The deep, drumlike report of the battering ram filled the air. The covered ram had reached the gate and was worrying at it like a terrier killing a rat. A shout rose, though whether from the defenders or the Antean army, she could not say. A great stone fell from the top of the wall over the gate. It struck the battering ram’s protective roof a glancing blow, but perhaps something within the structure was affected. The steady boom of its attack stopped and the mechanism began, slowly, to roll back out of the way. A second tower reached the wall. More ladders rose. As she watched, a man scrambled up toward the enemy and was cast down. He fell slowly, his arms spread, his axe turning in the air beside him. Clara watched him all the way down. When he landed, he lay still. Dead, no doubt. Like that, between one breath and another, a man died before her. It wasn’t the first slaughter she’d seen, and oddly, she found comfort in it. These were only men. This was merely violence. Terrible, yes. Useless and wasteful, yes. But also human. She could not say what part of the carnage that forgave.
A loud splintering came from the left, and the second siege engine to reach the wall was listing to the right. She couldn’t see what had broken it, but it tipped over, not quite falling, but scattering the men who had been on its height. The ladders wheeled toward the ground, but already another tower was approaching a few dozen feet down, and a third far away to the right. The defenders would have to split their attention four ways. Maybe five. She wondered if they could.
A second battering ram made its way toward the gate, but its movement was slow, and the rain of arrows and stones seemed more concentrated now, as if with a little practice the men at the top of the wall were improving their technique. The voices of the priests still rang out, louder than the clashing of swords or the screams of the soldiers. She could not make out the syllables, but she knew the sense of them.
A horn sounded, and a company of soldiers raced across the battlefield, the banner of House Flor streaming above them. She caught sight of Jorey’s banner. Banner of the Lord Marshal. It stood back from the wall, nearly as far from the violence as she was, hanging limp in the still air. She pulled her hand from Vincen’s and tapped his knee. It was a moment before he took her meaning and handed her the little spyglass. It took her a moment to find him, but then there he was, sitting high in his saddle with a spyglass of his own, surveying the battle. He looked thinner than when he’d left Camnipol. His cloak was thrown back, his jaw set, and his shoulders bent in an attitude of supreme concentration. She had seen his body take that shape since he’d been a boy too small to walk. His mind was bent entirely upon the scene before him. She would have given a great deal to know what was in his mind just then.
Vicarian sat a horse just beyond him, and his expression chilled her. His smile was wide and bright, his eyes flashing in the grimy sunlight. She had also seen this—pleasure, laughter, joy—but never in this setting. To look upon this and rejoice seemed monstrous. There, in those priestly robes, was a thing that had been her son. A thing that had eaten him and now wore his skin. She had known that, but being reminded felt like being struck. She wanted to shout to Jorey to run, to get away before the corruption spread to him.
Jorey’s attention shifted just as Vincen murmured, “Oh God.”
A second column of smoke was rising in the south, and for a moment she thought that was what Vincen had seen. Then the flames took the crippled siege tower, lighting it like a pitch-dipped torch. The fire’s soft murmur was as loud as the shrieks of the men dying within the tower. The oil that had poured down to drench it and then be set alight left a trail of flames up the soot-black side of the wall. Another of the towers stood alone, trapped, it seemed by some misfortune of the path far from the wall. The other towers had reached their places. Soldiers swarmed up the ladders, either rising to the wall through sheer will and the force of numbers or being thrown back. She couldn’t guess how many men had died before her so far that day, but there were more, and with priests there to urge them on, she had no doubt that they would either win the city or die to a man. She wondered what she could write to Paerin Clark and the bank in Northcoast. The war is a madness unto itself, and there is no ending it short of complete slaughter. The first blow has been struck, and there is no path to victory nor reconciliation nor peace.
And yet there had to be. There must, and she—God help her—had to find it. If she did not…
“You cannot fail,” she said with a sigh, “for if you do, the consequences will be unimaginably dire.”
“What, m’lady?”
On the wall, a roar went up. A thousand voices lifting together in chorus that overcame mere human sound. It was like floodwaters rushing in a gully. On the top of the wall, the battle had changed, though she couldn’t quite make sense of how. The motions of the men seemed more frantic, if that was possible. At the westernmost of the siege towers, a man panicked and ran off the wall, arms and legs flailing in the air as he fell to his death. Clara stepped forward, a thick dread growing in her throat. The crowd shouted again, a vast sound that seemed to echo more deeply than the space could explain. A cunning man’s trick, surely. Some magic to frighten them and put the army to flight.
The dragon rose up from within the city. Its wings were spread like a monarch raising hands to claim a kingdom. The great jaw swung open, showing sword-cruel teeth and the black flesh of its tongue and mouth. It screamed again, and Clara understood. The echoing roar had not been the summed voices of the clashing armies, but this one throat opened in rage. It wheeled in the air, flame pouring from its mouth. Another of the towers close against the wall caught fire, and the screams came from all around. She felt Vincen step back, but was unable herself to move. The beast was beautiful and terrible. Its movement in the air was like a dancer’s. It cried out again, and she thought there were words in the call.
Jorey’s banner fell slowly, arcing down to the earth. She turned her spyglass back, fear possessing her. When she found her son, it was only his bearer who’d fled. Jorey sat where he had been, fighting to control his mount. Other men of noble blood were beside him now. Ceruc Essian, Assin Pasillian, Myrol Caot. They wore a form of armor she had never seen before, something between scale and leather that caught the light of the burning fires. Vicarian had twisted in his saddle and was shouting at them. Jorey had eyes only for the enemy. His smile spoke less of joy than a grim and violent satisfaction.
“They knew,” Clara said. “Jorey knew. He’s ready for this.”
“I don’t think I am, Clara,” Vincen said. “We should pull back. I don’t think we’re safe here.”
Clara put up her hand, waving him to silence. By his fallen banner, Jorey lifted his fist.
The horns blew a new and unfamiliar command. The one siege tower that stood back from the rest—the one that Clara had assumed trapped by some unfortunate ground—opened, and men spilled out of it. And with them, new machines such as Clara had not seen before. Or had, but only in the carts that had made their way past her during her travels.
“What are those?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Vincen said. And then, “A trap.”
Cithrin
The ships that remained of the Antean Navy came as Barriath and Marcus had warned that they might, great and small, their sails catching the wind and riding into toward the port, but not so near as to be endangered by the complexities of the harbor. The guide boats remained at the docks along with the trade ships and the captured roundships now under the command of Barriath Kalliam. Three times before, Cithrin had found herself in cities under threat of violence. In Vanai, she had escaped before the battle. In Camnipol, she had hidden until the fighting had passed. In Suddapal, she had put her tribute in the streets and prayed that the sacking army would take the wealth and spare the people.