“I heard you the first time,” she told him.
“Do any of these actually come up to the surface?” Hugh tapped the map with his finger.
“We don’t know,” Dugas said.
“We’ve tried mapping them several times, but we end up turned around,” Elara said. “There is only one way from the tunnels into the castle though, and it’s through this ring.” She traced the outline of the circular tunnel for him.
“This is a huge security risk,” Lamar said. “Do you actually use these tunnels for anything?”
“Those who go into the tunnels don’t always come back,” Johanna told him.
Lamar turned to Elara.
“She said that those who go into the tunnels don’t always come back.”
“Why?” Hugh asked.
Elara sighed. I wish I knew.
“We don’t know,” Savannah said. “Don’t worry about it. We can handle the tunnels.”
Hugh leaned forward. “Here is how this assault will go. The attack will come in the evening.”
“How do you know that?” Elara asked.
“I’ve prepared to fight Nez for years. He is a cheapskate. Even the youngest vampire he has costs upward of fifty grand to produce. He will attempt to intimidate us into surrendering by fielding a lot of undead at once. He will follow that with a phone call and a show of force designed to convince us to surrender. When that fails, he will rush the castle with his vanguard. He will count on the psychological impact of this force and our awareness that the sun is setting, and soon it will be dark, and we will be defenseless. If the moat does its job, we can repel this assault.”
“If?” Savannah raised her eyebrows.
“If,” Hugh said. “If the moat doesn’t soften them up, it will get ugly. However, it is unlikely he will commit more than fifty vampires. He typically brings between two and three hundred vampires...”
Elara startled. Three hundred vampires. She couldn’t even wrap her head around that many undead.
“Yes?” Hugh asked.
“Nothing. Continue.”
“And since he knows he will be fighting the Iron Dogs, we can count on the top range of that number. It’s highly unlikely he would send more than a quarter of his force. Fifty is a nice round number and Nez likes round numbers.”
Hugh tapped the map of Baile. “He will send the mass of undead straight at the front gate. Even if the moat fails, we can take fifty vampires. We will bleed but we can take them. Once that assault fails, Nez will do something loud and theatrical. He might field beasts or pull some mages out of his sleeve. Whatever form this new threat will take, it will be designed to keep our attention focused front and center. Meanwhile, his crews, which will have been digging since before the fight started, will be breaking into the castle tunnels from below. The vampires are fast diggers, and he might bring specialized help to speed things up. While we are trying to hold off whatever it is battering us from the front, the undead will make their way into the castle and massacre us from the rear.”
Hugh fixed Savannah with his stare. “So, when you say don’t worry about the tunnels, I need you to be very sure.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Elara said.
“Okay,” Hugh said.
She opened her mouth to argue and realized he didn’t say anything else. “Then that’s settled.”
“Can we attack Nez directly?” Savannah asked.
“Unlikely,” Lamar told her. “For things like these, Nez travels in a convoy of Matadors. A Matador is an 8x8 armored personnel carrier, nine meters long, three meters tall, and almost three meters wide. It has a monocoque V-hull, which means its nose and hull slope to deflect projectiles.”
Lamar held his left hand in front of him, palm up, and touched the fingertips of his right hand to it, forming a sideways V.
“It sits a driver and passenger in the front and can transport up to ten personnel in the back. Level four armor, suspended seats, blast mitigation floor, all the works. It can trench at two meters, ford a stream a meter deep, climb steps and steep hills, and it turns on a dime for a vehicle of its size. It runs like a dream during tech, but it chugs along during magic as well. It also can be set up to carry either a 50 cal or a sorcerous ballista, depending on your preference. Nez has a fleet of them.”
“We used to have them too,” Stoyan said. “The long and short of it, Matadors are unbreachable by anything we have. We could probably drop a rock on it from above and crush it, but we don’t have a catapult precise enough to do it.”
“We need to do something about the approach from the northeastern side,” Hugh said. “We are missing a siege engine on the corner tower. It requires specialized parts.”
“Is it a budget issue?” Elara asked.
“No, it’s an availability issue,” Hugh said.
“We have it on order in Lexington,” Lamar said. “We traded some silver we recovered for it. It won’t be ready in time.”
“We’ll have to compensate with archers,” Hugh said.
“We can dig some fortifications there,” Stoyan said. “It may slow down the Cleaning Crew, but it won’t do anything against vampires.”
“We could plant tangle weed,” Savannah said.
Good idea. Elara turned to Johanna. “How much do we have?”
“Enough,” Johanna signed.
“Can this tangle weed hold a vampire?” Bale asked.
“Yes, if there is enough of it,” Dugas said.
“Where would you need it planted?” Savannah leaned toward the map.
The rest of the advisors leaned in, and Elara met Hugh’s eyes.
Three hundred vampires.
He winked at her.
For some reason the wink took the dread right out of her. She rolled her eyes and leaned forward to take a glance at the map.
Elara stared at the roster of families. Around her the bailey bustled with life, people going to and fro, trying to squeeze as much as they could out of the fading evening light. They had two days until the deadline, but it was collectively decided that Nez couldn’t be trusted farther than they could throw him, so they’d been pulling people into the castle, in stages. Children with caretakers first, then older people, now finally the able-bodied adults. She squeezed the first wave into the left barracks, praising the source of all life that they had renovated the place when the Iron Dogs joined them. Once the barracks filled, they put the next wave into the utility buildings behind the keep, then into the chapel building, which they had converted into living quarters. Baile was so crowded, it was bursting at the seams.
“Is the chapel completely full?” she asked.
“Almost,” Johanna signed.
Elara sighed, studying the roster. “We’re going to have to start putting sleeping bags in the keep hallway. On the second floor—”
Johanna touched her arm. Elara looked up. Serenity Helton was walking toward them, oblivious to the people scurrying all around her, a blank look on her face. Elara’s heart dropped. She hurried forward and grabbed Serenity’s hands. “What is it?”
The seer stared at her unblinking. Her lips moved, but no sound came.
Johanna grabbed Elara’s arm. “Coming! Now!”
“What?”
“She is saying ‘they are coming’ over and over!”
The anxiety that clamped Elara over the last few days burst in a scalding rush.
“Hurry,” she whispered, sending her voice through the entire castle. “They’re coming. Hurry.”
The people scattered. In the village a bell rang. Hugh came running around the corner.
“Nez is coming,” she told him, pointing at Serenity.