He slowly nodded. “It has been an education.”

“For both sides.”

The kwajiin methodology of warfare promised many new things, but some I found hauntingly familiar. The invaders came in from the southeast and did make one run at Bloodgate. The vhangxi attacked in strength, but it still felt like a probe to me. The grey-skinned horde poured onto the plain and came at the gate. Archers rained arrows down from the walls while the vhangxi leaped nearly to the parapets to attack them. They had no equipment to hammer the gates down, so the attack really had no chance of success.

The Jade Bears had been on the walls repulsing them, and Captain Lumel’s troops fought hard. Had they been less disciplined, it would have been possible for vhangxi to get into the city, though I doubt they had the presence of mind to open the gates to their fellows. In case that was their plan, my companions and I were poised to interfere, but our aid was not called for.

When Captain Lumel issued his challenge to one of the kwajiin, I don’t think either knew what they were getting into. The vhangxi attack had faltered, and the kwajiin had come forward to call them back. He slew two of the vhangxi when they sought to rebel, and a third drove at his back. It might have gotten to him, but it did not because Captain Lumel ordered archers to bring the beast down.

The kwajiin raised his sword in a salute and, in words no one but I seemed to understand, said his life was Lumel’s. Lumel then pointed to the circle with his own sword, and the two of them agreed to meet. I translated, because I wanted Lumel to know what was happening. He didn’t have to challenge the kwajiin, but once events started to unfold, the Virine warrior did not shrink from them.

The two warriors entered the circle-Lumel having emerged through a sally port at Bloodgate. They saluted each other, then began to fight. The kwajiin preferred Eagle, Tiger, and Wolf as fighting styles. They let him be on the attack at all times, and he pressed it. While I sensed no jaedun radiating from him, he possessed a native talent that exceeded that of many warriors-even those of superior training.

Virine to the core, Lumel remained patient. Mantis, Crane, and Dragon withstood the invader’s attacks. Lumel was skilled, and jaedun flashed as he avoided some cuts and parried others. Still, he benefited from the fact that he was a more recent student of the sword, and refinements in techniques made it easier for him to defend against the kwajiin’s more archaic forms.

But the kwajiin died because Lumel broke form. The invader had lunged while Lumel waited in Crane form three. The blade slid along the Virine’s breastplate, but scored nothing more than paint. Lumel kicked out with his right foot, aiming for the kwajiin’s right knee. The enemy warrior twisted so the kick missed to the left, but Lumel then hooked his foot back and drove his spur through the kwajiin’s right knee.

As the enemy went down, he tried to slash at Lumel, but the Virine grabbed his wrist. Lumel followed him down, then drove his knee into the kwajiin’s right biceps, shattering his arm with a sharp crack. He brought his sword’s hilt down into the blue-skinned warrior’s face, smashing teeth. Two more punches left the enemy dazed and bleeding, then Lumel stood and harvested his head with a single stroke.

He still wore the sword he’d taken from the kwajiin, but he had strapped it to his back, where it served as a challenge to others to take it from him.

Thus ended the only noble part of the siege. After that the kwajiin commanders brought more troops up and encircled the city. They even placed troops on the other side of the Green River in case any of the city’s residents decided to swim for freedom. Their encirclement complete, they sent parties to the nearby forests to gather wood for the creation of siege machinery.

While waiting for their towers to be completed, they launched other attacks. In the depths of the night they released their winged toads. Ranai had seen them before, and many people died that first night. Those who didn’t die actually created more of a problem, for the deep bite wounds festered. Moreover, the creatures’ vile saliva loosened bowels and soon the city was awash in night soil.

The winged toads came again the next night, but we were prepared for them. Fishing nets had been taken from the docks and strung through alleys and between towers. People armed themselves with broomsticks, candlesticks, short knives and long. They pounded and hacked at anything that flew. While there were injuries visited upon each other in the frenzy, the attacks devastated the winged toads and showed how ineffective they were against a prepared populace.

The second assault proved more dangerous. As with any city, Kelewan had a sewer system. Gates and grates guarded against any enemy soldiers infiltrating that way, but the kwajiin employed a different weapon. They released creatures with the sharp teeth and voracious appetites of the vhangxi, but most closely resembled small otters or large weasels. They swam into the sewers and up through pipes, crawling into cesspits beneath toilets. They were possessed of singular jumping capabilities.

They attacked when people-many suffering from the winged toad venom-were least on guard. To hear the commotion described could almost make it seem comical-a man runs screaming from a toilet, sporting a furred tail. The fact that the tail shrank as the creature gnawed its way up through his bowels, on the other hand, painted the horror in stark terms that converted buckets into toilets, and the Illustrated City suddenly found itself with brown splashes trailing from every window.

The dung-otters proved almost as easy to deal with as the winged toads, once we learned they preferred live prey to carrion. Their weakness was fire, so dumping oil in a puddle in a sewer formed the basis of a trap. We’d throw a hapless cur down there to whine in the darkness. When it started barking, then yelped in terror, we tossed a torch down and ignited the oil. While we didn’t study the results all that closely, we got a fair number of dung-otters for each dog, and the kwajiin ran out of dung-otters well before our supply of dogs evaporated.

The Illustrated City endured the siege for a week before the kwajiin began to tighten the circle. They decided to attack at Bloodgate. I had no doubt it was a matter of honor, which made them remarkably predictable. According to Urmyr, that should have made them easy for us to defeat. But defeating them would have required an army capable of lifting the siege, and unless Prince Cyron was a day away with the whole of the Naleni military, the siege would not be broken.

In that week, the Illustrated City had broken. Aside from the brown stains and the inhuman stink, the bodies decomposing in the streets and the infirm wailing in pain, a more fundamental change had taken place. The Virine had always prided themselves on having been the Empire’s capital. I’m sure they believed that when the Empress returned, it would be to Kelewan and to the sealed throne room where the Celestial Throne waited in darkness. With every day, citizens looked to the northwest for some sign of her coming, then looked to the southeast to know that she would not arrive in time.

This crushed their spirit and, with few exceptions, they resigned themselves to dying with their city. They had lived for it. Their lives had been inscribed on its walls. It was their history, and it was about to be destroyed. Some people even took their own lives, choosing a peaceful passing over to what would befall Kelewan.

I slid my swords through the sash girding my armor. “You know I am leaving with my people. You’ll not try to stop me.”

He shook his head. “The Jade Bears and I are coming with you. We’re only a battalion, but the archers of the Sun Bears are coming as well.”