Asag walked along the city wall, his boots pressing against the cold, unyielding stone that had borne the weight of countless n—n who had fought, bled, and died upon it for the last three weeks.
Two days had passed since they had turned back the enemy’s fiercest assault. It had been a slaughter, a day when the walls had nearly fallen, and yet, they had held.
Below, the earth was littered with corpses, the dead heaped atop one another like grotesque offerings to war. Their blood had soaked into the dirt, turning it into a festering graveyard. The defenders had seen to it that every attacker who perished upon their walls was cast back over the edge, their lifeless forms left to rot under the sun. Now, should the enemy co again, they would be forced to wade through the swollen, stinking remains of their own kin—trudging over death itself to try and claim the city that refused to fall.
The Oizenian prince had asked many ti for a truce, for ti to retrieve the bodies of his fallen. Each ti, Asag’s answer had been the sa: No.
With every refusal, he knew he was stoking the prince’s fury, feeding the bitter humiliation of a man whose once-glorious campaign had turned into a slow, grinding disaster.
Perhaps that was one of the few things that he could still smile about; he knew Alpheo would have been proud of it.
The Oizenian prince had co to Aracina with 2,800 warriors at his command. Three weeks later, that number had withered, to how many he did not know.
Of course the exchange was costly for him too.
Five hundred and forty of his n now lay dead, their corpses buried sowhere away from the rest of the people. And that was without counting the wounded—those who, in any other war, would have been left to rest and recover. But not here. Not now. His forces were stretched thin, and even the half-healed were being forced back onto the battlefield, their wounds reopened with every desperate clash.
Asag exhaled, his gaze drifting over the battlefield. The siege was not over. The enemy would co again. And when they did, they would march not only toward the walls of Aracina but through the broken remnants of their own failures.
He knew, with a cold certainty that settled deep in his bones, just how close they had co to ruin. The walls had held—barely—but the cost had been steep.
He himself had nearly been among the dead, cut down in the blood-soaked madness of that cursed attack. The wound on his side and the gash on his arm were proof enough of that. He had bled so much that Agalosios had cursed him half a dozen tis over, shouting that only the gods knew how he had survived at all.
And yet, despite the pain, despite the heavy toll that battle had taken on his body, he had risen. Agalosios had forced him onto a bed the morning after the fight, threatening to have his guards tie him down if he so much as tried to sit up.
But Asag was no fool—he had felt the weight of his own exhaustion, the leaden weakness that made even lifting a hand a struggle. And so, for that day, he had remained still, though each hour spent staring at the canvas of the dical tent gnawed at his patience.
By the second day, he had had enough. Agalosios had pleaded, scowling as he warned him that moving too soon would only reopen his wounds, that another hard fall might be enough to kill him outright. Asag had ignored him. He had a city to defend. He could not afford the luxury of bedrest.
When he stepped onto the walls once more, it was with an unsettling realization—the enemy had not attacked. Not yesterday, not today. At first, it seed like another stroke of luck, another reprieve granted by fate itself. But Asag had been at war long enough to know that such fortune rarely ca without reason. The enemy was not waiting out of kindness.
Of course, he could not yet know the truth—that within the Oizenian camp, the prince had barely held his army together. After the disastrous attack, tempers had flared, and discipline had cracked.
The n had co dangerously close to mutiny, cursing their commander for throwing them into another dood assault. Even so of the lords, had advised against another attack without proper siege equipnt. The prince had been left with no choice. He had given his n two days of rest, both to calm their anger and to allow his engineers ti to finish up a new siege tower.
That fragile peace was a gift to both sides, though neither truly knew just how much they needed it. For the prince, it was a chance to restore order, to rebuild. For Asag and his warriors, it was a mont to breathe—to clean their wounds, reinforce their barricades, prepare for the next storm that would co battering at their gates, and of course make peace with their death.
Night had settled over the city like a shroud, draping the bloodstained walls in darkness. The only light ca from the flickering torches carried by the patrols that moved like weary ghosts along the ramparts.
Each man walked with slow, half dead steps, their breath visible in the cold air, their hands wrapped tightly around the horns at their belts. One sound, one blast into the stillness, and the city would awaken once more to the drums of war.
Asag had lain in the quiet of his chamber last night, though rest did not truly co. His body ached, each movent sending dull throbs through his wounds, but pain was a familiar thing—it had long since ceased to trouble him.
What had lingered instead was the weight of knowing.
Knowing that this night, this fragile silence, might be the last he would ever see.
The enemy had not attacked, but he was not fool enough to believe that rcy had stayed their hands.
They would co, and when they did, there would be no respite, no hesitation.
His eyes closed, but sleep was a distant thing. He had felt this before—the slow, creeping knowledge that tomorrow may never co, that his na might soon be lost to the carrion birds circling above a battlefield. And yet, there was no fear, no trembling dread. Only certainty. He had walked this path too many tis to flinch from it now.
I am going to die here , he realized as he walked along the wall . I am going to die in this city—blade in hand or with chains around my ankles and my head on a pike.
He strangely smiled at the thought, as he rembered when he had rebelled alongside Alpheo, just few hundred slaves against an half empty camp , truly that was the end that he had expected.
So of course every second that he lived now, was a second that was gifted to him.
The thought of death coming close did not unnerve him as much as it should have. If he had wished to flee, to abandon these walls and live as a coward, the sea was there—vast, open, uncaring. The enemy had no ships. He could have taken one of the many fishing boats, gathered a handful of n, and slipped away beneath the cover of night.
But of course, he would never do such a thing.
He had made an oath.
Asag let out a slow breath, his gaze turning toward the sea. It stretched endlessly before him, its dark waves rolling under the moonlight, whispering secrets he could not hear. He had asked himself the sa question since the first day he arrived here: Will the prince co before the end?
There was no movent upon the horizon. No sails. No banners. Only the tide, as steady and indifferent as ever.
The next assault will be the last. The thought settled in his chest like cold iron.
Of course, it would be the last to take the wall—not the city. He had planned for that. Barricades had been raised within the streets, wooden obstacles ant to slow the enemy, to buy them a day, maybe two. If those failed, then the city itself would beco a weapon. It was mostly wood. Fire would take it easily.
And if it burned, then he could only pray the enemy was inside when it did.
He stood upon the wall, his silhouette swallowed by the vast night, his gaze fixed upon the countless embers burning in the enemy’s camp. They flickered like fallen stars scattered across the earth, each one a life waiting to be snuffed out. If he had his way, he would lead his n down into that sea of fire and shadow, striking like wolves in the dark, turning sleep into slaughter.
But he knew better. A sortie was a gambler’s folly, a reckless roll of the dice when the ga was already rigged. His n were weary, their bodies battered, their souls stretched thin from three weeks of blood and fire.
A failed attack would cost more than they could afford, and he could not risk his last defenders on a fleeting mont of vengeance. His duty was not to win, but to endure—to drag this siege through the filth and the ash, to force the enemy to wade through blood and corpses until even their victory tasted like defeat.
With a slow breath, he turned away, pulling his eyes from the infernal glow beyond the walls. He had stared long enough. The night was long, but the morrow would be longer still. Step by step, he made his way toward the barracks, his mind sinking under the weight of a thousand grim possibilities.
Then he froze.
Far on the horizon, away from the fields of the dead and beyond the enemy’s reach, a new light stirred in the darkness. Faint at first, like the glimr of a dream, but growing. It moved with purpose, not the idle flicker of campfires, but the steady march of sothing greater.
For a breathless mont, he simply watched.
His heart pounded in his chest, his fingers clenched into fists. He had asked himself this question every night since the siege began, had stared at the empty sea, wondering if the prince would co before the end.
And now, at last, there was his answer.
Not in words. Not in ssengers or promises.
But in fire, in steel, in the distant glow of salvation.
He had co.
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