The dragon shimmered and soon was again her true form. They mounted and she took to the skies. Moving high above the Plain of Isbandia, she circled. She banked and flew to the southwest, and Macros bid her pause as they inspected the destruction of Armengar. Black smoke still issued from the pit where the keep had once stood. “What is that place?” asked Pug.
“Once called Sar-Isbandia, it was last called Armengar. It was built by the glamredhel, as was Sar-Sargoth, long before they fell into barbarism. Both were made in imitation of the city of Draken-Korin, using sciences plundered from other worlds. They were vain constructions, won by the moredhel in battle at great cost: first Sar-Sargoth, which became Murmandamus’s capital, then Sar-Isbandia. But Murmandamus was killed in the Battle of Sar-Isbandia, when the glamredhel were reputedly obliterated. Both cities were abandoned by the moredhel after his death. Only recently have the moredhel returned to Sar-Sargoth. Men lived in Armengar.”
“There is nothing left,” commented Tomas.
“The present incarnation of Murmandamus paid a price to take it, it seems,” agreed Macros. “The people who lived here were tougher and more clever than I had thought. Perhaps they have hurt him enough that Sethanon still stands, for he must have passed beyond the mountains by now. Ryath! South, to Sethanon.”
NINETEEN - Sethanon
Suddenly the city was under siege.
Nothing had happened for a week after Arutha had secured the city, then the eighth day after the gates had been closed, guards reported Murmandamus’s army on the march. By midday the city was surrounded by elements of his advance cavalry, and by nightfall picket fires burned along every quarter of the horizon.
Amos, Guy, and Arutha observed the invaders from their command post upon the southern barbican, the main entrance to the city. After a while Guy said, “It’ll be nothing fancy. He’ll hit us from all sides at once. These piddling little walls will not hold. He’ll be inside the city after the first or second wave unless we can think of something to slow him down.”
“The defensive barriers we built will help, but only a little. We must depend upon the men,” said Arutha.
“Well, those we brought south with us are a solid crew,” observed Amos. “Maybe these parade soldiers here will pick up a thing or two.”
“That’s why I spread the men from Highcastle out among the city garrison. Just maybe they’ll prove the difference.” Arutha didn’t sound hopeful.
Guy shook his head, then rested it on his arms, against the wall. “Twelve hundred seasoned men, including the walking wounded returned to duty. Three thousand garrison, some local militia, and city watch - most of whom have never seen anything more extreme than a tavern brawl. If seven thousand Armengarians couldn’t hold from behind sixty-foot-high walls, what can this lot do here?”
Arutha said, “Whatever they must.” He said no more as he returned his attention to the fires across the plain.
The next day passed into night, and still Murmandamus staged his army. Jimmy sat with Locklear upon a bale of hay near a catapult position. They, and the squires of Lord Humphry’s court, had been carrying buckets of sand and water to every siege engine along the city walls all day, against the need to douse fires. They were all bone-tired.
Locklear watched the sea of torches and campfires outside the walls. “It somehow looks bigger than at Armengar. It’s like we never hurt them at all.”
Jimmy nodded. “We hurt them. It’s just they’re closer, that’s all. I overheard du Bas-Tyra saying they’ll come in a rush.” He was silent for a while, then said, “Locky, you’ve not said anything about Bronwynn.”
Locklear looked at the fires on the plains. “What’s to say? She’s dead and I’ve cried. It’s behind. There’s no use in dwelling on it. In a few days I might be dead, too.” Jimmy sighed, as he leaned back against the inner wall, glimpsing the host around the city through the crenellation in the stones. Something joyous had died in his friend, something young and innocent, and Jimmy mourned its loss. And he wondered if he had ever had that young and innocent thing in himself.