Harry Turtledove - The Scepter's return

Lanius made himself shrug. He knew what he'd done. And he knew what he'd written to Grus. Now all he had to do was wait for the other king's reply — and hope it was the one he wanted to hear.

For once, Grus looked to the east, not the south. The walls of Yozgat dominated the horizon, all the more so when silhouetted against the lightening predawn sky. Everything seemed quiet on the walls. Grus had done everything he could to keep the Menteshe and the Banished One from learning when he would order an assault. He hadn't known himself. Every night before going to bed, he'd tossed two coins. On the night he first got two heads… That had been last night. He'd left his pavilion then, told Hirundo, "Tomorrow," and gone back to get what sleep he could.

And now tomorrow was here.

He turned to Hirundo, who stood beside him. "Are we ready?"

"If we're not, it isn't because of anything we haven't done up until now," the general answered. With each moment of growing light, the gilded armor he and Grus wore seemed to shine more brightly.

"Then let's go," Grus said.

Nodding casually, Hirundo walked over to the trumpeters waiting nearby. He set a hand on the closest one's shoulder and spoke in a low, casual voice. The trumpeter and his comrades raised their horns to their lips and blew the call for the attention. A heartbeat later, other musicians all around the encirclement relayed the call to the waiting men.

The soldiers sprang into action as though they were forming some elaborate dance. Dart- and stone-throwers started shooting at the top of the wall, trying to clear Menteshe from it. Archers ran forward to get into range added ordinary arrows to the mix. Men flung hurdles into the moat, to give attackers and scaling ladders purchase for the assault on the walls.

"Let's go! Let's go!" sergeants screamed. "Keep moving, gods curse your stupid, empty heads!"

More slowly than they might have, the Menteshe realized Grus' men were trying to storm Yozgat. Their own horns rang out, on harsher, brassier notes than the ones Avornan trumpeters used. Grus could hear their guttural shouts of alarm, and their own officers and underofficers shouting commands and advice^ probably not much different from what his men were using. Anyone who didn't hurry in an attack was liable to be in trouble, from the enemy or from his own side.

The thud of stones smacking against the wall was like a giant landing haymaker after haymaker. Engines groaned clunked as artificers tugged on windlasses and loaded new stone balls and darts onto them. They clacked and swooshed and bucked when the missiles flew off against Yozgat.

"Forward the ladders!" Hirundo shouted.

Was it too soon? Had enough hurdles gone into the moat to support the ladders and the men who would climb them? Grus thought he would have waited a little longer before giving command. But he also knew he might have been wrong. Hirundo had keen judgment for such things.

"Come on!" the king yelled. "You can do it!"

He hoped they could do it. Now the sun climbed up over horizon, spilling light across the countryside. Avornans started swarming up a ladder. The Menteshe at the top of the wall pushed it over with a forked pole. The soldiers on it shrieked they fell back to earth.

Heavy rocks crashed down on other climbing soldiers. The Menteshe greeted others with boiling water and red-hot sand. A few men gained a lodgement on top of the wall — but not for long. The defenders swarmed over them and overwhelmed them before they could be reinforced. Grus cursed. He knew he was too old to lead a charge up a ladder. He knew it, but he wished he were leading one just the same.

Hirundo was watching the fight as intently as he was — and had sworn as loudly and as foully when the Menteshe stamped out the Avornan foothold at the top of the wall. Now, his mouth as tight as though he were trying to hold in the pain of a wound, the general turned to the king and said, "I don't think we're going to be able to get up, Your Majesty."

Grus had already begun to fear the same thing. Even so, he asked, "What about the far side of the wall, the one we can't see from here?"

"Horns would have brought us the news," Hirundo said.

"Hmm." Grus knew that, too — at least as well as Hirundo did. He was looking for excuses to go on with the attack. "No chance at all, you say?"

"If we'd been able to hang on to that little stretch where we made it onto the wall for a minute — then we'd have a chance, and a good one," the general replied. "The way things are? No. We're just throwing men away, and we're not getting anything much for them."

Another scaling ladder went over. Faintly, the frightened cries of the falling Avornan soldiers came to Grus' ears. They might have proved Hirundo's point for him. Grus swore again. Hirundo set a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "These things don't always work out just the way we wish they would."

"No, eh? I never would have noticed," Grus said. Hirundo chuckled. Grus kicked at the ground and kicked up a cloud of dust. That didn't get him anywhere. He kicked up another one. Then his shoulders slumped. "Order the retreat, curse it."

"I'll do it." Hirundo spoke to the trumpeters. The mournful horn calls rang out. Slowly, sullenly, the Avornans pulled back from the walls of Yozgat. At first, the defenders seemed to think the withdrawal was a trick. When they realized that it wasn't, that Grus' men really were retreating, they whooped and jeered the way any soldiers who'd driven back their foes would have done.

Grus said several other things he wouldn't have if things had gone better. He kicked up almost enough dust to hide Yozgat. He wished a dust storm like the one that had afflicted his army would sweep down on Prince Korkut's fortress. But that storm hadn't been natural. The Banished One wouldn't inflict anything like it on a fortress his men held.

"Shall we get ready to try it again, Your Majesty?" Hirundo asked. "Next time, we may catch 'em napping."

"Yes, so we may," Grus said. "But if we don't, how much will it cost us? How long can we go on trying to storm the walls before we throw our own army away or ruin its spirit?"

"That's always an interesting question, isn't it?" Hirundo said. "You can't know the answer this soon, or I don't think you can. But we ought to be able to tell before we get in trouble pushing the men too far."

"Yes, we ought to," Grus agreed bleakly. "Will we, though?"

Before Hirundo could answer, a courier who smelled powerfully of sweat and of horse came up and saluted, saying, "Excuse me, Your Majesty, but I've got a letter from, uh, the other king for you."

"Have you?" Grus said, amused in spite of himself. Even after all these years, ordinary people didn't always know what to make of the arrangement he'd made with Lanius. Well, he didn't always know what to make of it himself, either, even after all these years. He held out his hand. "I'm always interested in seeing what King Lanius has to say."

"Here you are." The rider handed him the message tube. He opened it, took out the letter, broke the seal, unrolled the sheet, and began to read. Lanius wrote in large letters he had no trouble making out at arm's length. And the question the other king asked…

Grus started laughing before he paused to wonder what was funny. The question wasn't unreasonable, especially in light of what had just happened in front of the walls of Yozgat — in front of them, yes, and briefly on top of them, but not beyond them. If the Avornan army had gotten beyond them, then Lanius' question wouldn't have needed answering so urgently.

As things stood, Grus wasn't in much of a position to say he had any better ideas than the one Lanius had come up with. All he'd thought of was trying more and more assaults on the walls, in the hope that one of them worked. That was a hope, but no more than a hope. Lanius' scheme wasn't guaranteed, either — far from it. But the Menteshe would be looking for more of the same from the Avornan army. Whatever else you could say about it, Lanius' scheme wasn't more of the same.