The ladders hit the wall at dawn.
Not one. Not ten. Forty. Rising from the grey sand like fingers clawing at the stone.
Hector saw them first.
"Archers!" His voice cut the morning air. "Loose!"
The arrows fell. Steady streams. Each archer picking his target. Drawing. Releasing. Drawing again.
On the eastern wall, Paris didn't look up. Drew. Released. Drew. Released. Two hundred paces to the sand. Each arrow found a hand on a rung. A face above a shield rim. A throat exposed in the climb.
He didn't count. Counting was for before.
"Second wave!" a runner shouted. "Northern section, fourth and sixth towers!"
Lysander was already moving.
The northern wall. His wall. The section he'd spent two years redesigning.
He reached the sixth tower just as the first Greek crested the ladder.
Young. Maybe twenty. Shield strapped to his back, sword drawn, mouth open in a war cry that died the instant he saw what waited for him.
The gap.
