A massive stone soared high across the sky.
Across its surface, roughly hewn on every side, dried mud had hardened into the rock's uneven face. Along its grooves and hollows, fine black soil pressed into the stone lay caked and dry. Thick rope, wound twice around the whole of it and lashed crosswise at odd angles, was still bound fast. It should have been cut loose the instant of launch, but one end of the knot had caught and held, still wrapped around the stone's side. Where the rope's fibers had snapped, the severed strands whipped and trailed through the air as the stone flew on.
The massive block of stone bore down on the wall.
Fog lay low over the ground beneath Damu's walls. Beneath its layer, tens of thousands of orcs and minotaurs moved as dark shadows within a white sea, and the surface of the fog shifted without pause, pushed by the wind.
Above the fog, the trebuchet's stone pressed on toward the far end of its arc.
Behind the fog-covered plain, the ranks of orcs and minotaurs stretched out without end. From the edge of Tharn Forest all the way to the foot of Damu's walls, shields and spearpoints rose here and there through the mist. War cries, drumbeats, and the stamping of countless feet against the earth rolled forward without pause from beyond the fog.
Beyond it all, Damu's walls stood.
The wall was built from stone interspersed with ancient trees, section by section. Enormous trees, centuries old, had been set into the structure at regular intervals, forming part of the rampart itself. Their massive roots gripped the soil beneath the ground, and their thick trunks served as the skeleton of the wall — tree and stone bound together. Over long years, wood and rock had held each other fast, hardening into a single structure. Along the top of the stone ran a parapet, and the trees' heavy branches stretched out across it.
Many Dawi soldiers lined the wall — some leaning out past the parapet to draw their bows, others hefting short javelins and hurling them outward, still others running the length of the wall to carry orders down the line. Above them, Muwa Winged soldiers wove back and forth between the parapet and the tree branches, gripping javelins in hands manifested from mana and throwing them down over the wall's edge. The whistle of javelins cutting the air mixed with the roars of the orcs below and echoed up along the ramparts.
Above it all, the stone loosed from the massive trebuchet beyond the wall kept falling toward Damu's ramparts.
At the corner where Damu's west wall met its south wall stood a massive stone watchtower, built entirely of stone from base to crown — thicker and taller than any other stretch of the wall. Atop it, Muwa Winged soldiers looked down over the ground beyond the ramparts. From the javelin ports along the tower's sides, spear-tips jutted outward, trembling.
The top of the watchtower. Three massive ballistae stood bolted to the stone floor. Four Dawi soldiers, two to a side, worked the winch of one. Gears clicked and clattered as the thick cord drew back. Hovering in the air, a Muwa Winged soldier lifted a heavy bolt reinforced with steel plating, two hands manifested from mana, and set it into the groove. The Dawi soldier gripping the aiming bar lifted his head. Into his sight came the massive stone, falling with severed strands of rope still whipping behind it. In an instant the sight of the boulder plunging toward the wall right beside the tower filled his whole field of view.
The stone came down beside the tower, slamming into the western end of the south wall.
—KRAAK— BOOOOM—!
An explosive crack. The boulder buried itself in the wall. Stone shattered outward from the point of impact. The stacked blocks, unable to bear the force, were driven inward and gave way. A massive fissure raced along the wall, and a section of the rampart caved in after it.
Stones tore free from the wall, roots and all, and flew inward past the ramparts. Fallen rubble and debris buried the ground beneath. One of the trees rooted into the wall tilted and came crashing down along with the collapsing pile of stone.
A massive breach had opened where the wall once stood.
Dust billowed upward. Pulverized stone and soil mixed together and spread white across both sides of the wall. The trebuchet's stone came to rest, buried deep within the rubble.
The fog blanketing the ground below the wall scattered, pushed back by the shock of falling stone and debris. White mist and dust mingled and drifted slowly out across the moat.
The orcs locked in combat at the siege towers all stopped moving at once. Through gaps in the fog they saw part of the west wall crumbling. Heads turned toward it. For a moment the fog parted, and the massive breach torn into the wall came into view.
Beyond the wall, orcs raised their weapons and roared. Laughter rose among them, and the drumbeats shifted, quickening.
The moat below the wall already held the burned, collapsed wreckage of siege towers from the earlier assault on the west wall — half-charred timber, the broken wood of shattered ladders, all tangled together in the water.
Orcs ran toward the breach. Minotaurs hauled thick ropes slung over their shoulders; orcs ran carrying long wooden posts. Reaching the edge of the moat, they began hurling posts and timber onto the wreckage already piled there.
As the timber piled up, a makeshift bridge began to take shape across the moat.
An iron-armored orc vanguard advanced across it, shields raised before them, pressing toward the breach in Damu's wall. Rank after rank of shield-bearing orcs followed behind.
Arrows rained down from the wall. The orcs raised their shields. A wall of shields rose to meet them. Arrows struck and stuck fast in the shields' faces. The orcs did not stop. A few minotaurs climbed onto the bridge without shields at all. Even as arrows buried themselves in their bodies, their feet did not stop.
*****
On the wall.
An old man with white hair lay sprawled among the debris.
It was Keuraber.
"Nnngh... the wall — the wall's—!"
Keuraber braced a hand against a chunk of fallen debris beside him and staggered upright. Blood welled from a gash across his forehead, torn open by flying stone. It ran down through the wrinkles of his brow, soaking his white right eyebrow red, and trickled toward the corner of his eye. He wiped his forehead once with his sleeve. The bleeding did not stop. One eyebrow stayed stained red.
In the aftermath of the impact, stones from the wall's upper section had shattered, scattering sharp fragments in every direction. Dust filled the air and settled thick over Keuraber's leather clothes and white hair.
—KHUK— KHH-HK—!
Every breath drew grit into his lungs, and it set off another fit of coughing.
Nearby, several Dawi soldiers pushed aside broken stone as they pulled themselves up. Keuraber picked up an axe lying on the ground and started toward the collapsed section of the wall.
The Dawi soldiers felt along the stone floor, searching for weapons that had slipped from their hands. Even the axe Keuraber had picked up had a chipped, notched blade.
Some soldiers still staggered with their hands pressed over their ears. Perhaps due to the roar of the boulder's impact, their mouths moved but the words failed to reach one another. Voices calling out for the wounded mixed with the noise of the orcs below the wall, echoing in a chaotic din across the ramparts.
Shattered stone still lay scattered across the wall. At the moment of impact, blocks torn loose from the parapet had come crashing down on the soldiers beneath them. Some Dawi soldiers were dragging trapped comrades out from under the rubble; others sat slumped against the wall, covered in blood. The dust still hung thick enough to blur everything in sight.
The hole torn through the wall was plain to see even from where he stood. The slope of fallen stone, spilled inward, was still thick with dust. Keuraber stopped at the edge of the breach, at the last point where the wall still held some shape. Beneath his feet, the broken cross-section of stone dropped away into open air.
The wall's interior, locked tight for years beyond counting, had been torn open along a rough vertical line. The mud and small stones that had once packed the gaps between the blocks had crumbled away entirely, still trickling downward. The thick root-strands of the great tree that had served as the wall's central frame had split open in places under the force of the impact, their raw insides exposed. The stones at the edge where Keuraber stood shifted precariously under his weight with every step, some breaking loose and tumbling down into the breach. The sound of stone striking stone as they fell echoed up from beneath his feet, long and rolling.
Beyond it, the stone watchtower still stood.
It had not tilted. Along the upper section of the tower's west face, where it met the wall, the marks of shattered stone from the impact stood out clearly — but the tower's foundation had not given way.
"The tower didn't come down. Small mercy."
Keuraber muttered it under his breath. His eyes swept quickly from the tower's base up to its crown.
A few stones near the base had cracked, but the structure as a whole still held. Dawi soldiers still moved back and forth along the top, and the ballistae remained standing, unmoved, right where they were.
Then he lowered his gaze past the breach, out beyond the wall.
Orcs were crossing the moat. Fog still lay low over the water.
With every step the orcs took, the white fog parted at their feet. Ranks of shield-bearing orcs advanced across the makeshift bridge built atop the wreckage. Arrows poured down from the wall, but the wall of shields the orcs had raised turned them aside. Shafts stood thick and dense across the shields' faces.
The siege-tower wreckage bridging the moat sank deeper under the weight of hundreds of orcs, unable to bear it. The logs and broken ladder fragments the orcs had hastily thrown down were not locked together, and with every step of an iron-shod foot the bridge lurched and swayed precariously from side to side.
The orcs at the center of the column overlapped their heavy shields, reinforced with leather and iron plating, raising them together into an unbroken wall of defense. Beneath that wall, thick with arrow fletching driven into its surface, the irregular thud of iron-shod boots trampling the timber rose all the way up to the ramparts.
Through the gaps in the shield wall, orc faces showed. Some bled from arrow wounds; others walked on with broken shaft-ends still lodged in shoulder and back. In the front rank, one orc took an arrow and dropped to its knees. The shoulders of the orcs behind shoved it forward. Its body, once it fell, was trampled beneath the ones pressing on behind.
Keuraber's eyes turned back inside the wall. The slope of rubble descended gently toward the interior — a grade a man could climb down on foot, easily enough. There would be no need to even scale the wall. Once inside the breach, they could simply walk the slope down.
The slope, where stone and packed earth had fused and hardened together, broke here and there into natural footholds, easy enough to climb.
Keuraber shouted up into the air.
"Winged soldier!"
One of the Muwa circling above the wall banked and dropped down toward him.
"Take word to Master Builder Vargo and the Masons. You'll find them below the watchtower, at the foot of the south wall."
The Winged soldier nodded several times as he listened. When Keuraber finished speaking, the soldier gave one more short nod, turned, and took to the air.
Keuraber stayed where he was and looked down over the inner side of the wall. Below the slope of the breach, the trebuchet's stone lay half-buried in the ground.
His eyes didn't stop at the place where the wall had fallen. He swept them over the stone still standing on either side of the breach. It held, for now, but not in good shape. Cracks showed here and there, and stones driven by the impact had shifted slightly out of place. Even the stone beneath his own feet trembled faintly each time his weight settled on it.
Looking down at it, Keuraber's eyes narrowed.