The time for hysteria was past. "How goes the flooding?" he said mildly. He wouldn't ask about Tyrathect again. "All but complete. The oil is pooling beyond the castle walls." The two packs crouched as one of Woodcarver's bombs exploded just beyond the battlement. Her troops were already halfway back across the field -- and Steel's archers were preoccupied with flooding the tunnels and watching the exits. "We may have flushed out the traitors, my lord. Just before Woodcarver resumed fire,
mbt styles, we heard something by the southeast wall. But I fear the spacers will see whatever we do there." His heads bobbed spastically. Strange to see Shreck coming apart, Steel thought vaguely. Shreck's was the loyalty of clockwork,
复件 (72) air max1, but now his orderly world was failing and there was nothing left to support him. The madness he was born from was all that was left. If Shreck was close to breaking, then the siege of Starship Hill was nearly at an end. Just a little longer, that is all I ask now. Steel forced a confident expression upon his members. "I understand. You have done well, Shreck. We may still win. I know how these mantises think. If you can kill the child, especially before their eyes, it will break their spirit -- just as puppies can be broken by the right terrors." "Yes, sir." There was dull incredulity in Shreck's eyes, but this would hold him, a plausible excuse to continue the charade. "Light the oil beyond the walls. Move the troops in front of where you think Amdijefri will exit. The Visitors must see this if it is to have proper effect. And --" and blow up the refugee ship,
复件 (14) air max1! The words almost slipped out,
复件 (43) air max2, but he caught himself in time. The explosives built into the Jaws and the Starship dome would bring down everything interior to the outerwalls and would kill most of the packs within. Ordering Shreck do that would make Steel's real goal all too clear. "-- And move quickly before Woodcarver's troops can close. This is the Movement's last hope, Shreck." The pack bowed its way back down the steps. Steel maintained an expansive posture, boldly looking across the battlefield until the other was out of sight. Then he reached across the battlements and slammed the radio into the stone walkway. This one didn't break,
复件 (50) air max1, and now the Ravna mantis's voice came querulously from it. Steel bounded down the stairs. "You get nothing," he shrieked back at her in Tines' talk. "Everything you want will die!" And then he was down the stairs and running across the courtyard. He ducked out of sight, into the hallway that circled the Jaws of Welcome. He could blow those easily,
复件 (72) air max1, but very likely the main dome and the ship within would survive. No, he must go to the heart. Kill the ship and all the sleeping mantises. He stepped into a secret room, picked up two crossbows -- and the extra radio cloak he had prepared. Inside that cloak was a small bomb. He had tested the idea with the second set of radios; the receiving pack had died instantly. Down another set of stairs, into a supply corridor. The sounds of battle were lost behind him. His own tines' clatter was the loudest noise. Around him loomed bins of gunpowder, food supplies, fresh timber. The fuses and set charges were only fifty yards further on. And Steel slowed to a walk, curled his paws so the metal on them made no noise. Listening. Looking in every direction. Somehow he knew the other would be here. The Flenser Fragment. Flenser had haunted him from the beginning of his existence, had haunted even after Flenser had mostly died. But not until this clear treason had Steel been able to free his hate.
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