From the wall, the herd looked like a black band across the horizon.
Armoured rhinos led the way. Behind them ran thunder lizards, fire wolves and swamp beasts that would never have stayed near one another. The white marks suppressed their fear and forced them all to look towards a single target.
The northern gates.
Kane broadcast from his tower.
"Restore the central seal, and I'll turn the herd aside."
The people around me all spoke at once: some demanded that we agree immediately, while others shouted that Kane had created the threat himself. The wall commander asked Cole for a decision.
"I have no right to decide for the city," Cole replied.
"Then who's going to give the order?"
Cole looked at the approaching line.
"Whoever is responsible for their own section."
The answer reassured no one.
Styx called the captains. Nine broods returned. Five refused to approach the wall, where the old suppression seals were still active. One captain left for the north with her nest.
Before, I would have forced them to come.
Now we had fewer than ten thousand mosquitoes left to face the herd.
The System offered human energy. Hundreds of fighters on the wall had willingly declared themselves Kane's enemies. A few deaths would give Styx a new form and enough of a swarm for a direct attack.
I dismissed the panel.
Cole spread out the map.
"We don't have time to kill Kane. Even after his death, the marks will keep driving the herd for several more hours."
Leon suggested opening a void rift in front of the gates. The dragon could divert the front line, but he could not withstand the weight of the entire herd.
Lenny wanted to put the apes on the wall. The first agreed; the second remained in the academy courtyard.
"With one, we can hold the western tower," he said, making no effort to hide his anger at his own helplessness.
Taya, the girl with the copper whistle from the dyers' quarter, brought an old plan of the water channels. Only now did I learn her name.
"If we open the northern spillway, the field will turn to mud."
"The beasts will keep coming," the wall commander said.
"More slowly."
I looked at the different species in the herd. The white line forced them to forget territory, predators and water. Without it, they could not move as a single mass.
"We don't need to stop them all," I said. "We need to give them different reasons again."
The first plan looked simple: the swarm would strip the marks from the leading beasts, the dyers would open the channels, the light spirits would create a false passage to the river, and the dragon would widen the ravine.
We assigned the sections.
Twenty minutes before impact, the wind changed.
The dyers' steam blew back towards the wall. The light spirits vanished into the white cloud. The swarm lost the scent of the leading beasts, and the first rhinos entered the mud without noticeably slowing.
The plan was falling apart before our eyes.
Kane sent the view from the wall out over every city channel.
"This is the price of command without a master."
The commander of the northern section demanded that the central seal be returned to Kane immediately. Several fighters supported him. One was already heading for the control node.
Cole did not arrest him. He stood in front of the door.
"If you open the seal, you answer for it in your own name."
"And if I don't, I'll answer for the dead."
"Yes."
Cole did not offer him a clean choice.
The man stopped.
Nine minutes remained until impact.
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