Page 117 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

MARCUS

“The Sultan has rejected our offer to talk terms of surrender. Again.” Felix handed Marcus a folded piece of paper. One glance revealed that Kaira’s propensity for colorful language in rejections was in the blood. Something she’d inherited from her father.

“What’s it say?” Drusus asked, leaning over to read the note. “Go…” He shook his head. “I’m too old to learn new languages.”

“It says ‘Go fuck yourselves.’” Marcus tossed the paper on the table, then left the pavilion to survey both Revat and his army surrounding it.

The ground was churned up and muddy, little happening on the field beyond the endless loading and deployment of the catapults.

Great sections of the wall were partially collapsed, and though the ridge was not high enough to see over Revat’s walls, through the crumbled gaps he could see the parts of the city within range were in ruins.

Yet still the Gamdeshians fought on, their numbers and positions still making him reluctant to take the city by force.

“Have to admire the old man’s defiance.” Felix’s eyes were fixed not on the city, but on the seven god towers that reached out of the clouds of smoke and dust. They stood strong despite the one nearest to their position having taken several direct blows.

Yet it was not those towers that commanded Marcus’s interest, but rather the building at the center of the circle.

The library, they’d learned from prisoners that they’d taken.

The largest in the West, and he wondered how it compared to the Great Library in Celendrial, which contained every important work pilfered from every province Celendor had conquered.

Everything found here would eventually be cataloged and brought to Celendrial as well.

As Marcus watched, the black tower of the Seventh God shifted, looming over the library as though watching something within it intently.

Or someone.

The soldiers they’d captured had revealed that there were Mudamorians in the library—guests of the Sultan in Revat seeking information of enough importance that all the librarians had remained until recently.

One of the Mudamorians, he’d been told, had a tattoo on her forehead in the shape of a half-moon, which meant she was a marked healer.

Tall , they’d said. Pale skin. Long dark hair.

Bait’s voice rose from his memory. She’s marked by the Six. A healer, and a powerful one at that.

Lydia, he was sure of it.

Don’t let her escape.

“Signal the fleet to send ships into the harbor.” The words tore from his mouth.

Felix’s brow furrowed. “Why? We’ve intelligence that there is only one ship left in the harbor, and it’s a Maarin vessel called the Kairense .

Our ships are fighting what remains of the Gamdeshian navy, which are loaded with reinforcements.

If our ships disengage, we risk the Gamdeshians landing and coming at us from the rear. ”

“They don’t have the numbers to matter. Secure that ship!”

Panic Marcus couldn’t justify was surging through his veins, along with the absolute certainty that the Maarin ship needed to be secured lest it take her out of his reach.

But Felix didn’t move. No one did.

“Sink it!” he shouted at his second, fury mixing with his panic because they were supposed to obey.

Felix blew a breath out from beneath his teeth, but then relayed the order to the signalmen. The message rippled through the relay posts to the coast, where they’d be seen by the watchmen on ships. Within minutes, the message returned to them. “Two ships are moving to block the harbor entrance.”

That wasn’t what he’d asked for. Marcus’s head was agony, and the voice shrieked, There are other ways out! Seal them in! Catch them!

“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 he needed to 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 take traction.

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.

At their center rode Kaira. Guiding her big black horse with her knees, she held a torch, as did several others in the company.

Instantly Marcus knew that Kaira intended to turn his own threat against him. She was going to ignite the explosives and blow the dam. With his entire army on the floodplain, thousands of men would die, dashed against the walls by the force of the water or drowned by the weight of their armor.

Terror shattered the walls in his mind, and Marcus screamed, “Stop her!”