Page 202 of Scorched Earth

“Increase bombardment frequency targeting the tops of the walls and begin moving siege towers into position.”

He rattled off more instructions, but instead of seeing them done, Felix stared at him. Everyone was staring at him, and Marcus heard Drusus mutter, “Going through another xenthier must have rattled his skull. He’s not thinking.”

“You want to go over the top?” Felix demanded. “That’s madness. We’ll lose men by the hundreds if we do that, and there’s no bloody need for it! Another few days of bombardment with no fresh water, and they’ll surrender. We haven’t even tried to exchange Astara yet.”

“Agreed,” Drusus said, and the other legati who were present gave nods of agreement, all of them staring at Marcus like he was some sort of rabid dog.

Bring them to heel.The voice was frenzied.Make them listen. Make them obey!

“That ship is there for a reason.” Marcus forced his tone to stay cool and level because, through the throbbing pain in his skull, he could see everyone was questioning his sanity, his fitness for command, and heneededto stay in control. “The Maarin are allied with Gamdesh. If we don’t stop that ship, they will aid Kaira and the Sultan in escape, and they will be able to rally Gamdesh against us. Whereas if we catch them now, we end this now. Gamdesh will be under the Empire’s control.”

Felix crossed his arms. “I’m not giving that order. No one here is. You’ve let this get personal and it’s impeding your judgment.”

Behind the walls in his mind, the fists began hammering, but Marcus still said, “Fine. I’ll give the orders myself.”

Drusus stepped toward Marcus as though to intervene, but Gibzen barked an order, and his men pulled their blades, blocking him. “It is the Dictator’s will that we take Revat, and the legatus is the voice of the Dictator in the West,” Gibzen growled. “Be the hands that see his will done or suffer the consequences.”

In the recesses of his mind, Marcus recoiled from the idea of such a connection with Cassius, but the thought was too distant to taketraction. Ripping the flag from the signalman’s hand, Marcus relayed his own orders to the ranks of men on the field before him. Immediately, they began to move. Six legions converged on the circular wall to strike as one. The only gap in their ranks was the riverbed of slimy rock, which now contained only a trickle of water that flowed through the barred opening into the city. The Thirty-Seventh marched on the left of the riverbed and the Forty-First on the right.

Behind him, Marcus heard arguments and threats thrown between Felix and Gibzen. But his primus’s hundred legionnaires stood guard around the pavilion, and they were not men to cross, so Marcus ignored the argument.

The siege towers rolled down the gentle slope of torn-up earth to the towering walls of Revat, on which thousands of soldiers waited. Legion catapults launched rocks into the walls, sending stone and bodies flying, but the Gamdeshians held their ground. All their defenses but this wall had been destroyed, so all they could do was watch while thousands upon thousands of legionnaires marched into range of arrow fire. The skies darkened with arrows, though it did little good as the ranks lifted shields over their heads.

It felt like Marcus was watching through the eyes of someone else as his army converged on the walls. His head filled not with the sound of marching men but with the hammer of fists against stone walls. Blood trickled from his nose, the coppery taste filling his mouth, but Marcus didn’t move to wipe it away.

The front lines closed the distance to the wall. Arrows flew from the battlements, mostly striking upraised shields, but when they struck true, the ranks merely tightened to fill the gap, the fallen ground into the mud.

Do not let her escape.

The siege towers pressed closer.

Closer.

Yet rather than bolstering the ranks on the walls to meet them, the Gamdeshians were abandoning their positions.

“They’re breaking!” he heard someone say, but that wasn’t right.

Kaira would not break. She was going on the offensive.

Shoving the flags back in the signalman’s hand, Marcus snapped, “Warn them to beware the gates. She’s going to ride out!”

The man gave the signal, horns blasting across space to fill the ears of every man with the same message, and even from here, Marcus saw the front ranks before the gate tense in preparation.

But the portcullises remained lowered, the gates closed.

What was he missing?

Slowly, his eyes tracked to the river. The one gap in the sea of legionnaires. To the heavy bars set into the wall itself, still slick with green slime from the river that had once flowed through them. Which meant he saw the Gamdeshians inside the city racing toward them with heavy chains.

“The river!” he shouted. “They’re coming up the riverbed!”

The signalman stared at him in confusion, and Marcus screamed at him, “Tell them to close the gap!”

But it was too late.

The heavy steel grate barring the river entrance exploded inward.

A heartbeat later, dozens upon dozens of horses galloped out of the opening. But instead of attacking the ranks on either bank, the horses charged up the riverbed.