“I will not say,” she told him.
“We must go, Lord,” said Pudri swiftly. “The Lords Kabuchek and Shabag await.”
“Of course. It was a pleasure meeting you, Rowena. I hope we will meet again.”
Rowena did not reply, but followed Pudri into the shrine room.
At dusk the enemy drew back, and Druss was surprised to see the Ventrian warriors leaving the walls and strolling back through the city streets. “Where is everyone going?” he asked the warrior beside him. The man had removed his helm and was wiping his sweat-streaked face with a cloth.
“To eat and rest,” the warrior answered.
Druss scanned the walls. Only a handful of men remained, and these were sitting with their backs to the ramparts. “What if there is another attack?” asked the axeman.
“There won’t be. That was the fourth.”
“Fourth?” queried Druss, surprised.
The warrior, a middle-aged man with a round face and keen blue eyes, grinned at the Drenai. “I take it that you are no student of strategy. Your first siege, is it?” Druss nodded. “Well, the rules of engagement are precise. There will be a maximum of four attacks during any twenty-four-hour period.”
“Why only four?”
The man shrugged. “It’s a long time since I studied the manual, but, as I recall, it is a question of morale. When Zhan Tsu wrote The Art of War he explained that after four attacks the spirit of the attackers can give way to despair.”
“There won’t be very much despair among them if they attack now - or after night falls,” Druss pointed out.
“They won’t attack,” said his comrade slowly, as if speaking to a child. “If a night attack was planned there would have only been three assaults during the day.”
Druss was nonplussed. “And these rules were written in a book?”
“Yes, a fine work by a Chiatze general.”
“And you will leave these walls virtually unmanned during the night because of a book?”
The man laughed. “Not the book, the rules of engagement. Come with me to the barracks and I’ll explain a little more.”
As they strolled the warrior, Oliquar, told Druss that he had served in the Ventrian army for more than twenty years. “I was even an officer once, during the Opal Campaign. Damn near wiped out we were, so I got to command a troop of forty men. It didn’t last. The General offered me a commission, but I couldn’t afford the armour, so that was it. Back to the rankers. But it’s not a bad life. Comradeship, two good meals a day.”
“Why couldn’t you afford the armour? Don’t they pay officers?”
“Of course, but only a disha a day. That’s half of what I earn now.”
“The officers receive less than the rankers? That’s stupid.”
Oliquar shook his head. “Of course it isn’t. That way only the rich can afford to be officers, which means that only noblemen - or the sons of merchants, who desire to be noblemen - can command. In this way the noble families retain power. Where are you from, young man?”
“I am Drenai.”
“Ah, yes. I have never been there of course, but I understand the mountains of Skeln are exceptionally beautiful. Green and lush, like the Saurab. I miss the mountains.”
Druss sat with Oliquar in the Western Barracks and ate a meal of beef and wild onions before setting off back to the empty tavern. It was a calm night, with no clouds, and the moon turned the white, ghostly buildings to a muted silver.
Sieben was not in their room and Druss sat by the window, staring out over the harbour, watching the moonlit waves and the water which looked like molten iron.
He had fought in three of the four attacks - the enemy, red-cloaked, with helms boasting white horsehair plumes, running forward carrying ladders which they leaned against the walls. Rocks had been hurled down upon them, arrows peppered them. Yet on they came. The first to reach the walls were speared, or struck with swords, but a few doughty fighters made their way to the battlements, where they were cut down by the defenders. Half- way through the second attack a dull, booming sound, like controlled thunder, was heard on the walls.
“Battering-ram,” said the soldier beside him. “They won’t have much luck, those gates are reinforced with iron and brass.”
Druss leaned back in his chair and stared down at Snaga. In the main, he had used the axe to push back ladders, sliding them along the wall, sending attackers tumbling to the rocky ground below. Only twice had the weapon drawn blood. Reaching out Druss stroked the black haft, remembering the victims - a tall, beardless warrior and a swarthy, pot-bellied man in an iron helm. The first had died when Snaga crunched through his wooden breastplate, the second when the silver blades had sheared his iron helm in two. Druss ran his thumb along the blades. Not a mark, or a nick.
Sieben arrived at the room just before midnight. His eyes were red-rimmed and he yawned constantly. “What happened to you?” asked Druss.
The poet smiled. “I made new friends.” Pulling off his boots he settled back on one of the narrow beds.
Druss sniffed the air. “Smells like you were rolling in a flowerbed.”
“A bed of flowers,” said Sieben, with a smile. “Yes, almost exactly how I would describe it.”
Druss frowned. “Well, never mind that, do you know anything about rules of engagement?”
