It was evening, cold and wind-bitten, the warmth of the day stripped away by the icy breath of night.
Arnold found it oddly remarkable that, despite a week of relentless, bloody failures, not a single voice among the White Army's ranks gave way to despair or grumbling. Not even now, after the brutal losses of the day, in which dozens of men had died below the walls.
He had seen firsthand how that assault had crumbled. How fire and oil had shattered their momentum.
He had led his own contingent in that doomed push beneath the massive siege tower everyone, mistakenly, had pinned their hopes on. And yet now, walking among the men of the Fourth, he did not see the pain of defeat etched into their faces.
He saw only anger. Not however towards their general but instead a smoldering rage of men denied the laurel of victory.
