Of course, one of the second flight of ballistae shafts had gotten through his protection. I suppose that distracted him.
His ineffectuality had to be Shifter's doing.
They left maybe five thousand men behind. The warlord side of me was disappointed. I'd hoped to do more damage. I was not going to storm the camp to do it, though. I backed the men off, set men to police up our casualties, placed cavalry to meet anyone coming out of camp or city, then got on with business.
I planted my right wing yards from the road we had followed down to Stormgard, just out of bowshot of the barbican at the gate it entered. My line ran at right angles to the road. I let the men relax.
My levee builders got to work putting their training to use. On the far side of the road they began digging a trench. It started a bowshot from the wall and ran to the foot of the hills. It would be wide and deep and would shield my flank.
The workers carried the earth to the road and began building a ramp. Others began building mantlets to protect the ramp builders as they approached the wall.
That many men can move a lot of earth. The defenders saw we would have a ramp right up to the wall in just a few days. They were not pleased. But they had no means to stop us.
Men scurried like ants. The former prisoners had scores to even and went at it like they wanted blood by sundown.
By mid-afternoon they were taking the city end of the trench downward, deep, and toward the wall, not hiding the fact that they were mining, aiming to go under as well as over. And they had begun breaking ground for a trench on my left flank as well.
In three days my army would be protected by a pair of deep trenches that would funnel my attack up the ramp and over the wall. There would be no stopping us.
They had to do something in there.
I hoped to do something to them before they thought of something to do to me.
Late afternoon. The sky began clouding over. Lightning frolicked behind the hills to the south. Not a good sign. A storm would be tougher on my guys than on theirs.
Even so, despite the cold wind and scattered sprinkles moving in, the builders only broke for a spartan supper before setting out lanterns and building bonfires so they could continue after dark. I posted pickets so there would be no surprises, began rotating my troops out of position for food and rest.
Some day. All I'd had to do was sit in one place and look elegant and give orders I'd already worked out in my head.
And think about what last night had meant, in its highly anticlimactic fashion.
It had been a night of nights of nights, but it had not lived up to the anticipation. Had even been, in a well-we've-finally-gotten-around-to-it way, something of a disappointment.
Not that I would trade it in or take it back. Never.
Someday, when I'm old and retired and have nothing better to do than philosophize, I'm going to sit down for a year and figure out why it's always better in the anticipation than in the consummation.
I sent Frogface flitting around checking the enemy's mood. That was black. They wanted no more fighting after duking it out with elephants.
Stormgard's walls were not heavily patrolled. Most of the male population had marched out in the morning and not made it back. But Frogface reported no great distress around the central citadel, where another Shadowmaster was in residence. In fact, he thought he sensed confidence in the eventual outcome.
The storm marched north. And it was a bitch kitty. I gathered my captains. "We got a mean storm coming. Might make what we're going to try tricky, but we're going to do it anyway. Be even less expected. Goblin. One-Eye. Get the dust off your old reliable snooze spell."
They eyed me suspiciously. Goblin muttered, "Here it comes. Some damnfool reason for not getting any sleep again tonight."
One-Eye told him, "I'm going to use that spell on him one of these first days." Louder, "Right, Croaker. What's up?"
"Us. Up and over those walls and open the gate after you put the sentries to sleep."
Even Lady was surprised. "You're going to waste all that work on that ramp?"
"I never intended to use it. I wanted them convinced I was committed to a certain course."
Mogaba smiled. I suspected he'd figured it out ahead of time.
"It won't work," Goblin muttered.
I gave him a look. "The men working the trenches at the city end are armed. I promised them first crack at getting even. We get the gates open all we have to do is lean back and watch."
"Won't work. You're forgetting that Shadowmaster in there. You think you're going to sneak up on him?"
"Yes. Our guardian angel will make sure."
"Shifter? I'd trust him as far as I can throw a pregnant elephant."
"I say anything about trusting him? He wants us for a stalking horse for some scheme. He's got to keep us healthy. Right?"
"Your mind is going, Croaker," One-Eye said. "You been hanging around Lady too long."
She kept a blank face on. That might not have been a compliment.
"Mogaba, I'll need a dozen of the Nar. After Goblin and One-Eye put the sentries to sleep Frogface will climb the wall with a rope and anchor it. Your boys will go up and take the barbican from the rear and open the gate."
He nodded. "How soon?"
"Anytime. One-Eye. Send Frogface scouting. I want to know what that Shadowmaster is doing. If he's watching us we won't go."
We moved an hour later. It went like operations go in textbooks. Like it was ordained by the gods. In another hour every one of the freed prisoners, except those we had enrolled in the legions, was inside the city. They reached the citadel and broke in before resistance developed.
They raged through Stormgard, ignoring the rain and thunder and lightning, venting a lot of rage, probably mostly in directions askew.
Me in my Widowmaker suit stalked through the open gates fifteen minutes after the mob rush. Lifetaker rode beside me. The locals eowered away from us, though some seemed to be welcoming their liberators. Halfway to the citadel Lady said, "You even fooled me this time. When you said tonight in Stormgard... "
A gust and ferocious fusillade of rain silenced her. Lightning cut loose in a sudden vicious duel. By the flashes I witnessed the passage of a pair of panthers that I would have missed otherwise. Chills not of the rain crawled my spine. I had seen that bigger one before, in another embattled city, when I was young.
They were headed toward the citadel, too.
I asked, "What are they up to?" My confidence was less than complete. There were no crows out in this storm. I realized I had come to count them my good luck.
"I don't know."
"Better check it." I increased my pace.
There were a lot of dead men around the entrance to the citadel. Most were my laborers. Sounds of fighting still echoed inside. Grinning guards saluted me clumsily. I asked, "Where's the Shadowmaster?"
"I hear she's in the big tower. Up high. Her men are fighting like crazy. But she isn't helping them."
Thunder and lightning went mad for a full minute. Bolts smashed at the city. Had the god of thunders gone crazy? But for the torrential rainfall a hundred fires might have started.
I pitied the legions, out there on guard. Maybe Mogaba would bring them in out of it.
The storm died into an almost normal rain after that last insane fit, with only a few lightweight flashes.
I looked up the one tower that loomed over the rest of the citadel—and, deja vu, in a flash spied a cat shape scaling its face.
"Damn me!"
The thunder had left me unable to hear the horses coming. I looked back. One-Eye, Goblin, and Murgen, still flaunting the Company standard. One-Eye was staring up at the tower. His face was not pleasant to behold.