Rosemary Jones: Crypt of the Moaning Diamond

"Once inside the walls," said the Pearl, "we can recover our expenses from Tsurlagol's treasury. The treaty does allow for that."

"It does," sighed the Thultyrl. He popped open a drawer in the campaign table and pulled out an ivory message chit, which he handed over his shoulder to Beriall. The secretary beckoned one of the Forty to him and handed off the chit. That man bowed and rushed away to fetch whomever the chit signified. The Thultyrl ignored the passing of the chit and concentrated on his conversation with the Pearl. "But we can't bankrupt Tsurlagol-we are supposed to be saving the city after all."

"Once inside the walls," repeated the Pearl in her deep voice, "we can make some equitable arrangement with all concerned. After all, we were not the fools who let Fottergrim dance his army through an open gate, all the way to Tsurlagol's main square."

Ivy suspected that the fools who had let Fottergrim into the city were long dead. That was the problem with thick walls and high towers: people forgot that such defenses were only as strong as an underpaid gatekeeper's resistance to bribery. Unfortunately, Fottergrim's troops were all that was left of the Black Horde. Having avoided the debacle at Waterdeep, they'd been moving steadily north for the last ten years. Years of constant attacks had made them extremely suspicious of strangers and fanatically loyal to the big orc who had kept them from being slaughtered.

In their first attempt at breaking the siege, Ivy and Mumchance had disguised themselves as a Gray Forest goblin and orc, as these creatures had been flocking to Fottergrim's banner since the orc commander had arrived back in the North.

"Won't they notice that I am barely the height of a goblin?" the dwarf had asked her.

"And I am no orc," Ivy admitted. She was a tall, hard-muscled woman, but still. The orcs were huge. Ivy had added padding and oversized armor until she could barely bend her knees and elbows. "I'm hoping that when they look down from the wall to identify us, the perspective will confuse them."

The dwarf merely grunted in reply.

"Also, I am counting on bribery," she added.

But they had been driven back by a hail of arrows before they could even start jingling coins at Fottergrim's sentries.

The next morning, at her first meeting with the Thultyrl, Ivy recommended undermining the walls as the most the logical way to enter the city. As she told the rest of the Siegebreakers that night, a rain of arrows tended to make her cranky, and there was no point letting the Thultyrl know that one of their favorite tricks had already failed.

So far, the Thultyrl of Procampur had agreed with her suggestion, but now he seemed inclined to argue.

"You have been digging for how many days?" said the Thultyrl, startling Ivy with the swift change of his attention from the Pearl to her.

"Only two days, sire," she answered, trying to meet his gaze calmly. "And I need three more days at least. We had to start the tunnel well back from the walls, behind some scrub trees, to avoid Fottergrim's sentries spotting us."

"But you are still aiming for that corner?" Without looking down, the Thultyrl tapped the map in the exact spot where Ivy had pointed. She wished she knew how he did that trick. It was impressive, she had to admit.

"Yes, sire," said Ivy, risking a quick peek at the map to make sure that she had not suddenly chosen a new corner of Tsurlagol's walls before tapping that section herself. "The walls are always weakest where there is a turn, especially in this case. It is better than trying to go under a straight section or one of the gates. Besides, it is the southwest corner, and Fottergrim keeps his strongest watch on the eastern wall. He expects you to come up the harbor road."

"Of course," said the Thultyrl. "Just as we would like him to come charging straight down that road." Procampur's navy had sailed into the harbor at the beginning of the summer siege. Fottergrim had no sailors in his horde and had retreated quickly up the harbor road, shutting himself safely behind Tsurlagol's high walls and well-fortified gates.

Another officer entered the chamber, led by a member of the Forty. The gray-bearded man carried the Thultyrl's ivory chit in one hand. He was short and heavy, and his armor gleamed more brightly than Sanval's breastplate. He also had the distinctive bowed legs of a horseman. The man bowed and handed his chit to Beriall. Ivy almost missed the Thultyrl's next question, so distracted was she by the entry of what was obviously a very senior officer of Procampur. "Can you dig faster?"

"We might be able to reach that corner faster, but we still need adequate time to prepare the wall," said Ivy, concentrating on the Thultyrl and ignoring the officer so obviously impatient to be noticed by his ruler. "Making walls fall down is easy, sire. Making them fall down where and when you want is a little harder. Myself, I prefer not to be standing directly underneath when the walls start to fall."

The Thultyrl smiled. "We understand your point of view," he said. "But we need you to excavate more rapidly. In two days time, Enguerrand will begin the charge that he has been so eager to lead."

The graybeard bowed at the mention of his name. "Sire," he said, "I promise you that our assault will free the city."

"And you are certain that Archlis is gone again?" asked the Pearl.

Enguerrand nodded. "He's not been seen since yesterday."

"So," said the Thultyrl to Ivy, "you understand the need for haste." It was a statement and it was obvious that the Thultyrl was not going to listen to any arguments. "Archlis only disappears for four or five days at the most. We cannot be certain of even that amount of time. We need to strike while he is off the walls."

Ivy could sympathize with the Thultyrl's desire to rush the walls when the wizard Archlis was gone. According to camp gossip, Fottergrim's personal spellcaster had engineered most of the orc's recent victories, including the successful occupation of Tsurlagol. Most annoyingly for the Procampur troops, Archlis was an expert at throwing fireballs and appeared to own a nearly inexhaustible supply of fire spells.

Unless Archlis was standing on the section that collapsed, and Ivy rather doubted that they would get that lucky, his fireballs would still be a formidable problem. Luckily the wizard had a tendency to disappear for several days at a time. In fact, that was how they'd learned his name, by hearing Fottergrim screaming for him to come up on the walls and attack Procampur's troops.

She stared at the map and considered the route of Enguerrand's charge. North and south was where the hill was steepest, and it was clearly marked so on the Thultyrl's map. East was the well-watched harbor road.

"The west is the only approach," said the Thultyrl. Keen-eyed as a griffin, the Thultyrl had spotted what she had seen: the faint dotted line that marked an old route leading to Tsurlagol's west gate. "There's a good road leading north from Procampur, well west of Tsurlagol and out of range of Fottergrim's patrols. We will move our people, south out of the camp, angling toward the road, then turn and come north fast."

"And turn again and come at the wall at sundown, when any sentry looking west might be dazzled by the sun." Ivy knew that trick. "And mercenaries, with their stinking camels, roaring up the harbor road to distract Fottergrim and split his strength." Old tricks and half-forgotten tactics-the kind of information that a Thultyrl's scholars might find in the histories of war and ancient maps tucked in the baskets with the legal scrolls. But they were clever tricks and it took a clever man to think of them-a man who went hunting deer on the western side of the city just to see if the ground matched what his maps had shown. No wonder the Thultyrl had been so furious to be surprised on his hunt by mountain orcs and so intent on riding them all down before they got to Fottergrim.