The Siege of Tilpur

Sergeant Tamas closed his eyes and listened to orders being called back and forth across the front lines, voices punctuated by the report of artillery blasting away from the next hill over. Captains shouted at their lieutenants, lieutenants shouted at their sergeants, sergeants at their infantry. It was only a matter of time before some poor infantryman snapped and started screaming at the drummer boys for the simple release of having someone of his own to bark orders at.

It was all nonsense, of course. “Hold steady, boys,” or “keep your heads up,” or “first man over the top gets a hundred krana.” Everyone was in line, bayonets set, flintlocks primed, ladders to shoulders, tensed and just waiting for the signal. The only thing the shouting accomplished, as far as he was concerned, was to allow the officers to unleash their own damned uncertainty in as manly a fashion as possible.

Meanwhile the infantry baked in their uniforms, jackets and pants already soaked with sweat. If General Seske waited another half hour to give the order to charge, the desert sun might just reduce the entire Adran army to withered husks.

“This is bullshit,” a voice said behind him.

“Quiet down, Farthing,” Private Lillen responded in her lazy drawl. “I’m trying to get in a nap before this things starts.”

“I’m not joking,” Farthing said. “This is utter bullshit. We’re charging the broad face of a bloody fort in full daylight with nothing but ladders and light artillery. It’s not going to work, just like it didn’t work last time or the time before that. We’re all about to be buggered by grapeshot and sorcery. Might as well call us ‘his royal majesty’s Adran bullet-absorbers.’”

“You’d think you’d have gotten used to it by now,” Lillen said.

“Used to it? Explain to me how one gets used to a fireball to the face? The same way you get used to napping on your feet? Because I can’t figure that one out either.”

“You want to desert?” Lillen’s pleasant tone turned mocking. “Because you’ve been telling us you’re going to desert for almost three years now and it hasn’t happened yet. I’m beginning to think I’ll be long dead by the time you finally do it, which is a shame because I want to be there when they haul you back into camp and put you in front of a firing squad.”

“You bitch. I’ll cut you for that.”

“Shut up, Farthing,” Tamas said. “And take your damned nap, Lillen. You’ve got about eighty seconds left. If anyone can do it, you can.”

“Yes Sarge,” both soldiers said, subdued. There were a handful of snickers from the other nine members of Tamas’s squad but he didn’t look back. Let them have their bitching and their petty squabbles. It was their only outlet right before a charge of this importance and Tamas’s squad, unlike plenty others, weren’t lacking in courage and loyalty. They’d be on his heels from here to the fort and straight to the pit.

Tamas kept his eyes on the fort. Over a mile away, thick puffs of smoke rose from Gurlish cannons as they returned fire at the Adran artillery. Gurlish cannons weren’t as good as the Adrans’ – they lacked the range and the punch needed to clear the distance, but occasionally one would get lucky and an eight-pound ball would ricochet off the ground and knock out an Adran field gun or plow through the ranks to a chorus of screams.

On the other hand, the sorcery protecting the Gurlish fort was as potent as any, and had shrugged off almost two years of shelling. The Adran artillery blasted against the walls to no visible effect. He wondered why either side even bothered.

The only conceivable way of taking the fort of Tilpur would be up and over those walls into the teeth of Gurlish bayonets and pikes.

The fort itself was no great marvel of military engineering. It had six thirty-five-foot walls and six onion-domed towers, with broad space on the parapets that would allow the Gurlish to bring no less than twelve cannons to bear on any approach. The garrison was supposedly two thousand men, but his own estimates put it at half that number. Not that it mattered. A fort like that could be effectively defended by a few hundred.

Tamas pried the paper end off one of his powder charges with a grimy thumbnail. He touched the loose black powder to his tongue, shivering at the sulfuric taste. His resolve tightened instantly, his senses sharpened. Sorcery lit his veins, giving him the strength of four men and speed that would let him run the distance to the fort in less than three minutes. Not for the first time he wondered how regular soldiers tolerated the stress of battle without a powder trance.

Strength and speed and sorcerous courage were wasted in the infantry line where battle was about mass rather than individual prowess, but his betters had decided to put him here regardless. All he could do was wait, hoping he survived long enough to make it over those walls. He emptied the rest of the powder charge into his mouth.

The euphoria of a powder trance took a hold of him, removing what little fear he had.

Behind the artillery, a man on horseback approached General Seske. Salutes were exchanged, the general nodded, and an order was given. “It’s time,” Tamas said over his shoulder.

Somewhere, a boy rattled out a single pair of beats on his side drum. Along the lines, men fell silent.

“Advance!” came the long-anticipated order.

The next five minutes were a maelstrom of blood and horror straight from the pit. At three-quarters of a mile the Gurlish Privileged opened up with their elemental sorcery. Fire and ice rained down on the Adran infantry from the fortress walls. Some of it was blocked by the Adran Privileged marching in the rear, but far too much of it pierced their protection to leave charred bodies in the wake of the army.

At five hundred yards the cadence of the drums doubled and Tamas broke into a run, musket gripped in both hands, teeth clenched against what would come next. Behind him his squad spat defiance and curses at the bombardment.

Whole platoons were leveled in a torrent of grapeshot. The Gurlish managed two salvos before the front lines, Tamas and his men included, were beneath their line of fire.

“Ladders!” Tamas yelled as he reached the rocky base of the fort. Ladder teams rushed forward and raised their long ladders against the walls as musket balls and stones hailed down from above.

Tamas took stock of the Adran infantry, assessing the situation in a heartbeat. Hundreds lay dead and wounded on the field behind them, but an equal number had managed to reach the relative safety found at the base of the walls, and more still advanced across the rocky, barren ground of the desert floor. He hoped it enough to scale the walls and take the fort.

Just get me over the top, he prayed to no god in particular, shouldering his musket and readying to throw himself on to the first steady ladder. The sorcery raining down from above intensified, blasting scorch marks into the earth. The rear lines began to waver. Tamas cursed them silently, urging them to steady.

Somewhere back by the Adran artillery a bugle let out a long, mournful note. “No, damn it,” Tamas swore. “We can do this.” He looked up at the top of the fort wall. “We have enough men, we can do this!”

All around him, men broke off the assault and fled toward the Adran lines, abandoning ladders, kit, and muskets.

“Sarge, that’s the retreat,” Lillen said, grabbing Tamas by the arm. He shook her off. “I know, damn it! Why are we retreating? This is as close as we’ve ever gotten. Bloody fools!”

“Sarge!”

“I know, I’m coming.” Tamas cast one more look toward the top of the walls. All he needed to do was get inside.

“We could have made it over those walls, sir.” Tamas paced back and forth in the small space of his captain’s tent. The dry desert air tasted of defeat, the whole camp brooding, sullen, and quiet this evening save for the cries of the wounded in the surgeons’ tents.

Captain Pereg sat with his boots up on his cot, leaning back in his chair while he stared, perplexed, at the layout of playing cards sorted face up on his bedside table. The jacket of his dark-blue uniform lay on his bed. The buttons of his white undershirt were undone, the collar wilted and damp with sweat. He scratched at one brown muttonchop, picked a card up, paused, then returned it to its place.

“Captain!” Tamas said, jerking Pereg’s attention away from him game. “We could have made it.”

The captain let out a long sigh. “I don’t know what you expect me to say, Sergeant. General Seske did not agree, and he had a much better view of the battlefield than you.”

“I was on the battlefield, sir.”

“And he could see the big picture. There’s no need to second-guess the general. He’s been an officer for well over a decade.”

“That somehow precludes him from making terrible decisions?”

“Too many soldiers died before they could reach the walls. The attack could have lost us even more men.”

“Or could have been a successful follow-through that ended the siege,” Tamas retorted.

“Seske’s a general. Our general.”

“Through no merit of his own,” Tamas grumbled.

Pereg lifted a card, stabbing it in Tamas’s direction. “Now look here, Sergeant. I won’t have you disparaging the king’s officers, not even in private – especially my aunt’s husband, even if we don’t have the best of relationships. You’re a damned good soldier, and I’ll put up with you because you’re worth any three sergeants, but do not forget your place. You’re a commoner. Seske has noble blood.”

“That’s the problem, I think.”

Pereg shrugged. “And one we can’t do a thing about.”

Easy for you to say, Tamas thought to himself. You’re the youngest son of a baron. You’ll be a general in twenty years yourself while I’ll be lucky to make captain in that time.

“You only lost, what, one man from your squad today?” Pereg asked.

“Gerdin’s wounded, but we don’t think he’ll make it through the night.”

“See?” Pereg said, flicking a bit of sand out of his ear, “you should be ecstatic. You’ve lived to fight another day and brought most of your men through it with you. That’s a victory in my book.”

I like you, Pereg, but you’re an idiot. “We were lucky. Nothing more. Captain, I need to get over that wall.”

Pereg looked up from his cards sharply. “You’re not still going on about a promotion, are you?”

“You said yourself, sir, I’m a commoner.” Tamas leaned over Pereg’s table. “The only way I can become a commissioned officer is through valor in combat.”

“You’re a powder mage,” Pereg said. “A damned killing machine if I’ve ever seen one. In any other country you would have been hanged just for what you are. The Privileged,” he lowered his voice, looking over his shoulder as if a sorcerer might be hiding in the corner of his tent, “the Privileged do not like your kind having any power. You should be grateful you’ve made it to sergeant. Get to master sergeant one day and you’ve got yourself a career to be proud of. By Kresimir, you’re only nineteen and already a sergeant!”

Pereg was right, of course. Never mind his common blood – powder mages were universally despised by the nobility and their pet sorcerers. They claimed it was a base magic, used only by the very dregs of humanity. Tamas knew the truth – he knew they were scared of what he could do. He tried to figure out how to express to Pereg the urgency of his situation, of the weight on his chest every morning that he didn’t make progress toward climbing the ranks. He couldn’t afford to relax for even a single campaigning season, because everything about his career was stacked against him.

“I’ll clear the damned fort by myself if I have to, sir. I just need to get inside the walls and the garrison will fall. I guarantee it.”

“And I,” Pereg said, scowling at his cards, “need to win this game or I’ll break a fantastic streak.”

Tamas wanted to kick the chair out from under Pereg and watch him fall on his ass. “The queen of rooks,” he said.

Pereg’s scowl deepened as he searched the cards, then his face brightened. “Ah, there we go. Thank you, Sergeant! Look, go give your men an extra ration of beer for work well done today.” He looked up, tapping the queen of rooks thoughtfully. “And take my advice – ambition is not becoming of a commoner. It’ll only get you killed.”

“How’s Gerdin?” Tamas asked when he returned to the small group of tents occupied by the twenty-second squad of His royal Majesty’s Ninth Infantry.

Private Farthing looked up from poking a long bit of sagebrush into the dung fire. He was of medium height, with a pockmarked face burnt from years in the Gurlish sun. When Tamas met him he’d been a round little cuss, gasping with every step, but the campaigns had turned him into a battered strip of shoe leather. “Died thirty minutes ago,” he said.

Tamas sank into a stool beside Farthing and rubbed his temples. Another man gone. Three dead from the previous failed charge at Tilpur’s walls, and two the time before that. He wondered if they’d bother to give him any new soldiers or if they just planned on waiting until he bit it so they could incorporate his squad under another sergeant.

“And Mordecia’s arm?” Tamas asked.

“Just a scratch. She’ll be good to go in a week as long as it doesn’t fester. Sarge, can I ask you a question?”

“What is it?”

“Rumor has it that another sergeant heard me complaining on the line today. They, uh, they won’t put me in front of a firing squad, will they? It was just a little moaning on my part. They know that, right?”

Tamas stared into the low, flickering glow of the dung fire. “I’m not going to let them shoot you over a little bellyaching in the face of death, Farthing,” he said with a sigh. “Anyone asks tell ’em the sun was getting to you. Worst thing you’ll get is a week digging latrines.”

Farthing breathed a relieved sigh. “Thanks, Sarge. You’re a decent fellow. Want to hear some good news?”

“Always.”

“Remember my cousin? The maid in General Seske’s retinue?”

“Yeah.”

“Saw her tonight. Said that she overheard that we’ve orders to pull out. Today’s attack was the last big push and the higher-ups don’t think Seske has the ability to take the fort before the end of the campaigning season.”

Tamas let his face go slack, forcing a neutral expression. Inside, he felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. The end of the campaigning season, and he had yet to make master sergeant. If they pulled out without another fight he wouldn’t have a shot of promotion until next year. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – wait that long. “Good,” he said “That’s very good.”

“Anyway,” Farthing continued, throwing another chip of dung on the fire. “How’d your talk with the captain go?”

Tamas grunted a response. He already had a reputation as an upstart, but even he knew better than to bitch about superior officers to his men. Besides, he had more to worry about. Good news? This was horrible news. His career – his life – stalled for another season because Seske wasn’t more creative than tossing men at the enemy cannons and hoping the Gurlish ran out of grapeshot.

They sat in silence for several minutes, listening to someone from a nearby squad sing a quiet drinking song, the tune slowed down to account for the mood of the camp.

“Sarge, can I ask you something else?” Farthing said.

Tamas nodded.

Farthing scooted his stool a few inches closer to Tamas and looked around, then lowered his head. “This is bullshit, isn’t it? I mean, throwing us at that big damned fort thousands at a time when they know we won’t make it over the wall anyways. That’s bullshit. Right?”

“Not our place to say,” Tamas said, feeling a knot in his belly. This was bullshit, all right. The orders to pull out likely hadn’t had a last assault written into them, which meant that Gerdin, and hundreds of other poor souls, had died on Seske’s wishes and optimism. It wasn’t any way to conduct a war. Tamas was a sergeant, a powder mage of low birth, and even he could see that. “But,” he added, “if you don’t shut your trap you will end up with more than latrine-digging duty.”

“Yes, Sarge,” Farthing said, falling quiet.

Tamas got up to walk through the orderly rows of tents, looking up at the desert sky. There was a certain rugged beauty in this place, thousands of miles away from home, but it was the stars that did it for him, shining bright without the interference of the street lamps of Adopest. He found a hill where he could see the stars above Tilpur, three miles away.

From this distance the fort looked like an upturned footstool into the desert, with full command of the only freshwater spring for eighty miles in any direction. Rumors were that they had provisions enough for another two years, and being built directly on the spring meant they never had to worry for water.

Tilpur had never once fallen out of Gurlish hands. The Kez had besieged it. The Brudanians. The Adran army had besieged it twice and, if General Seske’s maid was to be believed, this second attempt had fallen short. The finest minds of the Adran officer corps could not figure out how to crack it.

It was too bad, Tamas thought bitterly, that the finest minds of the Adran officer corps were inbred dimwits from the least talented echelons of the nobility.

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,” Pereg 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 the 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.

Tamas turned as the fourth guard brought the stock of his musket to bear, slamming it across Tamas’s jaw with enough force to drop a camel. Tamas staggered back, his head ringing from the blow, grateful for the powder trance that kept him coherent. He caught the next swing of the musket and jerked it out of the guard’s hands, jamming the stock into the man’s throat. The Gurlish collapsed, gasping and gurgling.

Tamas’s hands shook from the speed of the fight, his chest heaving. His head pounded, and there was a slash across his thigh – a distant burn from within the powder trance. It was hard to think through the fog, and his preternatural sight seemed adversely affected by the blow to his head. More powder did nothing to help.

The temptation to retreat back up the tower and follow the squad back over the wall was strong. Surely they’d spiked enough of the cannons? Would destroying their munitions really make a difference?

Of course it would. Spiking the cannon would hobble the garrison. Destroying the munitions would destroy their spirit and perhaps even force a surrender without the need for any more Adran blood. Tamas couldn’t stop here. He was too close. His men needed him.

He could sense a large concentration of powder down below the next tower. But he had to move fast.

He dashed to the next guardhouse without incident, looking up through the rain to check on the squad’s progress. He could see dark figures hunched over the cannons, moving along the wall slowly. No alarm.

Yet.

He broke the chain to the grated door of the munitions dump with a few sturdy blows of the butt of his knife, then crept down the stairs in complete darkness where even the vision from his powder trance, impaired as it was, only gave him the slightest impression of stairs and walls.

The stairwell became cool and quiet, the sound of the rain gone, thunder muffled above him as he descended. The stairs led down into an open room where he could sense the barrels heavy with gunpowder. using the knife, feeling his way, Tamas went about prying the lids off several before upending them, kicking them haphazardly across the room. He could taste the dust from the black powder on his lips.

He snatched up one powder keg and left a line of powder from the center of the room to the edge of the stairs, where drew a demolition cord from his pocket and unraveled it up the first few steps. He pressed pinch of black powder against the tip of the cord and then concentrated, focusing on the powder with his sorcery.

The cord flared to life, illuminating the munitions room, throwing shadows on the walls. Tamas watched it burn for several moments, finding himself enraptured by the flickering ember as it hissed toward the black powder.

Until something caught his ear.

The shout was distant, muffled, but it had him on his feet in a fraction of a second, sprinting up the stairs to the courtyard. He burst out of the munitions room and into the chaos of men shouting in Gurlish. Half a dozen soldiers poured out into the rain from the barracks, their muskets raised at the four figures racing across the top of the walls. Tamas reached out with his senses, lighting their powder with his mind. The explosions blew apart the muskets, searing Gurlish faces. One unlucky man with a powder horn hanging around his waist was ripped clear in half by its detonation.

Three men emerged from the nearest guardhouse. Tamas threw himself forward, knife drawn, making short, bloody work of the soldiers before dashing inside. He drew his pistol as he mounted the stairs, listening to the shouts of the Gurlish as soldiers swarmed the courtyard. He reached out with his senses, detonating all the powder he could reach.

It wasn’t enough. By the time he gained the top of the wall, the courtyard below was swarming with figures, muskets raised, shooting blindly up at the parapets. Tamas risked a glance out of the guardhouse and his heart fell.

He’d gotten turned around down in the courtyard and gone up the wrong staircase. The ropes were on the opposite side of the fort. His squad was gone, whether captured or already over the edge he did not know, but he was alone in a hornet’s nest of Gurlish soldiers with no way to get off the walls. A thirty-five foot fall would at least break his legs, even with the powder trance.

He’d have to make a run for the ropes.

Only a sixth sense, a tingling at the base of his spine, made him throw himself backward into the guardhouse as fire swept across the parapet, nearly blinding him with its brilliance. His mouth turned went dry.

The Gurlish Privileged sorcerer had joined the hunt.

How many Privileged did the garrison have? One? Two? He couldn’t remember. He did know he wouldn’t last thirty seconds against a Privileged. Show his face, and he would be incinerated instantly. Stay here and he would be incinerated when they found him. A pair of broken legs was beginning to look like a good option.

He reached out with his powder-enhanced senses, searching for the Privileged. He could sense one nearby, down in the courtyard and a second one not much farther . . . reaching the top of the wall where Farthing’s ropes marked their escape.

The Privileged was going after Tamas’s fleeing quad. He would kill all four of them down on the desert floor with only the snap of his fingers. They’d be dead before they had a chance to scream.

Tamas lifted his pistol, praying to Kresimir that the first Privileged, down in the courtyard, was not looking his direction.

He leaned out of the gatehouse and found the second Privileged, pinpointing him in the gloom by his aura of sorcery and the white gloves raised above his head. It wasn’t a long shot, perhaps fifty yards at most, but it would be near impossible with a pistol in these conditions.

For anyone but a powder mage.

Tamas let his breath out slowly, forcing his hand steady as he pulled the trigger. He willed the bullet forward, drawing power from a powder charge in his other hand, nudging the bullet’s trajectory with his mind as he adjusted for rain and wind. It flew for what felt like an eternity – yet couldn’t have been more than a fraction of a second – and blew the side of the Privileged’s head clean off.

Tamas discarded the pistol and leaped back into the guardhouse as flames slammed into the wall just to his left. He waited, heart pounding, and thought about the drop.

He could hear the sound of boots on the stairs below him, and the whispering of orders. He reached out, touching off powder, and flinched away from the explosion. Sooner or later they’d figure out who he was – what he was – and the Privileged would fill the tower with flame from top to bottom.

He felt the bit of leather in his pocket, remembering Farthing’s words; bite this between your teeth. If you fall, bite harder and hope the ground is soft. He put it between his teeth.

That’s when he remembered something he’d seen in the courtyard, not more than a dozen feet from where he could sense the Privileged – the dark, stone pit of the fort well. He pictured Lillen’s drawing in his head, considering the fifty foot drop into the cold water below. It might just be more survivable than the drop from the walls and they wouldn’t be likely to chase him.

Tamas reached out with his senses, getting a good feel for where the Privileged was in relation to himself – twelve feet along the wall, eight feet from it, and about thirty feet down.

“I hope,” Tamas said to himself as he climbed to his feet, “that he’s a fat son of a bitch.”

Tamas raced out of the guardhouse, a dozen paces down the parapet, and then leaped into the courtyard, pushing off with every bit of power the powder would give him. His arms cartwheeled as he soared through the air, his bowels turning to jelly as he fell, the dark ground, crawling with Gurlish infantry, coming up to meet him.

The last thing he saw before impact was white gloves reaching upward. Then he slammed into a body, the Privileged crumpling beneath him with a scream. Tamas rolled out of the fall and managed to come up on his feet, stumbling on a turned ankle. The bullet from a hastily fired musket tore through his shoulder. He grit his teeth against the pain and detonated all the powder within reach. The blast deafened him, and he hoped it sowed enough confusion as he limped toward the well.

Another bullet ripped through the arm of his jacket, and the whistle of another buzzed past his ear. Smoke from the detonated powder hung in the damp air, filling his nostrils, urging him on. He reached the lip of the well and threw himself over the edge, knowing that the fall itself would likely kill him.

It didn’t matter, he just had to get away.

He crashed into something solid – a moment of confusion overwhelmed him before he realized why he wasn’t falling. An iron grate covered the well, preventing his descent. He gasped, staring up into the rain, and felt his heart sink. Here he was, in the middle of the Gurlish fort, and now cornered like a rat in a cage.

He was going to die the same way he lived: arrogant, desper­ate, and still a goddamned sergeant.

A Gurlish infantryman loomed over him. Hands grabbed him by the ankle and arms, trying to pull him up. Tamas reached for Farthing’s knife, only to find it gone from its sheath. Helplessly, he watched as the infantryman raised the butt of his rifle and brought it down on his head. Tamas raised one hand to ward off the blow, feeling the sharp pain as his wrist broke.

Something shifted beneath him. There was a grating of metal on metal as the grate collapsed. Tamas gasped, and then suddenly he was falling. The blackness of the well swallowing him, the vision of the Gurlish infantrymen zooming away. His legs hit the side of the well, sending him tumbling head over heels until he hit water far below.

The breath was knocked out of him and he sank, stunned, into the dark. He felt his limbs scrape along mossy stone, the pain of his wounds overwhelming him to the point of numbness. He tried to scrabble for purchase and air, but found neither.

He felt his limbs weakening, barely able to keep himself from gasping in a lungful of water.

There was a sudden rumble through the water, and then a glow from somewhere ahead lent him one last burst of strength. He pushed himself forward and suddenly his head broke the water as he was swept along in the current of the river below Tilpur.

Above him, flames licked the sky over the fort. He stared up, incredulous, able to think of nothing but the air in his lungs, before he realized that the munitions had gone up.

With a laugh that came out as a choked sob, Tamas struggled toward the shore.

Tamas walked through the main gate of Tilpur fortress three days after his nighttime raid. His arm hung at his side uselessly in a sling, wrist set and bandaged with his uniform jacket hanging off his shoulder. everything hurt – his head, his wrist, his ribs, his shoulder, his legs. A light powder trance held the pain at a low buzz in the back of his head. He felt naked without his musket hanging off his shoulder or a shako on his head, and seeing the courtyard in the daylight sent a shiver down his spine. He half expected a Gurlish soldier to lean out the window of the barracks and take a shot at him.

But the fort had been emptied of Gurlish forces two days ago. Less than six hundred men, a good portion of those wounded, had survived the detonation of the fort’s munitions. The garrison commander had immediately called for a parlay and surrendered without condition. Their forces were now camped out on the plain, disarmed, while the Adran officers decided what to do with them.

It was, without a doubt, the biggest turnaround of the season, if not the entire campaign. And General Seske had yet to call for Tamas.

He paused inside the courtyard, watching as Adran soldiers made repairs. The munitions explosion had collapsed a large part of the courtyard and destroyed most of the barracks when the ground dropped a dozen feet beneath it. Bodies were still being hauled out of the rubble, while the sorcery-protected stones of the inner wall were being scrubbed clean of the soot and ash from the explosion.

Overseeing the whole operation was General Seske, standing up on the walls near where Tamas and his squad had gone over the top. He was surrounded by aids, a broad smile on his face as he handed out orders and cracked jokes with his officers, standing with thumbs hooked through his belt, bicorn cocked forward like he’d conquered Tilpur himself.

It did not, Tamas thought, bode well.

Seske’s gaze swept past Tamas, pausing for just the slightest moment, his smile faltering, before moving on. Instead of a gesture or a grin or anything to acknowledge the man who’d just handed him an enemy fortress, he continued bantering with his officers.

Tamas made a circuit around the fort, examining the repairs, taking a look down into the well and examining the ancient, rusted grate that had almost gotten him killed. He counted fifteen paces from the well and scuffed at the black, stained stone with one toe, chuckling to himself. The Privileged he’d landed on, he’d found out later, had died almost instantly, spine snapping like a twig at the impact. The stain under Tamas’s boot was likely his blood.

“Sergeant,” a voice said.

Tamas looked up to find one of Seske’s aids beside him. “Yes?”

“The general would like to see you.”

Tamas followed the aid to the nearest gatehouse and up the steep, narrow stairs, the pain in his side deepening with each step. By the time he reached the top of the wall he was covered in sweat and quite dizzy. He searched his pockets for a powder charge, only to come up empty.

Seske was alone when he approached. The general gazed out over the camp of the Gurlish prisoners, a scowl on his face. He did not turn as Tamas approached.

Tamas saluted with his left hand. “Sir,” he said.

“I suppose,” Seske said, “that you think you’re getting a promotion for this?”

Tamas let his salute fall, trying to fight the dizziness caused by the climb. His powder trance was almost gone. “I wouldn’t presume, sir.”

“No. No you wouldn’t. I’ve spoken with Pereg. He was rather excited by the Gurlish surrender and let it slip that you’re a man of ambition. You want to be commissioned. Is that true?”

Tamas’s mouth went dry. He took a deep breath to steady himself. “I would like to serve my king as an officer, sir.”

“So that’s a yes?” Seske shook his head. “I won’t have it. Not in this army.”

Tamas bit back an angry retort. Surely there would be a good reason? “I’m not sure I understand, sir.”

“The king will likely grant me lands for this victory. Pereg himself will be made a major, which will please his aunt to no end, and for both those things you have my thanks. But an officer should be of noble blood. Nothing will convince me otherwise. Don’t be hard on yourself. I understand your birth is not your fault. But this is the way of the world and you need to get used to it.”

I’ll have his thanks? Tamas looked at Seske, then looked at the perilous drop off the edge of the wall. One quick shove and . . . and what? He’d be trundled off to a court-martial and then shot? All to silence a single braggart?

“You won’t get a promotion for this,” Seske said, “but you’ll be rewarded with a stipend. Your whole squad will receive medals from the king the next time you’re in Adopest. I’ve even recommended that your wounds be healed by a Privileged to shorten your convalescence. A man like you can be awfully useful, after all. Perhaps I’ll send you over to consult at the siege of Herone.” He paused. “Bah, don’t look so glum. You’ll make master sergeant within a few years. But as you said yourself . . . don’t presume. You’re dismissed, Sergeant.”

Tamas stared at Seske for several moments, disbelieving. He didn’t want a stipend, or Seske’s thanks. He didn’t give a damn about any bloody medal. He wanted a commission – a commission he earned killing two Gurlish Privileged and taking the fort almost single-handedly. From the self-satisfied expression on Seske’s face, the general thought Tamas should be thanking him for not giving him a promotion. Tamas could practically hear what Seske was thinking: this is for your own good, you common upstart.

“I said you were dismissed, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir,” Tamas managed to grunt, throwing up a half-hearted salute. Seske didn’t seem to notice.

He stumbled down the stairs, barely able to hold himself up, and stopped to rest in the main floor guardhouse of the tower. He leaned his head against the cool stone. Was this all that awaited him in his career? Did his superiors have any respect for the risk of an infantryman? Or was bravery just a word meant to spur him into the face of the grapeshot for the glory of others?

“Sergeant.”

Tamas looked up to find Captain Pereg had joined him in the guard room. He felt a spike of anger go through him even as he struggled to raise his arm in a salute.

“No, don’t,” Pereg said, his forehead creased. “I came here to apologize. Seske told me he wasn’t going to give a promotion for this, and I can see from your face you’ve just had that discussion.” He grimaced. “I know it’s a disappointment and, though it’s not much of a consolation, I’ve written a letter of commendation to go in your file in Adopest. I’ll be sure a copy gets to someone other than General Seske.”

“Thank you, sir,” Tamas said.

“No, thank you. I wanted you to know that I’ll be turning down my promotion under the objection that you didn’t get one.”

“That’s unnecessary, sir,” Tamas said.

“It’s the least I could do. At least one officer in the Adran army should show appreciation for what you’ve done.”

Tamas thanked Pereg once more and walked back into the heat of the desert sun. He paused, catching his breath, and looked down at his ragged hands. A cane may be a good idea, at least until Seske granted him access to a Privileged healer. He scowled, then looked up, aware of a sudden silence.

Every soldier working on the repairs to the fort had stopped. They stood, looking toward him, squinting in the sunlight. One of them raised their hand in a salute. Slowly, the others joined him, until over a hundred infantrymen were saluting him in silence.

Tamas wiped a tear out of his eye and stood up straight and returned the salute. He’d done this for a promotion, yes, he reminded himself. But he’d also done it for something more important – to save lives that would otherwise have been thrown away. And these infantry, these good men and women saluting him, knew.

And they’d remember.