In silence we waited.
On the further side of the city I glimpsed movement.

Little troops of mounted men, pony drawn wains, knots of running figures were fleeing from the city through the opposite gates.
Norhala saw them too.

With that incomprehensible, instant obedience to her unspoken thought a mass of the Metal Things separated from us; whirled up into a dozen of those obelisked forms I had seen march from the cat eyes of the City of the Pit.
In but a breath, it seemed, their columns were far off, herding back the fugitives.
They did not touch them, did not offer to harm--only, grotesquely, like dogs heading off and corraling frightened sheep, they circled and darted.

Rushing back came those they herded.
From the watching terraces and walls arose shrill cries of terror, a wailing.

Far away the obelisks met, pirouetted, melted into one thick column.