‘That… is a point,’ Suyin admitted with a grin.
38th Day, First Marita.
Marsan stood on the wall, looking out at the army massed outside the city in the gathering light of morning. It was an impressive sight. Considerably more impressive than his own forces. Most of the defending army consisted of ordinary citizens armed with basic weapons and wearing basic armour. He had plenty of men with bows on the walls but they were poorly trained; the city preferred not to expend overmuch on a fighting force they would ‘never need.’
Keeva’s watchmen were a different matter, but there were only five hundred of them to cover the entire city and they would be of little real use until the walls or gates were breached. Keeva stood beside Marsan, watching the catapults being wound into position for their first volley. ‘It shouldn’t be long now,’ he said.
‘No,’ Marsan agreed. ‘I think they’re actually a little late. Terribly rude of them.’
Keeva gave a grunt of a laugh. ‘I’d be happy if they’d decided to stay away from the party entirely.’
‘Not much chance of that.’
As though the conversation had been heard all the way over on the opposing battle line, several thuds announced the beginnings of the barrage. Huge stones were lofted into the air, tracing long arcs as they were hurled toward the waiting defences.
‘Here we go,’ Marsan said.
~~~
Jun sat bolt upright, unsure of exactly what had caused his sudden wakefulness until another crashing sound hit his ears. The catapults. The Imperial Army had begun its attack.
Well, there was no point in trying to sleep through the hammering of rocks against the walls. Reaching for his trousers, Jun began to get dressed. It was likely to be a bad day and he might as well start it early.
~~~
Ayah opened her eyes and listened. Something had brought her awake, but it took a few seconds to realise what it was. The sound of the bombardment was muffled by the thick walls of the hall, but she could hear it. Slipping out of the huge bed which graced her bedroom, she dressed quickly and went out into the lounge with its windows overlooking the city.
The suite the three girls had been taken to was big. There were three bedrooms and a private bathing room off the central lounge. They had decided that Suyin should take the largest of the three bedrooms since she was the Imperial Princess, but all the rooms were large compared to anything Ayah or Nareel had ever stayed in. Large and comfortably appointed, though Ayah had decided that she preferred a bed you didn’t sink into without trace.
Nareel was already up and standing at the window. ‘They started,’ she said, not turning around. ‘You can occasionally see one of the rocks in the air above the wall.’
‘Are any of them falling inside the city?’ Ayah asked.
‘I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. Of course, it may take them a couple of shots to get the range worked out.’
‘That’s comforting.’
‘There’s nothing comforting about the Third Army,’ Suyin said. She was still fixing the ties of her dress, but she was up like everyone else. ‘They’re efficient and ruthless and they’re led by a sadist. I’m going to ask the guards if they can arrange some breakfast.’
‘I’m not really sure I’m hungry,’ Ayah said, watching as a boulder arced high above the walls.
‘Eat when you can,’ Nareel said. ‘It’s a good policy.’
‘Especially when there’s a war happening outside your apartment,’ Suyin added, heading for the door. ‘You just never know when you’ll next get to eat.’
~~~
General Guang sat astride his horse, surveying the ongoing battle. Not that he would have described it as a battle. Machines of war were doing battle. It was not the same.
Still, the plan called for things to proceed slowly. At this stage, he needed to soften things up, so his catapults lofted eighty stone boulders at the walls. In the afternoon, pots of burning pitch would be used in place of boulders in some of the catapults. It would make the walls difficult to work on and probably cause more casualties among the defenders. Right now, Guang’s forces were suffering more, but that would change. The defenders had huge ballistae mounted on the walls and were throwing bundles of massive bolts out at the catapult crews and massed soldiers. At a hundred and seventy paces from the walls, the Army was just inside the effective range of the catapults and just outside the most effective range of the ballistae, but being hit with an arrow the size of a javelin could hurt even if much of its force was spent. The ballistae crews would get a taste of their own medicine soon enough.
But, even if Guang’s plan worked as well as could be expected, it was going to be at least four days before the real battle began. Patience was, Guang supposed, a virtue, but he could not wait for the blood to fly.
~~~
‘They’ve begun using fire weapons,’ Xian announced as she walked out of Ayah’s bedroom.
Suyin blinked at her, but the question of fire weapons was not the first thing on her mind. ‘Are you going to explain how you keep popping out of places you can’t have got to without being seen?’
Xian appeared to consider the question as she walked over to one of the very comfortable sofas occupying much of the lounge and sat down. She smiled. ‘No, I don’t think I am.’
Ayah wiped the smirk off her face before Suyin or Nareel could notice it. ‘Fire weapons?’
‘Burning pitch. They’ve started mixing in loads of earthenware flasks filled with the stuff. They’re landing them on battlements, primarily, but they are lofting some of the loads into the city.’
‘That’s horrible.’
‘It’s standard procedure. I’m sure that the defenders have equipment to dump the disgusting muck on people trying to climb the walls, but that won’t be too much use in this siege.’
‘They won’t storm the walls,’ Suyin said. ‘They have Thunder Water to bring them down.’
‘Precisely. So far, however, there seems to have been no attempt to move miners in to do that.’ Xian frowned. ‘Guang must be up to something. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.’
Suyin’s eyes narrowed. ‘You seem to be able to go anywhere you want without being seen.’
Xian gave her a smile and picked up an apple from the fruit bowl the girls had been provided with. ‘It does seem like that, doesn’t it?’
~~~
It was approaching midnight when the Imperial Engineering Corps began their advance toward the city walls. It was possible that they would be seen, but relatively unlikely: the catapults had been dropping fire pots onto the city walls for quite a while and anyone up there was more concerned about the flames than watching for dark shapes advancing on a dark background.
People had been working for months on the mobile palisades. They were wedge-shaped wagons, essentially, with screens of solid logs set around three sides. The logs were then covered over with vegetation designed to mimic the landscape beneath the walls. Once in position, the axles of the wagons could be raised, dropping the body of the wagon onto the ground. They provided protection and, hopefully, concealment while the men began to dig under the walls. No one really knew whether the plan would work, but if it did, it would cut weeks off the time needed to reduce the city walls. And everyone would probably get medals. That was a plus.
Xian watched the strange wagons as they were pushed slowly toward the walls of Istollam by men in dark clothing. It was a clever idea and seemed likely to work. Marsan was going to have difficulty countering the things but she would let him know about them in the morning.
Turning, she lifted into the air and began to fly toward the army encampment. If there was any way to end this, she was going to find it there. She certainly hoped there was something because the alternative was not something she really wanted to think about.
39th Day, First Marita.
Marsan stood on the battlements above the main gate, his gaze trying to make out something at the base of the wall less than a hundred pace
s away. He sighed. ‘My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Keeva?’
‘I see it, General,’ Keeva replied. ‘They’ve done a remarkable job of camouflaging it, but it’s there.’
‘There are five more,’ Xian said. The two men had not been best pleased to have a woman in nothing more than a silk dress standing up there with the warriors, but they were both beginning to see that Xian was a little more capable than first impressions suggested. ‘You might be able to do something about that one with some clever use of archers, but the others are unreachable.’
‘We could try pouring pitch down on them,’ Keeva suggested.
‘You can try. If you’re really lucky, you might set fire to the wood. I’m not saying it’s not worth the attempt, but they did try to think of things like that when they built those devices.’
‘So… What else can we do?’
‘They haven’t moved the Thunder Water in yet.’
‘Our best chance would be to catch them doing that,’ Marsan said. ‘If we can make the stuff explode outside the walls, we may be able to take out half their miners and keep the walls intact.’
Xian nodded. ‘I admit it’s not the best of chances.’
‘But it’s what we have.’
~~~
‘There’s no realistic way to get into those little bunkers and get the men out?’ Ayah asked. Xian had just finished telling the girls about the clever little fortified wagons and their purpose.
Xian shook her head. ‘You’d need to mount a raid outside the wall. You’d be doing that under fire from the Empire’s archers. Then, as the miners are digging, they’re banking up the rear entrance of their emplacements with earth from the dig.’ She looked thoughtful for a second. ‘If you had the time, you could possibly bury them under their own mining waste, but all the while you’re trying to do that, you’ve got arrows being thrown at you and the possibility of advancing troops.’
‘But they haven’t brought in the Thunder Water yet?’ Suyin asked.
‘Leaving that for last. At a guess, it’s too unstable to have in a tight space with men with axes and shovels. Anyway, they have a plan B waiting too. They have a couple of wagons loaded with six barrels of Thunder Water each. I think the plan is to move them to the gates under cover of darkness and then set them off. That’s a far more risky strategy. It would mean moving in in clear sight of two ballistae and I think a good hit from a ballista will really ruin their day.’
‘It’s a shame those can’t be put to a better use,’ Ayah said. ‘Like blowing up the army.’
‘That thought had occurred to me too,’ Xian replied. ‘The problem is that we’d need a force to take them. The city simply doesn’t have enough soldiers to fight their way out there and capture the wagons. Then, even with the power of Thunder Water, I doubt we could do enough damage to really make a difference.’
‘It would need to be done in the right place. But then, I suppose, you’d have to know where that place was.’
‘Oh, I have an idea about that. It’s just that actually doing it…’ Xian shook her head. ‘I can’t see a way around it. We’re just going to have to hope the army in the city can stop that stuff getting near enough to do its job.’
~~~
Ayah’s eyes flicked open and she thought, at first, that the catapults were battering at the walls again. A sound caught her attention and she shifted, quickly tossing her sheets aside and swinging her legs over the edge of the too-soft bed.
‘We’ve orders to move the three of you,’ a voice said from near the doorway. Light blossomed as a candle was lit and Ayah could see a man in the armour of one of the watch soldiers standing there. ‘Get dressed,’ the man went on in clipped tones. ‘We need to move. Now.’
Ayah frowned at him. There was something not quite right about him, but she could not quite put her finger on what it was. ‘Give me a minute.’ He did not seem inclined to leave and her frown deepened. ‘Do you normally stare at naked women immediately after dragging them out of bed?’ He said nothing in reply, but he turned, pulling the door closed behind him.
Dressed, Ayah stepped out into the lounge to find Nareel and Suyin waiting for her. With them were four watchmen and the richly dressed man who had been with Marsan when the girls had been brought in. She had never been given his name and was surprised to see him now. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, addressing the man who seemed to be in charge.
‘We’re moving you to a more secure location,’ the man said.
Ayah raised an eyebrow. ‘More secure than the top floor of the most secure building in Istollam?’ She shifted her gaze over the soldiers again, trying to work out what was not right about them.
‘A more secret location then. The woman, Xian, pointed out that every spy in the city now knows that the princess is here.’
‘So there’s no real point in moving us. We’re better off here. Or, you are better off with us here. When the walls fall, the Imperial Army will pull the city apart looking for Su– For Sying. If she’s here, fewer civilians are going to die in the search.’
The man looked at her for a second, his eyes narrowing. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ he grumbled, and then he pulled a dagger from his belt. There was what looked a lot like a delay while the soldiers caught up with the change of strategy and then they were drawing their swords. ‘You’ll come with us and you’ll make no sound. We want Princess Sying alive, but we don’t need either of you two.’
Five armed men against three girls. Ayah did not think she was close to being that good. She held up her hands. ‘Okay. Whatever you say. Where are we going?’
~~~
They were taken to the docks. It was getting close to midnight and no one was around aside from soldiers manning the seaward wall and they were not going to argue with one of the city’s leaders as he hustled three girls – now in hooded cloaks – to a small boat at one of the quays.
There, the man running the operation left and the four soldiers rowed the boat out of the harbour. It was about then that Ayah figured out what was wrong with the soldiers: their boots. The boots they were wearing were not the standard issue ones the watchmen wore. She suspected that they were imperial-issue ones, but the revelation was far too late to be of any help.
‘Where are we going?’ Nareel asked quietly.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Suyin replied.
‘They’ll row us around the walls and up the coast a little,’ Ayah said, ‘and then we go inland to the Army. Right?’ The last was aimed at the man at the tiller.
‘Shut up,’ the steersman said, ‘or you’ll get a knife in the back.’
‘Then I scream, and the archers on the wall will use the boat for target practice. We’re keeping our voices down.’
He stared at her for a beat. ‘Shut up, or your friend will get a knife in her back.’
Ayah shook her head wearily, but she kept silent as they rowed south.
40th Day, First Marita.
Quite when they finally arrived at their destination, Ayah was unsure. It was long after midnight, she was sure of that.
They had rowed south for quite some time before going ashore at a beach where a covered wagon was waiting. Looking out had been impossible, but they had been taken inland and then north, or roughly in that sort of direction. There had been the glow of campfires through the canvas periodically, which suggested that they were moving through the army camp. Then they had stopped and the soldiers had ordered them out.
Around them were various tents, large ones. These were not the tents of typical soldiers. These belonged to senior officers or they were there for other purposes. Ayah looked around, but she could not be sure which way the city was and she could see no sign of it before she was given a push toward the entrance of one of the big tents. Lit by a couple of candles set on iron holders, the interior was actually quite nice. There were four cots set up at the sides and four chairs set beside a central pole which held the top of the tent up. An iron brazier burned beside the pole, givi
ng off little smoke, little light, and far more heat.
‘There will be guards outside at all hours,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘General Guang will probably want to meet you in the morning after the staff meeting. Get some rest.’
‘Have you ever met Guang?’ Ayah asked Suyin once the soldiers were gone.
‘I know him enough to not want to know him,’ Suyin replied, making a sour face. ‘I was the Iron Princess. I was kept away from politics, but I still had to make nice at parties. There was a huge one thrown for Guang when he came back from Garia City.’
‘You said he was a sadist?’
Suyin nodded. ‘He likes seeing people in pain. Physical or emotional. Well, he really likes it when he can inflict physical pain himself, but he’ll make do when he doesn’t have that option. His army follows him as much because they’re terrified of him as because he inspires loyalty.’
‘Sounds like a wonderful human being. We should do as the soldier said. Get some sleep.’ Ayah started toward one of the cots.
‘Easy for you to say. I don’t think I can sleep.’
‘I’m not sure I can either, but I’m going to try.’
~~~
General Guang was not the most impressive of men. Not at first sight anyway. He was not especially tall, not especially well-built, and certainly not particularly attractive, or particularly ugly for that matter. He had the slightly exotic, angled eyes of someone from the eastern continent set into a gaunt face with a broad, flat nose and thin lips. His hair was a nondescript brown and cut short, probably to make it easier to wear a helmet, and there was a neatly trimmed beard encircling his mouth which had a few strands of grey in it. He wore a mail shirt little different from those worn by his subordinates. It looked to have been carefully fitted to his body, but that was the only indication that he was anything more than a common soldier. Well, except for his sword, which was a standard, single-edge design, but the fittings were far more ornate than was typical.
His attitude was something else, however. He marched into the tent with his back straight and his head high. There was a slightly mocking grin about his lips which suggested that he knew without a doubt that he was superior to everyone around him, but the grin did not reach his eyes. His eyes were dark and had a flinty coldness about them. Ayah could believe the man was the monster Suyin had suggested he was.
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