None of these things kept the Wolves from working like galley slaves. They built rams, they built massive stonethrowers, they built two tall siege towers. They piled up tons of brush to fill the moat and long planks to cross it. By night they dug trenches close to the moat, so their archers could fire from cover at the men on the walls.
The attack would come and there would be nothing feeble about it when it came. The Wolves might have the supplies and equipment for only one attack, but they would put everything they had into that one. Morina might destroy the Wolves, but it might be destroyed itself in the process, burying its enemies under its own ruins and under the piled bodies of its own people.
Blade would have won some other way if he could, but now there might be no other way.
Even Serana seemed to be caught up in the tension. For days on end she never mentioned Zemun Bossir. She cut her hair short, so that it would fit under a helmet and practiced with a sword several hours each day. She lost weight and the dark circles grew under her eyes until she looked the same as when she'd been the Wizard's prisoner.
Blade awoke in the darkness, knowing that something was wrong without being sure quite how he knew. He slipped out of bed without waking the sleeping Serana and went to the window.
It gave him a view toward the Wolves' siege camp. It lay almost invisible in the night, silent and unnaturally dark, the usual scattering of campfires gone.
The campfires were out! The Wolves had darkened their camp, and they could only be doing that to conceal something. Blade ran back to the bed and shook Serana awake. She sat up, naked and still half asleep, rubbing her eyes.
«Get up and get dressed,» he said briskly. «The Wolves have darkened their camp. They may not be attacking tonight, but something's up!»
Serana hurried to the window to look for herself. As she did, Blade heard the tramping of feet in the street below. He wasn't the only man in Morina who thought the Wolves might be up to something.
They were pulling on their armor when Blade heard several new sounds, in a ragged chorus. There was a creaking, a groaning, and a squealing, all of it faint and wavering, as though it came from far away-beyond the walls of Morina. As Blade was buckling on his boots, fists pounded on the door, Serana drew the bolt, and one of Zemun's officers practically fell into the room.
«Lord Zemun wishes you to come to the east wall, my lord and lady,» he gasped. «The Wolves are moving up their siege machines. He also says the watchers on the bell tower have seen the fires of another camp, far to the north.»
More Wolves, thought Blade. The Wizard must have stripped even his castle to reinforce the attack on Morina. He wasn't going to get the victory he was hoping for, even then. Morina would eat all the Wolves he could send against it, but this would do the Morinans no good. They would buy freedom for Rentoro with their own lives and their own city. It was hard for Blade to remember that the fall of Morina would also mean his own death. Perhaps, when all was said and done, it was not so important that he'd reached the end of his road.
Blade and Serana followed the young officer down the stairs. As they reached the street a sudden wsssh of disturbed air sounded overhead, growing rapidly louder. It ended abruptly in a tearing crash, as something large plunged out of the sky and through the roof of a nearby house. The crackle of breaking timbers and the crash and rattle of falling masonry went on for quite a while. Before it stopped, another stone struck farther off, nearer to the walls, and then a third.
Serana started to run, but Blade held her back. «They've started the stone-throwers, but I think they're just trying to soften us up. Smash houses, kill people, block the streets, start a panic.» He called to the officer. «Message for Lord Zemun. Turn out all the soldiers and have them get everybody out of the houses near the east wall. Also, have our own stone-throwers hold their fire and pull back out of range.
«It's going to be grim,» he said to Serana. «But I don't think there's any danger until they start on the walls, trying to open breaches for their storming parties. If we don't panic, they can't do us much harm by knocking down houses.»
Serana did not reply. Her lips were moving too busily, in silent prayers to the governing Fates and whatever other gods or powers she worshipped.
The stones crashed down into Morina all the rest of the night. Blindly and impartially, they smashed houses, shops, and people in the streets. If the soldiers hadn't taken charge of the situation, the panic the Wolves hoped for might have started.
Blade, Zemun Bossir, and Serana put their men to work. Within half an hour no one in Morina was asleep. In another hour all the houses within range of the enemy's stone-throwers were empty. In all the streets along the east wall of Morina, there were only soldiers, building barricades from the rubble and standing ready to put out any fires.
Shortly after dawn there was a lull in the bombardment. From the walls, Blade could see all the Wolves' siege machines lined up across the moat, just out of bowshot. The two towers and the three battering rams were in position, ready to be pushed through the gaps in the enemy's trenches and up to the moat. Around them stood the wagons of piled brush and planks for crossing the moat.
Zemun peered through a knothole in the arrow-scarred battlements, then turned to Blade. «Lord Blade, what about bringing up our throwers and trying to hit those machines? A tar barrel or two would be the end of those towers.»
Blade shook his head. «Not yet. Wait until they're up so close to the walls that the Wolves won't be able to use their own throwers. Then we can shoot without being shot at.»
«But they have only a few machines. If-«
«So do we,» put in Blade. «And we can't replace them as easily as the Wolves can.»
Zemun frowned and seemed ready to go on arguing, when suddenly the crunk of a stone-thrower at work floated across from the enemy's camp. Right behind the sound came a large rock, to crash into the wall fifty yards to Blade's right. Dust rose in a cloud and he could feel the ancient stones shudder under his feet.
Here we go, thought Blade. Aloud, he said, «Get some of the archers up into the houses just behind the wall. Have them keep out of sight. The Wolves will be coming at us in four or five places at once, so we can't hope to keep them all out. With archers in the houses and the barricades in the streets, the ones who get in still won't get far.»
The young nobleman nodded. As he did, another stone crashed into the wall, a hundred yards to the left. This one cleaned off several yards of the wooden battlements, and Blade heard screams from the streets below as men were struck down by the falling wreckage.
All morning and into the afternoon, the stone-throwers of the Wizard's army hammered at the walls of Morina. Those walls were massive, but they were also old. They hadn't been maintained very well, either-the Wizard didn't encourage his subjects to keep their walls strong. Under the steady pounding, the walls began to give. In one place an open breach gaped, half-choked with fallen stones but still passable for men on foot. Blade had cartloads of stone and tar barrels pulled into position all around the breach, but there was nothing else to do.
The day was at its hottest when the bombardment finally stopped. The dust cloud hanging over the walls slowly drifted away on the faint breeze. Behind the walls the Morinans finished oiling and sharpening their weapons, tightened their helmet straps, and drank some water. Everyone was hungry, but no one could force himself to swallow a single bite.
Then the creak and squeal of ungreased wheels rose and the siege towers and battering rams lurched forward. The towers swayed like the masts of a ship in a storm, while the battering rams came on steadily, looking like centipedes as the hundred Wolves under each wooden cover tramped along.