Though, as much as he hated to admit it, he’d not been able to figure out a way through those sorcery-warded walls either. Were ineffective artillery and suicidal charges really the best options available to a modern army, the pride of the Adran nation?
He let his eyes wander over the distant silhouette of Tilpur and down to the mouth of the spring. It flowed from beneath the forts walls into a year-round river giving birth to an oasis below the southern wall. The oasis stretched for miles, a haven for wildlife and even the Adrans themselves, providing the only bit of respite in this inhospitable place. Tilpur was a prize that every army coveted and none could gain.
All he had to do was get inside their walls at the head of a few hundred infantry and he’d clear the fort in hours . . . the thought trailed off and he stared at the moonlit silhouette, pondering. What if he didn’t even need a company of men at his back?
He sprinted back into the camp where Farthing, Lillen, and all the rest were gathered around the embers of the dung fire.
“Lillen,” he said, after catching his breath, “do you still have that floor plan you drew of Tilpur?”
Lillen crawled into her tent and came back a moment later, handing the rolled-up parchment to Tamas. He spread it on the ground, poring over the detailed drawing before looking over at Farthing. “Do you think you could get me a dozen sets of crampons?”
General Seske was normally a jovial man, never too far from his wine and always able to find some native girl or hanger-on to share his bed. But something—probably the order of withdrawal combined with his failure to take Tilpur—had him in a foul mood when Tamas was finally able to rouse him from his bed at nearly one in the morning.
Seske was in his late forties. His dark skin marked him as a foreigner, but his marriage to an Adran duchess guaranteed him his rank in the Adran army. He ran his hands through his sparse, graying hair before pulling a thin silk robe on over his undershirt. He squinted at Tamas, then at Captain Pereg, who looked not all that more enthusiastic about the hour than Seske himself.
“What is this, Pereg?” Seske asked.
Pereg fidgeted with his bicorn hat. “I’m very sorry to get you out of bed at this hour, uncle, but there’s been an, erm, development.”
“Development? What kind of development? I was having the very best of dreams. So unless Tilpur just tumbled down or Kresimir himself has returned to the realms of mortals, I hope the next thing out of your lips is a damned good explanation.”
Tamas cleared his throat and moved a few things aside to lay Lillen’s drawing out on Seske’s map table. “Sir,” he said, “I’m very sorry to interrupt your . . . sleep, but I think I may be able to give you what you’re looking for.”
“What’s that?”
“A Gurlish surrender.”
“Pereg, who the bloody devil is this?”
“Sergeant Tamas, uncle. One of the best infantrymen under our command.”
“Tamas. Tamas. Why do I know that name?”
“He’s the powder mage, sir.”
Seske harrumphed loudly. “Bah. Powder mages. Nothing better than dogs, if you ask me. No offence, Sergeant Tommy. Purely a professional opinion. I’m sure you’re a good chap. Can’t help what you’re born with and all that. Now tell me, Pereg, why the pit is he in my tent?”
Tamas cleared his throat again. Late hour it may be, but a general should have a better attention span than a petulant child. He kept his expression appropriately reserved. “Sir, I have a plan to break the siege.”
“What’s that you say?” Seske searched his robe until he found his spectacles and put them on, peering at Tamas. “What do you mean?”
“If you’ll humor me a question, sir?”
Seske adjusted his robe, raising his chin to look down his nose suspiciously at Tamas. “Go on.”
“Why have we not sent a raiding party over the walls into Tilpur during the night? Men to spike cannons, slit throats, foul their powder—that sort of thing.”
“Not very gentlemanly.”
“War is seldom gentlemanly,” Tamas said.
Seske snorted. “Because a raid would be bloody suicide.”
“Only slightly more suicidal than a frontal assault with our infantry,” Tamas said, hurrying on before it could occur to Seske to be offended. “But that “slightly” is what matters. Order men on a genuine suicide mission and you’d have a mutiny on your hands. Am I correct, sir?”
“Yes?” Seske said, his eyes narrowing.
“Even a frontal assault or a Hope’s end has a tiny chance of success. A small number of men over the walls at night, however, will only find themselves trapped and slaughtered like dogs once they descended into the fort itself to light the munitions. Once they were inside, the hope of escape would close to none. Except . . . if you’d be so kind and take a look at this.”
Seske shuffled over to the map table and lifted Lillen’s floor plan, examining it in the light of the oil lamp hanging over the tent. “Where’d you get this, Sergeant? Since when do we give quality drawings like this out to the rank and file?”
“One of my infantrymen apprenticed with an architect before signing up,” Tamas said. “The floor plan is her own make, based on reports from our intelligence.”
“Oh, right then. She’s very good.”
“Yes, sir, she is. Now, if you’ll direct your attention to this point here,” Tamas indicated the spot with his finger, “you can see where the fort’s main well descends from the courtyard into the ground here, about fifty feet to reach an aquifer below the fortress.”
“Yes.”
“And, if you’ll look here, you can see where a spring emerges from the rocks just below the fort.”
“Of course.”
“I think this could be the key, sir.”
Seske scowled at the map for several moments, adjusting first his spectacles, then the light from the lamp over his head. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at. We’ve already considered trying to poison them out, but as any fool knows the water flows out from the aquifer, making it impossible to foul their water source.”
“That’s not what I mean at all, sir. Remember, I’m talking about a raid. Take a look at the two spots I indicated. What do you see?”
Seske sighed. “Absolutely nothing. I’ve stared at a drawing just like this for hours a day all damned summer.”
And telling me you found something where I did not would imply that I’m a fool, Seske’s tone warned. Tamas stifled a frustrated groan. Seske was a fool, but Tamas was a mere sergeant, and showing up his commanding officer wasn’t going to land him a promotion.
“It’s not obvious, sir,” Tamas dissembled, “but as you can see, there’s only a few dozen yards between the fort well and where the spring comes out of the rocks. That’s not very far for a man to hold his breath.”
“Are you suggesting that we send men through the spring and up the well?”
“Against the current? No, sir. What I’m suggesting is that the well offers an easy escape route. If we sent, say, fifteen men over the walls with rope and crampons in the middle of the night, those men could spike the Gurlish cannons, set fire to their powder stores, maybe even kill a few guards, and then escape down through the well once the alarm is raised. It may not sound like much, but the advance we made earlier today was so very close. If we disabled even a portion of their cannon we could mount another charge and get men over the wall and into the fort.”
“Not very gentlemanly,” Seske muttered. “Underhanded tactics like this make us no better than the Gurlish.”
“Perhaps,” Tamas said, “But, sir, it could crack Tilpur. And the officer who cracks Tilpur would earn the favor of the king himself.”
Seske looked at the map, then at Tamas, then at Pereg. “Tell me,” he said to Pereg, “this is a joke?”
“It’s not a joke, sir,” Per
eg said. “It’s sound reasoning.”
“That’s because you’re a strategic potato, Pereg.” Seske slapped the map with the back of one hand. “Assuming a group of men can scale the walls, and spike enough cannons to make the effort worth it, it’s still a suicide mission. Any fool can see that. They’d have to be either bloody arrogant or damned desperate to volunteer for the mission.”
“I’d like to suggest someone who’s both, sir,” Tamas said.
“Eh? Who’s that?”
Tamas smiled. “Me, sir.”
I told you to get me crampons.”
“Begging your pardon, Sarge,” Farthing replied, “but this isn’t the bloody Mountainwatch. We’re in the middle of a desert.”
Tamas turned his spare pair of boots over in his hands, examining Farthing’s work. “This is just a chain looped around the toe and heel.”
“It’ll do in a pinch,” Farthing said.
“Will it do to climb a wall? And this isn’t a pickax, it’s a bayonet with the tip bent at a right angle.”
“With a strap to hold your wrist if you lose your grip,” Farthing pointed out proudly. “It’s not a bad job in just a few hours, if I do say so myself.”
“And how many sets do you have of all this?”
“Five crampons and two sets of pickaxes, Sarge.”
Five. Tamas needed twelve to fifteen men for this raid to be effective. Five soldiers would have to work quickly, with no hope of fighting their way out if they got cornered. But it would have to do. No, he thought, reconsidering. This might be better. Five men would move far more silently than fifteen. “I’ll take one set,” he said. “Draw lots for the rest.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I wouldn’t send you up there with my equipment without coming myself,” Farthing said. “Draw lots on the other three. I’ll go.”
Tamas glanced down at the chain wrapped around the toe of his boot. “Glad to hear you’d stake your life on this stuff. All right. The moon is waning. We go tomorrow night. Pray for fog.”
A clear sky, it turned out, wouldn’t be a worry. Clouds raced over the desert the next morning and by evening thunder had forced the army to hunker down beneath their tents, every stitch of equipment lashed down, only the unfortunate infantrymen on guard duty showing their faces as night fell. Wind buffeted the camp, sporadic sheets of rain soaking the cracked soil and forcing men to move their tents to higher ground to avoid flooding.
Lots were drawn, and Tamas led his fraction of a squad across the no-man’s-land between the Adran artillery and Tilpur. He was accompanied by Farthing, Lillen, Krimin, and Olef, the latter two being the unit’s cook and musician, respectively. They left just after dark and crept across the desert, hiding beneath scrub bush during the worst of the lightning.
By the time they reached the base of the fort the rain had become a torrent. Tamas’s heart was in his throat as he looked up at the thirty-five-foot walls, slick and foreboding.
This was worse than suicide.
“Here,” Farthing said, passing out strips of tanned hide. “Bite this between your teeth. If you fall, bite harder and hope the ground is soft. If you scream we’re all dead men.”
Tamas gestured for the squad to gather around, faces huddled near his. He pointed up at the walls, hoping that he wasn’t dragging four soldiers along with him to their deaths. “You see those walls?” he asked, his voice swept away by the downpour. “Those are our worst enemies tonight. They determine whether we rest beneath the godforsaken Gurlish plains for eternity or go home as heroes and I, personally, would rather have the latter.”
The soldiers chuckled, but he pushed on, his voice solemn. “This,” he said, “is not idle arrogance. This is not men marching in a straight line toward grapeshot and sorcery. This is five shit-upon infantrymen looking to end this damned siege on their own terms, and not the terms of their so-called betters.” He paused, shielding his eyes from the rain. “Because we could go home, a winter spent in Adopest only to come back here and march into the face of death once more. Or we can do what five thousand men cannot and take this damned fort. Are you with me?”
Four fists thumped against their chests in a silent salute.
“I’d rather have you four than all the Adran army,” Tamas said, realizing as he did that he meant it. “Let’s climb.”
Farthing, by far the most experienced climber, went first. Tamas waited until the count of sixty before he sprinkled a black powder charge on his tongue and followed Farthing up.
He used the bent bayonets as pickaxes, questing with the tips for cracks in the masonry, securing each foothold meticulously, working his way up inch by agonizing inch. Within minutes his muscles burned, even strengthened as they were by the powder, and his arms and legs trembled at the unaccustomed exercise.
He bit down hard on his bit of leather, feeling the weight of the weapons and tools hanging from his belt. A shudder ran through him at each heavy gust of wind, making his body sway dangerously. He dared not look up into the pelting rain, nor down lest he succumb to a wave of dizziness.
Every moment he expected a loose bit of masonry to send him tumbling to the ground or the shout of a guard above, followed by the raising of an alarm. The chains beneath his toes slipped as he climbed, his picks scratching too loudly against the stone.
He paused every so often, pushing outward with his sorcerous senses, looking for black powder. The towers to his left and right each contained concentrations of powder, clustered together like fireflies at dusk on a warm Adran spring. The guards, it seemed, were content to take shelter and assume the storm would stall a nighttime attack.
Tamas finally reached the lip of the wall where he paused to rest before taking a deep breath and lifting himself to look over the edge.
Farthing was already on a parapet, securing a rope to toss down behind them. Body trembling, Tamas pulled himself over and set about lowering his own rope. Together they secured a third, then Tamas leaned over to wave to the three almost imperceptible figures below.
He watched them begin their climb, then turned his attention to the towers. Reaching the top, as he’d told them before the climb, was not the end of their woes. It was only the beginning. His heart hammering in his chest, he drew his knife and approached the nearer of the two towers.
The guardhouse in the tower was quiet, dark, and cool. He could sense the black powder inside, enough charges for two men. Slowly he pushed open the door, wincing as it creaked, only to be greeted by the sound of snoring.
Tamas crouched beside the two Gurlish guards, watching the rise and fall of their chests. They were slumped together, their faces haggard but peaceful, deep in the sleep of the exhausted. Their uniforms were torn and dirty, patched in a dozen places with whatever material they could find during the siege. He found himself hesitating as he raised his knife. As much as he scoffed at the idea of a gentlemanly war, this was different than combat on the parapets or in the field. This was murder.
But what, he reasoned, was a pair of cold-blooded murders next to the lives of all the Adrans who would die trying to take this place?
He cut the throat of the first, and then stabbed the second twice, jerking the blade quickly in and out, once in the lung and once in the heart. He left them to die, resting against each other as they had in sleep, and wiped the blood off his knife.
He found the cannons in the dark, his trance-fueled preternatural senses allowing him to see better than most. He produced a barbed spike from his belt and positioned it above the touchhole of one cannon, raising his hammer, eyes on the sky through the window. Lightning flashed, and he brought the hammer down as the crash of thunder followed. He did the same five more times, three strikes to drive each spike, before heading back out to find Farthing and the others.
They had cleared the opposite tower, their knives dripping. Tamas gathered them around with a gesture, and pointed at t
he next tower. “Spike as many cannons as you can,” he said quietly. “Once you hear an alarm, run for the ropes and get off the wall as quickly as possible.”
“What do you mean?” Lillen asked, adjusting her sodden jacket. “I thought we were using the well for our exit?”
“A watery grave,” Tamas said, shaking his head. “A story to get Seske to let us make the attempt.”
“We won’t torch their munitions?” Farthing asked with a scowl. “I’ll do it,” Tamas said. “Alone.”
“You’ll get yourself killed.”
“I can move faster than all of you together. I’ll light their munitions and be back here before you’re done. Time’s wasting. Move.”
He stifled the rest of the protests and exchanged his hammer, spikes, and boot knife with Farthing for a long fixed-blade knife and a loaded pistol. He checked to make sure the powder was dry before heading around the length of the wall, alone, and into the spiral staircase of the nearest tower.
He reached the bottom without incident and paused beside a thick wooden door, listening. Low voices reached him above the distant thunder. Opening the door a crack, he spied a small group of Gurlish soldiers squatting in a circle, playing dice by the light of a single oil lamp. He watched them for a moment, absently drawing a new powder charge to sprinkle on his tongue.
The grit of the powder between his teeth, Tamas drew Farthing’s knife and took one long, deep breath.
He dashed into the guardhouse, clearing the space between the door and the gambling infantrymen in two long strides. His heart thumped, the power of the powder trance flowing through him, making the infantrymen’s every movement seem slow and unwieldy.
He killed the quickest of them as he went for his musket. The second lost her life to a flick of Tamas’s knife, while the third managed to draw his own and deflect Tamas’s slash as he leaped for the door, a cry on his lips. Tamas jumped after him, reversing his grip on the blade midair and ramming it into the base of the man’s spine, jerking it free and sinking it once more between his ribs.