sneak. And at least the clouds blocked the moon. Still, it was cold. As usual, Kylar was only wearing underclothes beneath the ka’kari, and it wasn’t enough.
He tugged at his earring, pushing down the distant awareness of Vi. Shivering, Kylar climbed a rocky knoll to get a better view. The Ceurans had four men camped on the windy hill, huddled around a banked fire, with oil-soaked torches nearby so they could give signals to the army below. Kylar sat five paces from a weary sentry. The man was a peasant foot soldier rather than a sa’ceurai. His armor was made of plates sewn onto fabric. Rather than being fastened with leather, which was durable but would harden and shrink if it got wet too often, Ceurans always fastened their armor with ruinously expensive Lodricari silk laces.
After the Battle of Pavvil’s Grove, Garuwashi’s plan had been to pull the Cenarian army east after his “Khalidoran” raiders while the main strength of his own army swept behind them and took the capital. It would have worked, but for something he never could have foreseen: walls.
Most of Cenaria’s old walls had been cannibalized for their stones. By the time Kylar was a child, generations of Rabbits too poor to pay for masonry had finally left the Warrens without walls. The richer east side had seen a similar if slower erosion. But in the last few months while Kylar was gone, walls had appeared around the entire city. It was breathtaking. With Cenaria’s endemic corruption, it would have taken five generations of kings and millions of crowns to equal what Garoth Ursuul’s cruelty and magic had done in two months. Of course, he’d also had a ready supply of stone from all the houses Terah Graesin’s followers had abandoned. And when those ran out, they simply demolished more homes and took what they needed.
Now, the Ceuran army was laid out in a crescent hugging the south and east of the city. On finding walls, Garuwashi’s generals had prepared a siege until their leader could join them—which he had, by now. The west side of the city was an alternately boggy and rocky peninsula that held the Warrens. West of that was the ocean. North of the city were mountains and only one crossing of the PlithRiver. Garuwashi had contented himself with burning that bridge so he could concentrate his forces on the east side of the Plith and the two gates he would probably assault.
Garuwashi’s army camped like the raiders Kylar had seen at the edge of Ezra’s Wood. Tents made up a grid pattern, with small streets separating the tents and wider streets between platoons, commanders’ tents at regular intervals, couriers’ tents next to those, and latrines and fires laid out with precision.
What they didn’t have were wagons. Whatever tunnels the Ceurans had taken were evidently not big enough, or too steep, or too claustrophobic for horses. Garuwashi had sacrificed everything for speed. The war leader himself had probably only caught up to his army in time to see the horror of the walls for himself. And now it was snowing.
This was not going to be a protracted siege. When Terah Graesin had left Cenaria, those who had followed her had put their possessions to the torch to keep them from falling into Khalidoran hands. How many granaries had gone up in those fires? Perhaps a better question was, how many bakeries and mills and warehouses were left? For their part, Lantano Garuwashi’s men had the freedom of movement, but all the crops had been taken into the city long ago. Lantano’s men could raid villages a few days out—but without horses, they couldn’t bring the food back quickly, and they could only bring what they could carry. Even if they stole horses and built a few wagons, that would take time—and they had an entire army to feed.
Each side was going to be absolutely desperate within days.
Logan’s force outside the walls wasn’t likely to do much to sway the balance, not without communication with Terah Graesin. If they could tell the queen to hold on and not do anything stupid, Logan could use his cavalry to destroy any attempts Garuwashi made at foraging. In a standoff involving thirteen thousand foot soldiers, a few hundred horses could make all the difference. If Terah didn’t do anything stupid.
Which meant someone needed to talk to her.
~Someone? Let me guess.~
Kylar had six hours until dawn. It was going to be a busy night. Before he left,