They were crouching behind the stone counter of a soup shop across from the Redvers mansion. Adrian could smell the bean stew still bubbling in the big vats, and the heat of the charcoal fire was almost painful on his knees and belly. Absently he tore a small loaf of bread in half and reached over the greasy marble to dip it in the soup.
“There’s nothing wrong with the grenades,” Adrian said. “You just weren’t using them properly. The force of an explosion propagates along the line of least resistance.”
Esmond was staring at him with tightly-held anger. “I recognize every one of those words,” he said. “But they don’t make any sense.”
“The power of the grenades goes where it’s easiest. Out into the open air, not into the solid door. You’ve got to put the explosion in a confined space for it to do much against doors or walls.”
“Oh,” Esmond said.
There were bodies lying in the street in front of the soot-stained walls of the great house; mostly magistrates’ guards and men of the City Companies, but a few of Esmond’s Emerald mercenaries, too. They’d been killed by darts hurled from the narrow third-story windows. Adrian’s jaws worked mechanically as he examined the scene; Center drew diagrams over it in green lines, with notes on distances and trajectories.
“The street’s a long javelin cast, even from a height,” he said thoughtfully. “But it’s possible for good slingmen. That bronze grill over the main door, that gives into the hallway, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“All right, here’s what we do.”
Esmond looked at him again; not angry, but with a sort of wondering curiosity. Uh-oh, Adrian thought. By the Maiden’s Spear, I’ve started sounding like Raj.
It was comforting to know he had an experienced general living in his head, when it came to things like this. Adrian had read a good deal of history during his time in the Academy of the Grove, but it was Esmond who’d been interested in things military.
“Jeffa,” he went on. “The four best men. Target is the third-story windows; on my command, not before. The next two sections are to lob grenades right over the roof—see if they can land them on the other side of the ridge tree, and let them roll down into the courtyard. Brother, you get your men ready—we won’t have much time.”
He waited while the messages were passed down to the clumps of men concealed behind shop windows and planters; this side of the street was a mansion much like the Redvers’, but like many wealthy men the owner had let out cubicles along the streetfront for stores. A minute later a hissed word came back.
“They poured boiling water on my men,” Esmond said in a cold tone, his eyes fixed on the enemy. “They’re going to regret that.” There was an angry red weal down his left arm.
Good man, your brother, Raj said. He’s got a lot to think about, but he isn’t forgetting his command.
“That they are, brother,” Adrian said. “They’re going to regret it extremely.” His voice rose higher. “On the three . . . one . . . two . . . three.”
The slingers dashed out into the street. Javelins and darts arched down from the windows, but they skittered sparking across the paving stones. One or two stuck in the cracks between blocks, humming like malignant wasps. Adrian lit the fuse to his first grenade from a helper’s torch, swung . . .
now.
Hours of practice had connected Center’s machine voice to his own fingers. The cast was sideways, up at a slant. The clay jar spun through one of the gaps in the bronze grillwork over the main door of the Redvers mansion, and exploded just before it reached the wooden shutter inside.
Crack. Then crack . . . crack . . . crack . . . as three more arched into windows on the third story of the facade. The bleeding trunk of a man collapsed out of one slit opening, trailing tattered arms and a runnel of blood down the smoke-dimmed whitewash. The second gave only screams, but the third added a gout of flame.