The glacises extended out from the walls for a hundred yards and came to a point. Their sides sloped gently back toward the fortress and stone faced them. Cannon-shot hitting the stone would bounce up over the fortress' wooden palisade wall. Getting cannons close enough that they could hit the walls directly, or moving mortars into range to lob shot over the walls, would be a long and laborious process. It involved digging endless trenches, working ever closer while under enemy cannon-fire from the fortress.
As bad as that was, other defenses made things worse. The ground above and below the glacises had been set with sharpened stakes. This would slow infantry assaults. Abatises made of logs with stout, sharpened branches crossed the only access near the two small gates on the west side. Those sally-ports would allow Ryngian troops to rush out to counterattack the Norillian trenchers.
Beyond the stakes, and a dozen feet before the wall, a berm had been thrown up, also strewn with stakes. Beyond it lay a trench which made the walls even taller. With the easternmost part of the fortress being built on the heights, flooding that trench wasn't possible, but down where the assault was likely to happen, sluice-gates by the river would fill it.
At the lake, the palisade wall came close to the edge of an eighty-foot-tall cliff. Naval gunfire could obliterate that narrowest portion of the fortress, but to get a ship of sufficient size into Anvil Lake would require a transit through Ryngian-controlled rivers and lakes. The final passage would take it past the Fortress of Death cannons.
The fortress formed a rough triangle, though the walls did boast a few projections that would allow troops to pour a murderous crossfire on any besiegers. With the high point on the east at the cliffs, the fortress spread out downhill to the base, which ran parallel to the Green River. As the scouting party moved west it became apparent that any ship trying to make it through the river would be under the fortress' batteries for five hundred yards. That sort of pounding would reduce the ship to a hulk before it ever made Anvil Lake.
And to complicate matters further, a smaller fort had been erected across the river on the western plain. Owen suspected chains could be strung between them to completely restrict transit.
Somehow, all of that wasn't the worst aspect. Pallid, shuffling human beings-or what he supposed once had been human beings-formed a different chain, one of constant motion to and from the hills. Some carried axes and shovels, felling trees and digging into hillsides. Others that moved haltingly carried sacks of earth on their backs, or were roped into teams that dragged trees from where they had been felled. These creatures performed labor that others might have reserved for oxen. While they did not move with great speed, they moved constantly and showed no sign of fatigue.
After the initial look, Owen signaled for a move to the west. Though the walls had not been completed, and work crews were refining trenches, the vision of what it would become blossomed full in Owen's mind. Without precise measurements and drawings, however, observations would be of little military value.
They went west and slowly worked their way back east to the shore. Owen made notes and maps in the back of his book. Kamiskwa stayed closest to him, with Makepeace and Nathaniel out and back to keep watch and provide cover. Owen used an average man's height to judge the length of logs, and then used them to provide a scale for the fortress.
It wasn't until they had returned to North Island, and he began transcribing information into his journals, that he found any reason to take the least bit of heart. 'The one thing I didn't notice was enough cannon to destroy a ship.'
'I reckon that's good.' Nathaniel drew the fortress in the dirt with a stick. 'They probably started with the fort on the hill, then expanded down. Second one down where the river meets lake. Put up a wall to link them. Then the third point, link that.'
Owen nodded. 'Makes perfect sense.'
'Well now, we didn't see none of it because of where we was, but if they still have them internal fort walls up…'
Owen groaned. 'You have smaller fortresses that still have to be taken.'
Makepeace stirred their little fire. ''Member Jean saying du Malphias was digging down, too? If they build themselves tunnels and redoubts, that's a trap waiting to be sprung.'
'Right. Tomorrow, then, we're going to have take a look from the hills on the other side of the Green River. We should be able to see from inside.'
Nathaniel stood and rubbed his fort out with a foot. 'If we're going to do that, best move now.'
They took the expedient of hacking some branches off trees to decorate the right side of their canoes, then started back toward the narrows, then across. In the distance, in the stingy amount of light shed by a sliver-moon, they would look like nothing more than debris in the water. As they traveled, Owen watched the ramparts with his telescope, but he could see little. At best he thought he saw the silhouettes of a couple sentries marching along the high wall.
Once they reached the southern shore, they worked their way west and entered a small stream about a hundred yards shy of the Roaring River outlet. They dragged their canoes out of sight on the western shore, then found another hollow where they built a fire and stashed their gear.
Owen tore the maps he'd drawn from the back of A Continent's Calling and tucked them inside his journal. He secured them in their oilskin cases, and then stuffed them into his large pouch. In doing so he found the doll Agaskan had given him. He smiled and, on a whim, tucked it into his smaller pouch, along with the book and the pencils.
They got on the water again before dawn and used the mist to provide cover. They had to paddle out onto the lake to avoid being pulled in by the Roaring River. Though the mist largely hid it, Owen still made out dim rock teeth through which the water flowed. The river's thunder hinted at torturous cataracts below.
Once past, they made for the western shore, as close to the mouth of the Green River as possible. They brought their canoes in through a marshy area then stashed the canoes and went directly overland toward the fort.
The view confirmed what Nathaniel had suspected. The fortress' river wall bristled with cannon ports. Likewise, the river side of the smaller fort, a miniature of the larger fort, complete with glacises, trenches, and palisade walls. It had been built on an artificial hill created by taking the earth down all around it. While that provided a flat battlefield, it presented two problems. Trenches would end up running below the water-table, so would quickly become mires. Any army caught in the plain might also be subject to sudden flood if du Malphias could breach the riverbank.
Owen explained this to Nathaniel. The guide nodded and pointed at the river's southern bank,just east of the small fort. 'I might just be seeing things, but looks like the bank was shored up there, by that little dock.'
Owen studied it with his telescope. Pilings had been sunk along the bank. At a casual glance it looked like a wall erected on either side of the little jetty. 'But there's no reason for a jetty there.'
He collapsed the telescope. 'A southerly breeze will shroud the field in smoke. Any army laying siege to the smaller fort would never see the bank collapse. Du Malphias must have the angles marked, the range measured. Blind men shooting at midnight could hit it with every shot.'
'And see there, in the fort-you have your internal walls and that stone fort in the middle.'
Owen nodded. What had once been tall external walls on the two lower forts had been chopped down to half their height, making the interior of the fortress a wonderful killing ground. Moreover, in the heart of it, du Malphias had created a stone star. Glacises and spikes protected it and the roof of the circular enclosure at its center only rose four feet high. Soldiers within could shoot out at all sides of the fortress, and the lack of doors hinted at tunnels that fed into it.
'Short of lobbing a mortar shell on top of it, there is no way to destroy it from outside.' The soldier's shoulders slumped. 'This is a lock on the heart of the Continent, and I cannot see that we have the key.'
'Yep. And busting this lock will take more than a big rock.'
A gunshot split the morning off to the left. Another, closer, followed. Both men snatched up their long guns and dashed toward the sound. Off to the south Kamiskwa paralleled them. Two more rifles fired in the distance, and a grunt prefaced a return shot.
At the edge of a clearing Makepeace sat with his back to the thick bole of a tree. Blood marked his left shoulder, but he still was using that arm to ram a bullet home. He saw them, jerked his head to the west. 'Squad of blues. Ilsavont with 'em.'
Owen took cover behind a tree, then ducked his head out. Ryngian regulars were moving forward. Three men
