‘I preferred it when they were on target.’
‘So did I.’
Sildocai materialised in front of him, as if he’d been moulded out of the dust. ‘I’ve been down there,’ he said. ‘Since they started shooting high, I reckoned it was the safest place to be. They’ve smashed up four trebuchets and half a dozen of the scorpions, two more of each out of action for now but fixable. The worst part is, there’s a damn great hole in the path which we’re going to have to fill somehow. Otherwise we’re completely cut off from the lower defences.’
Temrai closed his eyes. ‘Well, there ought to be enough loose rock and spoil,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to lay timbers to hold the loose stuff in, anchor them with pegs like you’re building a terrace.’
‘All right,’ Sildocai said, coughing. ‘When we’ve done that, what about hauling some of the engines up out of the way? They’re doing no good down there, just waiting to be smashed up.’
Temrai shook his head. ‘No, we won’t do that,’ he said. ‘They’ll just bring theirs up closer. We need to shut those trebuchets down for a while, and if we can’t reach them with artillery, we’ll have to go over there and do it by hand.’
Sildocai frowned. ‘I’d rather not do that,’ he said, ‘even with the light cavalry. It’s a bit too flat for charging down the enemy’s throat.’
‘We haven’t got any choice,’ Temrai replied, as another shot pitched, scooping up loose dirt and sprinkling it over their heads, the way the chief mourner does at a funeral (although it’s customary to die first). ‘We’re outranged. If we sit here and do nothing, they’ll flatten the whole thing.’
‘All right,’ Sildocai replied doubtfully. ‘But let’s at least wait until it gets dark and they stop shooting.’
‘What makes you think they’ll stop when it gets dark? I wouldn’t. If they fix their settings, they don’t need to see us in order to smash us up. They’re doing a pretty good job as it is, and this dust is as good as a dark night.’
‘Yes, but it’s only dusty over here. I’d rather not ride up on their archers in broad daylight, thank you very much. You may not remember, but there’s bright sunlight outside all this muck.’
Temrai thought for a moment. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’m not thrilled at the thought of having to sit through three more hours of this, but you’re right, we don’t want to do their job for them by making silly mistakes. Get a raiding party organised, and then put someone on making good that path. Nobody’s going anywhere till that’s fixed.’
Sildocai scrambled away, trying to keep his head down below the level of the earth bank into which the stakes of the stockade had been driven. It meant scuttling like a crab, or a man in a low-roofed tunnel. Another shot pitched, but too far away to be a danger to him. Very erratic now, Temrai decided, but I don’t suppose they care; this is just to make us feel miserable. The damage is probably trivial, but this dust is starting to get on my nerves.
‘No mucking about,’ Sildocai said, a stern, parental expression on his face. ‘The only thing we’re interested in is the trebuchets; cut the counterweight cables, then when the beam comes down cut the sling cables, and that’s it. Just this once, getting back in one piece is more important than killing flatheads, so no wandering off, no hot pursuit and categorically no looting. Understood?’
Nobody spoke. By the look of it, his dire warnings had been largely unnecessary. Chances were they’d only volunteered in the hope of getting away from the dust for an hour.
It was a typical plains moon, bright enough to cast shadows. That was good. From here he could see the camp-fires across the river, where they were going. Men sitting in the firelight don’t have good night vision, whereas his men would have had time to get accustomed to the dark; they’d be able to see the enemy, and the enemy wouldn’t see them. He gave the sign, and the winch crew started to wind the swing-bridge into place.
Sildocai went first. It was tradition in his family, which had produced more than its share of commanders; so many, in fact, that it was remarkable that it had lasted this long. His own father had been killed fighting this same Bardas Loredan, shortly after Maxen died. His grandfather had also fallen in battle against the Perimadeians. His great-grandfather had gone the same way, though nobody could remember who he’d been fighting against. Four generations of brave leaders who always led from the front. Some people never learn.
Getting there was no problem; just head for the nearest cluster of camp-fires until he could make out the trebuchets, silhouetted against the blue-grey sky. There was just enough wind to carry away the sound of the horses’ hooves on the dry grass. All in all, ideal conditions for a night attack; it was almost enough to tempt him into ignoring his own excellent advice and go looking for a fight, except that he didn’t want one. There’d be plenty of time for that sort of thing later; besides, his men were tired after a bad day divided between cowering under the dust-cloud and hauling dirt in buckets to fill in the hole in the path uphill.
They did better than he’d expected; they were fifty yards from the nearest fire by the time someone saw them and shouted. Sildocai drew his scimitar, called out, ‘Now!’ and kicked his horse into a gentle canter.
It started well. Understandably, the enemy ran away from the suddenly materialising horsemen, heading for the weapons stacks, away from the trebuchets, and nobody bothered the raiding party until they’d done some useful work among the trebuchets. That would have been a good time to quit.
Sildocai was the first to cut a rope; it took him three attempts. It was almost comical. Somehow he’d pictured himself cleaving the rope with a single blow, slicing through the taut fibres almost without effort. Instead, he caught it at an awkward angle, jerked his wrist and nearly dropped the sword. He’d have been better off with a bill-hook or a bean-hook, a heavier, more rigid blade. His adventure nearly ended there; in his grim determination to hack through the rope he forgot that cutting it would result in a long, heavy piece of wood pivoting sharply downwards – the beam missed his shoulder by no more than a couple of inches, and startled the life out of him. Then, as he pulled his horse round, he found he couldn’t quite reach the sling on the other end; he had to jump off his horse, kneel down, saw through it with the forte of his sword blade, and then hop back up again (except that his horse was spooky and didn’t want to hold still, and he spent an alarming moment or two dancing beside a moving horse, one foot in the stirrup, the other dragging on the ground while he clung to the pommel of the saddle with one hand and tried not to drop his scimitar with the other).
But he was a grown-up, he could cope; and he made a rather less messy job of the next two trebuchets. In fact, he was feeling confident enough to be toying with the idea of trying to get the things to burn when the enemy finally showed up. That was the point at which he should have let it alone and gone home to bed.
The enemy didn’t want to be there, it was obvious from the way they advanced; crab-fashion, their halberds and glaives thrust out well in front, sheer terror on their faces. Urging them on were a couple of officers, beside themselves with fury, like apple-growers whose trees are being robbed by the village children, but not quite furious enough to lead from the front. The job was about half-done; Sildocai called the first and second troops to follow him, and kicked up his favourite slow canter – quick enough to have momentum but slow enough to maintain control. There wasn’t a line – the enemy were slouching towards him in a huddled bunch, the men on the ends trying to snuggle towards the centre – so he waved the second troop out wide left, and took the first troop wide right. The plan was to hit them hard in flank, turn them back on the camp in a confused mob so they’d get under the feet of any further, better-organised relief party. There was just about enough light from the camp-fires to see what he was about. It should have worked fine. It did -