Thirtieth of Oak, 580 New Era
The Siege of Drok Moran, Eighty-Second Day

"It's been near to three months," Datir complained to the summer night. "I almost want the Althandi to attack. At least the waiting'd be over."

Ebrim Zan pretended he hadn't heard the sentinel. That sort of talk inched close to treason, and the walls were undermanned as they were.

Drok Moran, the Mountain City, was starving beneath the Althandi siege lines. If relief didn't arrive soon, the capital of Nadia would fall.

It may fall regardless, Ebrim thought grimly.

"So much for independent Nadia," Datir grumbled. "Courtesans really buggered us up the arse, and Ol' Jiral hasn't the stones to kick 'em to the Leyr."

"Show respect," Ebrim said in a quiet but clear voice. "If the king exiles the Courtesans, we lose access to their spy network."

"Fat lot of good they do us whilen we're stuck inside the walls."

Ebrim kept his eyes forward to beyond the outer city and over the Mora Valley. Light from hundreds of bonfires obscured the stars. "We may yet find our chance."

Datir snorted. "Stones take the Courtesans. Stones take Cathis an' his dead brat, too."

"Cathis placed a babe on a pyre. Would you respond any different? Would I?"

Datir eyed Ebrim from beneath his helmet's visor. He grunted, looked away, and folded his arms behind his head. The sentinel sat with his back against the parapets of the inner walls, out of sight of both the enemy and their own side. Datir was ostensibly on watch, but this long into the siege, laxness was taking hold within the Summit Guard. Hunger, boredom, and defeat were the bane of vigilance. The legions of Nadia had suffered beneath the first two for eighty-two days, and the third for the past eight months.

The Nadian Legions were broken. Of the nine thousand fighting men and women Nadia had at the beginning of the war, less than four thousand remained. Half of those were scattered across the kingdom or in hiding. The two thousand barracked within the capital's walls were living off of crusts and what rats they could catch in alleyways. The goodfolk were doing far worse; there was even rumor of wendigos haunting the deepest tunnels of the undercity.

Althandor was not just winning this war. They were winning the next one and the next after that. Once this was over, the word "rebellion" wouldn't dare to be spoken in the Five Kingdoms for generations.

The Highest King was making an example of Nadia.

Cathis is not his father, Ebrim thought. Haelin would have accepted the surrender. The new Highest King is not so merciful. What were the Courtesans thinking? Killing women and children as they sleep is not the way to free our kingdom. All they did was make the Algaras want our blood in addition to our gold.

Ebrim scanned the sweeping grasslands of the Moran Valley, lit by bonfires and moonlight. The waters of Leyr Ishan, the broad lake within the valley, shimmered silver in the night. From Drok Moran, built upon the slopes of the Dragon Roost Mountains, Ebrim could see the Nadian Ridge to the east. Those peaks and the Mora Valley between them were the greater portion of his homeland.

Through the spyglass he had borrowed from Datir, Ebrim searched the Leyr's shores. He spotted the cerulean eye and silver star banner of House Algara, the red sunburst of House Merovech, and the white fangblade of House Ulbrecht within the Althandi camp. Ebrim recognized a handful of the less prominent houses that orbited the greater. Ingshi, Deveaux, and Tarlen among others. One of the invading legions flew the royal banners of House Akazewi of Melcia, their forces led by the Boy General, Prince Zoputan. Even the Altieri had sent a force of six hundred under the green and gold seawolf of House Karst.

The whole of the Five Kingdoms was arrayed against them.

It should not have come to this. Nadia had had the support of not only its own people, but from within the other kingdoms as well. Their cause and their grievances had been just and heeded. When Nadia declared her independence and seceded from Althandor, it should have at least been a bloodless if not exactly an amicable departure.

Then the Courtesans stole into the Palace of Towers and murdered a baby prince not even old enough to stand on his own two feet. All that support had vanished, and now King Jiral the Terenor was at the top of the list of heads Cathis was looking to have decorate his wall.

Ebrim clenched a fist within his gauntlet. It and the rest of his chain and mail armor was polished to gleam in the gaslight. On the wall, it was important to be seen. Now more than ever. The sight of an officer served as a reminder to both sides that Drok Moran had not yet fallen.

"Datir," Ebrim said as he returned the spyglass, "I will leave the post to you. Try to at least stay awake."

A disaffected grunt was his only reply. Just a month earlier, Ebrim would have given the sentinel the flat of his blade. A chastisement at the least. This siege had gone on too long if even a sky captain could no longer be bothered to address such insubordination.

He is a body on the wall, Ebrim thought wryly. At the least, Datir might keep the stones from floating away all of a sudden. An unpleasant weight settled on his heart. Besides, I am not truly a sky captain anymore.

The hour was turning past midnight, and Ebrim had several more stops to make before his rounds were complete. He endeavored to let himself be seen by the sentinels placed under his command. It was his hope that seeing their commander would remind them that they were not alone, that someone above gave a whit for their well-being and would act on their behalf. For the most part, the sentinels retained a semblance of morale. Others, like Datir, were lost. When the time came, all sentinels like him had left to do was to die well.

Ebrim crossed the parapets and entered one of the towers. He descended the stairs to street level, and walked out into the outer city. The slope of the main boulevard, barely wide enough for a wagon or steam-carriage to take, was steep in places. Switchbacks and carved steps minimized the treacherousness of walking the road, but one needed to remain cautious even when the crowds were absent.

Few were about at this hour. Ebrim passed an empty-eyed goodwife who stood on a gaslit street corner. If she was aware of his presence, she gave no indication. Further along, a few goblins tossed dice at the mouth of an alley. The ram-horned fey cast wary glances in Ebrim's direction and touched at knives concealed within their threadbare coats. The biggest of them, a bearded brute wearing a bowler hat and a monocle, spat on the cobblestones before flashing a malicious grin filled with gold teeth. Ebrim ignored them and soon heard their staccato voices laughing to each other behind him.

Few of the goodfolk left their homes as of late. The markets were bare and deserted. Services were forsaken in hopes that coin could soon be spent on any food a smuggler might bring into Drok Moran through the subterranean roads. The people Ebrim did see were sick, starving, or both.

The Nadians had olive complexions. Hair came in every shade of brown from deep umber to chestnut. Despite the hard times, Ebrim rarely saw a full head of hair. Nadian vanity would not stop for the siege, and most everyone shaved one or both sides of their head down to the stubble. Women kept long bangs on one side of their face to obscure an eye, and men wore patches or tinted monocles. The fashion of hiding one eye developed from a practice that allowed one to pass from the tunnels of the undercity into sunlight and back again without waiting for pupils to adjust. Now it was more often an affectation than not. Long and elegant noses, slim jawlines, and epicanthic folds on the eyes were the other identifiers of their people.

Ebrim passed abandoned houses, depopulated districts, and empty mooring towers. The Sky Corps' airships had been downed by enemy arcanists or dismantled for parts long ago.

Chief among the airships lost had been the Venture, Ebrim's own vessel. Throughout the first month of the siege, she'd flown high above the Althandi. Her deck wizard warded against the spellcraft of the enemy while the crew unloaded deadly cargos of alchemical bombs. She had flown over a hundred sorties, more than half of those during the night. The Venture had been the finest warship in the Sky Corps.

The second month, as airships were swatted from the sky with each passing day, Ebrim no longer flew into combat, but in desperate supply runs to keep the city fed. And then, two weeks earlier, the last of Nadia's supply depots was taken by the Althandi. With no further use for a lone airship, the Venture's final order was delivered by sending. She was stripped down, her steam engine recommissioned to power the defenses at the outer wall and her majestic hull added to the reinforcing barricade of the main gate.

Ebrim mourned her as if she'd been his flesh and blood wife.

The Sky Corps was gone, and a sky captain without an airship was just another sentinel. Ebrim's crew was reassigned, and he himself was given charge of a number of watch posts throughout the Mountain City.

Better to have gone down in flames while fighting the Althandi, he thought.

The outer walls were getting closer. He was coming to one of the towers that would grant him access to the parapets and the seven posts under his command. It was a crucial part of the defense, right next to the main gatehouse. Here, he assigned his more attentive sentinels. Ebrim would never trust soldiers like Datir to man a post so vital. The men and women he placed here hadn't yet succumbed to the same despair, but Ebrim worried how long it would be before they, too, began to falter.

How long before I do? Or have I already begun? I never would have let Datir off the hook had we been in the air.

Drok Moran's outer wall had never been breached since it had been built three centuries earlier. Its eastern face beveled outward, further out near the top than the base. Its stones were covered in sharp and jagged ridges. In peacetime, the king offered a prize of a thousand gold marks to any mortal man who could scale the wall. To date, the feat had been accomplished exactly three times. Always on fair, windless days. Even then, it took hours, and the bag of gold was accepted by hands that were torn and bloody. In battle, attempting to climb the walls would be impossible.

Wards and spellwrought fortifications supplemented the outer wall. The arcane defenses were maintained by six dozen arcanists, and those not on shift at any given time were quartered within a stone's throw. Any attack on the wall would have to do it the old-fashioned way, by hammering at the gates with piston rams and siege engines.

How fortunate we are to have such a barricade, Ebrim thought wryly.

The sight of the gatehouse, three hundred paces down from the tower, did nothing to help Ebrim's maudlin mood. The main gate was grand, two hundred feet tall and made from spellwrought stone. The beautiful carvings upon the massive doors were hidden on this side by the barricade. Wood, stone, and metal covered the inner face of the gate. Scaffolding, ladders, and platforms ran in levels up the entire face. Many platforms were still recognizable as the hulls of scavenged airships. Somewhere in that tangle, his Venture lay interred amongst the corpses of lesser vessels. She deserved better than to be another stack of bones on the heap.

Ebrim sighed and took the steps up through the tower and onto the wall.

As he climbed, a chill gust swept through the tower interior. An ill omen. The wind passing over the Dragon Roost was seldom this cold in the summer, not even at night. He climbed the stairs faster, suddenly feeling as if he needed the warmth of the posts' watchfires.

At the top, Ebrim found one of his sentinels. Her face was obscured by her helm, all but a tiny reflection of light in her eyes. Ardra, a dependable young woman, eighteen and recently wed to a chalkmaker from the Academy. By far the youngest sentinel under his command. She saluted as soon as she saw Ebrim crest the stairs. Ardra's vigilance was heartening to see.

"Sky Captain Zan," she said in greeting.

"Sentinel. How fares the wall?"

"Quiet, sir. The glass shows ten before the next bells."

"I will remain and catch my warmth until the all-clear, if you do not mind the company."

"Of course not, sir." Ardra returned to her spot near to the crenelations. She kept her body mostly hidden by the stone and refrained from standing in full view. A wise practice, as Ebrim had seen careless sentinels struck down by spellcraft or crossbows numerous times since the siege began. The wards protected the walls, not the soldiers upon them. It was beneficial to a sentinel's longevity to stay in cover.

Ebrim removed his gauntlets and tucked them under his arm as he approached Ardra's fire. He rubbed his hands together to get the blood flowing. "Cold for summer, is it not?"

"My Colin says that means the storm season will strike the south lightly," Ardra replied.

"What word does he give you of Summit?"

Ardra stifled her sigh, but Ebrim heard it. She was worried for her new husband. "The rationing is hard. It pains me to see his ribs when he used to be such a pudgy lout. The scholars fare no better, but they have stopped themselves from boiling book covers for soup thus far."

"Stones see it remain so. Supply will find us, I am sure, and your Colin will get that pudge back."

There was a soft laugh beneath her helmet. Muffled, but it was there. "Stones see it so, sir."

Ebrim gave her a confidant nod and half a smile. He looked back into the fire, and he found that his voice had gone low. "This siege cannot last forever."

Ardra turned her head towards him slightly but said nothing.

"One way or another," Ebrim dared to murmur to the flames.

The sentinel turned back to her watch. Still, she said nothing.

The silence went on for a time. The sand in Ardra's glass trickled down, grain by grain. It was a long ten minutes. The nights dragged on longer than they ever had in peacetime, but the same could be said for the days. The last three months felt closer to three years. How long had it been since Ebrim had tasted meat that didn't come from vermin?

A flutter of motion caught his eye. A bird alighted on the crenelations five paces towards the gatehouse. Ebrim looked at it in bemusement, and the silver owl stared back at him with inquisitive, amber eyes. Rumbling bird. Of course it showed itself when Ebrim was without his crossbow. He had never tasted owl, but he would wager a gold mark against a silver penny that they were more appetizing than rat.

Ebrim turned away from the bird. He was about to ask Ardra to begin ringing the hourly all-clear when she gave a sudden hiss.

"Sir, the lines."

Ebrim was beside her in the next heartbeat. "What do you see?"

"It is what I do not see." She extended a collapsible spyglass and handed it over. Her outstretched arm provided Ebrim a reference to sight along.

Through the spyglass, he found the banners on the shores of the Leyr. Algara, Merovech, and the rest. Their fires were lit, and figures in gleaming armor huddled around them. It made Ebrim furrow his brow. For a sentinel, polished armor was an assurance. For an invader, a liability.

"They do not move," Ardra whispered. "A month's wage that there is ought but straw and sand within that armor."

"Descend the tower," Ebrim said, soft but clear. "Go into the city and raise the alarm. Althandor attacks tonight."