Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time #13)

A part of Ituralde was impressed that he’d driven them to it. The siege equipment had undoubtedly been brought to assault Maradon, which was a little to the south. Setting up the trebuchets across the ford to assault Ituralde’s lines instead not only would slow the Shadowspawn, but would expose their trebuchets to his counterfire.

He hadn’t expected them to hurl carcasses. He cursed as the sky darkened again, more bodies falling, knocking down tents, crushing soldiers.

“Healers!” Ituralde bellowed. “Where are those Asha’man?” He’d pushed the Asha’man hard, since this siege had begun. To the brink of exhaustion. Now he held them back, using them only when Trolloc assaults got too close to the upper camp.

“Sir!” A young messenger with dirt under his fingernails scrambled up from the front lines. His Domani face was ashen, and he was still too young to grow a proper mustache. “Captain Finsas reports the Shadowspawn army moving trebuchets into range. There are sixteen by his count.”

“Let Captain Finsas know that his bloody timing could be better,” Ituralde growled.

“I’m sorry, my Lord. They rolled them down through the pass before we figured out what was going on. The initial volley hit our watchpost. Lord Finsas himself was wounded.”

Ituralde nodded; Rajabi was arriving to take command of the upper camp and organize the wounded. Below, a lot of bodies had hit the lower camp, too. The trebuchets could get the height and range to launch over the hill and fall down on his men in their previously sheltered area. He’d have to pull the lower camp back, farther across the plain toward Maradon, which would delay response times. Bloody ashes.

I never used to swear this much, Ituralde thought. It was that boy, the Dragon Reborn. Rand al’Thor had given Ituralde promises, some spoken, some implied. Promises to protect Arad Doman from the Seanchan. Promises that Ituralde could live, rather than die trapped by the Seanchan. Promises to give him something to do, something important, something vital. Something impossible.

Hold back the Shadow. Fight until help arrived.

The sky darkened again, and Ituralde ducked into the command pavilion, which had a wooden roof as a precaution against siege weapons. He’d feared sprayshot of smaller rocks, not carcasses. The men scattered to help pull the wounded down to the relative safety of the lower camp, and from there across the plain toward Maradon. Rajabi led the effort. The lumbering man had a neck as thick as a ten-year-grown ash and arms nearly as wide. He now hobbled as he walked, his left leg hurt in the fighting and amputated beneath the knee. Aes Sedai had Healed him as best he could, and he walked on a peg. He’d refused to retire through gateways with the badly injured, and Ituralde hadn’t forced him. You didn’t throw away a good officer because of one wound.

A young officer winced as a bloated carcass thumped against the top of the pavilion. The officer—Zhell—didn’t have the coppery skin of a Domani, though he wore a very Domani mustache and a beauty mark on his cheek in the shape of an arrow.

They could not hold against Trollocs here for much longer, not with the numbers they were fielding. Ituralde would have to fall back, point by point, farther into Saldaea, farther toward Arad Doman. Odd, how he was always retreating toward his homeland. First from the south, now from the northeast.

Arad Doman would be crushed between the Seanchan and the Trollocs. You’d better keep your word, boy.

He couldn’t retreat into Maradon, unfortunately. The Saldaeans there had made it quite clear they considered Ituralde—and the Dragon Reborn—to be invaders. Bloody fools. At least he had a chance to destroy those siege engines.

Another body hit the top of the command pavilion, but the roof held. From the stink—and, in some cases, splash—of those deceased Trollocs, they’d not chosen the newly dead for this assault. Confident that his officers were seeing to their duties—now was not the time to interfere—Ituralde clasped his hands behind him. Seeing him, soldiers both inside and out of the pavilion stood a little straighter. The best of plans lasted only until the first arrow hit, but a determined, unyielding commander could bring order to chaos by the way he held himself.

Overhead, the storm boiled, clouds of silver and black like a blackened pot hanging above a cook fire, bits of steel shining through at the edges of the crusted soot. It was unnatural. Let his men see that he did not fear it, even when it hailed corpses upon them.

Wounded were carried away, and men in the lower camp began to break it down, preparing to move it farther back. He kept his archers and crossbowmen firing, pikemen ready along the bulwarks. He had a sizable cavalry, but couldn’t use them here.

Those trebuchets, if left alone, would wear his men down with boulders and sprayshot—but Ituralde intended to see them burned first, using an Asha’man or a strike force with flaming arrows through a gateway.

If only I could retreat into Maradon. But the Saldaean lord there wouldn’t let him in; if Ituralde fell back to the city, he’d get smashed against those walls by the Trollocs.

Bloody, bloody fools. What kind of idiots denied men refuge when an army of Shadowspawn was knocking on their gates?

“I want damage assessments,” Ituralde said to Lieutenant Nils. “Prepare the archers for an attack on those siege engines, and bring two of the Asha’man who are on duty. Tell Captain Creedin to watch that Trolloc assault across the ford. They’ll redouble their efforts following this barrage, as they’ll presume us disordered.”

The young man nodded and hastened off as Rajabi limped into the pavilion, rubbing his broad chin. “You guessed right again about those trebuchets. They did set them up to attack us.”

“I try to always guess right,” Ituralde said. “When I don’t, we lose.”

Rajabi grunted. Overhead, that storm boiled. In the distance, Ituralde could hear Trollocs calling. War drums beating. Men shouting.

“Something’s wrong,” Ituralde said.

“This whole bloody war is wrong,” Rajabi said. “We shouldn’t be here; it should be the Saldaeans. Their whole army, not only the few horsemen the Lord Dragon gave us.”

“More than that,” Ituralde said, scanning the sky. “Why carcasses, Rajabi?”

“To demoralize us.”

It was a not-unheard-of tactic. But the first volleys? Why not use stones when they’d do the most damage, and then move to bodies once surprise had been expended? The Trollocs hadn’t a mind for tactics, but the Fades…they could be crafty. He’