"Claims to be a relative of yours, sir." The aide's aristocratic features curled slightly in disdain. "On the off chance that they might have some information I didn't have them whipped out of the camp, sir."
The Justiciar lowered the hand he'd been shading his eyes with as he peered towards Preble. "By all means, let's see this. . person. ." he said.
Anything that could distract me from this would be welcome. Even a dancing ape.
A small slight man came trotting up the log stairs of the tower, with an Islander woman at his heels. No, wait a minute, he thought. He looked at bare legs and arms, at the way the stranger walked. That's not a man, it's a woman in armor. What looked like Emerald light-infantry kit, bowl helmet with cheekguards, linen corselet with brass shoulderpieces and probably iron scales between the layers of cloth. A trooper was carrying a sword and shield and pair of light javelins behind them, puffing along. .
This was out of the ordinary. Then the stranger took off her helmet, and long tawny-auburn hair fell free, nearly to her waist.
Demansk's eyes went wide. "Helga!" he said. . almost sputterings.
"Father!"
* * *
"What are they doing?" Enry Sharbonow said, squinting.
"They're getting ready to build a causeway," Esmond said. He pointed. "See, they've got a good hard-surfaced road right down to the water's edge. They've almost certainly got local pilots and fishermen who can tell them exactly what the shoals are like. Now they're starting. See those lines of log pilings, a hundred yards apart? Those mark the edges. Between them, they've got working parties, their troops and whatever civilians they can round up, unloading those oxcarts full of rock-boulders, up to sixty pounds. See how they're passing them hand to hand? They'll pile those up until they get above the surface, compact them, then cover with a layer of smaller rock. By the time it's safely above high-tide level, they'll have a section of first-class paved road."
Enry swallowed. A little beyond him Prince Tenny lounged with elaborate unconcern, nibbling on a honeyed fig and fingering a set of healing scratches along one side of his bearded face.
"And those wooden things they're building, a little further back?"
"Well, that's a little far to see, but I'd say they're probably siege engines. Catapults, of course, heavy ones. Siege towers-wooden fort towers on wheels, covered in hides or possibly metal plates, so they can roll them up to our walls and climb protected. Solophonic ladders-big counterweighted things like a covered bridge on a pivot, sort of the same thing. Fire raisers. Metal-shod battering rams under heavy roofs, also on wheels, for forcing a breach. When they get the causeway close enough, they'll use the catapults and archers to keep our heads down while they complete it-batter a hole in the wall, if they can. If they can't, they'll roll the Solophons and siege towers up to the wall and storm it, while the battering rams knock sections of it down and make ramps for their assault troops."
Enry's natural olive skin had gone very pale, a sort of doughy white color. "What are we going to do?" he said.
Esmond took a fig from the silver tray being held up for Tenny, popped it into his mouth and chewed with relish. "Oh, there are a few tricks we can try," he said cheerfully, and cocked an eye at the sky. "No moons tonight."
* * *
"You shouldn't be here," Esmond hissed into the darkness.
"Neither should you," Adrian said.
"Sirs, with respect, shut the fuck up," Donnuld Grayn said, pausing as he tightened the strap on a greave. "We're getting close."
We shouldn't, Esmond thought. Typical Confed arrogance. When they sat down to besiege a place, they expected the defenders to sit tight and cower, waiting for inevitable doom, so what point was there in taking elaborate precautions?
At least, that was what the Preblean scouts had said, swimming in after sculling across the strait on inflated sheepskins. None of them had been caught, so either the Confeds were extremely confident or fiendishly clever at misdirection.
Esmond showed teeth, white in the darkness against skin covered with burnt cork. Now, fiendishly clever is something that might be applied to an Emerald, or even an Islander. But to a Confed? No, no. . systematic, yes. Methodical, yes. But fiendishly clever? Rarely.
"I'll show them fiendish," he whispered, chuckling, and looked back along the boat.
It was about thirty feet long, the Preblean sailors at the muffled oars, the men his own Strikers with some of Adrian's specialists for luck. That dampened his mood, slightly. He might have known that Adrian wouldn't send his men along and not go himself; he wasn't a professional, but he thought like one, sometimes-as if soldiers' ghosts were whispering in his ear.
That checked him for a moment. I suppose I am a professional now, he thought. Not an athlete or a weapons trainer, but a general. But not a mercenary. I have a cause.
"Row off," the Preblean at the tiller oar said softly. "Row soft, all. . raise oars and let her glide. Not raise it upright, Rawl, you stupid bastard; ten lashes for that."
The high timber wall of the causeway's edge loomed ahead of them. The Confeds had driven the logs into the sand and mud of the channel bed at an angle, slanting outwards. That made it easier to climb as the boat came alongside; he leapt, got a grip, swarmed upwards. Rope nooses flew up from his and the other boats, but Esmond ignored them as he poised crouching at the top. According to the scouts' reports, the sentry ought to be. .
There. Pacing stolidly along, and no more than fifteen paces away, now. Have to get him to turn around.
"Hey, you Confed donkey fucker," Esmond said, in a conversational tone. "Did you know that your mother used to suck my dad's dick, and for free?"
The Confed soldier whirled at the sound, gaping. Esmond's arm whipped forward; it was an awkward position to throw from, but a clout shot at this distance-there were fires in iron baskets further in towards the shore. Iron crunched through the mail shirt the trooper wore, and he pitched over backwards. Esmond dropped four feet to the surface of the causeway; this section was half-complete, and loose rock shifted and crunched under the hobnails of his sandals.
The sentries died, quickly and with relative quiet. Men were forming up around him; others were coating the logs that ran along both sides of the causeway with oil and tallow brought along in leather sacks. More were handing up small wooden barrels from the boats.
"Ready, General," Donnuld panted.
"Follow me."
The Strikers followed. Behind them were Preblean archers; he'd picked them himself, from men with good sea-beast hornbows and plenty of experience. Forward. . Yes. They really didn't fortify their construction yard.
Siege engines reared about him in the dark, like monstrous beasts in a child's nightmare. More sentries died, but a few survived long enough to sound an alarm. They'd have to work quickly.
Adrian and his men ran to the larger engines, the siege towers and heavy catapults. The kegs of gunpowder went underneath them, hastily buried. Esmond let his nose guide him to stacks of timber, mostly fresh-cut pine oozing sap.
"Right here, boys," he called.
Covered firepots were brought out, torches lit and whipped into flame. Esmond thrust one under a stack of four-by-six timbers and shouted glee as the wood began to catch. Others of his men were kicking over barrels and pots of pitch and tar, throwing long coils of rope onto growing blazes; the archers were sending fire-arrows buzzing about, into piles of cordage and wood further in, into tents and heaps of sailcloth and fodder. Esmond was whirling another torch around his head when a lead-weighted dart whipped by his ear close enough for him to feel the draft, going thunk into a timber and whining with a malignant buzz like an enormous, very pissed-off bee.