Hugh tapped the map of Baile. “He will send the mass of undead straight at the front gate. Even if the moat fails, we can take fifty vampires. We will bleed but we can take them. Once that assault fails, Nez will do something loud and theatrical. He might field beasts or pull some mages out of his sleeve. Whatever form this new threat will take, it will be designed to keep our attention focused front and center. Meanwhile, his crews, which will have been digging since before the fight started, will be breaking into the castle tunnels from below. The vampires are fast diggers, and he might bring specialized help to speed things up. While we are trying to hold off whatever it is battering us from the front, the undead will make their way into the castle and massacre us from the rear.”
Hugh fixed Savannah with his stare. “So, when you say don’t worry about the tunnels, I need you to be very sure.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Elara said.
“Okay,” Hugh said.
She opened her mouth to argue and realized he didn’t say anything else. “Then that’s settled.”
“Can we attack Nez directly?” Savannah asked.
“Unlikely,” Lamar told her. “For things like these, Nez travels in a convoy of Matadors. A Matador is an 8x8 armored personnel carrier, nine meters long, three meters tall, and almost three meters wide. It has a monocoque V-hull, which means its nose and hull slope to deflect projectiles.”
Lamar held his left hand in front of him, palm up, and touched the fingertips of his right hand to it, forming a sideways V.
“It sits a driver and passenger in the front and can transport up to ten personnel in the back. Level four armor, suspended seats, blast mitigation floor, all the works. It can trench at two meters, ford a stream a meter deep, climb steps and steep hills, and it turns on a dime for a vehicle of its size. It runs like a dream during tech, but it chugs along during magic as well. It also can be set up to carry either a 50 cal or a sorcerous ballista, depending on your preference. Nez has a fleet of them.”
“We used to have them too,” Stoyan said. “The long and short of it, Matadors are unbreachable by anything we have. We could probably drop a rock on it from above and crush it, but we don’t have a catapult precise enough to do it.”
“We need to do something about the approach from the northeastern side,” Hugh said. “We are missing a siege engine on the corner tower. It requires specialized parts.”
“Is it a budget issue?” Elara asked.
“No, it’s an availability issue,” Hugh said.
“We have it on order in Lexington,” Lamar said. “We traded some silver we recovered for it. It won’t be ready in time.”
“We’ll have to compensate with archers,” Hugh said.
“We can dig some fortifications there,” Stoyan said. “It may slow down the Cleaning Crew, but it won’t do anything against vampires.”
“We could plant tangle weed,” Savannah said.
Good idea. Elara turned to Johanna. “How much do we have?”
“Enough,” Johanna signed.
“Can this tangle weed hold a vampire?” Bale asked.
“Yes, if there is enough of it,” Dugas said.
“Where would you need it planted?” Savannah leaned toward the map.
The rest of the advisors leaned in, and Elara met Hugh’s eyes.
Three hundred vampires.
He winked at her.
For some reason the wink took the dread right out of her. She rolled her eyes and leaned forward to take a glance at the map.
Elara stared at the roster of families. Around her the bailey bustled with life, people going to and fro, trying to squeeze as much as they could out of the fading evening light. They had two days until the deadline, but it was collectively decided that Nez couldn’t be trusted farther than they could throw him, so they’d been pulling people into the castle, in stages. Children with caretakers first, then older people, now finally the able-bodied adults. She squeezed the first wave into the left barracks, praising the source of all life that they had renovated the place when the Iron Dogs joined them. Once the barracks filled, they put the next wave into the utility buildings behind the keep, then into the chapel building, which they had converted into living quarters. Baile was so crowded, it was bursting at the seams.
“Is the chapel completely full?” she asked.
“Almost,” Johanna signed.
Elara sighed, studying the roster. “We’re going to have to start putting sleeping bags in the keep hallway. On the second floor—”
Johanna touched her arm. Elara looked up. Serenity Helton was walking toward them, oblivious to the people scurrying all around her, a blank look on her face. Elara’s heart dropped. She hurried forward and grabbed Serenity’s hands. “What is it?”
The seer stared at her unblinking. Her lips moved, but no sound came.
Johanna grabbed Elara’s arm. “Coming! Now!”
“What?”
“She is saying ‘they are coming’ over and over!”
The anxiety that clamped Elara over the last few days burst in a scalding rush.
“Hurry,” she whispered, sending her voice through the entire castle. “They’re coming. Hurry.”
The people scattered. In the village a bell rang. Hugh came running around the corner.
“Nez is coming,” she told him, pointing at Serenity.
He glanced at the seer and spun off, barking orders. Elara climbed the steps to the outer wall and then to the top of the flanking tower. From here, she could see the entire village. People ran, streaming to the castle.
She turned to Johanna. “Find Magdalene. Take her to the tunnels.”
Johanna took off at a run.
The village emptied as people rushed to Baile.
Come on, she urged in her head. Come on.
Iron Dogs poured out of the gate, forming a protective line, shielding the evacuees. On top of the keep and on the towers, the ballistae and catapult teams cranked the massive siege weapons. She heard chanting, almost in unison, as the artillery teams primed the sorcerous bolts.
Shapeshifters burst out of the woods, running at top speed toward the castle – Hugh’s scouts coming in.
Seconds crept by, echoing the beating of her heart. Come on.
Creatures streamed out of the woods, like an evil river, flowing in rivulets between the trunks to flood the grass. Vampires. Hundreds and hundreds of vampires, smeared with sunblock in green, blue, and red.
The Iron Dogs unsheathed their weapons.
She tried desperately to sort through the people running to the gates. Did they get everyone? Was someone missing? She couldn’t tell.
The vampires kept coming and coming, widening in a crescent, blending together into a monstrous mass, terrifying, stinking of magic that shouldn’t have existed. Endless.
Hugh was right. If they hadn’t had the warning, they might have panicked. Even she, with all of her power, had to fight a shiver. In a couple of hours the sun would set, and the monstrous horde would roll over the castle. Next to her Johanna squeezed her fingers into fists and relaxed them again.
The evacuees slowed to a trickle. Did they get everyone? Anxiety boiled in her. She tried to count the vampires to keep her mind focused. Three, five, eight, ten…
Hugh ran up the stairs and loomed next to her, his expression hard.
“You were right,” she told him.
“This day was a long time coming,” Hugh told her.
Beth ran up to the tower. “There is a phone call for you.”
“Is it Nez?”
“Yes, lady.”
“Right on schedule,” Hugh said. “See if you can piss him off. He doesn’t think clearly when he’s angry.”
“I can do that.”
“Oh, I know you can. Have fun, love.”
Elara turned and walked down the stairs, forcing herself to move slowly. The longer she took getting to the phone, the more time she bought them. Finally, she reached the front office. Lamar and Dugas waited by the phone.
Elara took the phone. “You’re two days early.”
“You have been fortifying,” Nez said with clinical precision.
“We had an agreement. You broke it. If you can’t keep a simple deadline, what guarantee can you offer that you will honor any other agreements?”
“I’m giving you this one last chance to avoid bloodshed. Consider the fate of your people. Consider the children’s lives. Once I clear the wall, I cannot guarantee anyone’s safety.”
“You’re not listening to me,” she told him. “Go back to where you came from and come back in two days. That was the agreement. You made it with me and I will hold you to it.”
Incredulous silence filled the phone. Lamar grinned.
“You will regret this,” Nez said.
“No,” she told him. “But you will. You’re full of it. You want to negotiate with me, but clearly you can’t be trusted.”
“You actually expect me to withdraw and come back in two days?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Do you even have the authority to negotiate, Landon?”