"Take this," said Loach, holding out a kitchen knife.

Jane took it and stared at it nervously. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.

"When the orcs come, try to stab one of them," the mob boss told her. "You won't be able to hurt it, but it means it'll kill you quick and clean. They say that anyone they catch trying to hide or escape is tortured for a full day. You don't want that happening to you."

"You think they'll break in then?"

"These people have been fighting the orcs all their lives, as have their parents and their grandparents before them. They've gotten a pretty good idea what size of defence can hold off what size of orc army and they all seem pretty convinced they're going to get in. I wouldn't argue with that kind of expertise."

Jane looked around at the massed ranks of the crime organisation gathered together in the main gaming room of the Halls of Valhalla. The heavies, the bouncers and the enforcers along with the less physically intimidating members of Loach's organisation; the clerks and the accountants, the dealers, greeters and croupiers of the gaming tables, most of them still dressed in their colourful and expensive club uniforms. They were all holding weapons. Mostly spears, but some of the larger men were holding spiked maces and heavy war hammers. Weapons designed to crush limbs and addle brains no matter how much armour their enemies were wearing. All preparing themselves for a glorious last stand if the orcs made it into the city.

"If all these strong men were on the walls, helping in the city's defence, maybe the orcs wouldn't break in," she said.

"There are fifty thousand men and women on the walls, and fifty of us. Not enough to make a difference," Loach replied. "And there's always the chance they won't break in. If they don't, I'll be needing these men to support my crime empire. With all the police and soldiers who'll have died on the wall, we could be looking at a golden age in the years to come even if Randall's plan to beat the machines comes to nothing."

He turned to face the other hibernator. "Why are you here, anyway? You're apparently free to come and go through Harper's Wall at will. Why aren't you sheltering with the aristocrats? With another wall between you and the orcs you might hold out until the army arrives."

"I tried," Jane admitted. "They've closed all the gates. They're not letting anyone through. I suppose they're afraid of a stampede of the riff raff pouring through, eating all their stored food and making the place look untidy." Loach nodded. It was precisely what he would have done in their place. And even if I had gotten in ahead of the crowd," Jane continued, "they'd probably have just tossed me out again once they found out I wasn't a member of an aristocratic family. Philip might have given me sanctuary, but I'm pretty sure he'd have wanted too much in return."

Loach grinned at her. It wasn't a pretty sight. "So you'd rather be torn apart by orcs than open your legs for a nobleman?"

"I'm not afraid of death," Jane replied stiffly. "I know there's a better place waiting for those found worthy by God." And Emily might come through for us, she thought. We're the best chance she's got for saving her precious planet. That's one hell of an incentive.

A smile of amusement creased her lips. The planet that's going to be destroyed anyway when the Day of Judgement comes, she thought. The Great Tribulation, when the world will be laid waste. And then it will be made anew when His reign on Earth begins. She felt a dizzying glow of wonder and amazement at the realisation that even Emily's madness and delusions were a part of God's great plan, that He had anticipated it all right back at the beginning. How could anyone go against the will of God when the acts of even the greatest sinner were an essential part of it?

She wondered whether the coming war against the machines would form the basis of the Great Tribulation that the Bible spoke of. Maybe the nuclear war had been the Great Tribulation. She smiled at the ridiculousness of the idea. If that were so then the thousand years that had elapsed since then would be the Milennial Kingdom, when Christ returned to establish His reign on Earth, which would make VIX Christ. A part of her pointed out that the idea wasn't as ridiculous as one mignt think because if God had chosen to be incarnated as a man the last time around, why not as a machine this time?

She shook her head to drive away the blasphemous idea. VIX was a false god which she had pledged to fight until her last breath. The War against the Machines would be the Great Tribulation, after which Christ would return in human form to begin His reign on Earth. The reign of peace and glory that would last for a thousand years before Lucifer would be released from Hell to fight the final battle that would end in the Last Judgement.

Her faith and dedication restored, she gripped the kitchen knife more tightly in her hand, even though she knew she wouldn't have to use it. God wouldn't allow her to die here, in this city. He would have found a way to save her so that she could continue to serve Him. He would use Emily, His imperfect mortal instrument, to make the orcs go away. Somehow.

"How long do we wait here?" she asked. "How long before we know?"

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"We've got food laid in," replied Simmons, Loach's business manager, as he'd been for Badger before him. He was holding a spear whose wooden shaft was dark with age and that had specks of rust on its long, steel point. "Enough for a few days. We can sit tight right here until either the orcs get here or the army. We just wait until we know, one way or the other..."

Outside, a bell started ringing. The bell of the Cherry Street church by the sound of it. A moment or two later came the sound of people cheering. Wild, jubilant cheering that spread until it sounded as if every man and woman in the city was giving voice to some great joy and relief. The occupants of the gaming room stared at each other in surprise. "Is it the army?" one of the croupiers asked the man standing beside him. "Has the army come?"

"The army's still a hundred miles away," the other man replied.

"Maybe they wanted us to think they were a hundred miles away. Maybe they wanted the orcs to think it. Maybe they wanted to catch the orcs by surprise, before they could organise themselves to defend themselves. Think of it! Trained fighting men fighting disorganised orcs from the rear! They could wipe out the whole army without losing a single man!"

"Speculation is pointless," said Loach. "Open the door. I'm going outside to see what's going on."

"I'll go with you," said Jane. "The orcs are gone, I know it. God sent them away."

"You should stay here," Loach told her. "Where it's safe."

"The orcs are gone, I know it. Come on, I'll show you." She waited impatiently as a pair of bouncers pulled the heavy gaming table away from the door, then pushed her way through. Loach shared an amused smile with his men before following her.

Outside, the street was full of cheering people, laughing and kissing each other as they danced and ran around like children. A man tried to kiss Jane. She pushed him away. He tried again and Loach brandished his spear at him. The man backed away with his hands raised placatingly.

"What's happening?" asked Loach.

"They're gone!" cried the man as he danced away, looking for another girl to kiss. "They just went!"

Jane and Loach glanced at each other, then followed the road towards the wall. After a while they began to find bodies in the streets. Most were human with their throats torn open by savage, carnivorous teeth, but they found the occasional orc as well with arrows protruding from gaps in their armour. There were no celebrating citizens here, though. They had all gone further downtown, away from the grisly reminders of what they had somehow escaped from. Loach paused long enough to stab an orc corpse with his spear, to get blood on it, and rub a tiny smudge of blood onto his cheek. Just a tiny bit. Too much would be suspicious.

At the wall, the city's small garrison of professional soldiers was busy clearing bodies from the section that the orcs had captured, then abandoned. Three of the huge seige towers that the creatures had driven up to the wall were being chopped up and set on fire while, below, at the base of the wall, the portable bridge that the orcs had used to cross the moat was also being destroyed. If the orcs came back, they would have to capture the still fully intact wall all over again, suffering more casualties in the process.

Loach saw officers busy directing the actions of their men, their armour and uniforms covered with drying gore. They were picking up the corpses of fellow soldiers and piling them onto a wagon with great dignity and solemnity. Loach went up to them. "Is it the army?" he asked. "Has the army come?"

The soldiers stopped what they were doing and stared at his immaculately clean, expensive clothes, their eyes glaring with contempt. "What part of the wall were you on?" one of them asked. The man's eyes then fixed on his bloody spear and the smudge of blood on his cheek, though, and he relaxed.

"Last we heard, the army was still six days away," another soldier said. "Can't tell you more than that." Loach nodded and walked away, Jane following him.

They climbed the narrow stone steps to the top of the wall and looked out over the trampled farmland surrounding the city. On the horizon, about a mile away, they saw the orc camp; thousands of canvas tents surrounded by a hastily constructed wooden fence. The tents were being packed away, Loach saw to his astonishment. The canvas carefully taken down and folded up, the wooden frames disassembled and packed away in canvas bags that were then loaded onto horse drawn carts. Orcs were wandering around the camp looking very casual and at ease. Some were on guard duty around the perimeter, he saw. Not many, though. Just enough to keep watch from every direction.

"They don't look like they're expecting to come under attack from a huge human army," he said to himself.

A Corporal standing nearby heard him, though. "No," he said. "They're not fleeing and they're not preparing for battle. They're just leaving."

Loach turned to look at him in genuine astonishment. "But why?" he said. "They'd all but won. They were in the city. Why would they just leave?"

"Looks to me like they're preparing to march," the Corporal replied. "My guess is that they're off to reinforce another orc army that's in trouble somewhere. Maybe our army, the one that's on its way here, met another orc army and is beating it. They say that orcs were attacking Milldale a few days back. If the orcs got in, killed all the residents and took over the city's defences the human army might take weeks to root them out. Long enough for those guys to get down there and attack our guys from the rear."

Loach nodded. It was possible, he supposed, but it seemed unlikely given that orcs were expendable, could be bred by the machines in as many numbers as were needed and existed only to keep the human population down. The Corporal's answer left him dissatisfied, therefore. He turned to face Jane. "You seem curiously unsurprised by this," he said.

Jane waited for the Corporal to wander away before replying. "I knew that God, the true God, wouldn't let us die," she said. "He has given us a task; to cast down the false god." She pointed towards the orc encampment. "What you are seeing is a miracle. A true miracle from God. Do you still doubt His existence?"

Loach stared at her as if he thought she were mad, but then he looked out again at the orcs, still steadily, unhurriedly packing away their camp. "There's something going on here," he muttered to himself. "Something important, and I'm betting it has something to do with us."

"That's what I just said..."

"Shut up. Let's get back to the club."

He turned his back on the woman and began climbing back down the stairs to the streets. Jane stared out at the orcs one last time, then stared up into the sky, her face radiant with wonder and joy. She looked around to make sure there was no-one close enough to overhear and then muttered a prayer of thanks to God before following Loach.

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