Tentatively, warily, the torch-bearing mob began to converge on the pristinely white Elene castle, where the gaily-coloured silk buntings shivered tremulously in the night breeze and the lantern and candle-lit barges bobbed sedately in the moat.

‘Hello, the castle!’ a bull-voiced fellow in the front rank roared in execrable Elenic. ‘Lower your drawbridge, or we’ll storm your walls!’

‘Would you please reply to that, Bevier?’ Sparhawk called to his Cyrinic friend.

Bevier grinned and carefully shifted one of his catapults. He sighted carefully, elevated his line of sight so that the catapult was pointed almost straight up, and then he applied the torch to the mixture of pitch and naphtha in the spoon-like receptacle at the end of the catapult-arm. The mixture took fire immediately.

‘I command you to lower your drawbridge!’ the unshaven knave out beyond the moat bellowed arrogantly.

Bevier cut the retaining rope on the catapult-arm. The blob of dripping fire sizzled as it shot almost straight up into the air, then it slowed and seemed to hang motionless for a moment. Then it fell.

The ruffian who had been demanding admittance gaped at Bevier’s reply as it majestically rose into the night sky and then fell directly upon him like a comet. He vanished as he was engulfed in fire.

‘Good shot!’ Sparhawk called his compliment.

‘Not bad,’ Bevier replied modestly. ‘It was sort of tricky, because he was so close.’

‘I noticed that.’

Emperor Sarabian had gone very pale, and he was visibly shaken. ‘Did you have to do that, Sparhawk?’ He demanded in a choked voice as the now-frightened mob fled back across the lawns to positions that may or may not have been out of Sir Bevier’s range.

‘Yes, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk replied calmly. ‘We’re playing for time here. The bell that started to ring an hour or so ago was a sort of general signal. Caalador’s cutthroats took the ring-leaders into custody when it rang, Ehlana moved the party-goers inside the castle, and the Atan legions outside the city started to march as soon as they heard it. That loud-mouth who’s presently on fire at the edge of the moat is a graphic demonstration of just how truly unpleasant things are going to get if the mob decides to insist on being admitted. It’s going to take some serious encouragement to persuade them to approach us again.’

‘I thought you said you could hold them off.’

‘We can, but why risk lives if you don’t have to? You’ll note that there was no cheering or shouts when Bevier shot his catapult. Those people out there are staring at an absolutely silent, apparently unmanned castle that almost negligently obliterates offensive people. That’s a terrifying sort of thing to contemplate. This is the part of the siege that frequently lasts for several years.’ Sparhawk looked down the parapet. ‘I think it’s time for us to move inside that turret, your Majesties,’ he suggested. ‘We can’t be positive that Khalad disabled all the crossbows – or that somebody in the mob hasn’t repaired a few. I’d have a great deal of trouble explaining why I was careless enough to let one of you get killed. We can see what’s going on from the turret, and I’ll feel much better if you’ve both got nice thick stone walls around you.’

‘Shouldn’t we rupture those barges now, dear?’ Ehlana asked him.

‘Not just yet. We’ve got the potential for inflicting a real disaster on the besiegers there. Let’s not waste it.’

Some few of the crossbows in the hands of the mob functioned properly, but not very many. There seemed to be a great deal of swearing about that.

A serious attempt to re-open the gates of the compound fell apart when the Peloi, their sabres flashing and their shrill, ululating war cries echoing back from the walls of nearby opalescent palaces charged across the neatly-clipped lawns to savage the crowd clustered around the gate.

Then, because once the Peloi have been unleashed they are very hard to rein in again, the tribesmen from the marches of eastern Pelosia sliced back and forth through the huddled mass cowering on the grass. The palace guards who had joined the mob made some slight effort to respond, but the Peloi horsemen gleefully rode them down.

Sephrenia and Vanion entered the turret. The small Styric woman’s white gown gleamed in the shaft of moonlight that streamed in through the door. ‘What are you thinking of, Sparhawk?’ she demanded angrily. ‘This isn’t a safe place for Ehlana and Sarabian.’

‘I think it’s as safe as I can manage, little mother. Ehlana, what would you say if I told you that you had to go inside?’

‘I’d say no, Sparhawk. I’d crawl out of my skin if you locked me up in some safe room where I couldn’t see what’s going on.’

‘I sort of thought you might feel that way. And you, Emperor Sarabian?’

‘Your wife just nailed my feet to the floor, Sparhawk. How could I possibly run off and hide while she’s standing up here on the wall like the figurehead on a warship?’ The emperor looked at Sephrenia. ‘Is this insane foolhardiness a racial characteristic of these barbarians?’ he asked her.

She sighed. ‘You wouldn’t believe some of the things they’re capable of, Sarabian,’ she replied, throwing a quick smile at Vanion.

‘At least someone in that mob’s still thinking coherently, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said to his friend. ‘He’s just realised that there are all sorts of unpleasant implications in the fact that they can’t get in here or out of the compound. He’s out there trying to whip them up by telling them that they’re doomed unless they take this castle.’

‘I hope he’s also telling them that they’re doomed if they try,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘I’d imagine that he’s glossing over that part. I had some misgivings about you when you were a novice, my friend. You and Kalten seemed like a couple of wild colts, but now that you’ve settled down, you’re really quite good. Your strategy here has been brilliant, you know. You actually haven’t embarrassed me too much this time.’

‘Thanks, Vanion,’ Sparhawk said dryly.

‘No charge.’

The rebels approached the moat tentatively, their faces filled with apprehension and their eyes fixed on the night sky, desperately searching for that first flicker of fire which would announce that Sir Bevier was sending them greetings. The chance passage of a shooting-star across the velvet throat of night elicited screams of fright, followed by a vast nervous laugh.