“Cutting planks, I think. Not firewood.”
Niel considered this grimly.
Months. He was supposed to have months.
“Maybe they got tired of the tents and want better shelter,” Niel heard one of the men suggest behind him. Nobody bothered answering that foolish notion.
One of the men on Kerr’s other side asked a question quietly. Niel thought he heard the wordtrebuchetand forced himself to take a deep breath. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if they came with catapults.
“Doubt they want to break the castle,” Kerr said to the soldier. “Blackfell won’t want that much destruction unless there’s no other option. I’d guess a tower. Some kind of siege engine.”
Rather than a ladder that could be leaned against a wall and climbed hand-over-hand while the men above fired arrows or even dropped stones on the intruder’s heads, a siege tower was an entire structure that could be moved up against the wall. A siege tower’s walls would provide cover for the men inside it, allowing them to climb their own stairs and exit a door onto the castle wall. If they were seeing the beginnings of a siege tower, Niel’s best odds were to get it set on fire before it reached the wall. Of course, Corin would have his own defenses, like covering its approaching side in animal hides that would catch less easily than wood.
“They won’t be done anytime soon, if they’re starting from raw logs,” Niel said, practically growling.
“In a few days, they might be,” Kerr said flatly. “Shame the moat’s frozen solid, and we don’t have a catapult of our own. We’ll want fire arrows at the ready when they try to come.”
He’d spent the last months learning that Kerr often had the right of things. There was no sense letting his own noble-born pride get in the way of good tactics.
“See that they are,” Niel said. “Whatever preparations you recommend, have carried out.”
Kerr nodded.
If they got a tower or two pressed up against the wall, the fighting would be fierce. Losses would be heavy. Niel couldn’t afford to lose dozens of men in close combat. The castle’s walls were their only real advantage right now. If Corin, with his thousands-strong army, managed to breach the walls, there would be very little Niel could do.
In the snow-fight, Ayla had made her own advantages. She’d been outmatched, and surprise and subterfuge had leveled their combat to leave Niel off-balance. But that was different. Wasn’t it? He didn’t have the lady’s charms. Were there other ways to knock his brother off-balance? Or at least, other ways to make sure everybody in the castle wasn’t put to death?
Once Corin had siege towers in place, Niel might lose the opportunity to surrender. The Queen’s general would have little reason to barter with Niel, once victory was in Corin’s sights.
“Signal to them. I want to parley with my brother. And have one of the horses readied,” he said.
“You’re going out there?” Kerr asked, surprised.
“If he agrees to treat with me.”
“Surely that is an unnecessary risk.”
Niel hesitated, then admitted gruffly: “he’s an ass, but he’s an honorable ass.”
The codes of war allowed for a pause in hostilities, for the two sides to meet and negotiate terms. With Ditmar, he’d done it simply by passing messages through the wall. But with his brother… if Niel proposed terms of surrender, he needed Corin’s sworn word that they’d be honored. Not just whatever a messenger might say. And even if Corin refused to accept Niel’s terms, Niel mostly trusted that Corin would let him retreat back inside the castle before fighting resumed. His brother might have become the crown’s lapdog, but Corin would sooner eat his shield than break his own knight’s oaths.
Niel turned away from the wall’s rail, deep in thought, and found himself face-to-face with the castle’s lady. Ayla stood just behind him, clasping her cloak around her shoulders with her fists, her breath coming out in clouds.
His heart stuttered.
“Good morning,” Niel managed, feeling his cheeks flame. He could hardly chide her for coming out without his escort when the wall was full of Niel’s soldiers.
“It's afternoon,” Ayla answered, looking a good deal less awkward than he felt, as if their kiss the night before had not rewritten her entire soul. “There’s trouble?”
“Not yet,” he answered. “In a few days, maybe, but we’ll manage it.”
“I see,” Ayla said, her eyes leaving his face to look past him, at the distant wood-working happening past the enemy camp.
With a clumsy nod, he stepped around her and strode back into the castle.
He couldn’t die in an attack and leave Lord Blackfell standing. Nor did he want to see his men cut down in front of him. He couldn’t even consider what the Enarian troops might do to Ayla if they had branded her a traitor. Oh, he trusted that his brother was honorable now, for all Niel still hated him. But Corin could not be everywhere at once, and men who felt wronged by weeks of camping in the northern cold might decide to take their payment from her.
If there was even the slightest chance that Corin was going to retake Blackfell, it was better to surrender on favorable terms.
