Through the cluster of people streaming in I finally identified the small group I’d recruited to help make non-lethal weapons, struggling to haul in a barrow loaded with supplies. Relieved, I ran to join them, surprised to find Pedrag beside me. A mix of cooks, chemists, physics’ assistants, and artists who worked with chemicals to make dyes and paints, they had taken to the task with enthusiasm and ingenuity, improving on my rough ideas.
“Credo Jovan!” one man puffed. “This is all we’ve had time to make.”
“Let’s get them up there,” I said.
The steps were choking but we forced through, up the north river gate tower, past weapons stockpiles and a readied firepit, and unloaded our collection. The wind was blowing hot and fast, and the approaching army drew closer, unhurried but menacing. My team had produced three kinds of defense: one to form a smoky, burning barrier around the most vulnerable part of the wall, to make it harder for the rebels to identify weaknesses; one a flammable liquid to be poured on any close-range siege structures; and finally a collection of miniature sedative pouches that would release Art’s tonic in gas or powder form to cause unconsciousness. The goal was to protect the city while harming as few people as possible.
First, barrels of ash. “Mixed with the last of the hot spices,” one of the cooks said. “The Chancellor gave us permission.” I had wondered about the abrupt absence of spices from the ration stations. Bland food seemed a fair exchange.
We staggered ourselves, three to a barrel, along the wall. The ash mix would form a kind of border across the most vulnerable section of wall. “Make way for the barrels!” I yelled, and Chen’s familiar voice farther down the line echoed my shout. I helped haul one to the edge, then together we upended the mess below.
“Now the oil mix!” One of the engineers had rigged up a kind of tube operated by a bellowlike contraption that pumped oil down into the piles of ash. The marching troops were almost within arrow range. Marco’s voice, elevated by a speaking trumpet, boomed an alert to the archers to get into position. The smell of smoke from the firepit in the tower carried in the air. People ran along the battlements, setting up or restocking containers of broken pottery, cutlery, metal scraps, rocks, and other shrapnel. Others delivered buckets of hot sand to the murder holes. The cacophony created a kind of disjointed song in my head: the beat of the approaching feet, horns, shouts, my own breath in my ears.
A woman no taller than my shoulder held a lit torch in one hand and shuffled her feet nervously as she waited for the call, and a thickset man with a copper helmet and an open mouth scurried through, barking orders in a reedy, nervous voice.
“And … loose!” The archers drew back, and the high whine of flying arrows filled the air. “Back! You, there! Keep a clear path! We must be able to move!” He spotted us and wiped his forehead. “Credolen. What do you need? I’m in charge of this stretch here.”
“A bow, if you’ve one handy,” Pedrag said. I glanced over, surprised by his vigor. He smiled, his eyes disappearing into the heavy creases of his face. “I’m not a bad hand with one.” He slipped into a gap between archers in time to loose with the next cry.
“The tower is on the move,” someone shouted, and I peered out through the crenellations to see, only to be faced instead with the sight of another huge chunk of rock from a catapult hurtling toward us. “Brace!”
The crack it made as it connected with the wall was louder than before.
The physic’s assistant beside me scrambled to her feet and squirted the last of the oil below. I checked the flag on the tower; it whipped off to the east, same as the last few days, still favoring neither side. If only the wind would turn more southerly and blow back against them. Already the ash swirled about, masking the wall, but it would disadvantage us as much as them if the wind turned against us.
“Archers ready!”
My companions unloaded another set of tricks—this time a viscous, treacly liquid in thin jars that we could light and hurl at the siege tower. I coughed, assaulted by the putrid stench. “What’s making it smell like that?”
The man looked confused, shaking the bottle slightly. “It shouldn’t be—” Then he gestured behind me, where someone tottered past carrying buckets of what appeared to be human waste in each hand.
I glanced at my companion, grinning despite myself. “Can something be both a horrible idea and an excellent one?”
“Well we certainly aren’t short of shit,” he said with a snort of laughter. “We’ll all need to take a squat for the city if it comes to that.”
The woman next to him gave us a hard look. Chagrined, I started to apologize, but calm as anything, she spun and yanked up her tunic to expose her bare backside to the parapet. “Shitting for the honor of my city!” she bellowed, and the group of us around laughed so hard at the unexpectedness of it that I barely felt the next crack of stone against the wall.
Credo Pedrag, between shots, wagged a finger. “Discipline in the armed ranks clearly isn’t what they say it is,” he said. His eyes crinkled into a grin under his helmet. “Why, in my day, we knew how to really expose an ar—”
The arrow struck the side of his helmet and he fell so fast that it took a moment to even register what had happened.
“’Ware!” someone shrieked, and everyone scampered against the parapet as the clattering of wood on stone signaled that the army’s arrows had found their range. “We need shields!”
“Pedrag!” I yelled, but the old man lay motionless on the walkway. I scurried over, cowering at every sound, and tugged the Credo’s closest leg, pulling him back closer to the wall edge. “Physic!”
But they were already calling the next volley, and my shouts were lost in the crush of noise. I dared a glance between crenellations and saw the great tower tottering closer and closer; built something like one of our own wall towers, but wooden and on wheels, narrower at the top but not substantially. I couldn’t tell what was propelling it toward us. I dropped back down and checked Pedrag’s pulse. For a few agonizing moments, nothing. Then, there it was. The arrow had punched down above his ear, denting the helmet but not penetrating it. One small blessing, at least.
“Light arrows!”
“Hit the tower! Aim for the tower!”
Someone came racing by, handing out arrows with oil-soaked rags tied around the heads, followed by the torch carrier. People on either side of me drew back now-flaming arrows. As we settled into the attack the panic was subsiding and Marco’s careful defense plans were starting—slowly—to come together.
My companions were readying the bottles. When I dared another check the tower was creaking closer and closer. My group gathered our supplies and moved farther along the wall just as two men in physics’ blue sashes ran by with a litter to take Pedrag to safety.
We moved west along the wall until we were almost right above the weakened part. We had arrived in a temporary lull, perhaps as the rebels adjusted their weapons. The seige tower approached, its trajectory as far as possible from our towers to the south and west but close enough to take advantage of the weakening wall. A sealed cask of unknown evil, it could hold a hundred soldiers at least. Just as Eliska had speculated, a lower level of the tower was hinged and strapped up, likely containing a swinging ram.