«Aye, your Majesty, I believe we are,» the somber officer answered.
Maniakes picked up a wooden mallet and gave the trigger a sharp whack. That released the casting arms, which jerked forward, sending the dart on its way. The engine that had propelled it bucked like a wild ass. Half the frame jounced up in the air. It crashed back down to the walkway a moment later. The dart flew straight toward Tzikas, faster and on a flatter trajectory than any archer could have propelled a shaft. «I think we're going to—» Maniakes' voice rose in excitement.
A Kubrati strode in front of the Videssian renegade. The nomad must have spied the dart, for he flung his arms wide an instant before it struck him. Before he had a chance to do anything more, he himself was flung aside by the terrible impact.
«Stupid fool,» Maniakes snarled. «To the ice with him—it was Tzikas I wanted.» He seized another dart and thrust it into the catapult's trough.
Too late. Even as he and Immodios worked the windlasses on either side of the engine, he knew it was too late. Tzikas and the Kubratoi were scattering, all except the luckless fellow the dart had slaughtered. He lay where he had fallen, as a cockroach will after a shoe lands on it.
Maniakes sent that second dart whizzing through the air. It nearly nailed another nomad, and missed Tzikas by no more than ten or twelve feet. The traitor kept right on going till he was out of range of the engines on the wall. He knew to the foot how far they could throw. He ought to, Maniakes thought bitterly.
«Close,» Immodios said.
«Close, aye,» Maniakes answered. «Close isn't good enough. I wanted him dead. I thought I had him. A little bit of luck—» He shook his head. He hadn't seen much of that during his reign, and whatever he had, he'd had to make for himself. A timely error by the enemy, a truly important Makuraner message falling into his hands… the next time he saw anything like that would be the first.
«I wonder what the traitor was showing the Kubratoi,» Immodios remarked.
«I have no idea,» Maniakes said. «I don't much care, either. The trouble is, he can still show it to them whenever he wants, whatever it may be. He wouldn't be showing them anything if it hadn't been for that one miserable nomad, may Skotos clutch him forever.» That the Kubrati had paid with his life for moving into the wrong place at the wrong time seemed to Maniakes not nearly punishment enough.
Immodios persisted: «What does Tzikas know about the way the city walls are built?»
«Quite a lot, worse luck for us,» Maniakes answered. «He's not going to get close enough to use whatever he knows, though, not if I have anything to say about it.»
But how much would he have to say about it? Immodios, being alert, sharp-eyed, and a former colleague of Tzikas', had recognized the traitor at long range. How many other officers were likely to do the same tomorrow, or the day after, or in a week? The longer Maniakes thought about that, the less he liked the answer he came up with.
Whatever Tzikas knew, he'd probably have the chance to show it to the men he now called his friends… unless he decided to betray them again. If Tzikas did that, Maniakes decided, he would welcome him with open arms. And if that wasn't a measure of his own desperation, he didn't know what was.
Watching the Kubrati siege towers grow and get bedecked with hides and with shields on top of those was almost like watching saplings shoot up and put out leaves as spring gave way to summer. Maniakes found only two differences: the towers grew faster than any saplings, and they got uglier as they came closer to completion, where leaves made trees more beautiful.
The Kubratoi were being more methodical about the entire siege than Maniakes would have thought possible before it began. He credited that to—or rather, blamed it on—the Makuraners the nomads' monoxyla had smuggled over from the westlands. Abivard and his officers knew patience and its uses.
Well out of range of Videssian arrows or darts or flung stones, the Kubratoi practiced climbing up into their siege towers and rushing up the wooden stairs they'd made. They also practiced moving the ungainly erections, with horses and mules on ropes and then by men inside the towers.
«They're going to find out that's not so easy as they think,» the elder Maniakes remarked one day as he and his son watched a siege tower crawl along at a pace just about fast enough to catch and mash a snail—always provided you didn't give the snail a running start.
«I think you're right, Father,» the Avtokrator agreed. «Nobody's shooting at them now. No matter what they do, they won't be able to keep all our darts and stones from doing them damage when the fighting starts.»
«That does make a bit of a difference, doesn't it?» the elder Maniakes said with a rheumy chuckle. «You know it, and I know it, and Etzilios has been too good a bandit over the years not to know it, but does your ordinary, everyday Kubrati know it? If he doesn't, he'll learn quick, the poor sod.»
«What do we do if the nomads manage to get men on the wall in spite of everything we've done to stop 'em?» Maniakes asked.
«Kill the bastards,» his father answered at once. «Until Etzilios rides into the palace quarter or the Mobedhan-Mobhed chases the patriarch out of the High Temple, I'm too stubborn to think I'm beat. Even then, I think I'm going to take some convincing.»
Maniakes smiled. He only wished things were as simple as his father, a man of the old school, still reckoned them to be. «I admire the spirit,» he said, «but how do we go on if that happens?»
«I don't know,» his father answered, a little testily. «Best thing I can think of is to make sure it doesn't.»
«Sounds easy, when you put it that way,» Maniakes said, and the elder Maniakes let out a grunt undoubtedly intended for laughter. The Avtokrator went on, «I wish they weren't guarding all their siege engines so closely. I told Rhegorios I wouldn't, but now I think I would sally against them and see how much damage we could do.»
His father shook his head. «You were right the first time. Biggest advantage we have is fighting from the inside of the city and the top of the wall. If we sally, we throw all that out the window.» He held up a hand. «I'm not saying, never do it. I am saying that the advantage of surprise had better outweigh the disadvantage of giving up your position.»
Weighing that, Maniakes rather regretfully decided it made good sense. «So long as they stay alert, then, a sally's not worthwhile.»
«That's what I'm telling you,» the elder Maniakes agreed.
«Well, people on the wall will just have to keep their eyes open, that's all,» Maniakes said. «If the chance comes, I want to take it.»
«Different matter altogether,» his father said.
«It all depends on how you look at things,» Maniakes said, «same as anything else.» He made a face that suggested he'd been sucking on a lemon. «I must say, I am tired of people screaming at me that the siege is my fault because I married Lysia.»
«Aye, I can see how you might be,» the elder Maniakes said steadily. «But that's not surprising, either, is it? You knew as soon as you decided to marry her that people would be yelling that sort of thing at you. If you didn't know it, it's not because I didn't tell you. The question you've had to ask yourself all along, same as if we were talking about sallying against the Kubratoi, is, does the trouble outweigh everything else you get from the marriage?»