Pirvan then made an extremely rude gesture he had learned in the back streets of Istar, one that made a good many people on both sides roar with laughter. The herald departed in haste, with an air of affronted dignity.
That night, everyone made their farewells, bequeathing this ring to one comrade and that pair of second-best sandals to another. No one spoke aloud that which was in everyone’s mind, that by the laws of war, Carolius Migmar could sack Belkuthas to the bare walls and put everyone within to the sword.
“Which he probably won’t do,” Pirvan told Haimya. “He has to know that the Silvanesti and the dwarves are out in more strength than he has. Even if he has orders to provoke a war with them, he is unlikely to interpret those orders in a way that will begin the war with two massacres, one by Istarians and one of Istarians.”
“Given a choice, I would rather drink the victory toasts as a living woman than be avenged as a dead one,” Haimya said.
“I agree,” her husband replied. “There is very little that one can do with a dead woman, and much to be done with a living one.”
It would also have been hard to write letters of fire on the sky because the sky that morning was gray from horizon to horizon. It was hot, with a hint of moistness in the air that in this hill country meant more than a hint of rain was to come.
Pirvan had taken his post atop the great hall, the building least battered by the siege engines. He intended to stay up here no more than necessary to make sure that he saw everything and sent all the proper orders. After the death of Krythis, the people on the fighting line would need his orders in person not to run wild among their enemies.
Now drums rolled, trumpets blared, and colored smokes swirled up until they were lost in the clouds. The storming parties marched out of their entrenchments, three of them, each about five hundred strong. Two were Migmar’s people-Istarian regulars in one band and picked sell-swords beside them-and the third, judging from its ragged formation, was plainly Zephros’s men.
Fifteen hundred men, coming against not more than three hundred defenders. More than enough to do the work, if they penetrated the breaches.
To either side of the columns marched archers, covered by men with shields, some so heavy they rolled forward on wheels. The archers lofted their arrows high over shield and wall, both, to plummet down within Belkuthas.
Picked archers replied. Some of them were elven, as the survivors of Lauthin’s embassy guards were now all part of the citadel’s defenders. The honor of the Silvanesti demanded no less, and Pirvan pitied any sell-sword who thought the elves could be persuaded to yield once the fighting came inside.
The elven archers also lofted their arrows, and they knew more about fine shooting than most humans could ever learn. Screams soon rose from behind the shields, and while they continued their advance, they left a trail of writhing or still forms.
Others on the wall were dwarves. Not at their best in fast-moving close combat, because of their short stature and limbs, dwarves still knew how to strike powerful blows. The ones on the wall had fortress crossbows, such as were used against the gryphon the day of Belot’s arrival, and these could send a bolt clear through a shield and the man behind it.
At other times, they used the flat trajectory and high velocity of the fortress bows to send the bolts whistling out five or six hundred paces. Men carrying wounded back or running forward to replace the dead and wounded, died before even reaching the battlefield-died without knowing what hit them, their bodies flung twenty paces through the air.
All of which diminished the numbers and perhaps the ardor of the attackers, but did not slow them enough for Pirvan to take hope. Well, Zephros’s men were even more ragged than usual, but they were still coming on. Pirvan saw one reason for that-a line of Istarian regulars just behind them, with swords and halberds ready to strike down any laggards. Just what Zephros’s men deserved-steel in front and behind.
Pirvan measured distances with his eye. The people on the wall had started shooting at long range. Now the enemy was within close range.
It was time.
Pirvan signaled to Nuor of the Black Chisel, then pointed with both hands.
The dwarf hefted his axe, turned it, and with the blunt side of the head struck a gong bolted to the stonework.
Before the echoes died, the ground crumbled in a nearly complete circle around Belkuthas. Suddenly Migmar’s two columns were completely bisected by trenches wider than a man’s height and of unknown depth. Pirvan heard screams as unlucky men on the edges overbalanced and fell into the dark, to join their comrades already buried alive.
Then flames roared from the trenches. Men within or close by screamed as they turned into living torches. Some of them ran, trailing smoke.
Down there, in the tunnels dug around Belkuthas by the dwarves under Gran Axesharp, fire spells were at work. The dwarves had loaded the tunnels with grease, rock oil, pitch, dried thundermoss, wood, and other burnable stuff.
Burning naturally, these loads would not last long. Neither would any fire spell that Tarothin could cast. But with a fire spell and burnable stuff to feed the flames, a circle of fire would nearly surround Belkuthas for hours.
Nearly, because in front of Zephros’s men, the ground remained firm and fireless. They had an open path to one of the breaches-if they chose to take it, or if the Istarians in the rear could discourage them from taking the path to safety and flight.
Pirvan was prepared to watch the spectacle with some interest. This was a trick that the citadel could use only once, but with luck it would be needed only once, before the elves arrived. Then, whatever happened, it would not be the citadel falling under fire and sword.
Pirvan saw that he had left matters a trifle too late with the two disciplined columns. They had many men down and more singed and frightened. They also had hundreds who’d been beyond the trench line when the fire blazed up. These included a few with scaling ladders and more with bows. They were coming on, shooting as they went.
It looked rather as if the Belkuthans would have to defend both breaches, and one of them against disciplined soldiers, in spite of the fire spells.
Carolius Migmar did not know how long the Istarian regulars and picked sell-swords close to the wall would be able to hold. He doubted they could storm their breach, but they ought to last long enough to keep the defenders occupied there. He only hoped some would survive to share in the victory.
He was going to have to move everyone outside the fire circle to reinforce Zephros’s column. Reinforcing Zephros was rather like pushing an uncooked sausage; slow going, and with the possibility that the cursed thing would fall apart before it had gone very far. But even uncooked sausage could choke a dog if you shoved enough of it down the dog’s throat. Migmar did not like to fight this way; the lives of his men were a sacred trust.
The victory of virtue was an even more sacred one.
He cut in among the ranks of the Istarian regulars, waving his sword toward Zephros’s men and shouting: “Rally to Zephros’s column. They have open ground clear to the breach! Rally to Zephros’s column and follow me!”
Thunder rumbled in the south, loud enough to be heard over the battle din of shouting. Shouting-and screaming, as men on the walls or the ground fell, with longbow shafts or crossbow bolts tearing their flesh as their screams tore their throats until life fled.
Pirvan wondered if any of the men who died today would come to him in nightmares. He doubted it. This was the kind of fighting where one drew steel with, if not an easy conscience, an unburdened one. Men would not be dying because they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time; they were dying because they had chosen to come to you with murderous intent.