Page 203 of Dragon Slayer

34

SIEGE

The smoke of the cannons blotted out the sun, the stink acrid in Val’s lungs. He dodged the flashing silver blade that fell through the haze toward him, turned it away with his own sword, and brought his leg up; kicked the Roman soldier hard in the hip, and sent him sprawling. Before he could gather himself, Val clapped him hard on the side of the helm with the flat of his blade; it rang like a gong, and the soldier lay still.

“Fall back!” Val shouted to his troops. “Fall back, and make way for the siege towers!” He could already hear the creak and groan of their approach somewhere behind him, the huffing breaths of the men who pushed them. “Fall back!”

Another Roman came barreling toward him, and he side-stepped him easily. Drove him to his knees with another well-placed kick, and left him unconscious, but not dead. He’d found that if he stayed hydrated, and well-fed, he could use his superior physical strength to great advantage; he didn’t have to spill blood, only show a good example for his men, and exert himself appropriately.

Though why he bothered, he couldn’t really say. Most days he wished that he wouldn’t wake up at all, and could lie quietly in some sort of coma until the siege at last ended.

It had to end at some point, didn’t it?

The siege towers rumbled up, slip-sliding on ground gone muddy from the soaking-in of blood. The city walls had been cracked in a dozen places; gaps showed through, giving glimpses of the inner walls, and the moats. Sappers had dug beneath and set fires, collapsing small portions at intervals. Still, the city remained unconquered.

Thankfully.

He dream-walked when he could, going to provide an increasingly-harried Constantine with intelligence on troop movements and numbers. He’d given advance warning of Mehmet’s – admittedly – ingenious plan to subvert the boom that stretched across the mouth of the Golden Horn. On that visit, as on all his others since being handed control of a battalion, Val had been careful to project an image of himself in his usual foppish finery, silk, and soft slippers, and jewels, without a bit of armor in sight.

“He’s taking themoverland?” Constantine had asked, brows at his hairline.

“His carpenters have built a series of – of tracks,” he said, still not quite believing it himself. “There are wheels, and ropes, and pulleys, and – yes, suffice to say he’s in the process of moving the majority of his fleet up through the pass and plans to drop them into your harbor.”

He’d told them about it, and still Mehmet had succeeded. He had too many men, so many that no amount of naval battles, ships lost to cannon shot and Greek fire, could dim their chances.

The Romans fell back, too, fleeing to the berms they’d built up at the base of the wall, where they could duck down, and take some water, and catch their breath before they launched their inevitable assaults upon the siege towers, while their fellows on the wall-top poured Greek fire on their Ottoman assailants.

A runner appeared, a skinny, breathless boy, bearing a bucket of water and a ladle. It was warm, and fetid-tasting, but Val forced himself to drink deep, droplets running down his chin and throat, over the silver collar that dragged at his energy, always. “I need blood,” he told the boy, who nodded, and scampered away.

“Your grace, take from me,” one of his foot soldiers said, appearing beside him, and pushed up his sleeve to offer a sweaty, dirt-smeared wrist.

Ordinarily, he would have resisted, but he couldn’t afford to, now. He caught the soldier’s wrist in his hand and brought it to his mouth; bit fast, and hard, and sure, and drank a small amount of blood. It hit him like a drug, fairly vibrating through his veins, and he let go before he latched on for good, licking his lips clean.

The soldier looked glassy-eyed and dazed. “Go.” Vlad gave his shoulder a shove. “Fall in.”

With a low, resonant thump, the siege towers landed against the wall, and a new kind of battle began.

Val had strict orders not to go harrying up the ladders to the top of a tower until the defenders on the wall had been completely overrun, and there was no chance Val would end up with a face full of Greek fire. “Afraid I’ll damage my pretty face?” Val had asked, flipping his hair.

Mehmet had not taken that as a joke. “It’s an order, Radu.”

And, truthfully, Val wanted nothing to do with that kind of death. So he’d obeyed, waiting, biding his time for the moment when the wall was won, and he could get over it, and never come back out.

His men rallied around the great wheeled base of the tower, swords and lances lifting to engage with the Roman soldiers – dirty and bloody and exhausted – who came running, screaming, to meet them from the wall’s shadow. Above, the would-be-wall-takers screamed; Val smelled hot oil, and scorched flesh.

He parried a stroke aimed for his head, ducked, spun, and struck.

The boiling oil hit the wooden base of the tower, and sent up a rolling cloud of steam. It wafted in front of him, veiling the man he fought. But Val could still hear him, and smell him; feel him. He struck again, two quick strikes, and when the cloud passed, he saw that he’d killed the Roman, his throat red and open.

He turned to meet the next attacker, thrumming with energy from the blood he’d taken; he felt too big and too strong for his skin, restless even as he cut down the next man.

It was soeasy. That was what frightened him, the ease with which he cut men down. The way he almost…almostenjoyedit. Men died too quickly; and he was so much stronger, in every sense. He–

The discordant shouts from above, the hisses and curses of men being burned by boiling oil, changed, suddenly. A high, collective scream of panic.

Val tipped his head back just in time to see the brilliant-white gout of Greek fire, and to hear the sizzle and crack of the tower’s joints giving way.

“Fuck,” he murmured, and tried to run, as the whole thing came crashing down.

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