Ban shuffled through several Observer devices arrayed on his desk, powering each one and connecting it to a similar device to ensure it functioned properly. He’d been locked away in his office for hours, feverishly working to give Garrus and his Legionmen any advantage he could in the fighting that was to come.
These modified Observer Craftings were far from his best work. Ugly and simple, but functional. They would transmit more or less within line of sight, which should work for what he had planned.
Finally satisfied, he placed each one carefully in the cloth-lined wooden case he had prepared, secured the lid, and hurried out of the Crafters’ Hall. As soon as he stepped out the door into the afternoon sun, the smell of feces and unwashed bodies nearly made him retch, as it always did. One of his more practical Crafters had worked with an engineer to build a device that drew air from the roof of the Crafters’ Hall to create positive pressure inside the building, keeping the stench at bay.
Their soldiers had taken heavy casualties when the Watchers had broken through the river wall, but even still they had nearly four thousand Ire Legionmen and almost an equal number of camp followers, tradespeople, and farmers crammed into their hastily built fortress. Ban had done his best to design trenches that emptied outside the walls for sanitary use, but they had quickly proven insufficient—and getting people to use the public latrines had proven more difficult than he would have believed. He just hoped that the water wells inside the fortifications didn’t foul. Nobody had gotten sick from the water that he knew of, but it was just a matter of time, most likely. He made a mental note to have a team of engineers work on a water-purification system … assuming they had any infusori and other materials left to make one.
Garrus, his officers, and Ban’s own officers from his newly formed company of engineers and Crafters waited for him in the main square, where Garrus had erected a large canvas tent that served as their command post. He certainly could have used one of the large buildings surrounding the square—Ban had even offered his own that Jaina and Emrael had used, but Garrus wanted the people trapped with them to see that he was working to protect them.
When he arrived at the tent, he set his case on a table and nodded to the Captain First, who called in the ten Legion volunteers waiting outside. Ban handed his box to one of his trusted Crafters, Lerran, who in turn handed the Craftings out.
Ban waited until each volunteer had an Observer in hand before he began his instructions. “These Craftings are rather simple. The actuator is the only part you need to know—a lever, just here,” he said, holding up the device he had kept for himself. “Press the lever until you feel it click, and hold it while you speak. My receiver in the Crafters’ Hall will pick up the transmission, where my people will be ready to record your report and take the information to Captain First Garrus and his officers. Questions?”
One of the men raised his hand timidly. Ban nodded at him. “Yes?”
“I was just wondering,” said the young man, probably only eighteen or so. “Can you talk back to us through them? Tell us when the blue bastards are near our position, that kind of thing?”
Ban hesitated. He could have built the Craftings to do that, but had rushed to complete these transponders as quickly as possible. “No, Legionman, I’m afraid not. Your Craftings can transmit sound, but don’t receive.”
Captain Garrus cut in. “The extra coin you’ll receive when the job is done is because this is dangerous work. And it is dangerous, make no mistake. But we’ll do what we can to keep you safe. We’ll have maps marked with grids for each of you, like this one, and you should move as needed to stay clear of any Watcher forces moving through. None of you will be stationed where there is likely to be fighting.”
Garrus turned to the map hung in the tent, where the city surrounding the fortifications had been marked over with numbered sections. Each number corresponded to a section of a ring around the fortifications in any given direction. The grid marked with the number five, for example, was a section of the city between one thousand and two thousand paces from the wall of their fortification, directly north from the northmost wall.
“Each of you will be assigned a grid number to occupy. When you get into position—and remember, get high where you can see, but stay hidden—relay your position as closely as you are able. We’ll avoid targeting your immediate surroundings with Lord Ban’s explosive Craftings,” he said, gesturing to nearly a dozen catapults stationed nearby, each aimed in a different direction. Crews still surrounded each, finishing construction or conducting training with dummy loads.
Captain First Garrus paused, and his face grew grim. His voice was lower, heavier when he spoke again. “If we are to survive this siege, you boys are going to have to do extraordinary work. Our supplies are almost gone, and we likely won’t survive another assault unless we know precisely where and when to strike. Let the blue bastards gather in close, in large numbers before you give the signal. We’ll only have one shot at this.”
The volunteers looked somber, but determined. The Captain gave them each a silent nod of gratitude. “They’ll likely be planning another attack for tomorrow, so you’ll go over the wall tonight, one by one, in dark clothing. Get in position, then call out your targets in the morning when the Watchers move in. Take enough supplies to last for several days in your positions, just in case. Staying put will be key to you staying alive.”
Ban took a deep breath to steady himself as he surveyed the gathered scouts to make sure they had the right of operating the Craftings.
Tomorrow would be full of fire and blood, one way or another.
Darmon Corrande stood next to the shell of a relatively whole stone building in the ruins of Trylla, using his telescoping looking glass to study the fortifications at the city center. The Iraeans still manned their makeshift barricades and the buildings they had reinforced to create a rather formidable wall around their encampment.
Though the meager predawn light made it difficult, he spotted dozens of bowmen and other soldiers ready to loose on the Watchers if they drew close. Hundreds of decaying corpses in blue uniforms already littered the hundred paces or so of cleared area immediately outside the fortifications, proof of the price that would be paid to take those walls and kill the rebels within. Whoever held command of the fortifications knew their business.
The Malithii priests who effectively led this army were insistent that they take the city today, however. Word had just reached them yesterday that their supply wagons and reinforcements had been ambushed, with only minimal survivors. Rather than try to hunt down a roving band of rebels, the priests wanted to end the rebellion here and now. They saw Trylla as the only real threat, despite the fact that someone had just killed or captured nearly ten thousand men fewer than twenty leagues to their north. Darmon was sure it was Emrael himself, despite reports that he and his forces were engaged somewhere in the Syrtsan Holding.
Even still, the dark priests were hesitant to commit any of the soulbound monsters they had brought with them, preferring to send Watchers or Corrandian Legionmen to their death. They were saving the foul beasts for something Darmon didn’t intend to stick around for.
“We must move closer, boy,” the Malithii priest next to him hissed. “Your orders are to be on the edge of the cleared lane, and to attack at the signal! Not hiding nearly five thousand paces from their walls!”
Ostensibly his “advisor,” the stocky little tattooed bastard clearly thought he was in command.
Darmon ignored him, still peering at the fortifications through his looking glass. “They have men using looking glasses in the highest windows of the outer buildings,” he murmured to the Watcher officer standing next to him, Captain Second Teuri Vaslat, a native Corrandian. Vaslat grunted his acknowledgement. He and Darmon had become fast friends in the last weeks. It turned out that Darmon wasn’t the only one who wanted to be rid of the Malithii. Far from the only one who wanted them gone, in fact.
“Did you hear me, boy?” the Malithii priest demanded, his accented voice louder. The priest—Darmon had just met the ass this morning, and couldn’t tell the Malithii names apart anyhow—stalked toward Darmon, his face wrinkled in a furious snarl. “You listen, I will—”
Darmon calmly collapsed his telescope using the stump of his right arm, pointedly ignoring the priest as he slipped it into a leather case and then into a pocket sewn into the inside of his coat. As the priest drew within striking distance, Darmon pulled the dagger from his belt and lunged at the dark-robed man in one smooth motion. The priest moved to the side lightning-quick, securing Darmon’s good arm with both hands to disarm him.
Darmon felt a painful tingle where the priest touched the bare skin of his hand, then an instant later, Darmon was racked with pain. His vision turned white around the edges as he sank helplessly to his knees.
What the priest hadn’t counted on, however, was Captain Second Vaslat, who stabbed the Malithii bastard through the heart with his short sword, twisting the blade as he pulled it out of the priest’s back.
The pain coursing through Darmon disappeared. The Malithii priest sank to the rubble-strewn ground, gasping and croaking as the life bled from him to sate the parched dust of the crumbling city.
“Right,” Darmon said breathlessly as Vaslat helped him to his feet. “That hurt. Let’s just shoot the next one.”
Vaslat smiled grimly as he stooped to clean his blade on the dead Malithii’s robes.
Darmon turned to walk back to where their battalion waited in the ruins. “We need to get out of here, and quickly. Send men to Durit and the other Captains. Any who want to join us must do it now. We’re riding back the way we came, across the river and then west. That’s where Ire will be.”
“We’re leaving already?” Vaslat asked, surprised. “I thought we were going to wait until the battle had well and truly begun.”
Darmon waved his hand back at the fortifications without stopping, though he began visually scanning the taller buildings around him. “Those men aren’t just watching for attackers. There are too many for that, and they’re not even looking at the ground. They’re looking at the rooftops, or perhaps the horizon. I don’t know what tricks they have up their sleeve, but I don’t want to be the ones to find out.”
Captain Second Vaslat looked at Darmon askance but relayed the orders to move the battalion out of the city. None of the officers asked where the Malithii priest who had been with them had gone.
By the time Darmon reached a large building near the river, two squads of his men had apprehended a man hiding in the upper floors and held him in the street, one man on either arm and a third with a sword drawn and held lightly against the man’s chest. The man himself was young, hardly more than a boy, and his mismatched black woolen clothing had seen better days. Odds were good that this lad was a follower of Ire’s.
“Men, please,” Darmon said soothingly as he reached the group. “There’s no need for the weapon. Is there, friend?”
The Iraean’s head snapped up, hope suddenly bright in his eyes. He had clearly thought that his life was about to come to an end. He jerked his head from side to side violently. “No, no need for weapons, Lord,” he said breathlessly.
“Good,” Darmon said. “My men and I are leaving shortly, and I’ll let you scurry back up that tower when we do. But only if you tell me exactly what you’re doing out here.”
The boy’s eyes flicked to and from Darmon’s face as he clenched his fists nervously. “I’m sorry, Lord, but I can’t. I can’t.” His voice nearly broke, but his jaw was set with determination.
Darmon fought to quell the anger that surged inside him. He couldn’t question the boy properly if he was to maintain goodwill with the Ires, and that had to be his primary aim.
Darmon sucked his front teeth irritably, but finally waved his hand at the Watchers holding the poor Iraean boy. “He has something in his hand. Get it for me.”
The young Iraean Legionman struggled, but not so hard that Darmon’s men were forced to hurt him. Not badly. In short order, they handed a small piece of metal over. A short lever stuck out from one side of a complicated Crafting. He depressed the lever, but nothing happened.
“What does it do, boy?”
The Iraean Legionman squirmed again, but when Vaslat moved toward him, he squealed, “It’s to talk to the camp. To Lord Ire.”
“Emrael Ire is inside the fortifications?” Darmon asked, surprised.
The boy shook his head. “No, no. The younger Lord. Banron.”
“I just press the lever and speak into it? He will hear me?”
The boy nodded mutely, tears rolling down his ruddy cheeks.
Darmon considered a moment, then depressed the lever and held the Crafting close to his face.
“This is Darmon Corrande. I understand that Banron Ire will be on the other side of this Crafting.”
He paused, looking to the Iraean boy again.
“It doesn’t speak, Lord.”
Darmon grimaced but pressed the lever again. “Banron, I apologize sincerely for any previous … animosity. We have a greater enemy in common now.”
Silence.
“I propose an alliance. I’m taking your man with me, but he will not be harmed. I’ve arranged for a sizable contingent of United Provincial Legionmen to join me in abandoning the Malithii priests. My hope is to find your brother somewhere to the north and join my forces with his.”
He turned to ask Captain Vaslat why the men weren’t marching yet—the Malithii would not stay ignorant of his betrayal for long. Before he had uttered a word, however, the ground shook and an incredible sound tore the air around him. A blinding flash of blue light preceded a massive cloud of dust and rubble that enveloped them. Next he knew, he was picking himself up from the ground, choking as he tried to breathe in the cloud of dust.
He ducked into a nearby ruin and pulled his shirt over his face, straining to breathe for several minutes while the dust cleared outside. When it did, he stumbled into the street to assess the situation. He stopped when he caught sight of the Ire fortifications, stupefied. The ring of buildings closest to the Iraean fortifications were gone. Not knocked down—they no longer existed! There had been thousands of Watchers lined up in those streets, waiting for the order to assault the fortifications. Thousands dead in an instant. What could do that?
“Gods ascended,” he murmured to himself.
Captain Vaslat ran to him from where he sheltered with a group of men in the cavernous first floor of another nearby ruined stone building. “Lord Corrande, you’re hurt,” Vaslat said, reaching his hand toward Darmon’s head.
Darmon frowned, pressing his forearm to his scalp. His dusty sleeve turned muddy red with blood. “It’s nothing. No pain. I’ll see to it when we’re out of the city.”
A flying piece of rubble must have grazed him. He hadn’t even noticed, shocked as he had been. Some others had not been so lucky. Here and there a blue-uniformed lump lay in the street, covered in rubble and heaps of fine dust. Their comrades already moved to help them, and Vaslat now stalked the street, calling out orders to his officers.
“What in Glory’s dark name was that?” Vaslat asked, taking a break from barking orders to stop next to Darmon and peer around in nervous wonder.
“Banron Ire,” he said simply. “That little bastard is the most talented Crafter since the Ravan Empire. Better than the Ordenans or the Malithii, probably. We don’t want to be here when he shows his next surprise. Send word to the other Captains who want to leave, if they’re still alive. We’re going now and will not wait for stragglers. And bring me the head of that Malithii we killed.”
Ban covered his ears and ducked behind a stone wall as the order came to actuate the hidden explosives. He counted to thirty to allow time for the signal to reach everyone in the compound and allow them to seek shelter.
“Cover!” he called loudly, then depressed the lever on his transponder. He had seen plenty of these explosives detonated, but this particular explosion surprised even him. A wave of pure infusori energy washed over him with an accompanying clap of thunder, followed quickly by a cloud of thick dust and raining rubble.
He had tweaked a few aspects of Darrain’s design for the explosive Craftings, but he hadn’t expected that much of an increase in output.
When the dust had cleared, he raised his head to peer at the outer fortifications and was relieved to see that the buildings and stone barricades still held. For the most part. Large stone blocks had been blown from the tops of barricades here and there, and a few deteriorated spots on buildings had collapsed in the blast, though the explosives had been placed several hundred paces from the fortifications. The damage to the city—and the Watchers preparing to assault them—must have been massive.
He jogged to the building on the outer ring that served as a lookout point, taking the stairs two at a time to reach the highest floor, where recessed windows provided a protected view of the surrounding city.
The blocks of buildings nearest to the fortifications were gone, flattened by the blast. Large craters marked each spot where an explosive had been placed. He was too stunned to count them precisely, but it looked as if every one of his Craftings had detonated. He felt a surge of pride and a sick sense of awe as he turned his attention to the human cost of his work.
Before the blast, the lookouts had estimated that a full ten thousand Watchers were lined up in the surrounding streets, preparing for an assault. None were visible in the wreckage now, though here and there he spotted a ragged pile of blue cloth or glint of metal amid the rubble and dust.
As he watched, a few Watchers in dust-covered uniforms stumbled to the edge of the blast radius to blankly stare at where ranks of their comrades had stood just minutes ago.
“Sir. Lord Ire. Sir.” A Legion runner pulled at his elbow, trying to get his attention.
Ban turned to stare at him a moment before shaking his head and blinking to clear his thoughts. “Yes, what is it, Legionman? Repeat everything, I wasn’t listening properly.”
The runner nodded patiently. “We’ve had a message, Lord Ban, from one of our spotters out in the city.”
Ban frowned. “They aren’t supposed to call in catapult instructions until the Watchers move in for a second assault. That might not happen today, after the blast,” he said, waving his hand at the wreckage below.
The runner shook his head. “No, Lord, it’s not that. One of the men, Yren, transmitted just minutes ago. Or rather, Darmon Corrande did using Yren’s Crafting. He had a message for you and Lord Emrael, sir.”
Ban felt a pit in his stomach, remembering the brutal beating he had suffered at Darmon’s hand. “Go on,” he said, face solemn.
“Darmon Corrande said he apologizes for past animosity, and that he wants an alliance with you and your brother, Lord Ban. He says he’s taking some Watchers north to join Lord Emrael.”
Ban frowned, puzzled. That didn’t sound like Darmon, not at all. It was likely a trap of some sort, but he couldn’t for the life of him think how Darmon might be trying to lay it. He couldn’t believe they’d let their guard down so easily. And why would he say that Emrael was to the north?
“Thank you, Legionman. Record the transmission and get back to your post.”