The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [93]
“I will, too, Your Highness,” Caradoc said. “But the gods won’t mind if we lay a few plans of our own. Three miles long, is it? Huh, interesting. You know, I think I’ll just take a stroll up there myself.”
When the captain returned, the prince called a council of war. Branoic learned its decision late, after the captain returned to the silver daggers’ campsite. After they secured the city, Maryn wanted to seize the outermost ring of the dun fortifications in one swift move.
“The Ram told us all how the dun lies,” Caradoc said. “There are five circles. The first three enclose empty land and not much else. Inside the fourth one—counting from the bottom of the hill, that is—there’s a village, where all the false king’s servants live, and they’ve got cattle and pigs in there, or so Peddyc said. Inside the fifth ring is the king’s dun proper, and by all the ice in the hells, we’re going to have a cursed lovely time taking it. Lots of little walls and wards and towers, his lordship tells me.”
“Ah horseshit,” Owaen said. “Ah well, first things first.”
“Just so.” Caradoc glanced at the silver daggers, pressing close around him. “And one ring at a time. I’ve walked round the dun now, and I’m wagering Burcan doesn’t have the men to hold that outer wall. After that, well, we’ll see. We’ve been in sieges before, lads, but this one is going to give our bard plenty to sing about.”
In the morning the army packed up its camp and prepared to move into Dun Deverry. To a chorus of silver horns the banners of the Red Wyvern led the army to the open gates. As he rode through, Prince Maryn raised his sword high. Branoic could see his face, as wide-eyed as a child seeing his first tourney, head turning as if he wanted to look in all directions at once. We’re here, Branoic thought. This is what we’ve fought for all these long years. Ahead of them the city spread out in row after row of broken houses, roofless walls, and piles of ruins where you couldn’t tell wall from roof. How many times had the city been set on fire by design or accident? Plenty, Branoic figured. That’s what sheltering an army did to a town.
Just inside the gates a broad street ran round under the walls, large enough and clear enough for the army to ride in behind them; contingents split off to approach the dun from different directions. The prince and the main body waited to give them a solid head start. Branoic looked up at the dun itself, towering above the town, its dark towers grim against the glittering sky. He could just pick out the final ring of stone walls that encircled the hill crest below the brochs.
Distantly horns called from off to the west and east. Maryn raised his sword again.
“Forward!” he called out. “For Deverry and glory!”
The army cheered him as they set off, heading up the long deserted streets to the dun’s south gate. Close to the dun Branoic saw houses that seemed to have been inhabited until a few days past. Some still had kitchen gardens out in front, welcome patches of green in the destruction. The only living creatures he saw, though, were a pack of half-starved dogs that barked at the army’s passing.
The outermost wall of the fortress itself stood a good forty feet high, a rough rise of stone topped with merlons. Over the gate no banners hung, and no pennants flew from the wall. Guards, however, stood along the catwalks on the far side. Branoic could see them moving between the merlons, and occasionally he heard them calling out to one another as well. Since the fortifications marched up the side of a fairly steep hill, he could see the upper walls, dark rings of stone against grass. The third wall carried the banners and flew the pennants, though at his distance Branoic couldn’t see the device. He caught the captain’s attention and pointed them out.
“Good for you, lad,” Caradoc said. “And your young eyes. I think me the regent knows what he can defend.”
For two days the army camped in the ruins and held a precarious investment while they readied themselves for