"Pedi should not be exerting herself?" Roger repeated. "What in hell does that mean?"
"Nothing," Pedi answered angrily. "Nothing that he has any right to make a decision about."
"You are my benan," Cord said coldly. "It is my responsibility to ensure your welfare as it is yours to ensure my safety."
"Welfare, perhaps" she spat back. "But not safety. I will be fine, thank you!"
"Whoa," Roger said. He glanced at the other two former slaves, who were huddled in the corner, clearly unhappy about the argument. "I don't want to cross this whole planet just to die in a domestic disturbance. Cord, you need to get out in the fresh air... well, as fresh as it gets around here. We'll head up to the walls, watch the shot, and come back. And while we're walking, both of you can be thinking about what you want to tell me about what's going on."
"It is none of your responsibility, Prince Roger," Cord said.
"As you've pointed out to me before, Old Frog, I'm responsible for the success or failure of everything in this band. And we will have that talk. After we watch the shots."
"They're getting nervous," Pahner said. The Krath had sent another group up the mountain, using a different path from the one their own people had used. Since the security team had pulled back, it was just as well that the Krath would be too late arriving. They'd also pulled most of their forces out of the tent city, however, and seemed to be preparing for a large-scale assault.
"Yes," the Gastan said silkily. "Isn't it lovely?"
"You have your daughter's approach to handling enemies," Pahner said with a laugh.
"Fortunately, I don't have her approach to handling friends," the Shin king replied in a tone which was so suddenly exasperated that Pahner looked at him in genuine surprise.
"And I thought we were welcome," he said. "Or is there something I'm missing?"
"No, you're welcome, even chased by an army," the Gastan said. "It should be obvious to your Light O'Casey that this war has permitted me to consolidate my power as no Gastan has in three decades. And your support has been invaluable in that. But I could wish that my daughter had made better personal choices."
"Okay, now you've really got me confused," Pahner said as the Krath began filing into the assault trenches. The Gastan looked down at him and made a gesture of confused resignation.
"I wish that I understood your human body language better. Are you jesting? Or do you really not see the signs?"
"Signs of what?" Pahner asked. In the distance, the Krath assembly horns began to sound as the entire host started to move forward. The troops in the assault trenches would seek to pin the defenders in order to clear the way for the mass assault of the walls.
"You really don't see them, do you?" the Gastan said. Pahner gazed back up at the Shin's ruler and shook his head.
"She's pregnant," the Gastan said as the explosives on the hillside detonated and the mountain came apart.
By luck, more than knowledge, the amount and spacing of the explosives was almost perfect—not too hard, and not too soft. At first, the only sign of the impending disaster was a series of muffled thuds and a dust-jet mushroom shape above each of the boreholes. Despreaux had set them to detonate sequentially, instead of simultaneously, and the series went off like a very large machine gun as the sixteen charges exploded in under three seconds.
For a moment afterwards, there was stillness, and Pahner feared that all the planning had been for nothing. Then, slowly, the face of the mountain started to slide. The giant faux-teak trees were the first to show the movement, swaying back and forth as if tossed by a heavy wind before they began to slide. Then dust began to rise, and finally the whole mass began sliding towards the valley floor to impact in a gigantic crash that was felt as far away as Mudh Hemh.
At which point, the blocked waters started looking for an outlet. And looking and looking... and rising and rising.
"Cool," Roger said, gazing at the neat divot that had been taken out of the side of the mountain. He and Despreaux had moved to the wall of the Shin town, and now they stood watching the battle from the safety of the southern parapet.
The town's walls weren't very much compared to the mighty ramparts of Nopet Nujam. In fact, they were simply double wooden palisades with a stamped earth fill, and the works flanking the gates were open on top, with small guard rooms underneath. The walls of the town were designed to stop the occasional Scourge or hostile Shin raiding party, not to beat off the sort of serious attack that was directed at Nopet Nujam. And for the former purpose, they had worked just fine. They also made a dandy viewing platform.
From a distance, it looked as if some giant had taken an ice cream spoon and scooped out a serving of basalt and ash. The massive Krath fortress obscured anything but the column of dust rising into the air behind it, but it was clear that most of what they'd intended to do had worked.
"Now to see if it blocks the water," Despreaux said.
"You did good, Nimashet," he replied, slipping his arm around her waist.
"We'll see."
"Pessimist," he chuckled.
"I always keep in mind what can go wrong."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"This isn't going well," Pahner said.
"Tell me something I don't know!" the Gastan yelled back as he stuck one of the short Shin swords through a spear slit and drew it back red.
The Krath had started a full-court press, and unless something changed drastically very soon, it was going to work. The assault groups had come hollering out of the trenches, piling up bodies on the already blood-soaked ground. They'd barely made it to the walls before dying, but in doing so, they'd absorbed enough of the defenders' fire to permit the main Krath force to come in behind them in successive waves. The frenzied assault had concentrated on the main gates and the walls to either side, and the third wave had managed to smash the Shin defenders on the battlements and take three sections.
The humans' contribution had mostly been to remove the leadership, and they'd done a good job. Krath companies that had made it to the wall with any officers still on their feet were rare, but even that hadn't stopped the assault. The pressure from behind each wave had driven even the most cowardly into the defenses and up the walls. Now the gates' defenders were down to holding the gate-flanking bastions and doing their best to keep any battering rams away.
"Poertena, what do you have on your side?" the captain called.
"Krat', Krat', and more Krat', Sir," the Pinopan called back even as he took aim and fired through a slit. "T'e other bastion is holding out, though."
"Captain!" Beckley shouted from one of the front slits. "You can see water coming up out of the river! On this side of the fortress!"
"Where?" the captain demanded as he stepped across to a slit beside Beckley and zoomed up the magnification on his helmet. "Never mind." After a moment, he chuckled. "Now if we can only point it out to them."
"Look behind you, you stupid bastards!" the Gastan yelled out his slit. "The river rises! The river fights for the Shin!"
"Get it unplugged!" Tral shouted. "Break that dam! Now!"
"How?" the fortress commander asked. He'd already considered the problem, and he was preparing rafts loaded with gunpowder. He had his doubts about their efficacy, yet they were the only possibility he saw. Unfortunately, even if they had any chance of success of all, they would have to be guided into place, and in another hour—less—the water would be up over the work area. It was rising faster than the boatbuilders could finish their craft.