest of all from the fortress hill, we saw something else. Leagues away, just east-off-north, towards the mustard haze of the Northern Erg ‒ too far to pick out single figures ‒ a dark mass contrasted the slopes of the dunes. It seemed to be moving.

‘How many?’ said Arras.

Rusper aimed the scope, setting his teeth. ‘Hard to tell,’ he said, straining. ‘Sixty, eighty . . .’ In a lower voice, ‘Bigger than any group we’ve detected in Verunia.’ A nasty hush fell over us. ‘They might have been there all along, we’d have not seen them at all without first sighting those nearer.’

He was right. It might easily have been a cloud’s shadow or belt of scrub over the dune-side.

Still, I didn’t like the tautness in his voice: ‘If more appear, I want Captain Mondric alerted and all district guards posted at the two northern gates.’

‘All of them?’ said Arras. He sounded doubtful. ‘Ekharan, begging pardon—’

‘There may be more massed beyond those dunes,’ said Rusper. ‘Where did these seven come from so quickly, hm?’ Though his glance back at the two watchmen lasted no more than a second, it was enough to make them lower their eyes in some shame.

Meanwhile, Arras turned and squinted back across the city to the towers. ‘Such numbers would have been sighted by the sentinel spire. The alarum would have sounded.’

‘Not if the spire’s manned with such complacency as yours!’ Rusper snapped back.

He could be such a bully sometimes.

‘Viceroy,’ said Arras, also raising his voice. ‘From here we command a full view of Antissa’s north and west surrounds. With respect, sir, whatever greater number that may be marked from the spire will be ten leagues from the walls and small threat to the city. And I must warn you, such a rally of the guard-force may cause unrest in the streets.’

They looked away from each other and back over the plains. The seven Rath held their positions, perfectly still. Watching. The scope was compacted again and returned to its owner. ‘Thank you,’ said Rusper. ‘Your name, watchman?’

‘Uh, Gareth, sir.’

Brothers for sure.

Getting too hot inside the huddle, I backed out to the edge of the walkway. The metalsmiths and their wagons had left, back to the Inner City, and only Rusper’s wagon was below. Its ox was still yoked as its waiting driver slaked his thirst on a quart from the braehg-house. A man and two women stood chatting on the porch of that house. Men rolled big barrels from the brewery, between the buildings around it, and under the casement extension. The sound of stacking rose up from that side, below the gangway. Wood was sanded somewhere, hide was slapped, metal hammered. Right below me, a peasant in a dusty cloak began to climb the sandstone steps. I wasn’t feeling so good. Behind me I heard Kereth mutter, ‘What do they want?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rusper breathed. ‘It’s as if they wish to be seen.’

A disapproving sound from Arras. ‘We’re within shouting distance of the gate.’

‘You needn’t keep repeating yourself, Sheriff.’

‘But sir, there’s no other way into the city from the north.’

No other way. My eyeballs jiggled in their sockets. Around me, suddenly, things felt much smaller. Not just the wall, us standing on it, or the district below. But the whole fortress. Along the walkway, to my right, another standard-bearing watchman and other guards had come up from the turret for a view of the arrivals. The ragged peasant had reached the top and gone to look out from a crenel. Through the city’s daytime smokes and dust I looked back at the rising citadel; white, grey and bronze from the Inner Wall. Not far from here. My gut clenched up in a big knot. Antissa was tiny.

The word dropped out of my mouth; I turned around. The huddle opened up enough to let me back in, and at Rusper’s side I said the word again, this time with force—‘Pipes.’

‘Flint, you shouldn’t even be here,’ he said without looking at me. ‘Gareth, escort my assistant to my citadel quarters. This is no place for him.’

‘I haven’t a horse, sir.’

‘Take my wagon, it’s below.’

The watchman took my arm. I shook his hand away from me and glowered at Rusper while the guards and watchmen stared at my defiance. ‘If I go, then you come too. Someone has to get soldiers to the Hub, don’t you see. That’s how the Rath are going to get in—through Arte-III!’

When Rusper looked me in the face, his own was plastered with sweat. ‘That leak’s been sealed,’ he said curtly. ‘I have it in a report that you wrote. And even if it wasn’t, how could such a thing be possible?’

I grasped for explanations: ‘Maybe it . . . wasn’t sealed. Not fully.’

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

‘Flint, it doesn’t make—’

‘Please!’

‘They’re gone,’ Kereth said. Rusper and I looked to the desert. Kereth was right: as quickly as they’d appeared, the Rath had vanished off the plains. All seven, gone. I strained my eyes towards the dunes and even the shadow had disappeared.

‘I’m not waiting,’ said Rusper as he looked to Arras. ‘Have a guard convey instructions to the Captain. I want men on all the northern gates and walls.’

‘Yes sir,’ said Arras, all duty now. ‘What of the alarum?’

‘Not yet. It may provoke them.’

‘What about the Deep?’ I pressed, refusing to be ignored. ‘What about sending soldiers there? Caliph Symphin, you have to do that. Or at least close the Hub Chamber!’

‘I’m staying here.’ He shot impatient eyes at Gareth who took my shoulder this time, harder.

‘Let go!’ I yelled, trying to shove the hand away again and failing. ‘Caliph—’

‘Nor will I suffer further argument from you!’ Rusper seethed at me. ‘You’ve a place, boy, lest you forget it—well beneath mine!’

That checked me, if only for a second. But he was a man pushed to anger by his fear. ‘What if I’m right?’

‘Do you wish to be? Can you even conceive of what that would mean?’

‘That’s the point!’ I shouted.

‘What is?’

‘I am right!’

He snapped fingers at Gareth. ‘Get rid of him—now.’ Eyes hard, as if I were nothing but a nuisance, he glanced over my head along the battlements. ‘And you, Kereth, yes? Get that peasant off the wall.’

Kereth coughed, ‘Sir, that’s a soldier,’ while his brother pulled me away towards the steps. No sooner had Kereth said those words than I saw the peasant’s sword-hilt through a hole rent in his cloak. The cloak was torn and shredded in many other places too, but there was an emblem on its shoulder, I saw that clearly: three towers in a circle. The man was scanning the plains, frayed hood in profile to us.

Behind me, Arras: ‘That’s a Fortress Regiment sigil. Third Battalion, I think.’

Gareth nudged me towards the gangway.

‘Soldier,’ called Arras.

The peasant-soldier didn’t move. This felt wrong.

Third Battalion . . .

‘I’ll get him, sir,’ said Kereth, who then strode past me and Gareth with his flagpole in hand. I twisted in the grip to throw a glance back at Rusper, who had taken Arras by the arm, saying something urgent.

Kathris!

Couldn’t be—Artabh Kathris was still missing in the desert, or dead. Wasn’t he?

‘Watchman . . .’ called Arras, his tone more stiff.

I looked ahead. Kereth reached a hand out to the figure and took his shoulder.

The cloak opened as the figure whirled out of the crenel—faceless in the hood—and steel swung with it. In an instant the blade had moved across Kereth’s throat, a white mask sprayed livid red as the flagpole clattered to the stone. Neck spurting gouts, Kereth listed on his heels and crumpled forward.

‘TO ME!’ bawled Arras.

Gareth let go of my shoulder with a sound that seemed to come out of his stomach, then roared. He lowered his flagpole and ran forward, spear-tip pointed. I watched the sword deflect the charge, hook the spearhead, drag the pole and sweep up fast to slash his jerkin. Gareth retched. His muddy insides slopped out on the hand that had just held me by the shoulder. ‘Florian—back!’ someone shouted. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Gareth: moaning, he knelt in all the blood that was still leaving his body, the tubes and ropes of his belly, then keeled and slumped over Kereth’s legs.

The white-masked figure took a step and carved a swift line through the air, dashing blood on the sandstone. The watchman brothers both struck down, I stood with less than five yards to the sword that had killed them: a Vedish shortsword, I noticed in vivid hyper-awareness. My eyes met holes in blood-flecked leather. Someone shouted something.

On the other end of the walkway, behind the phantom, guards readied spears. The phantom ignored them to take another step towards me. It leaned forward, bizarrely, neck extended. There was no question that those eyeholes were pointed at me and only me, but I couldn’t look away. Or run. Or move.

Three men charged past me—Arras and his guards. One shoved me back.

The phantom flailed.

Someone grabbed a handful of my collar: with more strength than I knew he had, Rusper wheeled me behind him, yelling something.

A spear went flying. A man fell screaming. More disgusting splashes wet the stone. Steel rang and clashed. That was Arras’ sword now, meeting the phantom’s as others with spears rushed from behind. The shortsword was spun from the phantom’s hand and then thrown clear. It clattered down in front of two more rigid watchmen.

The rear guards closed in. Disarmed, the phantom turned and struck the first a blow to the head, and then leapt. Impossibly high, it vaulted right over the men who had come in from behind and landed on its haunches next to one of the jezail frames. Gripping its gunrest with both hands, the creature ripped it free of the hinge and took the ball-bearing with it.

Rusper forced me back another step, facing the fight, but hands all over me as if a second were too long to be sure I was still there. Then he turned and shoved me back, hand at my chest. ‘Go! Into the turret!’

I ran and crossed the turret threshold. Muscles flooded with white panic, not running straight, one of the crates tripped me up and I flew over it, coming down hard on my arms. The screams outside shot me to my feet and I darted for the opposite door. I yanked the handle—no, locked! Of course it was, I’d been here often enough! The watch never kept more than two adjacent stretches of wall open at a time.

Hopping the crate, I sprinted back.

Now not far from Rusper, the phantom wheeled the metal gunrest into the head of a guard, the bearing smashing his face into bloody pieces. The man fell down. I grabbed Rusper by the arm but he shook me clear and pushed me away from him, harder. ‘The turret! Go, boy! Now!’

‘Other side’s locked!’ I cried. ‘We’ll be trapped in there!’

I’d been trapped with the Rath once before and only a miracle had saved me. Not again. Now I searched the face of the wall below us, distantly aware of the shouted reactions around the brewery and braehg-house, but it was sheer drop, too far to fall, we wouldn’t make it. This was really happening again.

Two more were dead when I looked back. Arras raised his sword; the phantom ducked and circled round, spinning the gunrest into a downward thrust that disappeared into the Sheriff’s back. Kicked from the metal that I’d overseen in construction, the man slid and fell onto his face with a cracking noise I shouldn’t have been able to hear at this distance.

There was nothing between us now. Only two watchmen stood behind the phantom, and its shortsword still lay only a yard from their boots. ‘Take the weapon!’ Rusper urged them, voice cracking. ‘Take it!’ One of the watchmen took a step forward, but fear had turned his legs to wood.

The gunrest whirled. Leaping again—further and higher than I’d known they could—it crossed the length of the walkway to make a three-point landing at the sword. The blade swept up and carved a face. I looked away from the open head, but heard the burbled scream and blow that silenced it.

Another shove from Rusper.

I shoved back.

Rage in his eyes now, hard to tell from the panic, he pushed away—‘You foolish child!’—and strode for the turret.

I heard its door slam.

Sheeted crimson, the last two watchmen had now fallen to the stone. There was no escape from this creature; Rusper only waiting for his death behind that door. Somewhere below, I heard barked orders and people running in the streets. Boots beat on steps and, at the sound, the phantom’s mask darted towards the casement. Then swung back to me.

It walked towards me.

A wounded guard stood up, groaning, with a spear in his hand, as if to stop it. The phantom swiped its sword like a warning, and when the man tried to strike out, his spear was swiftly dragged aside. The shortsword’s hilt crushed his nose, the guardsman spluttered, dropped his weapon and toppled onto the gangway. There the blade entered his chest, slid out and slashed his neck in half. I saw the head leaving the body as it was kicked clear off the gangway, and heard it crash into the barrels those men had stacked below the wall. More people screamed.

The phantom came. Extending its neck in that weird way, and making sounds . . .

No, it was speaking.

‘Nemae il veru deh gossa kerak . . . nemae il veru deh gossa kerak . . .’ The language was like mud. The sword was almost within reach.

What was I doing?

I turned and bolted for the turret.

But never got there. Before my hand could reach the handle, the door flew open, nearly hitting me directly in the face as it swung and smacked against the sandstone. I tripped and fell at Rusper’s feet and rolled on my back, out of his way.

Never stopping, the phantom carved the air in rotating mock-slashes. Rusper, clearly insane, walked out of the turret towards it. And raised his arm.

Chrozite smouldered at eye-level.

With a crack, a flash, a spray of sparks and yellow smoke, the burning schot spat from the fusil. The phantom’s feet left the stone as it flew back.

The fusil fell. Hand to his face, Rusper swayed a moment and sagged down on his haunches. My ears pealing from the noise, I shuffled forward to brace him, but he flopped against the battlements. Through char-blacked fingers, his left cheek fizzed and bubbled: blood and chrozite. My voice, sounding faraway, shouted his name, but either he couldn’t hear me or was in too much pain to answer, eyes tightly closed. I shouted for guards. I shouted help into the street. I kept on shouting.

The phantom lay still, feet away. Yellow fumes rose out of the hole that had been made in its head. The stretch of wall was a red mess.

Then boots were thudding towards us. The Captain of the Guard was on the wall; six, eight, ten more guards behind him. Ten guards too late. His face dropped at the sight of the bodies on the walkway and, somewhere in my heart, I thanked him for marching straight to where we crouched. And then his men were over us, bringing shade from the sun. Mondric elbowed me hard in the chest and knelt in front of Rusper.

‘Symphin?’ Whatever he said was still too muffled for me to make out as he tried to peel the hand away from the sizzling burns. But before I saw how bad they were, Mondric took a cloth out of his jerkin and pressed it firmly to the cheek. Rusper’s eyelids snapped open, lips moving.

My ears popped.

‘. . . backfired . . . fusil backfired . . .’ he was repeating, his eyes wide on Mondric’s knees. ‘Backfired . . . thought it was fit for purpose . . .’

‘Symphin? Symphin!’ Mondric shook him.

‘. . . need to . . . must . . . to the citadel.’

Mondric nodded. ‘I’ll say.’

Eyes still on the knees, Rusper spoke in fragments. ‘Find the High Commander. Tell him . . . battalions on every gate . . . every wall, artillery . . .’ Then, ‘Captain?’

‘It’s done,’ Mondric replied and mouthed a stern find him at the guards. Three broke away at a run. ‘Now let’s get those burns seen to properly.’

‘Forget the burns!’ Rusper choked. Chrozite had got into his throat. But he wasn’t staring, even looking. The eyes were glazed, red-rimmed, unblinking. ‘I can’t see.’

The Captain glanced at me blankly. Almost stupidly, I thought, he passed a hand over Rusper’s face but the eyes didn’t blink or move at all. So he slid an arm around his waist to help him stand. They would have trodden on the fusil had I not darted to pick it up. Not that there was much left of it: still hot, charred black, cords sizzled off, mech ruined.

Rusper squeezed his eyes shut, weeping yellow-black fluid. ‘Florian?’

‘I’m here!’

‘You shouldn’t be,’ he croaked. ‘Get to the pipes, that’s an order.’