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* * *
By luck, more than knowledge, the amount and spacing of the explosives was almost perfect—not too hard, and not too soft. At first, the only sign of the impending disaster was a series of muffled thuds and a dust-jet mushroom shape above each of the boreholes. Despreaux had set them to detonate sequentially, instead of simultaneously, and the series went off like a very large machine gun as the sixteen charges exploded in under three seconds.
For a moment afterwards, there was stillness, and Pahner feared that all the pla
At which point, the blocked waters started looking for an outlet. And looking and looking ... and rising and rising.
* * *
"Cool," Roger said, gazing at the neat divot that had been taken out of the side of the mountain. He and Despreaux had moved to the wall of the Shin town, and now they stood watching the battle from the safety of the southern parapet.
The town's walls weren't very much compared to the mighty ramparts of Nopet Nujam. In fact, they were simply double wooden palisades with a stamped earth fill, and the works flanking the gates were open on top, with small guard rooms underneath. The walls of the town were designed to stop the occasional Scourge or hostile Shin raiding party, not to beat off the sort of serious attack that was directed at Nopet Nujam. And for the former purpose, they had worked just fine. They also made a dandy viewing platform.
From a distance, it looked as if some giant had taken an ice cream spoon and scooped out a serving of basalt and ash. The massive Krath fortress obscured anything but the column of dust rising into the air behind it, but it was clear that most of what they'd intended to do had worked.
"Now to see if it blocks the water," Despreaux said.
"You did good, Nimashet," he replied, slipping his arm around her waist.
"We'll see."
"Pessimist," he chuckled.
"I always keep in mind what can go wrong."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"This isn't going well," Pahner said.
"Tell me something I don't know!" the Gastan yelled back as he stuck one of the short Shin swords through a spear slit and drew it back red.
The Krath had started a full-court press, and unless something changed drastically very soon, it was going to work. The assault groups had come hollering out of the trenches, piling up bodies on the already blood-soaked ground. They'd barely made it to the walls before dying, but in doing so, they'd absorbed enough of the defenders' fire to permit the main Krath force to come in behind them in successive waves. The frenzied assault had concentrated on the main gates and the walls to either side, and the third wave had managed to smash the Shin defenders on the battlements and take three sections.
The humans' contribution had mostly been to remove the leadership, and they'd done a good job. Krath companies that had made it to the wall with any officers still on their feet were rare, but even that hadn't stopped the assault. The pressure from behind each wave had driven even the most cowardly into the defenses and up the walls. Now the gates' defenders were down to holding the gate-flanking bastions and doing their best to keep any battering rams away.
"Poertena, what do you have on your side?" the captain called.
"Krat', Krat', and more Krat', Sir," the Pinopan called back even as he took aim and fired through a slit. "T'e other bastion is holding out, though."
"Captain!" Beckley shouted from one of the front slits. "You can see water coming up out of the river! On this side of the fortress!"
"Where?" the captain demanded as he stepped across to a slit beside Beckley and zoomed up the magnification on his helmet. "Never mind." After a moment, he chuckled. "Now if we can only point it out to them."
"Look behind you, you stupid bastards!" the Gastan yelled out his slit. "The river rises! The river fights for the Shin!"
* * *
"Get it unplugged!" Tral shouted. "Break that dam! Now!"
"How?" the fortress commander asked. He'd already considered the problem, and he was preparing rafts loaded with gunpowder. He had his doubts about their efficacy, yet they were the only possibility he saw. Unfortunately, even if they had any chance of success of all, they would have to be guided into place, and in another hour—less—the water would be up over the work area. It was rising faster than the boatbuilders could finish their craft.
"I don't know!" the Sere commander snarled. "Figure it out!" He glared at the distant Shin fortress and waved both false-hands in a gesture of furious anger. "We have forces on the wall. All they have to do is take Nujam and we can move in there. That's all they have to do!"
* * *
"Tallow!" the Gastan ordered, never looking away from the slit. "Look behind you! The river rises!" he bellowed as the boiling fat was poured onto the Krath troops swarming atop the battlements outside the bastion. "Go cool off there!"
"They are," Pahner panted over the rising chorus of screams that greeted the splashing fat. The Marine had just returned to the slit beside the Shin king after dealing with another threat. A Krath assault group had forced the bastion's lower doors, and it had been hot work stopping them and then throwing up a barricade. The long climb back to the top hadn't done anything for his breathing, but he could clearly see the enemy army starting to stream from the walls. It was unraveling from the rear, where the remaining forces could see the river rising to overwhelm all their worldly goods. But those on the walls could see it as well, and they were scrambling down faster than they had come up. Already the water was halfway into the tent city; by the time those on the walls reached it, the entire area would be underwater.
"All we do now is wait for them to come to the inevitable conclusion," Pahner continued. "And conserve our own people in the meantime."
* * *
"That's it." Roger dialed back the magnification of his helmet. "There are no Krath on the walls. It's all over but the negotiating."
"That should be complicated enough to go on with." Despreaux shook her head. "That army is going to come apart when it realizes its predicament."
"I'm sure the captain can handle it," Roger replied, and turned as Cord and Pedi climbed up into the small, wooden bastion, followed by the two freed serfs.
"You sat this one out," Cord observed with a grunt. "Good."
"Are you up to this, Cord?" Roger asked. The shaman still had a pronounced limp and hunched to one side when he moved, and Roger didn't much care for the sound of his breathing.
"The healer Dobrescu tells me I need to start to move around," Cord replied. "I am moving around. The ladder, I admit, was unpleasant."
"Old fool," Pedi muttered under her breath.
"And you're looking better, as well, Pedi," Roger noted. The Shin female's step had a spring that he hadn't seen in quite some time.
"Thank you, Your Highness," Pedi replied. "It's amazing what a little sleep and some wasen can do for a female's outlook."
Despreaux snorted and shook her head.
"I could never get into the whole cosmetics thing. I'm totally challenged that way."
"It's like any other weapon or armor," Pedi said with a gesture of humor. "You must practice, practice, practice."
"Oh, like sex," Despreaux observed brightly, then gri