found a field of colors below, a thousand pastels all smeared together and mixed up. The tower glowed like a thousand torches. Looking at it gave him a headache. He closed his third eye. “They’ve been weaving wards into that thing for the last few weeks. I don’t think one of these has been built for a long time. It takes an entire royal cabal, and when it’s finished…”
“OK, but what the pit does it do?” Fesnik asked. Taniel gave the young Watcher a glance. Fesnik’s musket barrel wavered.
“It’ll protect the soldiers as they come up the hill,” Taniel said. “And the Privileged riding it.”
“I still can’t see the thing,” Fesnik said, shielding his eyes.
“You will soon enough.” Taniel lifted his rifle and spun about. “Any idea where Bo is?”
Fesnik shook his head.
“With Gavril,” Katerine said. “Above the gate.”
The largest of the bulwarks was above the southeast gate. It stuck out from the main wall, looming over the side of the mountain with twenty cannon and artillery pieces. Taniel found Gavril right out on the point of the bulwark, his eyes shaded against the sun, leaning out as if waiting for a bullet to strike him. Bo stood a few paces back, frowning at the hillside below.
“Privileged Tower,” Taniel said.
“I know. I’ve been wondering what they’re up to. Thought they were waiting for more men.” He grunted and tugged at his collar. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” Taniel said. “Just heard stories.”
“I’d be surprised if you had. The last one made was oh, two hundred and fifteen years ago. A siege of a shah’s palace in Gurla by Kez forces. Allied with Adro, no less.” He snorted. “The Adran and Kez royal cabals worked together to build three Privileged Towers. Won them the battle, and the war.”
“Why’d they need them?” Taniel asked.
Bo gave him a long look. “Because the shah’s palace was guarded by a Gurlish god.”
Taniel felt a chill in his chest. It wasn’t caused by the wind. “You’re joking. A god?”
“Royal cabal secrets, my friend,” Bo said, tapping the side of his nose. “A young god. Young and naïve.” Bo’s voice was wistful.
“Not a story you’ll hear in the history books,” Gavril added. He climbed down from the bulwark and faced them, placing a looking glass back in his pocket. He wore the assorted furs of a mountain man with brown leather boots and a matching vest that barely fit across his chest. The vest was old and faded, and Taniel could practically smell the dust from it, as if it had been sitting in the back of a closet or bottom of a chest. On the left breast it had an emblem of the Mountainwatch—three triangles, a bigger one with a halo flanked by two smaller ones. A Watchmaster’s vest.
Gavril, the town drunk, was the Watchmaster. It still boggled Taniel’s mind.
“What do you think?” Bo said, nodding over the edge of the bulwark.
“I don’t like it.” Gavril rubbed at the stubble on his chin. He’d shaved off his beard since he took over as Watchmaster. It grew back in quickly, and he only bothered to shave every few days. “A Privileged Tower means they’ve got the whole cabal down there.”
“Or something worse,” Bo said.
“Julene,” Taniel said.
They exchanged unhappy glances.
“I’ve seen her unleash sorceries,” Taniel said. “Powerful stuff.”
“Bah,” Bo said. “She held back. You don’t know the half of it.”
“Then she’ll sweep this fortress aside.”
“Don’t care who she is,” Gavril said. “She’ll not get rid of us so easily. Sorceries as old as she is anchor this fortress to the mountain. They’ve been woven into every brick and every handful of dirt and rock. This is the Mountainwatch.”
Bo gave Gavril an annoyed look. “She’s not to be underestimated either,” he said. “She may be weakened by our fight. She took a beating up on that mountaintop that would have killed half a royal cabal. Not to mention the fall. She probably left a crater in the ground where she hit.”
A murmur went through the troops lining the bulwark. Taniel went to the edge to look over. He was joined by Gavril and Bo.
Squinting through the glare, Taniel could see the foot of the mountain writhing with motion. The whole army had moved up during the night, just out of bombardment range. It seemed like one giant, unorganized mass, but as Taniel watched, it began to form into ranks. He saw them then, the banners of the Kez Cabal. They were huge as bedsheets beside a